Images of Yahweh under foreign rule in the sixth to fourth centuries B.C.E

This dissertation explores the distinctive images of Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible during the sixth to fourth centuries B.C.E., when ancient Israel was ruled by the foreign nations of Babylonia and Persia. I examine the images of Yahweh in four biblical books: Deuteronomy, Ezekiel, Isaiah (chs. 40-55), and Chronicles. I also compare these biblical texts with two major literary works of ancient Mesopotamia--the Poem of Erra and the Cyrus Cylinder--to determine the influence of Israel's ruling empires on the images.;First, I examine the images of Yahweh as a monolatrous deity in the book of Deuteronomy, discussing how the Deuteronomist urges the Israelites to worship only Yahweh in the context of a polytheistic society. Second, I explore the images of Yahweh as a transcendent deity in the book of Ezekiel. The departure of the cherubim from Jerusalem in Ezekiel 11 refers to Yahweh's leaving the city and becoming a transcendent deity. Third, I analyze the images of Yahweh as a sovereign deity in the book of Second Isaiah. Yahweh chooses the Persian King Cyrus as his shepherd and king, just as Marduk, the supreme deity of Babylonia, chooses Cyrus as king of Babylonia. Yahweh is portrayed as a sovereign deity controlling all nations. Fourth, I explore the images of Yahweh as an ethnic deity in the book of Chronicles. Yahweh is portrayed as the king and national god of Israel at a time when there Israel had neither king nor nation. Finally, I examine the popular religion of ancient Israel in contrast to the contemporary biblical/official religion. Images of Yahweh among the Elephantine Jews in ancient Egypt reveal that their Yahweh religion was syncretistic, like that of ancient Israel before the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 586 B.C.E.;All these images of Yahweh resulted from the biblical authors or the Israelites responding to their particular historical context in an effort to maintain their faith under foreign rule. Accordingly, the images of Yahweh were created not in a vacuum but in the context of interaction between the Israelite religion and its neighboring cultures.