Are You Inclusive or Exclusive?

I’ve been researching the pre-exile period in Judah for several years now, and one thing that baffled me was how the Judeans tolerated idol worship.

The passages below reveals just how crazy things had gotten:

Then the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, the priests of the second order, and the doorkeepers to bring out of the temple of the LORD all the utensils that had been made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the heavenly lights; and he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron Valley, and carried their ashes to Bethel. 2 Kings 23: 3-4

And the king defiled the high places that were opposite Jerusalem, which were on the right of the mount of destruction which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom the abomination of the sons of Ammon. 2 Kings 23:13

History confirms that Josiah was one of the Southern Kingdom’s greatest reformers. He destroyed idols and altars to Baal and Asherah and Ashtoreth and Chemosh and Milcom and the sun, the moon, the planets, and the stars. And he removed these things from the Temple Mount when he was only 25 years old.

BUT

He’d been walking in the ways of Yahweh for 10 years.

For in the eighth year of his reign while he was still a youth, he began to seek the God of his father David; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherim, the carved images, and the cast metal images. 2 Chronicles 34;3

He started reforms when he was still a teenager, but he didn’t clean up the Temple Mount till the 18th year of his reign. Why?

Worldview

The Holy Land Revealed, a video series from The Great Course, is one of the resources I’ve used to understand the culture in Jerusalem that led to its ultimate destruction at the hands of the brutal emperor Nebuchadnezzar. In the video, Professor Jodi Magness said something both offensive to the biblical worldview and stunningly perceptive.

(The writers of the Old Testament) favored exclusive Yahwism, not inclusive Yahwism. … Exclusive Yahwism says that the only God that the people of Israel may worship is the God of Israel, no other gods alongside him.

Okay, duh? I don’t see the problem here.

She continues:

Whereas inclusive Yahwism says that you worship the God of Israel as your national deity, as your patron, but side by side with that you may also worship other gods. This, in fact, was the common picture in the ancient world.

She makes some assumptions about who has a vested interest in exclusive Yahwism. (The following is a common academic bias – not something I agree with)

• Yahwism is a centralized cult.
• The centralization of worship of Yahweh at the temple in Jerusalem gives control to the Jewish High Priest, a hereditary appointment
• The biblical writers must have been part of the Levitical priesthood.
• They had a vested interest in keeping worship centralized – on Yahweh and in Jerusalem

Furthermore, exclusive Yahwism then concentrated power in the hands of the Jerusalem high priesthood. That is, if you are not allowed to worship anyone but the God of Israel, then it means that all of the power is concentrated in the hands of the priesthood of the God of Israel, because no other gods are being worshipped, therefore, there are no other priests. – Jody Magness, The Holy Land Revealed

Mind. Blown.

She’s intimating that worship of Yahweh alone is a manmade construction, driven by greed and thirst for power. After I scraped my brain off the ceiling and cooled off a little bit, I saw the truth of her analysis.

“Truth?” you ask.

Not that their beliefs were true, but she hit the nail on the head about what they believed and how it played out in their society.

If bumper stickers had been a thing, there would have been donkey carts with “Coexist” bumper stickers clogging Jerusalem’s thoroughfares.

Remember, a lie believed as truth acts as truth in one’s life. The Judeans were acting in accord with what they believed to be the truth.

What was the prevailing belief in 7th century BC Judea? That inclusive Yahwism was reasonable, and worship of Yahweh alone was narrow-minded and elitist, not in the interest of the people. Read 1st and 2nd Kings through the lens of these false beliefs:

• Yahweh needs to lighten up. Ba’al, Chemosh, Milcom, and Asherah deserve their due. The levitical priests have a lock on the market, and we need to break it.
• When women make raisin cakes for Asherah, they’re honoring her as Yahweh’s wife. (I’m not making this up.)
• I bring my sacrifice like Yahweh demands, but if my wife is having a hard pregnancy, you better bet I’m going to get an Asherah idol to hedge my bets.
• Fertility rites are a good and necessary practice for a successful crop.

How were those beliefs reinforced?

• King Solomon (the Wise?) built altars to foreign gods on the southern part of the Mount of Olives – it became known as the Mount of Corruption. i Kings 11:5 tells us Solomon worshipped Ashtoreth of the Sidonians and Milcom of the Ammonites. (See the verses at the top of this post.)
• Before Josiah, even the good kings didn’t get rid of the high places
• There was an Asherah pole on the Temple Mount!
• There were shrines of male cult prostitutes on the Temple Mount!