Henotheism in the Bible

It might be the most famous story in the world. God tells a man and a woman that they may not eat a certain fruit. They eat it anyway.

^3:22Then the LORD God said, "See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.

Wait a minute. "One of us"? If there's only one God, who could this "us" be referring to?

Judaism is a fiercely monotheistic religion: its most important prayer, the Shema, declares, "Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD is one."¹ Jews believe that only one God exists; anyone who worships another deity is either mistaken or being deliberately perverse. For more traditional Jews (and Muslims, too), even Christianity is suspect, since the three-personed Godhead stinks to them of polytheism.

The covenantal relationship between God and the Jews is perhaps most clearly defined by a passage in Exodus 6:

^6:6I am the LORD, and I will free you from the burdens of the Egyptians and deliver you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. ⁷I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. You shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has freed you from the burdens of the Egyptians. ⁸I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; I will give it to you for a possession. I am the LORD.

Throughout the Hebrew Bible, the Israelites are warned over and over again not to get involved with other gods. "Do not invoke the names of other gods," says Exodus 23:13, "do not let them be heard on your lips." The passage continues:

^23:23When my angel goes in front of you, and brings you to the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and I blot them out, ²⁴you shall not bow down to their gods, or worship them, or follow their practices, but you shall utterly demolish them and break their pillars in pieces.

The gods of other cultures are frequently mocked as being mere idols, built of soulless metal or wood or stone, who cannot answer prayers and who only serve to distract the Israelites from the true source of their strength as a tribe. In one famous story, the prophet Elijah challenges the worshippers of the god Ba'al to create a fire, but even this low-order miracle appears to be impossible for the pseudo-deity.

^18:26So they took the bull that was given them, prepared it, and called on the name of Baal from morning until noon, crying, "O Baal, answer us!" But there was no voice, and no answer. They limped about the altar that they had made. ²⁷At noon Elijah mocked them, saying, "Cry aloud! Surely he is a god; either he is meditating, or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened." ²⁸Then they cried aloud and, as was their custom, they cut themselves with swords and lances until the blood gushed out over them. ²⁹As midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice, no answer, and no response.

At first blush, all this seems monotheistic enough, right? Only one God exists, and you anger him if you worship anyone else. But, as the first quotation in this node makes clear, the story is more complicated than that.

Take, for instance, the First Commandment. Most people consider this "proof" that Israelite religion was strictly monotheistic.

^20:2I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.

Note the wording carefully: "no other gods before me." The writer could have ended the sentence after the word "gods," but didn't. He could have said "instead of me," but he didn't do that either. The passage seems to suggest that having other gods is all right, just so long as you keep YHWH first. And this is a classic henotheist perspective: that is to say, it assumes the existence of many gods and the primacy of one, as opposed to the existence of only one.

Once you start looking for it, you'll find traces of henotheism all over the place.

• Exodus 12:12.
  On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn--both men and animals--and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD.
• Deuteronomy 6:14-15.
  Do not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who are all around you, because the LORD your God, who is present with you, is a jealous God.
• Joshua 24:2, 14-15.
  Long ago your ancestors -- Terah and his sons Abraham and Nahor -- lived beyond the Euphrates and served other gods. [...] Now therefore revere the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. Now if you are unwilling to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.
• Judges 9:9.
  The olive tree answered them, "Shall I stop producing my rich oil by which both gods and mortals are honored?"²
• 2 Samuel 7:23.
  And who is like your people Israel--the one nation on earth that God went out to redeem as a people for himself, and to make a name for himself, and to perform great and awesome wonders by driving out nations and their gods from before your people, whom you redeemed from Egypt?
• 2 Chronicles 2:5.
  The temple I am going to build will be great, because our God is greater than all other gods.
• Psalm 82:1
  God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment.³
• Psalm 86:8
  There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours.
• Psalm 138:1
  I give you thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart; before the gods I sing your praise.
• Micah 4:5
  All the nations may walk in the name of their gods; we will walk in the name of the LORD our God for ever and ever.

None of these passages seems to require the understanding that YHWH is the only god, and in fact a few seem to speak quite clearly against it.

I'm not just making the point that early Israelites thought that other gods existed and that they were all demonic. I will go further than that, and claim that plenty of early Israelites cheerfully worshipped YHWH alongside other gods. Admittedly, the Biblical evidence for this position is fragmentary, since the editors of the Bible as we have it (particularly the Deuteronomist) made a strong effort to create a monotheistic text. Still, there are a number of points to consider:

• The Biblical text as it has come down to us seems to have a particular bone to pick with the Canaanite goddess Asherah, who is often singled out for special abuse. Archaeologists at the site called Kuntillet Ajrud unearthed some crude pottery dedicated to "YHWH and his Asherah," suggesting that there were Israelites who considered the god and goddess a couple (or at the very least a team). The authors of the Bible did not consider this a legitimate form of YHWH-worship, but evidently some Israelites did.


