Paper 96 Overview: Yahweh—God of the Hebrews

This paper explains how the Hebrew people's understanding of God changed over time. It shows how the Hebrews moved from believing in many gods to believing in one God, called Yahweh. This change happened slowly, with Melchizedek's teachings playing an important role.

Moses helped the Hebrews understand Yahweh as their one God. After Moses died, the people sometimes forgot his teachings and went back to worshiping other gods. Later, special writings like the Psalms and the Book of Job showed better ideas about God as loving and merciful.

When people first thought about God, they included all gods. Then they made their own tribal god more important than foreign gods. Finally, they believed in just one God. The Jews developed a better idea of the Lord God of Israel. People in other places like India and Mesopotamia also started believing in one God around the time Melchizedek appeared in Palestine.

Melchizedek came to earth to help create a belief in one God. This was needed to prepare for the later arrival of Michael, a Son of God. The religion Melchizedek taught survived among a group called the Kenites. When the Hebrews adopted this religion, it was influenced by Egyptian, Babylonian, and Iranian ideas. Hebrew religion combined many different beliefs from the entire region.

Early Semites believed that spirits lived in everything - animals, plants, fire, water, and air. Melchizedek taught them about one Universal Creator, but many still believed in these other nature spirits. The Hebrews moved back and forth between believing in many gods and believing in one God.

Different names were used for God during this time. Yahweh was the god of southern Palestinian tribes, linked to Mount Horeb volcano. El Elyon (the Most High God) came from Melchizedek's teachings. Other names included El Shaddai, El, Elohim, and titles like "The Spirit of God," "The Lord," and "The Father in Heaven." The name Jehovah only started being used 1,500 years after Jesus.

The Semites of the East were organized horsemen who joined with the Babylonians. The Phoenicians were mixed Semites living along the Mediterranean coast. The Semites were one of the most blended people groups on Urantia, with ancestry from almost all nine world races.

Arabian Semites often fought their way into the northern Promised Land but were usually pushed out by the northern Semites and Hittites. During a famine, many entered Egypt as contract workers but became slaves. After Melchizedek and Abraham's time, certain tribes of Semites were called Israelites and later Hebrews and Jews. Abraham wasn't the father of all Hebrews, but his descendants formed the core of the later Jewish people.

Moses was important in developing Hebrew ideas about a Supreme Creator. His mother was from Egypt's royal family and his father was a Semitic officer. Because of his mixed ancestry, Moses had special qualities that helped him lead the diverse group of Bedouins who left Egypt under his guidance.

Despite the attractions of Egyptian culture, Moses chose to help his father's people. They were slaves without much religious understanding. He was a great leader who reformed and uplifted a downtrodden group. He trained leaders from among the slaves, negotiated with Egypt's king for their freedom, and led them out of Egypt in a carefully planned escape when Egyptian military forces were busy fighting elsewhere.

Moses' teachings about God greatly influenced almost half the world, even into the twentieth century. While Moses understood advanced Egyptian religious ideas, the Hebrew slaves knew little about them. They mainly remembered their tribal god called Yahweh from Mount Horeb.

Moses had learned about Melchizedek's teachings from both his parents. His father-in-law was a Kenite who worshiped El Elyon. Moses was educated as an El Shaddaist but became an El Elyonist through his father-in-law's influence. By the time the Hebrews camped at Mount Sinai, Moses had created a better concept of God, which he presented as an expanded version of their old tribal god Yahweh.

Moses was an extraordinary combination of military leader, social organizer, and religious teacher. He was the most important world teacher between Machiventa and Jesus. He tried to introduce many reforms to Israel and helped transform a group of former slaves into the beginnings of a nation and a race.

There are few records of Moses' work because the Hebrews had no written language during the exodus. The Kenite traditions from Melchizedek's time helped Moses improve Hebrew religion. Moses believed in Providence and taught that if the Hebrews obeyed God, he would bless and multiply them. He struggled to help the ignorant Hebrews understand his higher concept of El Elyon, the Most High.

When Moses died, his high concept of Yahweh quickly declined. Joshua and the leaders tried to maintain Moses' ideas of an all-wise, beneficent, and almighty God. But common people went back to older desert ideas about Yahweh.

The powerful personality of Moses had kept his followers inspired by a growing concept of God. When the Hebrews settled in Palestine, they changed from nomadic herders to farmers. This change in lifestyle led to changes in how they viewed God. They nearly lost Moses' concept of one God and almost missed their chance to preserve Melchizedek's teaching of one God until the time when a Son of that Father of all would appear.

Under their leaders called sheiks and priests, the Hebrews loosely settled in Palestine. They soon returned to desert beliefs and adopted Canaanite religious practices. They worshiped idols, and their idea of God fell below Egyptian and Mesopotamian concepts. However, some Salem groups maintained better concepts of God, which are recorded in some Psalms and the Book of Job.

The Psalms were written by many authors, including Egyptian and Mesopotamian teachers. They show different ideas about God over a long period, from Amenemope to Isaiah. The Book of Job came from Mesopotamian religious teachers over almost three hundred years. In Babylon, the Jewish religion of the Old Testament truly developed, and ideas about immortality took shape as religion became more separate from politics, economics, and sociology.