The Kenite hypothesis, or Midianite–Kenite hypothesis, is a hypothesis about the origins of the

cult Cults are social groups which have unusual, and often extreme, religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals. Extreme devotion to a particular person, object, or goal is another characteristic often ascribed to cults. The term ...

Yahweh Yahweh was an Ancient Semitic religion, ancient Semitic deity of Weather god, weather and List of war deities, war in the History of the ancient Levant, ancient Levant, the national god of the kingdoms of Kingdom of Judah, Judah and Kingdom ...

. As a form of Biblical source criticism, it posits that Yahweh was originally a Kenite (i.e., Midianite) god whose cult made its way northward to the proto-

Israelites Israelites were a Hebrew language, Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group, consisting of tribes that lived in Canaan during the Iron Age. Modern scholarship describes the Israelites as emerging from indigenous Canaanites, Canaanite populations ...

. The hypothesis first came into prominence in the late nineteenth century. It is based on four key points: an interpretation of the biblical texts dealing with the Midianite connections of

Moses In Abrahamic religions, Moses was the Hebrews, Hebrew prophet who led the Israelites out of slavery in the The Exodus, Exodus from ancient Egypt, Egypt. He is considered the most important Prophets in Judaism, prophet in Judaism and Samaritani ...

; allusions in ancient poetic compositions to the original residence of Yahweh; ancient Egyptian topographical texts of the fourteenth to the twelfth centuries BCE; and the presupposition of

Cain Cain is a biblical figure in the Book of Genesis within Abrahamic religions. He is the elder brother of Abel, and the firstborn son of Adam and Eve, the first couple within the Bible. He was a farmer who gave an offering of his crops to God. How ...

as the eponymous

progenitor In genealogy, a progenitor (rarer: primogenitor; or ''Ahnherr'') is the founder (sometimes one that is legendary) of a family, line of descent, gens, clan, tribe, noble house, or ethnic group.. Ebenda''Ahnherr:''"Stammvater eines Geschlec ...

of the Kenite tribe of

Midian Midian (; ; , ''Madiam''; Taymanitic: 𐪃𐪕𐪚𐪌 ''MDYN''; ''Mīḏyān'') is a geographical region in West Asia, located in northwestern Saudi Arabia. mentioned in the Tanakh and Quran. William G. Dever states that biblical Midian was ...

. The hypothesis thus interrogates the

ethnic An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, re ...

origins of Judah and posits that the geographic origins of Yahweh, and by extension

Yahwism Yahwism, also known as the Israelite religion, was the ancient Semitic religion of ancient Israel and Judah and the ethnic religion of the Israelites. The Israelite religion was a derivative of the Canaanite religion and a polytheistic re ...

, do not lie in the Biblical

Canaan CanaanThe current scholarly edition of the Septuagint, Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interprets. 2. ed. / recogn. et emendavit Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart : D ...

as conventionally understood but rather lie farther south, in the region the

Tanakh The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. ''

" on the eastern shore of the

Gulf of Aqaba The Gulf of Aqaba () or Gulf of Eilat () is a large gulf at the northern tip of the Red Sea, east of the Sinai Peninsula and west of the Arabian Peninsula. Its coastline is divided among four countries: Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. ...

on the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

. This land was inhabited by peoples including the Kenites.

History

Friedrich Wilhelm Ghillany in 1862 was the first to propose that Yahweh had originally made his home in what was historically known as the kingdom of

Edom Edom (; Edomite language, Edomite: ; , lit.: "red"; Akkadian language, Akkadian: , ; Egyptian language, Ancient Egyptian: ) was an ancient kingdom that stretched across areas in the south of present-day Jordan and Israel. Edom and the Edomi ...

(the area immediately south of the

Dead Sea The Dead Sea (; or ; ), also known by #Names, other names, is a landlocked salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east, the Israeli-occupied West Bank to the west and Israel to the southwest. It lies in the endorheic basin of the Jordan Rift Valle ...