• There are a couple of instances, such as the Genesis passage that began this writeup, where God refers to himself in the plural. Usually this is explained away as a royal we, and some Christians have argued that it is a veiled reference to the Trinity. However, since these odd plurals only occur in Genesis (and since God spends quite a lot of time talking in the first person elsewhere in the Bible), this is not a very persuasive explanation. Most Biblical scholars today believe that these passages are very, very old, and that they represent God addressing some kind of heavenly court. This same "divine assembly" can be found in the Psalms I've quoted above, and also, most famously, in the dialogues with Satan in the book of Job.


• The word Elohim, which is usually simply translated "God," is plural in grammatical form (though when it is the subject of verbs they are always conjugated in the singular). The singular "god" is simply El. This may not mean anything; scissors and pants are plurals with singular meanings in English, and there is no reason to think that there is some kind of huge conspiracy to hide their plural form. Nevertheless, the fact that Elohim ("God" in most translations) is plural, while God's personal name, YHWH ("the LORD" in most translations), is singular, should give the reader pause. There is a possibility that YHWH was once imagined to be the chief of the Elohim, but that the Elohim were merged into YHWH's identity at some very early phase in the development of Israelite religion.


• Over and over again, gods are described as national or tribal; there are the gods "belonging" to the Amorites, the Hittites, or whoever, and YHWH insists that the Israelites leave them alone and stay loyal to him. It seems natural to conclude that YHWH started out as the Israelites' tribal god, who helped keep them strong and fertile in difficult times. As later authors expanded the scope of their vision, YHWH became "bigger," absorbing all other gods into himself and resisting (first) their power and (then) their very existence.

Now I'm not a big fan of evolutionist views of religion. A lot of people seem to think that polytheism is somehow more "primitive" than henotheism, which in turn is more "primitive" than monotheism, as if one perspective necessarily gives rise to the other given enough time. I don't think that's true; there are very subtle and complex polytheisms, and there are some very simplistic and poorly-thought-out monotheisms. There is no reason to think that "progress" in religions can only go in one direction. However, I do think that history happened to play out that way in the case of Israelite religion, and that bits and pieces of that history are preserved in the Bible as we have it.

Notes

All Biblical quotes are taken from the NRSV, the translation I prefer.

"Monotheism," Yehezkel Kaufman, Israeli philosopher and Biblical scholar, observes, "postulates multiple deities, subordinated to the one; it tolerates myths of primordial struggles for cosmic supremacy. Two elements distinguish it from polytheism: a conviction that the one controls the pantheon, and the idea of false gods.

Worshiping other deities as mistaken or perverse.

That depends on what the Hebrew, Christian or Muslim would define as mistaken and perverse. "One of the transitional stages from polytheism to monotheism has been called henotheism," notes Nick Gier, Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy at the University of Idaho, "a situation in which there are many gods but one God prevails as the king of gods or the God of gods." The first word of Deuteronomy 6:4 in Hebrew, Shema is applied as the name of the verse in its entirety, "Hear, O Israel, YHWH is our God, YHWH alone/is one." Although recognizing that the Shema is a fundamental confessional statement of ancient Israel, today's religious scholars do not see eye to eye on its interpretation. If it is coupled with the centralization of the religious group in Jerusalem during the reforms of Josiah in the late sixth century BCE, then it could indicate that there was only one suitable expression of YHWH, namely in Jerusalem. The Shema could also mean that among all gods Israel is to worship only YHWH, henotheism, or that YHWH is the only god, monotheism. It is in this second sense that the Shema has become the innermost Jewish affirmation of faith in one God today.

Christianity is suspect, since the three-personed Godhead stinks to them of polytheism.

Since the Christians have come to worship Jesus as god (Pliny Epistles 96.7), how can they claim to be continuing the monotheistic tradition of the God of Israel? Various answers are suggested debated and rejected as heretical, but the design of a Trinity--one God, subsisting in three persons and one substance eventually overcomes accusations of infidelity. Putting aside the malodorous assertions above about what Jews and Muslims may or may not think, it's important to understand that ever since the 4th Century, in both Eastern and Western Christianity, the Trinity doctrine has been affirmed as a singular Divine essence of "One God in Three Persons," all three are distinct and "co-persons" or "hypostases." Because the Trinity is such an important part of later Christian doctrine, it is striking to note that the term does not appear anywhere in the New Testament. Also the extended perception of three coequals in the Godhead created in later creedal formulations cannot be visibly identified within the boundaries of the canon. Later religious writers have tried to arrange the assorted references to God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit found in the New Testament in order to battle against heterodox tendencies of how the three are connected. Expounding on the theology of a Trinity also provided a defense for the church against indictments of di- or tri-theism. While New Testament writers say a great deal about God, Jesus and the Spirit, no New Testament writer expounds on the connection of this aspect as many later Christian writers do.

