Books by Nissim Amzallag
Hameara publishing, Israel, 2023
Two thousand years of interpretation and two hundred years of research have clarified every word ... more Two thousand years of interpretation and two hundred years of research have clarified every word and every statement in the Bible, fueled by the desire to elucidate the birth of Israel and the singularity of its beliefs. Have we reached a satisfying level of understanding today? This book answers in the negative. It shows that the original identity of the God of Israel became gradually obfuscated throughout the second temple period, and that it is so far from the current concepts that ignoring it prevents us to elucidate the mystery of the emergence of the nation of Israel.
The book is based on a renewed analysis of the biblical texts and new archaeological findings. It reveals the original identity of YHWH as a god close to the people of Cain (the Kenites), a group of copper metalworkers originating from Sinai, Arabah and the Negev. It also reveals that the ancient Israelite religion emerged from the transformation of the esoteric Yahwistic traditions of these Kenite metalworkers into the official religion of an entire people. Through this perspective, the birth of Israel becomes the expression of a movement of liberation unique in the history of mankind, which extended in all kinds of ways its message in the whole world, until this very day.
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Cambridge University Press, 2023
In this book, Nissim Amzallag offers new perspectives on the birth of ancient Israel by combining... more In this book, Nissim Amzallag offers new perspectives on the birth of ancient Israel by combining recent archaeological discoveries with a new approach to ancient Yahwism. He investigates the renewal of the copper industry in the Early Iron Age Levant and its influence on the rise of new nations, and also explores the recently identified metallurgical context of ancient Yahwism in the Bible. By merging these two branches of evidence, Amzallag proposes that the YHWH was in the Early Iron Age approached in the Southern Levant as a powerful deity who sponsored the emancipation movement that freed Israel and its neighbors from the Amorite/ Egyptian hegemony. Amzallag identifies the early Israelite religion as an attempt to transform the esoteric traditions of Levantine metalworkers into the public worship of YHWH. These unusual origins provide insight into many of the unique aspects of Israelite theology that ultimately spurred the evolution towards monotheism. His volume also casts new light on the mysterious smelting-god, the figure around which many Bronze Age religions revolved.
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Peeters - Leuven, 2021
Interpreted as praising the divine powers on the storm, Psalm 29 is currently a cornerstone of th... more Interpreted as praising the divine powers on the storm, Psalm 29 is currently a cornerstone of the thesis of YHWH’s storm-god identity and his closeness to the Canaanite Baal. Here, this view is challenged by considerations about YHWH’s powers on the storm and a reanalysis of Psalm 29, including a comparative examination of the three possible expressions of the voice of YHWH (storm, volcanism, and metallurgy); a whole-psalm analysis of its structure, content and literary developments; and the meaning of five songs (Psalms 46, 96-98, 114) conditioned by it. This analysis identifies Psalm 29 as a pre-Israelite, Qenite song promoting a metallurgical relationship with YHWH, and praising him as the ‘Lord of mabbul’ (= revitalization). Its content unveils the Qenite Yahwism and its enduring influence in Israel. The conditioned psalms express how this song contributed to the evolution of the Israelite religion, especially the transformation of YHWH into the ‘Lord of Justice’ in Psalms 96-98 and the Isaiah theology.
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Cahiers de la revue biblique 85, 2015
The post-exilic biblical writings speak in two contrasting voices. The first focuses on the Babyl... more The post-exilic biblical writings speak in two contrasting voices. The first focuses on the Babylonian repatriates and ignores the Israelite population that remained in the land during the exile. It upholds an exclusive relationship between YHWH and the community organized around Jerusalem and its temple. The second voice takes a contrasting and much more universalistic approach to the relationship with YHWH and even promotes its expansion among foreign nations through the diffusion of musical worship.
The first voice clearly echoes the theology evoked in Jeremiah (especially in the metaphor of the good and bad figs in Jeremiah 24) and extensively developed in Ezekiel. The second voice, however, appears to be distant from the classical Israelite theology. It is shown in this study that this second voice echoes a pre-Israelite cult of YHWH that originated in the land of Seir and denotes the existence of a Seirite religious elite in post-exilic Zion.
Part 1 of the study investigates the reason for the presence of a small group of Edomite/Seirite musicians and poets, self-defined as "sons of Zerah" or "Ezrahites," in early post-exilic Jerusalem, and clarifies the nature of their yahwistic religious background. With the help of the books of Nehemiah, Chronicles, and Psalms, Part 2 analyzes the Levitization of these foreign singers and the opposition this process stimulated among the community of the Sons of Exile. Part 3 examines the transformation of these Ezrahite singers into a new religious elite, a process promoted mainly by Nehemiah and his followers, and explores the theological changes this new situation stimulated.
