Quote:What reasons are there to think that the Ancient Jews invented YHWH?
Invented? Probably the wrong word in the context I think you are using it. Gave him his final promotion from a junior member of the Canaanite pantheon into the Supreme Creator God? Yes.
We have no evidence at all for any sort "Jewish" religion as we now know the word prior to the so-called "return from the Babylonian 'exile' ". There is not a single artifact from any sort of temple in Jerusalem prior to the Babylonian sacking of the city. The earliest texts we have are written in Greek and date from the 3d century. Perhaps Yahweh was nothing more than the local deity of Judah in much the same way that Marduk was the Boss Hooter in Babylon.
In any case, recent scholarship indicates that the initial compound which was set up in Jerusalem by the returning "exiles" was miniscule....on the order of 400 people. This is in keeping with Philip R. Davies theory from the early 1990s that "Judaism" was invented to give the returning exiles ( who were really little more than Persian/Babylonians) who had the mission of establishing Persian authority in the region. One suspects that the people who remained behind to work the field could have cared less whether they were being whipped by Babylonian or Persian overseers....but give them a song and dance about how their "rightful rulers" were being returned to them by the grace of Cyrus the Great.
In any case it worked. Judah remained a loyal subject of Persia until Alexander the Great came rolling through.
Note, if you will, that Yahweh did nothing to stop the Greeks even though he is supposedly really pissed off at their homosexual tendencies.
Maybe Yahweh was having an off day?
