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monotheism
monotheism
monotheism The belief in a single God, or a religion affirming that belief, as opposed to polytheism, belief in many deities. There does not seem to be a time when Israelite worship was officially, as portrayed in the sources, other than monotheistic, though historically it may have evolved out of
henotheism such as was typical in the area. The 9th-cent.
Moabite Stone refers to the national god
Chemosh without denying the existence of other divinities. The Hebrews worshipped Yahweh as their national god and there are OT allusions to other nations' gods which imply a belief in their existence, alongside Israel's Yahweh. Such gods, it was held, were worshipped legitimately in their own country (1 Sam. 26: 19). Now and then undisguised polytheism crept in by the monarch's back door, as when Yahweh was allocated a female consort (1 Kgs. 11: 5), and opposite the Temple were built shrines to Kemosh and Milcom. The prophets were zealous in opposition and in the 7th cent.
BCE these shrines were demolished by
Josiah. In Deuteronomy, monotheism was linked to strong ethical demands (Deut. 6: 4) and after the Exile there was no looking back: Second Isaiah (
Deutero-Isaiah) accepts that Yahweh is responsible for both
good and
evil (Isa. 45: 7). He can ridicule polytheism without serious comprehension of it but also without any expectation of being contradicted. Nevertheless, even when belief in the one God was fundamental, there remained traces of recognition of subordinate deities (Job 1–2) and the existence of
angels and of
Satan was also assumed.
Monotheism continues to be taken for granted in the NT (Mark 12: 29; 1 Cor. 8: 6), together with the existence of subordinate angels (Heb. 1: 4), and polytheism was blamed for the horrors of immorality (Rom. 1: 24–31). But trouble was imminent when Christians found themselves giving worship to Jesus. Jewish opponents accused them of abandoning monotheism. The Christian answer, after agonizing speculations and deviations, eventually issued in the doctrine of the
Trinity.
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No Other Gods: Emergent Monotheism in Israel
Magazine article from: Journal of Biblical Literature; 4/1/2000; ; 700+ words
; No Other Gods: Emergent Monotheism in Israel, by Robert Karl Gnuse...of Canaanite religion, Israelite monotheism also needs to be understood as...thesis of this work [is] that . . . monotheism developed over the course of many...
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Of God and Gods: Egypt, Israel, and the Rise of Monotheism.(Book review)
Magazine article from: Shofar; 6/22/2009; ; 700+ words
; ...Gods: Egypt, Israel, and the Rise of Monotheism, by Jan Assmann. George L. Mosse...raises the question of the intolerant monotheism of Akhenaren, which he sees reflected...expressed in his 1939 work Moses and Monotheism, that the monotheism of Moses can be...
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GOD IS A SOCIOLOGIST.(One True God: Historical Consequences of Monotheism)
Magazine article from: Commonweal; 11/9/2001; ; 700+ words
; ...True God Historical Consequences of Monotheism Rodney Stark Princeton University Press...than a theoretical understanding of monotheism that will be, as he likes to put it...illuminating way. Stark's theory has monotheism--the belief that there is just one...
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Deuteronomy and the Meaning of Monotheism.(Book Review)
Magazine article from: Theological Studies; 6/1/2004; ; 700+ words
; DEUTERONOMY AND THE MEANING OF MONOTHEISM. By Nathan MacDonald. Forschungen...Modern scholarship of biblical monotheism has generally focused on the history...development and refinement, whereby "monotheism" is frequently perceived as a...
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 "The Dallas Morning News (via Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service)")
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Human rights are direct fruits of monotheism.
Newspaper article from: The Dallas Morning News (via Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service); 4/13/2005; 700+ words
; Byline: Mary A. Jacobs Could monotheism be the root of all evil? Since...critic Jonathan Kirsch argues that monotheism has a "dark side" that can justify...of God. Gore Vidal has called monotheism "the great evil." Christopher...
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The meaning of monotheism
Newspaper article from: The Boston Globe; 3/16/1999; ; 700+ words
; ...The hope is for the final victory of monotheism, ethics, and morality, together with...expression of "hope for the final victory of monotheism," as if he were recruiting the Catholic...can raise painful old questions about monotheism itself: Does the radical intolerance...
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Trauma and Abstract Monotheism: Jewish Exile and Recovery in the Sixth Century B.C.E.
Magazine article from: Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought; 3/22/2001; ; 700+ words
; ...revolutionary nature of the Jewish acceptance of monotheism. It does not answer central questions...pagan societies were aware ofJudean monotheism, let alone its danger to them-and...end of war? The Judean acceptance of monotheism calls for a broad framework of explanation...
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Trauma and abstract monotheism: Jewish exile and recovery in the Sixth Century B.C.E.
Magazine article from: Judaism; 4/1/2001; ; 700+ words
; ...revolutionary nature of theJewish acceptance of monotheism. It does not answer central questions...pagan societies were aware of Judean monotheism, let alone its danger to them-and...end of war? The Judean acceptance of monotheism calls for a broad framework of explanation...
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The Birth of Monotheism: The Rise and Diappearance of Yahwism.(Book review)
Magazine article from: Hebrew Studies Journal; 1/1/2008; ; 700+ words
; THE BIRTH OF MONOTHEISM: THE RISE AND DISAPPEARANCE OF YAHWISM...the physical world. The birth of monotheism is something like that, an idea about...and under what circumstances did the monotheism of the biblical tradition appear in...
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The scourge of monotheism
Newspaper article from: Jerusalem Post; 1/7/2005; ; 700+ words
; ...07-2005 Headline: The scourge of monotheism Byline: YEHUDA KURTZER Edition; Up...Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism By Jonathan Kirsch Viking...in an ongoing power struggle between monotheism and polytheism, representing the ultimate...
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Monotheism
Encyclopedia entry from: International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
Monotheism The term monotheism derives from the Greek words monos ( “ single...belief that there is only one God. Although various forms of monotheism can be traced to ancient times, the term itself is relatively...
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monotheism
Book article from: A Dictionary of the Bible
monotheism The belief in a single God, or a religion...demolished by Josiah . In Deuteronomy, monotheism was linked to strong ethical demands...angels and of Satan was also assumed. Monotheism continues to be taken for granted in...
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Moses and Monotheism
Dictionary entry from: International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis
MOSES AND MONOTHEISM Begun in 1934, and rewritten in 1936, Freud's Moses and Monotheism appeared in an abridged form in the review...information in the first essays. Moses and Monotheism can be approached in several different ways...
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Ethical monotheism
Book article from: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions
Ethical monotheism. The worship of, and adherence to, one God which is based on practice, rather than arrived at as the conclusion of a philosophical argument. An example is the gradual insistence on Yahweh to the exclusion of other gods in the biblical period of Judaism.
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Polytheism
Dictionary entry from: New Dictionary of the History of Ideas
...divinities. The very distinction between monotheism and polytheism, lumping together...creator — in other words, monotheism. In this way, the difference between polytheism and monotheism embodied the conflict between reason...
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