It is often said that Jews were monotheistic even in the BCE period. Yet, historically, this is not true! The BCE Jewish pantheon was comprised of no less than five gods and goddesses, regularly invoked by ANE Jews. But, the scribal priests tried their very best to turn Jews into henotheists (1), by usurping El with YHWH and absorbing Asherah into YHWH. *Why did they do this?!* Perhaps, we need to understand the ANE Jewish pantheon first:
At the top was El Elyon/Elohim, the “most high” creator god. This god, according to Torah myth, revealed and shaped the planetary world that we know and experience from the unrevealed chaotic and formless earth that existed before Elohim god’s creating light … to, then, reveal(!). Next, came Ba’al god, the thunder and lightening god (comparable to the Greek’s Zeus god). He was often worshipped in an animal form that I’m sure you already goldenly know. Yes?! Ba’al’s wife was goddess Asherah. We will come back to her in a moment.
Then, there is YHWH god, the god of fire upon the highest mountain. When YHWH god was given possession of the Levant area of the land, assigned to him by El Elyon/Elohim god, he – at least, in ANE Judean culture – usurped the role of Ba’al and took goddess Asherah as his wife. Hence, in the Jewish Levant, you find erected stones and temples to YHWH god, that has the goddess Asherah tree before its entrance!
By the historical time of the Jewish scribal priests, who were compiling the written Torah (2) together from many earlier Jewish writing sources, YHWH god had now usurped the Creator god himself(!), the position of El Elyon/Elohim god, as the planetary Creator. And, before I forget, there is the other goddess, Ashtoret. Who is Ashtoret?! Well, she is the goddess of fertility (- duh!)! Think the snake, now, in your *favorite* misunderstood myth!
Okay, “Why did they do this?!” The scribal priests? This was my question in the first paragraph. The priests’ henotheistic attempt to loyalize all Jews to one god of the pantheon only? One reason and one reason only, in my opinion:
To consolidate mythic and national *power*, in order to address the ongoing and ever-present *Empire* occupations of Jewish Israel! And, it worked! Even when it horribly failed(!). Hello, Roman occupation times! Let’s talk further,…. Shall we?! Jews are still around, and still achieving self-sovereignty. 🙂 Why are we so loyal to Judaism (“Judah-ism”) no matter where we are physically in this world? Regardless our physical features and present vernacular language?
This is why the Torah so strongly rejects the prostitution of gay Jewish males and Jewish females in service to the pantheon of gods and goddesses. That and, of course, the raping of males by males and male-male adultery on a married woman’s bed. Because, D’varim’s Torah is demanding a proto-democratic society for a *societal* lifestyle, that ensures the sanctity of all citizens – male and female – regardless of present social status in life. …
Shall I get into supporting the poor as a Torah mandate for the institution of society?! I know, if you don’t know, I’ve thoroughly confused you at this point. It’s okay!!! I love studying Torah! But, then again, I’m a Jew!!! So … I might know a *few* things that is *not* religion justifying – but, still, *is* just as profound as any theological thought. Did I not just prove this?
Yes, we Jews are such a mystery! Even to those who *think* they understand/know us (or, think that they are us, somehow, on theological grounds!?!). … It’s traditionally inappropriate, but I’ll allow it: (Scoffs!)! Not everyone is Jewish, and we avoid proselytizing, *and* we always have open arms to the ethno-religious cultural interested! Like any other indigenous people just trying to survive in this modern world.
(1) A henotheist recognizes that other gods and goddesses exist, but mandates that only one of these gods will be honoured by the people. It would not be until the “Middle Ages” of this CE period of history that monotheism would fully develop and become the Jewish default norm for Jews. Even Christianity was henotheistic at its start, in 4th century gentile Rome. The Church Fathers themselves made clear in their foundational doctrines that their JC demiGod idol is *superior* to the YHWH god of the Jews.
(2) The Torah is a multivoiced and often conflicting singular narrative of “events” that smashes together *BEAUTIFULLY* a thousand years of Jewish mythic and historical reality and, no less than, three Jewish ancestral writing traditions. To understand Torah, you *MUST* understand this, or you will go off “the deep end” of fundamentalist misinterpretations of Torah! Hello, true religion Christianity and true religion Islam?! And, even, sometimes modern Judaism?!
https://www.thetorah.com/article/sheger-ashtoret-and-ashtor-the-patron-gods-of-transjordanian-shepherds
Sheger, Ashtoret and Ashtor – The Patron Gods of Transjordanian Shepherds
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Psalm 82 / תהילים פ״ב
“A psalm of asaph. YHWH stands in the divine assembly of El Elyon, and among the gods he accuses: ‘How long?! How long will you judge perversely and show favor to the human wicked?
(Quoting high god El Elyon) “Judge the poor and orphaned, and justify the humble and impoverished! Release the poor and needy, and save them from the hands of the wicked!”
(YHWH god now speaks directly to El Elyon, the creator god, about the other gods) They did not know and did not understand that they will live in darkness, for their lack of justice. All the foundations of the earth itself will shake apart, if these injustices continue!”
