The Hebrews adopted monotheism, or at least began to take shape, around the fourth century BC is, a millennium after Moses (whose existence is around 1,300. BC). However, the Bible presents a Moses who speaks of only one god. Most often, Moses believed in many gods. One of them is IAHV, whom Moses asked for the release of the "goyim" (translates as "gentiles" and are people who are not Jewish himself).
This is because what we know today as Old Testament was written about 1,000 years after Moses, shortly before the monotheistic Hebrews. Despite all this we can not speak of a Hebrew polytheism. Unlike the Greeks (for example) the Hebrews had a pantheon of gods, ie not worship many gods simultaneously. Their god was IAHV, the god who cared for his people, but do not exclude the other gods of other peoples (accepting that other people might have other gods, ie IAHV was not the only god exists.) Therefore we must speak of monolatry.
This term gives a sense of ritual, not an ideological system. Monolatry is more practical. IAHV Jews worship but did not exclude the other gods. These gods of "group" or "national" will, in general, the gods of war (this is the case of IAHV, originally conceived as a war god).
0 comments:
Post a Comment