This study uncovers an overlooked reality that had a profound influence on the evolution of post-Exilic yawhism and on the composition and content of many biblical writings.
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Papers - Bible and ancient Near East by Nissim Amzallag
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2021
The causes of the disappearance of Late Chalcolithic society (Ghassulian) in the early fourth mil... more The causes of the disappearance of Late Chalcolithic society (Ghassulian) in the early fourth millennium BC remain obscure. This study identifies the collapse as the consequence of a change in the approach to metallurgy from cosmological fundament (Late Chalcolithic) to a practical craft (EB1). This endogenous transition accounts for the cultural recession characterizing the transitional period (EB1A) and the discontinuity in ritual practices. The new practical approach in metallurgy is firstly observed in the southern margin of the Ghassulian culture, which produced copper for distribution in the Nile valley rather than the southern Levant. Nevertheless, the Ghassulian cultural markers visible in the newly emerging areas of copper working (southern coastal plain, Nile valley) denote the survival of the old cosmological traditions among metalworkers of the EB1 culture. Their religious expression unveils the extension of the Ghassulian beliefs attached to metallurgy and their metamorphosis into the esoteric fundaments of the Bronze Age religions.
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Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament, 2017
Psalm 92 is generally approached as a wisdom, royal, or hymnic song composed for the Sabbath litu... more Psalm 92 is generally approached as a wisdom, royal, or hymnic song composed for the Sabbath liturgy. The present study, however, reveals that behind this ostensible meaning, this psalm alludes to the integration of foreign Yahwistic singers among the clergy at the Jerusalem temple and the opposition that it provoked among some of their Israelite peers. Though this reality remains visible in the linear reading of the psalm, its full expression emerges only after the psalm is set in a cross-responsa fashion, a mode of complex antiphonal performance that mixes two voices singing the same text in the inverse order of its verses.
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Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 2021
As the first of the songs of Ascents, Psalm 120 might be seen as key to understanding the whole c... more As the first of the songs of Ascents, Psalm 120 might be seen as key to understanding the whole corpus, but its content remains poorly understood. This study suggests that its author was a smithpoet committed to the Edomite/Qenite traditional worship of YHWH, here complaining about participating, through the fabrication of iron weapons, in the demise of Edom (553 BCE). On this reading, the poem becomes a lament on the irremediable demise of traditional (metallurgical) Yahwism after the rise of iron metallurgy and its transformation of war. Introducing the Ascents, this song might express the search for an alternative form of Yahwism emancipated from the original metallurgical dimension. Expressed in Israel, this alternative Yahwism becomes praised in the other songs of Ascents. This interpretation corroborates the rise of a group of Edomite poets (Ezrahites) in Jerusalem in the early Persian period and its integration within the temple staff.
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Old Testament Essays, 2020
In the Biblical account of the golden calf (Exodus 32), abnormal importance is devoted to the met... more In the Biblical account of the golden calf (Exodus 32), abnormal importance is devoted to the metal of the statuette, its origin, and even its destruction. The present analysis identifies this latter process as an act of cementation, a technique used in antiquity to separate gold from its alloyed metals, mainly copper. In parallel, the tabernacle symbolism reveals that pure gold is a marker of YHWH's theophany whereas goldcopper alloy is associated with the man-god relationship. Consequently, instead of condemning idolatry, the cementation treatment of the golden calf symbolizes the abortion of the project of divine residence in the tabernacle, the re-establishment of YHWH's distance from humankind, and the restoration of an intermediate divine figure between YHWH and the Israelites. It is concluded that, in Exodus 32, the transgression inherent in the making of the golden calf results from the combination of two antagonistic goals: the indirect worship of YHWH via the golden calf and closeness to the supreme deity via the tabernacle project.
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Entangled religions, 2021
The re-emergence of the copper industry in the Arabah valley between the twelfth and ninth centur... more The re-emergence of the copper industry in the Arabah valley between the twelfth and ninth centuries BCE stimulated wealth and economic development across the whole Southern Levant. Combining this reality with the metallurgical background of ancient Yahwism provides a material basis for the spread, from the early Iron Age, of the worship of YHWH in ancient Israel and neighboring nations, especially Edom. These findings strengthen the Qenite hypothesis of the origin of the Israelite religion. They also suggest that an official cult of YHWH, replacing a traditional esoteric dimension, is the main novelty of the Israelite religion. The claim of YHWH's intervention in history, apparently absent from traditional Yahwism, is the other theological novelty advanced by the Israelites. This article suggests that both innovations are rooted in a desert-shaped form of Yahwism especially adapted to the way of life and the environment of Northwestern Arabia, the land of Biblical Midian.