(El Elyon responds by addressing the gods) “I had declared: ‘You are gods! All of you are sons of Elyon!’ But, now, like humanity, you gods will die, and like one of humanity’s princes, you will fall.
Arise, YHWH, judge the earth! For you now inherit all the human nations.”
Verses 1 through 8, as they were understood in the ANE, and obfuscated during the priestly redaction of ancient Jewish literary traditions into the generationally passed on scrolls.
Don’t take my word for it. A second source for you that sees what I see when I read TaNaKh.
“[T]he poem presents the moment when Yahweh becomes the only god running the world. It does not say that people once thought there were many gods, then decided actually there is only one. It says that originally there were many gods, each running its own territory and people, but then Yahweh took over for all of them.” But, mind you that this shows the start of *henotheism*, not monotheism.
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Exod 33:20 says that YHWH god said to Moses, “You cannot see My face, for man may not see Me and live.”
“Does this mean that looking upon God’s face is dangerous, and someone who does so will die, and thus God is protecting Moses here, or does it mean that it is impossible to see God either visually or with one’s mind’s eye, since God is not a physical thing? As a modern academic Bible scholar, Benjamin Sommer understands the verse as God warning Moses of danger, while Maimonides, a philosopher who believed God is incorporeal, understood the verse as a philosophical statement about God’s incorporeality.”
Exod 20:4 says, “You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image, or any likeness….” But….
“We are never told why we are forbidden to do this. Is it that one could make a material image of YHWH but that is not how he wants to be worshipped? This would make the commandment a matter of divine preference. Or is it that YHWH is not corporeal so that any attempt to capture his likeness in stone or wood would be a distortion? This would make the commandment an expression of a metaphysical truth consistent with the philosophic conception of monotheism.”
Exod 20:3 says, “You shall have no other gods besides Me.”
“Is worship of other gods prohibited because the other gods are unreal or because YHWH is an impassioned, jealous God who demands complete loyalty from his worshippers (Exod 34:14)? To put it another way, is worship of other deities a moral failing (“You promised to worship YHWH alone and now you have broken your word by worshipping other deities”) or an intellectual one (“You are worshipping an illusion, something that does not exist”)?”
Deut 31:16 says, “…This people will thereupon go astray after the alien gods in their midst, in the land that they are about to enter; they will forsake Me and break My covenant that I made with them.”
Torah is very clear that idolatry, the worshipping of other existing divine beings (whether real or not!), is an act of adultery against YHWH god. Monaltry, devotion to one god only, is *not* monotheism – but it is a form of henotheism.
Jews practiced monarchical polytheism during the first Temple period of the ANE (BCE). Jews practiced theocratic henotheism during the second Temple period, BCE, and through the first 700 years of the Middles Ages, CE. And Jews taught monolatry to both the Romans and Arabs, who then developed their own religions from this.
In the 12th century CE, Maimonides developed the concept of a truly incorporeal, indivisible, and unknowable “God.” This perception of a divine Creator was needed in order to create the *monotheistic* religious approach that we experience in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam of today.
The Bible says that there is a pantheon of gods, sons and daughters of the high god, El Elyon – the Creator god. The Torah says that YHWH god is one of the lesser gods and rules the Levant. Torah also says that the gods ruling other nations were so corrupt in there expression of “justice” upon the human lands, that El Elyon removed their ruling authority in other lands and gave YHWH god supreme ruling authority over all the nations and all of the land.
The TaNaKh says that Elohim/El Elyon has a corporeal but utterly formless body, that cannot be perceived by human terms in this state. And, that it was within this body that Elohim, the Creator god, took the indescribable and chaotic watery-abyss of a formless world and shaped it into a human perceivable order – which we call in English our “planet earth.”
The TaNaKh says that YHWH god has a perceivable body that is kind of humanoid-ish(!), but to see certain key parts of YHWH god will cause you to *die* from this exposure.
The TaNaKh also says, that YHWH god usurped the position of the high god – thus, replaced El Elyon as the Creator god – and demands that all other actual gods and goddesses bow in impotency to YHWH, and *”sing”* YHWH god’s praises and supreme authority over all the earth.
This is not the Maimonides incomprehensible non-corporeal monotheistic “God”! A god so untouchable and unreachable that all names for gods and goddesses on this planet earth are *all* references to this singular and singularly *one* Creator deity. Also, because Christians are *taught* to read into the TaNaKh was is *not* actually there – Jesus was not a god or a goddesses of Elohim’s pantheon of gods!
In very late BCE and early CE Jewish literatures, the status of a demigod was an honorific *applied* to a religious sage. This demigod status was given to human Jewish Jesus in the Gospels. At *no time* have Jews or do Jews ever worship a demigod – for this is *idolatry* against YHWH god!
Now, back in ANE Jewish literatures that make up the myths of TaNaKh, demigods were believed to actually exist upon the earth – having been created by the gods and goddesses through intercourse with certain humans that these deities ruled. You’ll find that in *modern* other language renderings of these stories that these deities are now called mere subservient “angels.”
https://www.thetorah.com/article/when-did-the-bible-become-monotheistic
When Did the Bible Become Monotheistic?
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