Elohim ("God" in most translations) is plural, while God's personal name, YHWH ("the LORD" in most translations), is singular.

Yes, practicing Jews and Christians understand this as a basic concept rooted in the ancient past of our faiths. The earliest beliefs with its spotlight on El indicate a monolatrous El sect. Supplementary manuscripts underline the existence of other deities. In addition to the scriptures cited there is Psalm 29 where a summoning of the gods occurs to extol Yahweh, and Psalm 82 embodies Yahweh adjudicating the gods. ^{1 2 3 4}

Once you start looking for it, you'll find traces of henotheism all over the place.

Since hedonism, or self-indulgence and henotheism, the worship of one god over many, sound very similar some may think they are one in the same. They are not and in the early era of ancestral religions there are clear indications of henotheism or monolatry, the worship of a single deity though recognizing the existence of others. Baruch Halpern, Chaiken Family Chair in Jewish Studies, Professor of Ancient History, Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, Religious Studies, and Social Thought, Fellow, Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Penn State calls it "incipient monotheism." And yes, most practicing people of the book understand that the line between monotheism and polytheism is not an "either or" proposition. So do other religious groups. Akhnaton and Nabonidus, the two great religious reformers of Near Eastern antiquity, centered their religious groups on their particular gods. Similar to this are the monotheistic way of life of Judaism, Christianity and Islam: all acknowledge the existence of lesser divinities. For example there are the saints, angels, demons, and, in Christianity and Islam, Satan, the everlasting adversary of the high god. But these mores are not monotheistic, no religion, as opposed to theology, is. If so, then the connotation of monotheism would lose its meaning entirely.

Evolutionary views of religion

The development of monotheism in ancient Israel is difficult to trace and there is rarely agreement between scholars. One can effortlessly find a supporter for inserting the starting point of monotheism in each era from the ancients down to the exilic. Observations of monotheism are entangled with uniformly thorny issues like the historicity of the ancestors, the person of Moses, the composition of the tribal league, kinship relations, the inhabitation of the land of Israel, and the societal purpose of the prophets.

In more recent periods religious scholars have called attention to the role of the monarchy in the expansion of nationalistic individuality and parallel monolatrous inclinations. Halpern, sees in Josiah's reformation a "self conscious monotheism." Additional exemplars of overt monotheisms can be established in comparatively later Biblical texts. Consequently the prophet Jeremiah no longer portrays other gods as alternatives but instead as "cracked cisterns that can hold no water" ⁵

Cheerfully worshiping YHWH alongside other gods and the Canaanite goddess Asherah

Many secular students of theology predicate their ideas that the early Jews and Christians were strictly monotheists and fail to understand that monotheism did not occur like some Big Bang when Moses came down from the mountain. The goddess Asherah has always been known in the Bible through peculiar indicators of some type of religious article interpreted as asherah pole. Asherah was unquestionably there in monarchic Israel. Ancient Israel included highly diverse groups of people with different ethnic, religious and political backgrounds than is habitually assumed in today's humanistic societies. It's no secret that there was certainly a cornucopia of conflicting beliefs, many at opposition with each other, and they were, in all likelihood, divergent from city to city. No doubt various communities had differing degrees of toleration when someone referred to "Yahweh and his asherah." Some may have believed Yahweh to be the national divinity, yet had no difficulty in worshiping local Asherah deities, particularly in groups dealing with fertility and agriculture. For yet others, such as certain prophetic groups and the Deuteronmists who fought for the limited devotion to Yahweh; any suggestion of the goddess merited denunciation.

What revisionist scholars are you going to take a look at next?

Teletubbies. Not really, the truth is that humanity's religious convictions are enlightening expressions which expand with humanity's spiritual urge towards the everlasting and its magnificent importance. Henotheism is not hidden like some deep dark DaVinci code, it's woven throughout the ancient texts of the Torah, the Bible and the Qur'ran and most of the practicing religiosity understand that these texts are derived from a pluralistic society. Theology courses and degrees are wonderful things; walking in the footsteps of those who practice their faiths to fully understand our beliefs, is required.

Sources :

Halpern, Baruch, MonotheismThe Oxford Companion to the Bible, 1993.

Gier, Nick, Hebrew Henotheism
http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/henotheism.htm
Accessed November 5,2006.

Holy Bible (NRSV)

Kaufman, Yehezkel Did idolaters really worship idols? :
www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Idolatry
Accessed November 5, 2006.

Lewis, Theodore J. The goddess Asherah The Oxford Companion to the Bible, 1993.Erlicj, Carl S. ShemaThe Oxford Companion to the Bible, 1993.

Schowalter, Daniel N. TrinityThe Oxford Companion to the Bible, 1993.