), citing numerous passages where the deity is described as coming from southern lands. A decade later, a similar theory was independently espoused by

Cornelis Petrus Tiele Cornelis Petrus Tiele (16 December 183011 January 1902) was a Dutch theologian Theology is the study of religious belief from a religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an academic discipline, typica ...

, and more fully by Bernhard Stade (1887). The hypothesis in the form it currently takes was more completely worked out by Karl Budde; and later was accepted by H. Guthe, Gerrit Wildeboer, Henry Preserved Smith, and George Aaron Barton. The theory was widely accepted at first, particularly among German and anglophone scholars.

Eduard Meyer Eduard Meyer (25 January 1855 – 31 August 1930) was a German historian. He was the brother of Celticist Kuno Meyer (1858–1919). Biography Meyer was born in Hamburg and educated at the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums and later at the unive ...

, Bernhard Stade, Karl Budde, Hugo Gressmann, George Aaron Barton,

Thomas Kelly Cheyne Thomas Kelly Cheyne, (18 September 18411915) was an England, English Anglicanism#Anglican divines, divine and biblical criticism, biblical critic. Biography He was born in London and educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood, Merchant Tay ...

, and Henry Preserved Smith each endorsed it. Blenkinsopp, J. (2008). The Midianite-Kenite Hypothesis Revisited and the Origins of Judah. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 33(2), 131–153 (here p. 132f.). . By the 20th century the theory had become controversial. Detractors included Theophile James Meek, Frederick Winnett,F, V. Winnett, ''The Mosaic Tradition,'' 1949, p. 69

Martin Buber Martin Buber (; , ; ; 8 February 1878 – 13 June 1965) was an Austrian-Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism centered on the distinction between the I and Thou, I–Thou relationship and the I� ...

and

Roland de Vaux Roland Guérin de Vaux (17 December 1903 – 10 September 1971) was a French Dominican priest who led the Catholic team that initially worked on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He was the director of the École Biblique, a French Catholic Theological S ...

, besides Gorden (1907),A.R. Gorden, ''The Early Traditions of Genesis'', 1907, pp. 106 ff Konig (1912),E. Konig, ''Geschichte der Altestamentlichen Religion'', 1912, pp. 162ff. Kittel (1917),R. Kittel, ''Geschichte des Vokes Israel I'', 6th ed., p. 392n Volz (1947), and Procksch (1950).Procksch, ''Theologie des Alten Testaments'', pp. 76f. More recently, Blenkinsopp (2008) revisiting the available evidence concludes that "this hypothesis provides the best explanation currently available of the relevant literary and archaeological data". By contrast Tebes (2021), focusing on

archaeological evidence The archaeological record is the body of physical (not written) evidence about the past. It is one of the core concepts in archaeology, the academic discipline concerned with documenting and interpreting the archaeological record. Archaeological t ...

from the

Southern Levant The Southern Levant is a geographical region that corresponds approximately to present-day Israel, Palestine, and Jordan; some definitions also include southern Lebanon, southern Syria and the Sinai Peninsula. As a strictly geographical descript ...

and Northern

Arabia The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

, presents the "Midianite" influence on Canaan as a drawn-out process of

cultural transmission Cultural learning is the way a group of people or animals within a society or culture tend to learn and pass on information. Learning styles can be greatly influenced by how a culture socializes with its children and young people. Cross-cultural ...

taking place during the 10th to 6th centuries BCE.Juan Manuel Tebes, The Archaeology of Cult of Ancient Israel’s Southern Neighbors and the Midianite-Kenite Hypothesis. In J.M. Tebes & Ch. Frevel (eds.), The Desert Origins of God: Yahweh's Emergence and Early History in the Southern Levant and Northern Arabia. Special volume of Entangled Religions 12/2 (2021). .

