What do old digs and writings say about the Israelites' first Yahweh worship?

"The prehistory of ‘early Israel’ has shrunk from the Early Bronze to the Iron Age"

"Subsequently, we look into evidence which suggests that assimilation from local peoples to an Exodus group may well have taken place in early Israel."

"The ancient Egyptian inscription dates to about 1205 B.C.E. and recounts the military conquests of the pharaoh Merneptah"

"The Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions are a group of ancient Hebrew inscriptions found at the site of Kuntillet Ajrud , in the Sinai Peninsula ."

"Kuntillet ʿAjrud: An Iron Age II Religious Site on the Judah-Sinai Border"

"The stele represents the earliest textual reference to Israel and the only reference from ancient Egypt."

"They are dated to the late 9th century BCE."

"Gilula, Mordechai (1979). "To Yahweh Shomron and His Asherah"."

"It is one of four known inscriptions from the Iron Age that date to the time of and mention ancient Israel by name"

"They are written on pottery, stone, and plaster; most were written at the site where they were found, while some were sent there on jars, likely from the Jerusalem area."

"The Samarian Syncretic Yahwism and the Religious Center of Kuntillet ʿAjrud"

"It’s believed to be mentioning Israel as people not as a nation"

"As for its location, most scholars believe that Merneptah's Israel must have been in the hill country of central Canaan."

"This has been used by some experts as evidence of the ethnogenesis of Israel around that time."

"Possible evidence for her worship includes an iconography and inscriptions at two locations in use circa the 9th century."

"the majority of Egyptologists concur that the reference should indeed be understood as referring to Israel, and mainstream scholarship acknowledges a connection between the Israel mentioned and biblical Israel."

"In the latter, a jar shows bovid-anthropomorphic figures and several inscriptions [ 41 ] [ 79 ] that refer to "Yahweh of Samaria and his Asherah" and "Yahweh of Teman and his Asherah"."

"In the ancient Levant, she may have been considered a consort of Yahweh , as suggested by inscriptions at Kuntillet Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qom , though interpretations vary, and some scholars argue these references describe cultic objects rather than the goddess."

"Some scholars argue that Asherah was venerated as Yahweh 's consort, [ 68 ] [ 69 ] [ 11 ] [ 70 ] while others oppose this arguing that the relevant Hebrew epigraphic evidence actually refers to some cultic place or object rather than a goddess."

"Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the LORD, and spoke, saying: I will sing unto the LORD, for He is highly exalted;"

"[So] the LORD alone did lead him, and [there was] no strange god with him."

"Sie stammen aus dem 9. bzw. 8. Jh. v. Chr. und sind in der Deutung strittig."

"They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new [gods that] came newly up, whom your fathers feared not."

"Die Pithoi aus Kuntillet Adschrud zeigen durch die beiden Wendungen des „Jahwe von Teman“ und des „Jahwe von Samaria“ eine lokale Bindung Jahwes."

"Auf Ölkrügen in Teil Miqne eingeritzt, finden sich Inschriften mit dem Wortlaut „heilig für Aschera“. Sie stam­ men aus dem 7. Jh. v. Chr. und belegen die Verehrung der Göttin."

"Derartige Funde lassen eine religiöse Welt erkennen, die sich nicht wie bisher als schlichtes Gegenüber von monolatrischem Jahwismus und polytheistischem Kanaanäertum verstehen läßt."