Relevancy22: Contemporary Process Christianity: Post-Evangelic Topics and Theology: The Evolution of Worship and Religion: Resources

Illustration by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

The Evolution of Worship and Religion:

From Cosmic Awe to Processual Faith

A Metamodern Journey through the History of the Sacred

RESOURCES

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT-5

In the beginning, there was wonder.

And wonder is where worship began.

Introduction

The study of humanity’s evolving religious consciousness is necessarily interdisciplinary. It draws upon archaeology, anthropology, ancient Near Eastern studies, comparative religion, cognitive science, textual criticism, and philosophical theology.

Before beginning the narrative sequence of this project, it is useful to identify major works that may help illuminate the path of evolving millennial-old beliefs from prehistoric ritual to early Yahwism, which will eventually lead to the later emergence of monotheism and other universal/global religions.

The resources listed here have shaped the academic landscape in understanding how worship practices develop, diversify, and transform across humanity's evolution. They also provide essential grounding for the essays that follow, each of which will include an essay-specific bibliography. The works below form the conceptual and historical scaffolding on which this broader project rests.

All of these works contribute to one or more of the following domains:

Proto-Israelite religion

The emergence of Yahwism

Comparative Near Eastern religion

The embodiment and evolution of deity concepts

Archaeology + anthropology of early Judaism

Diversity of Israelite beliefs prior to canonization

Most of these titles will fit extremely well with Essay 2 (Part II) and Essay 3 (Part III) of the proposed outline: Age of Gods → Axial Awakenings → Early Monotheism.

These titles will also reinforce the broader thesis that religion evolves alongside human consciousness and cultural development.

Title-by-Title Review
(Review by ChatGPT)

1. Religious Diversity in Ancient Israel and Judah (Barton & Stavrakopoulou)

Value to the project: ★★★★★
This book is pure gold for the proposed series. It demonstrates:

That ancient Israel practiced plural religious forms, not early monotheism.
The persistence of folk religion, ancestor cult, local shrines, magic, goddess imagery.
The diversity within early Yahwism itself.

Where it helps:
✔ Essay 3 (Pantheons)
✔ Essay 5 (From Polytheism to Henotheism)
✔ Essay 6 (Prophetic revolutions)
✔ Appendix B (Comparative Mythology)

Amazon Blurb:

Published 2010

Understanding of the religious beliefs and practices of the ancient Israelites has changed considerably in recent years. It is now increasingly accepted that the biblical presentation of Israelite religion is often at odds with the historical realities of ancient Israel's religious climate. As such, the diversity inherent to ancient Israelite religion is often overlooked-particularly within university lecture halls and classrooms. This textbook draws together specialists in the field to explain, illustrate and analyze this religious diversity. Following an introductory essay guiding the reader through the book, the collection falls into three sections.

The first focuses on conceptual diversities. It deconstructs common assumptions about Israelite religion and reconstructs Israelite perceptions of the nature of the religious world.

The second section examines socio-religious diversities. It studies the varied social contexts of ancient Israelites, exploring the relationship between worshippers' social locations and their perceptions and experiences of the divine.

The third section deals with geographical diversities. It seeks to understand how geographical distinctions engender certain characteristics within Israelite religion and impact upon religious perceptions.

Underpinning each essay in this volume is a shared concern to:

(1) explore the ways in which worshippers' socio-cultural contexts shape and colour their religious beliefs and practices;
(2) assess the role, benefits and limitations of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament in reconstructing ancient Israelite religion.

2. The Origins of Yahwism (van Oorschot & Witte)

Value to the project: ★★★★★
This is one of the best academic treatments of Yahwism’s early formation. It examines:

Yahweh’s possible southern origins (Midian/Edom/Teman)
Syncretism with El, Baal, Asherah
Pre-exilic Yahweh worship’s diversity
The move from regional deity to national god

Where it helps:
✔ Essay 5 (From Polytheism to Henotheism)
✔ Essay 6 (Israel’s prophetic shift)

Amazon Blurb

Published 2019

This compendium examines the origins of the God Yahweh, his place in the Syrian-Palestinian and Northern Arabian pantheon during the bronze and iron ages, and the beginnings of the cultic veneration of Yahweh.

Contributors analyze the epigraphic and archeological evidence, apply fundamental considerations from the cultural and religious sciences, and analyze the relevant Old Testament texts.