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Ancient Near Eastern Studies, 2019
The use of the term mabbûl to designate a flood / inundation is specific to biblical Hebrew, but ... more The use of the term mabbûl to designate a flood / inundation is specific to biblical Hebrew, but outside the book of Genesis, inundation events are not evoked as mabbûl. That the designation of Noah's flood as mabbûl in Genesis is unconventional is suggested by the many glosses that accompany it, and by the difficulty of interpreting mabbûl as flood in Ps :. It is proposed here that the word mabbûl derives from a metallurgical meaning of the root ybl associated with the melting of metal, and that it originally refers to the melting of old metallic artefacts for the purpose of recycling and renewing the metal. Consequently, the mabbûl appellation of Noah's Flood is interpreted here as an innovation introduced by the author of Genesis, whose intent was to remove this story from its Mesopotamian background and to integrate it, via the re-melting imagery, into the metallurgical context traditionally characterising ancient Yahwism.
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Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament, 2019
In the Pentateuch, the appellation ʾōhel mȏʿēd denotes both the Israelite tabernacle and the tent... more In the Pentateuch, the appellation ʾōhel mȏʿēd denotes both the Israelite tabernacle and the tent of meeting evoked in Exod 18, 7-12; Exod 33,7-11; Num 27,1-23 and Deut 31,14-15. The latter venue, exclusively associated with the figure of Moses, is characterized by the absence of priestly function, cultic service, sacrifices, and ritual. The involvement of Jethro in its inauguration (Exodus 18), together with its metallurgical affinities and its similarities with the tent-sanctuary found in Timna (southern Arabah), suggest that the tent is borrowed from Qenite Yahwistic traditions. The importance of this shrine is revealed by its being the site of dialogue with the deity and the consequent elaboration of Israelite legislation (the Law of Moses). It is also reflected by the transfer to the Israelite Tabernacle (miškān) of some of its essential characteristics. It is concluded that, instead of reflecting an Is-raelite tradition parallel to that of the Tabernacle, Moses' tent of meeting expresses in the Pentateuch the transitory phase of emergence of the Israelite religion from primeval Qenite Yahwism.
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Hebrew Studies, 2018
An examination of the word ה נֶ קְ מִ in four biblical occurrences (Gen 34:23; Josh 22:8;... more An examination of the word ה נֶ קְ מִ in four biblical occurrences (Gen 34:23; Josh 22:8; Ezek 38:12-13; and 2 Chr 14:14) reveals that it may be interpreted as "cattle/livestock" in these cases only after emenda-tions and disregard of the structure, rhetorical pattern, and literary and historical contexts of the verses. Alternately, it is shown that inconsistencies and/or problems of translation disappear, in all four instances, after ה נֶ קְ מִ is identified as denoting raw metal. This metallurgical meaning of ה נֶ קְ ,מִ explicitly evoked in Josh 22:8 and Ezek 38:12-13, is also supported by other metallurgical expressions derived from qny and its closely related roots, qyn and qnˀ. The disregard of such a meaning, evidenced from the Septuagint to modern scholarship, confirms that a part of the metallurgical terminology in the Bible was forgotten in the time interval between the re-daction of the book of Chronicles and the Greek translation of the Bible.
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Harvard Theological Review, 2019
Abstract Examination of Exodus 25-31 and 35-40 shows that preciousness and aesthetic considerat... more Abstract Examination of Exodus 25-31 and 35-40 shows that preciousness and aesthetic considerations were not the main precipitants of the use of gold in the tabernacle. Rather, the distribution of this metal in both the tabernacle and the priestly garments reveals a theological criterion for its use and distribution. It is suggested here that this criterion is rooted in pre-Israelite Yahwism, and that it emanates from the parallel of gold, approached as the metal produced by YHWH, and copper, its human-made counterpart. Accordingly, YHWH's residence within the tabernacle is associated with pure gold, whereas the function of communion with the Israelites in this facility is attached to a gold-copper alloy (ordinary gold). It is shown that the theological significance of gold related in Exodus contrasts with the considerations of prestige and magnificence associated in Kings with the use of gold in the Jerusalem temple. These observations reveal a divergence between the Priestly and the Deuteronomistic sources in regard to the status of gold and, by extension, of the pre-Israelite background of Yahwism. It is concluded that the description of the tabernacle in Exodus challenges the abandonment of the theological dimension of gold and metallurgy in the Jerusalem temple in the late monarchic period or, alternately, serves as fundament for a theodicy that justifies the fall of the city. * The anonymous reviewers are warmly acknowledged here for their precious advice, recommendations, and criticisms, which substantially contributed to the maturation of this study and enhanced the scientific quality of this paper.
