Paul’s (ca. 5-67 C.E.) portrayal of Jesus as an exalted ruler may seem to challenge Jewish monotheism. Yet the idea of a human king ruling on God’s behalf is already found in the Bible. Reading Paul alongside Jewish traditions of divine kingship shows how his claims about Jesus remain consistent with exclusive allegiance to one God.
Muslim scholars like Qadi Abd al-Jabbar, Ibn Hazm (11th c.), and Salih b. al-Husayn al-Gafari (13th c.), and Jewish scholars like Ibn Ezra, Joseph Kimchi (12th c.), Hasdai Crescas, and Profiat Duran (14th c.) viewed the Trinity as a troubling departure from pure monotheism. Spurred by religious competition that was often intertwined with political competition or coercion, they sought to refute it, drawing on philosophy, the Hebrew Bible, and even the New Testament.
Israelite religion developed from a revolutionary idea: monotheism. And religion alone, not external factors, accounted for the remarkable preservation of Jewish national identity and consciousness in exile.
The creation accounts, the Garden of Eden, the innovations and life spans of early humans, and the flood story are best understood as an Axial Age critique of polytheistic, mythical cosmology.
Israel’s deity becomes a universal God and the political power behind human affairs. This is just one of seven historical shifts in how the Bible conceives of “theocracy,” divine political power.
When YHWH sees the evil ways of humanity, he initially decides to wipe them out, but then determines to save Noah’s family. After the flood and Noah’s sacrifice, YHWH promises that He will never again destroy the earth and all life, even though humanity will continue in its evil ways. Thus, the story chronicles not the moral and emotional advancement of humanity but of YHWH.
It is often said that monotheism is one of Judaism’s greatest contributions to Western culture; however, it is far from clear that the Hebrew Bible is monotheistic. What is monotheism and when did it first develop?
In Second Temple times, several poetic verses in Deuteronomy were used to support the belief in multiple characters in the divine realm. The scribes of the early Masoretic text, who opposed this belief, sometimes went so far as to revise or excise these references.
The Shema has many interpretations, philosophical, eschatological, national, etc. A historical-critical way to understand the Shema is to read it (and Deuteronomy more broadly) against the backdrop of Assyrian domination, when Assyria touted their god Ashur as the supreme master of the world.
A postmodern look at Deuteronomy’s view on God’s role in politics, the challenge of monotheism in biblical times, and the relative positions of Israel and her neighbors in God’s eyes.
Tracing the tannaitic and biblical sources for the famous claim that God held Mount Sinai over the Israelites and threatened to bury them if they did not accept the Torah.
The midrashic Parable of the Illuminated Palace centers on Abraham and the existence of God. Maimonides’ interpretation of the parable envisions an Aristotelian Abraham for whom God is a scientific fact.