Basic model

The Kenite hypothesis rests on four bases: an interpretation of the biblical texts dealing with the Midianite connections of

, allusions in ancient poetic compositions to the original residence of

Ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...

ian topographical texts from the 14th - 12th centuries BCE, and

as the eponymous ancestor of the

Kenites According to the Hebrew Bible, the Kenites/Qenites ( or ; ) were a tribe in the ancient Levant. They settled in the towns and cities in the northeastern Negev in an area known as the "Negev of the Kenites" near Arad, Israel, Arad, and played an ...

. Critical examination of the biblical narrative of Moses meeting Jethro and the events that unfolded thereafter comprise the first support of the Kenite theory. Moses, son of

Levi Levi ( ; ) was, according to the Book of Genesis, the third of the six sons of Jacob and Leah (Jacob's third son), and the founder of the Israelites, Israelite Tribe of Levi (the Levites, including the Kohanim) and the great-grandfather of Aaron ...

tical parents sojourns in the land of Midian, where he eventually marries the daughter of Jethro, described as a priest (perhaps ''the'' priest) of Midian. At a sacred spot, a "mountain of God", situated beyond the normal pasturage of the Midianites but apparently frequented by Midianites nonetheless, Moses received a revelation from a deity previously known to him only notionally, if at all, presumably a deity worshipped by Midianites considering the pre-existing sacrality of the mountain, whose name was revealed to be "Yahweh". Later on, after having led the Israelites out of Egyptian captivity, Moses returns to the sacred mountain, and Jethro comes to him, having heard about Yahweh's great feats. Jethro blesses the deity, proclaiming Him like no other. The passage in question can be interpreted two ways: with Jethro either acknowledging Yahweh as superior to his own (unmentioned) gods and converting to the Israelite religion on the spot, or celebrating the demonstration of Yahweh's might and reaffirming the implied Midianite faith to him. The general interpretation is the former; that Jethro, a non-Jew, recognized the true God in

, the God of Israel, and paid him homage. Proponents of the Kenite hypothesis, on the other hand, interpret the passage as the latter; that Jethro expresses to his proud joy that the God he and his people already worshipped, Yahweh, has proved himself mightier than all other gods. Thus, rather than Jethro's conversion to

, the passage actually shows the first incorporation of the Israelite leaders into the worship of Yahweh. Early Yahwistic

poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

is the next base of support for the Kenite hypothesis. On five separate occasions, Yahweh is given explicit residency in the lands south of the biblical

Kingdom of Judah The Kingdom of Judah was an Israelites, Israelite kingdom of the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. Centered in the highlands to the west of the Dead Sea, the kingdom's capital was Jerusalem. It was ruled by the Davidic line for four centuries ...

. These passages are

Deuteronomy Deuteronomy (; ) is the fifth book of the Torah (in Judaism), where it is called () which makes it the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible and Christian Old Testament. Chapters 1–30 of the book consist of three sermons or speeches delivered to ...

33:2, Judges 5:4, Habakkuk 3:3 and 3:7, and

Isaiah Isaiah ( or ; , ''Yəšaʿyāhū'', "Yahweh is salvation"; also known as Isaias or Esaias from ) was the 8th-century BC Israelite prophet after whom the Book of Isaiah is named. The text of the Book of Isaiah refers to Isaiah as "the prophet" ...

63:1. Each passage describes Yahweh as having come forth from the lands of Midian and Edom, sometimes in specific places such as

Bozrah Busaira (; also Busayra, Busairah or Buseirah) is a town in Tafilah Governorate, Jordan, located between the towns of Tafilah (Tophel) and Shoubak and closer to the latter. Bozrah ( ; also Botsra, Botzrah, Buzrak) is a Hebrew Bible, biblical cit ...