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The emergence of metallurgy was an important factor in the development of Ancient Near Eastern so... more The emergence of metallurgy was an important factor in the development of Ancient Near Eastern societies. Metal became the raw material for the production of tools, utilitarian implements, jewels, items of prestige, objects of art, and ritual artifacts. Its imperishability opened up new possibilities with respect to the concentration of wealth and power [...] Despite these considerations, metallurgy is rarely approached as an important factor in the development of the Bronze Age religions, in comparison with the sun, atmospheric elements, fertility, crop production, water and the subterranean universe...
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Old Testament Essays, 2018
The ambiguity in Isa 54:16a concerning the identity of the subject (YHWH or the smith) of the two... more The ambiguity in Isa 54:16a concerning the identity of the subject (YHWH or the smith) of the two verbs relating a metallurgical action (to blow and to cast) is identified here as a rhetorical device intending to conceal the essential relation of YHWH with metallurgy. Integrated in the whole Isa 54 chapter, this device becomes a plea for the definitive replacement of Edom with Israel as YHWH’S people, exactly as in Isa 34-35 and Isa 61-63.
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Hebrew Studies , 2019
Isaiah 33:14 is interpreted here as expressing the crux of a bitter controversy between a salvati... more Isaiah 33:14 is interpreted here as expressing the crux of a bitter controversy between a salvation theology, defended by Isaiah, and a con-templative approach of YHWH that denies all targeted divine intervention, defended by Isaiah's opponents. In this conflict, Isa 33:14 quotes opponents who mock Isaiah and his followers for their theological position by asking sarcastically who is capable of kindling the divine fire on earth, with which it may be transformed into a weapon for use against a specific target. This interpretation yields a new meaning of the verbal root גור twice expressed in this verse. The fiery context of meaning of ,גור and of its derivatives in many Semitic languages, support both the interpretation of גור as "to kindle a fire" in Biblical Hebrew and the antiquity of this semantic field in West Semitic languages.
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Antiguo Oriente, 2018
Visual codes including three types of signs (logogram, phonograms and determinatives) are the ear... more Visual codes including three types of signs (logogram, phonograms and determinatives) are the earliest stage in the development of writing. Until recently, the oldest known visual code identified so far, the early precursor of the hieroglyphs, has been discovered in pre-Dynastic Egyptian context (Tomb U-j, near Abydos, 3320 BC). An examination of artifacts from the Nahal Mishmar copper hoard (end fifth millennium BCE) suggests the development of a visual code that employs these three types of signs in Southern Levant, many centuries before its earliest expression in Egypt and in Mesopotamia. This visual code is tridimensional, and its encoded messages focus on metallurgical processes and their cultural significance. The implications for our understanding of the Ghassulian culture and the development of writing in the Ancient Near East are discussed.
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Revue Biblique, 2018
Beyond denoting nose and anger, the divine ᾿ap also signifies burning wind, consuming fire, and p... more Beyond denoting nose and anger, the divine ᾿ap also signifies burning wind, consuming fire, and pouring of hot liquid. This article suggests that this fiery imagery is not introduced simply to illustrate the concept of God's fury. Rather, ᾿ap refers to a specific mode of divine action closely associated with metallurgy and volcanism. These observations, together with the combination of wind and fire, further suggest that ᾿ap also designates the blowing apparatus of a furnace. This interpretation is supported by both the structural and functional homology between the blowing apparatus of ancient furnaces and the respiratory system, and by the identification of metallurgy as one of YHWH's most essential attributes , the source of the preternatural properties of the divine fire. It is concluded that the wrath expressed through the divine ᾿ap is probably not an anthropopathic extension of human anger that references the nasal perturbations inherent to fury. Rather, divine anger appears to be a metaphorical extension of the divine metal-lurgical reality. It frequently expresses, in a language accessible to the Israelite audience, the imminence of the explosive and destructive consequences of enhanced activity of the celestial blowing apparatus. RÉSUMÉ Au delà d'une désignation du nez et de la colère, le terme ᾿ap, dans le contexte divin, évoque également une action au moyen d'un vent incendiaire, un feu dévorant et la versée d'un liquide brûlant. Le présent article suggère que cette réalité ardente n'est pas simplement introduite pour figurer la colère divine, mais qu'elle exprime un mode volcanique et métallurgique d'action de YHWH. Ces observations, ainsi
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Journal of Biblical Literature, 2018
The books of Ezra and Nehemiah differ in their definition of the repatriates from Babylon, the bo... more The books of Ezra and Nehemiah differ in their definition of the repatriates from Babylon, the boundaries of the in-group, the appellations of God, the celebration of the Sukkot festival, the status of the priests, the prestige bestowed on Ezra, and the attitude toward the foreign Yahwistic singers (Ezrahites) who took part in musical worship at the Jerusalem temple. The intersection of all these differences reveals the contrasting ideological backgrounds of these two books. In Ezra, the returnees from Babylon and their religious elite (priests, Levites, and prophets) constitute the nucleus preserved by YHWH from destruction from which Israel as a whole is expected to regenerate. Both this view of the repatriates as the sole legitimate remnant and its ideological consequences are challenged in Nehemiah. These differences are perceptible not only when the first-person narrative sections in Ezra and Nehemiah are compared (the so-called Ezra and Nehemiah memoirs) but also in the third-person narration segments. These positions are consistent throughout Ezra and Nehemiah, leading to the conclusion that the two books were composed and/or edited by two distinct authors who expressed contrasting views on the theological importance of the Babylonian exile.
