Yahweh

Throughout the history of the Judeans, many groups have claimed to be the “true” followers of Yahweh. There is much debate as to who is right in these claims, and this debate has caused animosity and conflict. The main groups who try to justify themselves are those who were exiled and returned, the Samaritans, those whose ancestors were not exiled, and the Elephantine Colony. According to the Deuteronomic theory (Lecture 2), the people: could only worship Yahweh, could only worship Him in Jerusalem, and worship Him only as priests instructed. None of these groups perfectly match these descriptions. However, the group that comes the closest are those who were exiled and who returned. In my opinion, these are the “correct” worshippers of Yahweh. …show more content…
When God is angry at Israel, He allows the temple to suffer. When God is reconciled to Israel, the temple is restored” (Murphy, 110). This is the thought that both those who were exiled and those who stayed behind. However, these two groups had two different interpretations for this tradition. Those who were exiled believed that the cause for the exile, was to punish them for non-Deuternonmistic types of worship (Lecture 3 pt.1 slide 6). By sending the people into exile, this would purify of sins, so that a “righteous remnant” could return, reconciled with Yahweh. They also believed that God had gone into exile with them (Lecture 5 pt. 3 slide 6). This led to a reform in their religion in which it transitioned into a genealogy based religion, instead of a location based religion. In their exile, the people did not build a new sacrificial temple to Yahweh, instead they worshipped Him through other methods such as studying the history of the people and through prayer. The Deuteronomist priests were also exiled, and could then dictate the exiles the proper ways to worship (Lecture 3 pt.1 slide …show more content…
These people intermarried with the people of the land, and worshipped the gods of that region. However, some relocated to Israel and began to practice the religion of the area, as was common in this. In this case, they practiced the worship of Yahweh. Therefore, they thought that they had a right in their claim in worship (Lecture 5 pt. 3 slide 6). However, this was before the reforms to the religion, and it was based upon genealogy and not location. The Elephantine colony technically had a genealogical claim to worship Yahweh. The Elephantine colony were a group of Judahites who were working for the Persian government. They probably were not part of the exilic group to Babylon, but had probably left sooner. A notable aspect of the colony was that they had a sacrificial temple to Yahweh, that wasn’t in Jerusalem (Lecture 5 pt. 4 slide