, Mount Seir, and Mount Paran, and sometimes in generic terms where the deity is described as coming from Teman, a word literally meaning "south." Mount Seir, in particular, became a synonym for the Edomites both inside and outside the Hebrew Bible, the Amarna letters mention a "people of ''Shēri''", and a 13th-century BCE topographical list made by

Rameses II Ramesses II (sometimes written Ramses or Rameses) (; , , ; ), commonly known as Ramesses the Great, was an Egyptian pharaoh. He was the third ruler of the Nineteenth Dynasty. Along with Thutmose III of the Eighteenth Dynasty, he is often re ...

in West Amara mentions the "

Shasu The Shasu (, possibly pronounced ''šaswə'') were Semitic-speaking pastoral nomads in the Southern Levant from the late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age or the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt. They were tent dwellers, organized in clans ru ...

of Seir". The texts of the " Blessing of Moses" and the "

Song of Deborah According to the Book of Judges, Deborah (, ''Dəḇōrā'') was a Prophets in Judaism, prophetess of Judaism, the fourth Hebrew Bible judges, Judge of pre-monarchic Israel, and the only female shophet, judge mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. Many ...

" seem to quote each other, depending on which was written first, and while both say Yahweh "shone forth" from Mount Paran, the "Blessing of Moses" is unique in that it specifically mentions that Yahweh actually ''came'' from Mount Sinai. Proponents of the Kenite hypothesis explain this by citing evidence of textual corruption in the passage. The possibility has also been entertained that the biblical version of the history of early humanity has preserved, in the story of Cain and his line (Gen. 4:1-24), an echo of the role of the Kenites in the early history of Israel. In this view, the name of the Kenite tribe is held to derive from Cain's name. The Kenites, like Cain, were nomadic. The Kenites were metalworkers, a science which the Book of Genesis states the descendants of Cain invented. Immediately after Cain is expelled to the wilderness by Yahweh for Abel's murder, the biblical narrative states that in the times of the children of Adam and Eve's new son,

Seth Seth, in the Abrahamic religions, was the third son of Adam and Eve. The Hebrew Bible names two of his siblings (although it also states that he had others): his brothers Cain and Abel. According to , Seth was born after Abel's murder by Cain, ...

, people began to call on Yahweh's name for the first time. However, Yahweh states during the episode of the

burning bush The burning bush (or the unburnt bush) refers to an event recorded in the Jewish Torah (as also in the biblical Old Testament and Islamic scripture). It is described in the third chapter of the Book of Exodus as having occurred on Mount Horeb ...

that his name, Yahweh, was not known to previous generations. Proponents of the Kenite hypothesis explain this inconsistency as a preserved implication that the cult of Yahweh said to have been created by Moses had a known pre-history. Further indirect support for the Kenites being the true bearers of the Yahwistic faith is taken from the positive portrayal of Kenites in the rest of the Tanakh. Kenites and some groups closely associated with them appear to have been known as fervid devotees of their god Yahweh, even during times when Yahweh's own chosen people, the Israelites, had at large abandoned his worship. These examples lend to speculation as to what other expressions of what might be called a sort-of Yahwistic primitivism, for which no obvious explanation is at hand, may be relics of the aboriginal, pre-Israelite Yahwism associated with the Kenites and related groups.

Criticism

Several assertions of Kenite hypothesis have been disputed by scholars. There is little-to-no evidence of significant interaction between the southern and central

Levant The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use toda ...

during the timeframe when the Israelite religion would have crystallized; in fact, the only cultural diffusion discernible during this time period came from ancient Egypt, and even then there is no evidence that the actual cultic practices of Palestine or Midian changed at all. As summarized by Tebes (2021), " ring this period, there is no evidence of contacts between the local semi-pastoral societies with the Israelite (or proto-Israelite) population settling down in the central highlands of Palestine, not to mention the transmission of religious ideas." Furthermore, a Midianite–Kenite origin for the Yahweh cult has obvious implications for ethnic origins, specifically the origins of Judah, and raises the further question of how this cult came to be adopted by the early Israelite settlers in the central Palestinian highlands. The theory postulated that the Judahites were part of an Arabian trade league of numerous clans that ended up migrating north to Palestine, however in the 250 years that have passed since this explanation was offered, a number of genetic and archeological studies have concluded that the people that would become the Israelites originated in Canaan. Other critics disagree with the attribution of the Kenites to Cain. A. H. Sayce, for instance, points out the Hebrew form of the singular "Kenite" (Hebrew: קֵינִי ''Qeiniy''), is identical or strikingly similar to

