Sources: 1 Kings 5–8; 2 Chronicles 2–7; Psalm 48; Isaiah 6; Ezekiel 8–11; Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions (~800 BC).

First Temple Yahwism (~957–587 BC) is the period of Israelite religion centered on Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem — but the official Temple theology coexisted with a much messier religious reality. The Temple theology: Zion as cosmic mountain, dwelling of YHWH, guarantor of Israel’s security (Psalm 46, 48); the divine kabod (glory cloud) fills the Temple at dedication (1 Kgs 8:10–11); the Temple as the axis mundi connecting heaven and earth. The folk religious reality: inscriptions from Kuntillet Ajrud in the Sinai (~800 BC) reference “YHWH of Samaria and his Asherah” — a female consort for YHWH that official theology rejected but popular practice maintained. Figurines of a nude female deity found throughout excavated Israelite sites suggest goddess worship was widespread. Ezekiel 8 describes a vision of abominations in the Temple itself: women weeping for Tammuz, men bowing to the rising sun, Asherah worship at the north gate. The prophets — Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah — spend enormous energy condemning practices that were evidently widespread: high places, asherah poles, child sacrifice (associated with the Tophet in the Hinnom Valley), and syncretism. The gap between the Temple’s theological ideal and the actual religious practice of the population is the central tension of this period, and the prophets’ critique of it is the theological engine that drives the exilic reinterpretation.