Monotheism
Review of the previous post
The previous post, post number 17 of 22, was post number 1 of 3 posts discussing the shift to Monotheism in the Book of Exodus
Preview of this post
This post, post number 18 of 22, is post number 2 of 3 posts discussing the shift to monotheism in the Book of Exodus and views this shift as though the Book of Exodus was a fictionalized account.
The story of Exodus is a fictionalized account.
As discussed in the essay “Thoughts on the Exodus Story,” the book contends that six hundred thousand men exited Egypt, yet there is no record of such a mass exodus and surely there would have been at least some mention of such a mass exodus when it is understood that six hundred thousand men represents at least one fourth of the total population of Egypt at the time – surely there would have been some mention of such an event, yet there does not seem to be one.
If the story of Exodus is fiction, then, when and why did the Biblical authors shift the people to monotheism?
As discussed above, it appears that there were some skeletal and nucleate forms of Yahwism at least as early as the Late Bronze Age. As discussed in this essay, this religion held Yahweh as the supreme god. The Bible’s authors seized on this concept to give reasons to the exiles to refrain from assimilation. As exiles or people about to be forced into exile, the people were about to be, or were, or had been, scattered and living in foreign lands. As such, those scattered people were in serious danger of assimilating into the foreign culture. This assimilation likely would include leaving Judaism and adopting the religion of the culture in which the people were living. As has been discussed, assimilation would be the death knell of Judaism. Therefore, the Biblical authors had to invent some form of religion which was portable and which did not depend on geography and which would be appropriate to someone who is in danger of assimilating into another culture.
Yahwism was a perfect platform to launch this anti-assimilation campaign. However, Israelite Yahwism was monolatrous in that it accepted the existence of other gods. This was a significant shortcoming with regard to an anti-assimilation campaign as it left a reason for someone who may have been undecided as to whether to remain separate and true to his religion and culture or to assimilate and adopt the god(s) of those around him because of the doubt raised by the conquest of Israel by a people who worshipped one of those other gods.
Therefore, the authors took Israelite Yahwism a step further. As discussed above, this made Israel’s god the only god and the god who controlled all nations even those located outside of the geographic borders of Israel and even those who worshipped other gods. This allowed the authors to argue, or show, that the Jewish god was supreme and conversion to another religion was not only futile, it was a sin and would be punished as a sin in either this life or the next. Such a concept could prevent people from assimilating or give them a path back if they had transgressed by assimilating.
As also discussed above, this upgrade from Israelite Yahwism to Jewish monotheism allowed people to account for the loss of the Temple and shift the religion from a sacramental religion which required a physical presence to a prophetic religion where God is everywhere and could be worshipped from anywhere by anyone. This is the perfect solution for the problem of assimilation by people who have been exiled to foreign lands and are living in foreign civilizations with foreign practices and even for those who remained within Israel’s geographic borders but who were without leaders.
The redacting and authoring, perhaps by Ezra and/or others during and after the Babylonian dispersion, made the Jewish god supreme in a manner which met this assimilation problem. By making the god of the Jews supreme, it showed people that even if they left Judaism for another religion, Yahweh was still supreme even over the god (or gods) of the new religion. Thus, why would one want to leave a religion that was chosen by the supreme god as His own for a religion that worshiped a lesser or non-existent god? Next, coupling the concept of monotheism with the concept of repentance, those who did leave the Jewish religion could feel confident that they could return to Judaism and be welcomed back by Yahweh just so long as they properly repented the transgression of worshiping another god.
Thus, it might be concluded that Monotheism as reported in the Bible was initially invented to explain how the chosen people of a supreme god could be conquered by a people who did not worship that supreme god, and was then refined to prevent assimilation and to allow Judaism to survive exile of the people from their homeland.
Preview of the next post
The next post, post number 19 of 22 is post number 3 of 3 posts discussing the shift to monotheism in the Book of Exodus and views this shift as though the Book of Exodus occurred as written.