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

words meaning " smith", an etymology which forgoes the implied connection of metallurgy to Cain and his descendants and instead attaches it directly and unambiguously to the craft. The definition of the term ''Qinim'' as "metalsmiths" or "people of ''Qayin''" are equally coherent. Others disagree with the theory's reliance on a supposed historical basis for the narratives of Moses. Most scholars, while retaining the possibility that a Moses-like figure existed in the 13th century BCE, agree that Moses, as portrayed by the Tanakh, is a legendary figure. There is also the issue of the timeframe of the narratives' composition. The general consensus, despite the collapse of the

Documentary hypothesis The documentary hypothesis (DH) is one of the models used by biblical scholars to explain the origins and composition of the Torah (or Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible: Book of Genesis, Genesis, Book of Exodus, Exodus, Leviticus, Bo ...

, is that the Book of Exodus was compiled around 600 BCE and finalized by 400 BCE, 800–1000 years after Moses would have existed and the Exodus would have occurred. However, this does not preclude the idea that Moses and the Exodus were pre-existing motifs in Israelite thought — the narratives were certainly based on extensive oral tradition, the age of which cannot reasonably be determined with any veracity. But even still, this was not uniform. The northern prophets

Amos Amos or AMOS may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Amos'' (album), an album by Michael Ray * Amos (band), an American Christian rock band * ''Amos'' (film), a 1985 American made-for-television drama film * Amos (guitar), a 1958 Gibson Fl ...

and

Hosea In the Hebrew Bible, Hosea ( or ; ), also known as Osee (), son of Beeri, was an 8th-century BC prophet in Israel and the nominal primary author of the Book of Hosea. He is the first of the Twelve Minor Prophets, whose collective writing ...

draw on the Exodus in their preachings, meanwhile of the southern prophets contemporary to them, Micah and

, only Micah mentions the Exodus, only doing so briefly. However, the southern Israelites weren't completely ignorant of the apparently ancient Exodus narrative, as they are featured at length in Psalm 78 and

Psalm 114 Psalm 114 is the 114th psalm of the Book of Psalms, beginning in English in the King James Version: "When Israel went out of Egypt". In the slightly different Psalms#Numbering, numbering system in the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate versi ...

, and Moses is mentioned by name in Psalm 77, Psalm 90, Psalm 99, and Psalm 105, as well as by

Jeremiah Jeremiah ( – ), also called Jeremias, was one of the major prophets of the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition, Jeremiah authored the Book of Jeremiah, book that bears his name, the Books of Kings, and the Book of Lamentations, with t ...

. Even still, this is a strong indication that the Exodus narrative was vastly more developed in the setting of the northern kingdom than the southern kingdom, which raises the question of how a people could have realistically allowed knowledge of such a central and holy piece of their own history to be divided by political borders. The story of the Exodus may, therefore, have originated only a few centuries earlier, perhaps in the 9th or 10th centuries BCE, and taken different forms in Israel and Judah. Combined with the strong consensus among scholars that the Exodus narrative is largely legendary, it spells problems for the largest beam of support for the Kenite hypothesis. For these reasons, among others, many scholars outright reject the Kenite hypothesis.Volz, ''Mose und Seine Werk'', 2nd ed., M. Buber, Moses, 1947, pp. 94ff.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * {{cite book , title=Un YHWH venant du Sud?: De la réception vétérotestamentaire des traditions méridionales et du lien entre Madian, le Néguev et l'exode (Ex-Nb; Jg 5; Ps 68; Ha 3; Dt 33) , last=Pfitzmann , first=Fabian , publisher=Mohr Siebeck , year=2020 , isbn=978-3-16-159122-8 , language=fr , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ckj1DwAAQBAJ , series=Orientalische Religionen in Der Antike , volume=39 Kenites Biblical studies Religion in ancient Israel and Judah Midian Ancient Semitic religions