By removing God from a physical temple and making him a "portable" deity of laws and stories, they invented a faith that could survive anywhere. The local storm god of the Midianite mountains had finally become the universal Architect of the Universe.
In the early Iron Age, a group of Shasu nomads huddled under a sandstone overhang as lightning split the desert sky. To them, the thunder was not physics; it was the voice of , a fierce god of storms and war who dwelled in the mountains of Midian. He was a "tutelary" god—a protector of their specific tribe who helped them survive the harsh terrain and defeat their enemies. He was powerful, but he was local. He belonged to the desert, and he had a wife named Asherah who ensured the fertility of their few goats. II. The Migration North The Invention of God
But the scribes in Babylon did something revolutionary. Instead of admitting Yhwh was weak, they reimagined him. They argued that Yhwh wasn't just their god; he was the God, the creator of the entire world, and he had allowed the Babylonians to win to punish Israel for its sins. By removing God from a physical temple and