I have answered versions of this question a few times.  This “consensus” of the scholarly community is not based on evidence.  It is based on a presupposition about the anthropology of religion.  Anthropologists ASSUME that religion evolved from animism to polytheism to monotheism.  For them, the search is not for what actually happened.  It is a search for which of the many gods of polytheism the idea of YHWH emerged from-because they are sure that the monotheistic God of Judaism emerged from a polytheistic religion.  Well, if we assume a particular conclusion, we can also assume that we will have confirmed our presupposition at the end of our search.  The scholarly consensus of atheists is literally useless in evaluating the source of a religion which is, in fact, derived from the influence of the God who created the universe and who created us.  As they say in the computer industry: garbage in, garbage out.  Of course, I am not calling the work of these scholars garbage, but I am calling it very flawed.

So, we can do two things.  First of all, we can be prepared to throw the conclusions of such presuppositional arguments into the trash can where they belong.  Given the tremendous evidence that Jesus is who he said he is, and that both the Old and the New Testaments are inspired by God (evidence that I will not present in this response, but vast amounts of which are available at my web site and in my published books at www.ipibooks.com), the assumptions which lead to this “consensus” are to be rejected.  The other thing we can do is we can look at the “evidence” that the idea of YHWH evolved from a Midianite god.  If we do so, we will find that such evidence is non-existent.  Which god do we choose?  The one whose spelling is most similar to the letters YHWH?   The ones whose characteristics seem most similar?  If so, which characteristics?  God’s love?  His power over the weather?  His omniscience?  His plan to create a people through whom to save humanity?

If we look at the Scripture of Judaism, nowhere do we find even a hint of polytheism.  Unfortunately, we do see the people of Israel worshipping other gods, but never do we see even the slightest hint that such polytheism is to be accepted.  From Genesis to Exodus, to Leviticus, to Deuteronomy, Joshua, Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah and beyond, ALL Jewish Scripture is avowedly and unquestionably monotheistic.  Such anthropologists of religion have no answer for this fact.  They point out idolatry amongst the people as “proof” that Judaism emerged from polytheism, but the idolatry that these scholars find is happening many hundreds of years after Abraham and Moses declared there to be only one God.  Scriptures which support this include Exodus 8:10, Deuteronomy 4:35, 32:39, 2 Samuel 7:22, 2 Kings 19:15, Psalm 18:31, Isaiah 37:20, and several dozen more from virtually every book in the Hebrew Bible.

And, no, the Midianites did not have a god named YHWH from which Moses took the name.  The only such evidence I have seen is an inscription from the 800’s AD mentioning Yahweh of Teman. But this comes many hundreds of years after Israel had identified their God with the name YHWH.  If there was any derivation at all, it would be the Midianites taking the name of YHWH from the Jews.

For all these reasons, any open-minded and sufficiently skeptical person will reject the presuppositionally-created “consensus” of the anthropologists of religion.  Judaism was born from a people who worshipped the one and only God of the universe.

John Oakes