Gods Before God

Paper Summary:

Modern Judaism is usually considered a monotheistic religion - it has as its central tenet the belief in only one God, and the denial of the existence of all other gods. However, the Hebrew Bible is not a modern document, and it contains different conceptions of God and his relation to other gods. In places, the Hebrew Bible supports monotheism, but in other places it does not. This paper examines the various conceptions of God and other gods in the Hebrew Bible, how these conceptions changed over time, and the possible influences from sources outside the Israelite tradition, including Egyptian, Canaanite, and Iranian.

Outline:
Origins
Pre-Exile
Exile
Post-Exile
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"In the early, pre-exilic period, the Israelites were still forming as a people, and were substantially influenced by Canaanite religion and culture. Yahweh was still a somewhat local deity, tied to the land and the temple. After the destruction of the temple and during the exile, the Israelite religion had to broaden to survive, and God became more transcendent, omnipresent, and monotheistic. The Israelites also had to differentiate themselves from the people they were living among, in order to keep their religion and culture whole. When the exile ended and the temple was rebuilt this movement continued: God became more universal and the Jewish people became more exclusive. The religion has become thoroughly monotheistic, although in late post-exilic times it starts to develop a sense of dualism that was absent earlier, and is a result of Iranian influences (Widengren, 311)."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Armstrong, Karen. A History of God: The 4000-year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Alfred A. Knopf, 1994).
• Assmann, Jan. Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (Harvard University Press, 1997).
• Chesnut, J. Stanley. The Old Testament Understanding of God (The Westminster Press, 1968).
• McDermott, John J., What Are They Saying About the Formation of Israel? (Paulist Press, 1998).
• Ringgren, H. Monotheism in Keith Crim (Ed.) The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (Abingdon, 1976).

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