Extensive archaeological excavations have provided a picture of Israelite society during the early Iron Age period. The archaeological evidence indicates a society of village-like centres, with limited resources and a small population.

At the start of the pre-monarchic period, Israelites numbered circa 40,000 and lived primarily in 250-300 small villages, the largest of which had populations of up to 400.

Archaeology Israel arising peacefully and internally from existing people in the highlands of Canaan. There was no sign of violent invasion or even the infiltration of a clearly defined ethnic group.

As can be seen from the gradual development of their homes, religious sites and pottery, the Israelite ethnic identity originated, not from the Exodus and a subsequent conquest, but from a transformation of the existing Canaanite and Philistine cultures.

On Yahweh:

The early Israelites were polytheistic and worshipped Yahweh alongside a variety of Canaanite gods and goddesses, including El, Asherah and Baal.

Yahweh was originally described as one of the sons of El in Deuteronomy 32:8–9. In the earliest Biblical literature Yahweh has characteristics of a storm-god typical of ancient Near Eastern myths, marching out with the heavenly host of stars and planets to battle the enemies of his people, Israel.

In later centuries, El and Yahweh became conflated and El-linked epithets such as El Shaddai came to be applied to Yahweh.

Towards the end of the Babylonian captivity, the very existence of foreign gods was denied, and Yahweh was proclaimed as the creator of the cosmos and the one true God of all the world.

The Temple:

The Hebrew Bible gives the impression that the Jerusalem temple was always meant to be the central or even sole temple of Yahweh, but this was not the case.

The earliest known Israelite place of worship is a 12th-century BCE open-air altar in the hills of Samaria featuring a bronze bull reminiscent of Canaanite Bull-El (El in the form of a bull) and the archaeological remains of further temples have been found. These temples show that early Israelite worship probably focused on standing stones.

Prof. Joel Baden works widely in the field of Hebrew Bible, with special attention to the literary history of the Pentateuch. He is the author, most recently, of The Book of Exodus: A Biography (Princeton University Press, 2019).