Ancient Hebrew Myths. From Leviathan and the goddess Asherah to the broken tablets and Job

The religion of the ancients, the still “pre-biblical” Jews — what was it like? Most likely, they believed that their Lord was just one of many deities, the son of the supreme god: a warrior god and thunderer, conquering the serpent Leviathan. But how did this god become the only God — and such that what pleases Him from people are not empty rituals, but justice and mercy? The history of biblical religion is the story of the “subjugation” of archaic myth, attempts to transcend it from within. Individual gods will be forgotten and forbidden, and their attributes will pass to the One God. The place of Asherah, his divine “wife,” will be taken by the idea of a symbolic “marriage” of the Lord with the chosen people — Israel. The image of the universe will change, myth will be replaced by history and theophany. And yet, archaic images will reappear again and again in monotheistic thinking. But transformed. Why does God have so many names — and does one character hide behind them? Who are the cherubim and seraphim, and what are their archaic prototypes? In what way is the biblical Lord similar to the Canaanite Ba'al? Where has God's retinue — Justice, Truth, Mercy, Death, and Pestilence — gone? Who is “Hillel, son of Shahar”? How are the broken tablets of Moses connected to the cycle of agricultural festivals, and what ancient traditions are reflected in the biblical stories of the expulsion from paradise, the Great Flood, and the Tower of Babel? The book by the orientalist Mikhail Voghman is an inspiring and deeply creative exploration of the formation of biblical religion from its ancient roots to Revelation and the difficult ethical dilemmas of the Book of Job.