3. The Origin and Character of God (Theodore J. Lewis)

Value to the project: ★★★★★
Lewis is one of the leading scholars on Canaanite and Israelite religion. This book explains:

How early Israel conceptualized deity
Divine embodiment and anthropomorphism
The deep Canaanite roots of Yahweh’s traits
Ritual practice, sacrifice, iconography

Where it helps:
✔ Essay 3 (Pantheons)
✔ Essay 5 (Henotheism)
✔ Appendix B (Deity correspondences)

Amazon Blurb

Published 2023

Few topics are as broad or as daunting as the God of Israel, that deity of the world's three monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, who has been worshiped over millennia. In the Hebrew Bible, God is characterized variously as militant, beneficent, inscrutable, loving, and judicious. Who is this divinity that has been represented as masculine and feminine, mythic and real, transcendent and intimate?

The Origin and Character of God is Theodore J. Lewis's monumental study of the vast subject that is the God of Israel. In it, he explores:
questions of historical origin,
how God was characterized in literature, and
how God is represented in archaeology and iconography.
He also brings us into the lived reality of religious experience. Using the window of divinity to peer into the varieties of religious experience in ancient Israel, Lewis explores the royal use of religion for power, prestige, and control; the intimacy of family and household religion; priestly prerogatives and cultic status; prophetic challenges to injustice; and the pondering of theodicy by poetic sages.

A volume that is encyclopedic in scope but accessible in tone and was honored with all three of the major awards in the field in three seperate disciplines (American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR) 2020 Frank Moore Cross Award, 2021 American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion, 2021 Biblical Archaeology Society Biennial Publication Award for the Best Book Relating to the Hebrew Bible), The Origin and Character of God is an essential addition to the growing scholarship of one of humanity's most enduring concepts.

4. Israelite Religions: An Archaeological and Biblical Survey (Richard Hess)

Value to the project: ★★★★☆ (more conservative, still useful)
Hess is more cautious and evangelical-leaning, but the archaeological synthesis is very strong. It adds:

Material culture analysis
Settlement patterns
Ritual practices
Iconography and cult objects

Where it helps:
✔ Essay 4 (Agrarian/Solar civilizations)
✔ Essays 5–6 (proto-Israelite religion)
✔ Data for maps/timelines

Good to have as a counterbalance to more critical scholars.

Amazon Blurb

Published 2017

Archaeological excavation in the Holy Land has exploded with the resurgence of interest in the historical roots of the biblical Israelites. Israelite Religions offers Bible students and interested lay leaders a survey of the major issues and approaches that constitute the study of ancient Israelite religion. Unique among other books on the subject, Israelite Religions takes the Bible seriously as a historical source, balancing the biblical material with relevant evidence from archaeological finds.

5. Judaism Is About Love (Shai Held)

Value to the project: ★★★☆☆ (later relevance)
This title fits less with early religion but fits beautifully with:

Ethical monotheism
Prophetic tradition
Axial Age re-interpretation
How early ideas transformed into love-centered modern Judaism

Where it helps:
✔ Essay 9 (Universal religions)
✔ Essay 11 (Processual renewal)

Useful but not essential for the earliest sections. Very good for a final theological synthesis.

Amazon Blurb

Published 2024

A profound, startling new understanding of Jewish life, illuminating the forgotten heart of Jewish theology and practice: love.

A dramatic misinterpretation of the Jewish tradition has shaped the history of the West: Christianity is the religion of love, and Judaism the religion of law. In the face of centuries of this widespread misrepresentation, Rabbi Shai Held - one of the most important Jewish thinkers in America today - recovers the heart of the Jewish tradition, offering the radical and moving argument that love belongs as much to Judaism as it does to Christianity.

Blending intellectual rigor, a respect for tradition and the practices of a living Judaism, and a commitment to the full equality of all people, Held seeks to reclaim Judaism as it authentically is. He shows that love is foundational and constitutive of true Jewish faith, animating the singular Jewish perspective on injustice and protest, grace, family life, responsibilities to our neighbors and even our enemies, and chosenness.

Ambitious and revelatory, Judaism Is About Love illuminates the true essence of Judaism - an act of restoration from within.

6. Yahweh Before Israel (Daniel E. Fleming)

Value to the project: ★★★★★ (one of the best)
Fleming is groundbreaking. He argues convincingly for:

Yahweh’s origins within broader West Semitic religion
Yahweh as a title or regional deity before becoming Israel’s national god
The merging of Yahweh and El traditions

Where it helps:
✔ Essay 3–6 (core)
✔ Appendix B (Comparative deity chart)

This book is essential for the treatment of early Semitic religion.

