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326 a covenant with the people that day," writing it all down "in the Book of the Teachings of Yahweh." And he erected a stone stela under the oak tree that was beside the Tabernacle in witness of the covenant. But no admonitions and witnessed covenants could pre- serve the reality of an Israelite monotheistic enclave within an overwhelming multitude of polytheistic peoples. As pointed out in the writings of the Jewish theologian and_ bibli- cal scholar Yehezkel Kaufmann (The Religion of Israel), the "Basic Problem" facing the Israelites was that the Bible was "dedicated to fighting idolatry"—the worship of idols, of statues made of wood and stone, or gold and_ silver—but recognized that other peoples worshiped "other gods." "Is- raelite religion and paganism are historically related," he wrote; "both are stages in the religious evolution of Man. Israelite religion arose at a certain period in history, and it goes without saying that its rise did not take place in a vacuum.” Among the difficulties inherent in the Religion of Yahweh were the absence of a genealogy and of a primordial realm whence the gods had come. The gods who had been wor- shiped by the parents and forefathers of Abraham "across the river"—the first set of "other gods" listed by Joshua— included Enlil and Enki, the sons of the Anu, the brothers of Ninharsag. Anu himself had named parents. All of them had spouses, offspring—Ninurta, Nannar, Adad, Marduk, and so on. There was even a third generation—Shamash, Ishtar, Nabu. There had been an original homeland—a place called Nibiru, another world (i.e. planet) whence they had come to Earth. Then there were the "other gods" of Egypt; Yahweh had shown His might against them when Egypt was afflicted to let the Children of Israel go, but they continued to be vener- ated and worshiped not only in Egypt but also wherever Egypt's might had reached. They were headed by Ptah, and the great Ra was his son—traveling in Celestial Boats be- tween Earth and the "Planet of Millions of Years," the pri- mordial abode. Thoth, Seth, Osiris, Horus, Isis, Nepthys were related by simple genealogies in which brothers married half sisters. When the Israelites, fearing that Moses had perished DIVINE ENCOUNTERS