to its destruction in 586 BCE, exilic for the period of the Exile from 586–539 BCE (identical with Neo-Babylonian above), post-Exilic for later periods and Second Temple period from the reconstruction of the Temple in 515 BCE until its destruction in 70 CE. Late Bronze Age origins (1550–1200 BCE) In the earliest Biblical literature Yahweh is a storm-god typical of ancient Near Eastern myths, marching out from a region to the south or south-east of Israel with the heavenly host of stars and planets that make up his army to do battle with the enemies of his people Israel: There is almost no agreement on his origins. His name is not attested other than among the Israelites and seems not to have any plausible etymology, ehyeh ašer ehyeh ("I Am that I Am"), the explanation presented in Exodus , appearing to be a late theological gloss invented at a time when the original meaning had been forgotten. One scholarly theory is that he originated in a shortened form of ˀel ḏū yahwī ṣabaˀôt, "El who creates the hosts", but this phrase is nowhere attested either inside or outside the Bible, and the two gods are in any case quite dissimilar, with El being elderly and paternal and lacking Yahweh's association with the storm and battles. The oldest plausible occurrence of his name is in the phrase "Shasu of Yhw" (Egyptian: yhwꜣw) in an Egyptian inscription from the time of Amenhotep III (1402–1363 BCE), the Shasu being nomads from Midian and Edom in northern Arabia. The current consensus is therefore that Yahweh was a "divine warrior from the southern region associated with Seir, Edom, Paran and Teman". There is considerable although not universal support for this view, but it raises the question of how Yahweh made his way to the north. An answer many scholars consider plausible is the Kenite hypothesis, which holds that traders brought Yahweh to Israel along the caravan routes between Egypt and Canaan. This ties together various points of data, such as the absence of Yahweh from Canaan, his links with Edom and Midian in the biblical stories, and the Kenite or Midianite ties of Moses, but its major weaknesses are that the majority of Israelites were firmly rooted in Palestine, while the historical role of Moses is highly problematic. It follows that if the Kenite hypothesis is to be maintained then it must be assumed that