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Books by Nissim Amzallag
The book is based on a renewed analysis of the biblical texts and new archaeological findings. It reveals the original identity of YHWH as a god close to the people of Cain (the Kenites), a group of copper metalworkers originating from Sinai, Arabah and the Negev. It also reveals that the ancient Israelite religion emerged from the transformation of the esoteric Yahwistic traditions of these Kenite metalworkers into the official religion of an entire people. Through this perspective, the birth of Israel becomes the expression of a movement of liberation unique in the history of mankind, which extended in all kinds of ways its message in the whole world, until this very day.
The first voice clearly echoes the theology evoked in Jeremiah (especially in the metaphor of the good and bad figs in Jeremiah 24) and extensively developed in Ezekiel. The second voice, however, appears to be distant from the classical Israelite theology. It is shown in this study that this second voice echoes a pre-Israelite cult of YHWH that originated in the land of Seir and denotes the existence of a Seirite religious elite in post-exilic Zion.
Part 1 of the study investigates the reason for the presence of a small group of Edomite/Seirite musicians and poets, self-defined as "sons of Zerah" or "Ezrahites," in early post-exilic Jerusalem, and clarifies the nature of their yahwistic religious background. With the help of the books of Nehemiah, Chronicles, and Psalms, Part 2 analyzes the Levitization of these foreign singers and the opposition this process stimulated among the community of the Sons of Exile. Part 3 examines the transformation of these Ezrahite singers into a new religious elite, a process promoted mainly by Nehemiah and his followers, and explores the theological changes this new situation stimulated.
This study uncovers an overlooked reality that had a profound influence on the evolution of post-Exilic yawhism and on the composition and content of many biblical writings.
Papers - Bible and ancient Near East by Nissim Amzallag
The book is based on a renewed analysis of the biblical texts and new archaeological findings. It reveals the original identity of YHWH as a god close to the people of Cain (the Kenites), a group of copper metalworkers originating from Sinai, Arabah and the Negev. It also reveals that the ancient Israelite religion emerged from the transformation of the esoteric Yahwistic traditions of these Kenite metalworkers into the official religion of an entire people. Through this perspective, the birth of Israel becomes the expression of a movement of liberation unique in the history of mankind, which extended in all kinds of ways its message in the whole world, until this very day.
The first voice clearly echoes the theology evoked in Jeremiah (especially in the metaphor of the good and bad figs in Jeremiah 24) and extensively developed in Ezekiel. The second voice, however, appears to be distant from the classical Israelite theology. It is shown in this study that this second voice echoes a pre-Israelite cult of YHWH that originated in the land of Seir and denotes the existence of a Seirite religious elite in post-exilic Zion.
Part 1 of the study investigates the reason for the presence of a small group of Edomite/Seirite musicians and poets, self-defined as "sons of Zerah" or "Ezrahites," in early post-exilic Jerusalem, and clarifies the nature of their yahwistic religious background. With the help of the books of Nehemiah, Chronicles, and Psalms, Part 2 analyzes the Levitization of these foreign singers and the opposition this process stimulated among the community of the Sons of Exile. Part 3 examines the transformation of these Ezrahite singers into a new religious elite, a process promoted mainly by Nehemiah and his followers, and explores the theological changes this new situation stimulated.
This study uncovers an overlooked reality that had a profound influence on the evolution of post-Exilic yawhism and on the composition and content of many biblical writings.