No Other Gods: Emergent Monotheism in Israel
Overview
This is the first full-scale assessment of the theological, social and ideational implications of our new understandings of ancient Israel's social and religious development. Scholars now stress the gradual emergence of Israel out of the culture of ancient Palestine and the surrounding ancient Near East rather than contrast Israel with the ancient world. Our new paradigms stress the ongoing and unfinished nature of the monotheistic revolution, which is indeed still in process today.
Key Features
- Examination of Jewish history and historiography
- Studies devlopment of religous thought in Israel
- Monotheistic framework in a polytheistic environment
- All Scripture references are linked to Hebrew texts and English Bible translations in your library
Top Highlights
“The image of a gradual, peaceful infiltration of Palestine by semi-nomadic Israelites moving from the Transjordan steppe into the Cisjordan highlands was first proposed in detail by Albrecht Alt in the 1920s and 1930s.” (Page 24)
“Related to this is the old notion popularized by Max Weber17 that the Jews were a ‘peripheral people’, a simple people on the edge of great civilizations like Egypt and Mesopotamia. Such peripheral peoples often draw great ideas from older, change-resistant cultures (which characterizes river valley societies) and then reinterpret them for their more basic social setting in a radically new way to effect a social or technological breakthrough. Typically, the Axial Age breakthroughs came from peripheral societies such as Greece, Israel, Persia and Upanishadic India (Ganges River area).” (Pages 20–21)
“Theissen believes that monotheism essentially broke through in human cultural evolution with the teachings of Xenophones in Greece, Zoroaster in Persia, and Second Isaiah among the Jews in exile, and all three movements were roughly contemporary.” (Page 93)
“Amos was a universalist and the first ‘effective monotheist’, although the later classical prophets had to develop his ideas further. 4) Finally, Second Isaiah developed monotheistic belief most thoroughly and then the masses could accept it.” (Page 75)
“Another significant inscription comes from Khirbet el-Qôm, a site near Hebron in Judah, dated to the middle of the eighth century bce. Here a text was discovered which reads, ‘Blessed be Uriah by Yahweh and his Asherah’.” (Page 71)
Product Details
- Title: No Other Gods: Emergent Monotheism in Israel
- Author: Robert Karl Gnuse
- Publisher: Sheffield Academic Press
- Publication Date: 1997
- Pages: 392