Amazon Blurb

Published 2023

Yahweh is the proper name of the biblical God. His early character is central to understanding the foundations of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic monotheism. As a deity, the name appears only in connection with the peoples of the Hebrew Bible, but long before Israel, the name is found in an Egyptian list as one group in the land of tent-dwellers, the Shasu. This is the starting-point for Daniel E. Fleming's sharply new approach to the god Yahweh. In his analysis, the Bible's 'people of Yahweh' serve as a clue to how one of the Bronze Age herding peoples of the inland Levant gave its name to a deity, initially outside of any relationship to Israel. For 150 years, the dominant paradigm for Yahweh's origin has envisioned borrowing from peoples of the desert south of Israel. Fleming argues in contrast that Yahweh was not taken from outsiders. Rather, this divine name is evidence for the diverse background of Israel itself.

7. God: An Anatomy (Francesca Stavrakopoulou)

Value to the project: ★★★★★
This is a stunning, richly written scholarly work. It explores:

The physicality of Israel’s God
Embodied divine attributes
Ancient Near Eastern conceptions of deity anatomy
Rituals that relate to bodily metaphors

Where it helps:
✔ Essay 3 (Pantheons)
✔ Essay 5 (Henotheism)
✔ Essay 6 (Prophetic transformations)

Highly aligned with an embodied and evolving divine.

Amazon Blurb

Published 2022

An astonishing and revelatory history that re-presents God as he was originally envisioned by ancient worshippers—with a distinctly male body, and with superhuman powers, earthly passions, and a penchant for the fantastic and monstrous.

"[A] rollicking journey through every aspect of Yahweh’s body, from top to bottom (yes, that too) and from inside out ... Ms. Stavrakopoulou has almost too much fun.”—The Economist

The scholarship of theology and religion teaches us that the God of the Bible was without a body, only revealing himself in the Old Testament in words mysteriously uttered through his prophets, and in the New Testament in the body of Christ. The portrayal of God as corporeal and masculine is seen as merely metaphorical, figurative, or poetic. But, in this revelatory study, Francesca Stavrakopoulou presents a vividly corporeal image of God: a human-shaped deity who walks and talks and weeps and laughs, who eats, sleeps, feels, and breathes, and who is undeniably male.

Here is a portrait—arrived at through the author's close examination of and research into the Bible—of a god in ancient myths and rituals who was a product of a particular society, at a particular time, made in the image of the people who lived then, shaped by their own circumstances and experience of the world. From head to toe—and every part of the body in between—this is a god of stunning surprise and complexity, one we have never encountered before.

8. The Invention of God (Thomas Römer)

Value to the project: ★★★★★
Römer is one of the leading historians of Israelite religion. This book covers:

The historical development of monotheism
The political inventions behind theological shifts
The redactional processes that shaped the Bible
The evolution of Yahweh from local deity to universal god

Where it helps:
✔ Essay 5 (Henotheism → Monotheism)
✔ Essay 6 (Prophetic revolutions)
✔ Essay 10 (Modernity and the eclipse/reinterpretation of the sacred)

Absolutely core.

Amazon Blurb

Published 2015

Who invented God? When, why, and where? Thomas Römer seeks to answer these questions about the deity of the great monotheisms - Yhwh (Israel), God (Christianity), or Allah (Islam) - by tracing Israelite beliefs and their context from the Bronze Age to the end of the Old Testament period in the third century BCE (during the InterTestamental Period).

That we can address such enigmatic questions at all may come as a surprise. But as Römer makes clear, a wealth of evidence allows us to piece together a reliable account of the origins and evolution of the god of Israel. Römer draws on a long tradition of historical, philological, and exegetical work and on recent discoveries in archaeology and epigraphy to locate the origins of Yhwh in the early Iron Age, when he emerged somewhere in Edom or in the northwest of the Arabian peninsula as a god of the wilderness and of storms and war. He became the sole god of Israel and Jerusalem in fits and starts as other gods, including the mother goddess Asherah, were gradually sidelined. But it was not until a major catastrophe - the destruction of Jerusalem and Judah -that Israelites came to worship Yhwh as the one god of all, creator of heaven and earth, who nevertheless proclaimed a special relationship with Judaism.

A masterpiece of detective work and exposition by one of the world’s leading experts on the Hebrew Bible, The Invention of God casts a clear light on profoundly important questions that are too rarely asked, let alone answered.