Derec

In a recent thread on Documentary Hypothesis, afdave claimed that recent archaeological evidence showed that monotheism was an older practice than polytheism. His point was that this is consistent with the Biblical account of God revealing himself to early man, and that polytheism is a corruption of monotheism. Also that would contradict the idea in modern scholarship that polytheism came first and that monotheism gradually developed from it.

However, afdave neither elaborated nor offered any supporting sources. So, how about it, afdave, care to elaborate?

Minimalist

http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=4910


Professor Dever would disagree with Afdave's assertion. In fact, he makes a case for polytheism existing well into the historical period (after writing became common) of Judaean history.

Derec

Yeah, I know about these.
That's why I was intrigued by afdave's claim that archeology showed evidence of monotheism predating polytheism. So my question, primarily for him (and others who might have heard similar claims before) is what archaeologists make these claims and also which finds they are using to support them.

Hmm, I guess I better PM afdave to make sure he is aware of this thread.

Johnny Skeptic

Even if monotheism is older than polytheism, afdave still has Jews and Muslims to deal with. In addition, even if monothesim is older than poloytheism, that does not mean that the God of the Bible exists. Further, I doubt that the first humans left any archaeological evidence at all regarding their religious beliefs.

Minimalist

That should be entertaining.

Jack the Bodiless

I suspect that it was pulled out of the usual orifice. But, even if it turned out to be true for some religions, it definitely isn't true for Judaism.

...Would this "archaeological evidence" for really old monotheism be the stuff that was formerly "lost forever" under the 1-mile-thick (or possibly 2-miles-thick) "Flood deposit"? I hope Dave has photos of this 1-mile (or 2-mile) deep archaeologist's trench.

Ray Moscow

If God is a cave bear, a boar or a leopard, then Dave might be right. All three of these had widely dispersed cults in prehistoric times, as is shown by ample archaeological evidence.

Headache

Christianity is not monotheistic, it's polytheistic no matter what the followers says. It tries tio shoehorn 3 different gods into one. It has a devil which is a god with equal or almost equal abilities as god since god does not seem to be able to get rid of the devil.

Calling christianity monotheistic is like calling a square a circle.

VoxRat

Well, there are different versions, of course. The one I grew up with really didn't have a "Devil" - or Satan. That was all sort of metaphorical.

But then, of course, there are versions where the Virgin Mary - and countless saints - seem to be at least as much Gods and Goddesses as the minor deities in the Greek/Roman pantheon.

I have a theory about that, involving the compatibility of consumption of, with the continued possession of, cake.

Dave Hawkins

Here's Petrie and Langdon on record stating that monotheism was the earliest form of religion in Egypt ... Petrie and Langdon: Early Egyptians were monotheists

Here's evidence from Frankfort for original monotheism in Sumer ... This all makes sense if you understand that ...

ALL CIVILIZATIONS UNEARTHED BY THE LAST 100+ YEARS OF ARCHAEOLOGY ARE POST-FLOOD.

And of course the "Great Father" of all the nations is Noah who was a monotheist. But as time went on and the population grew, various groups rejected their original monotheism and descended into degrading polytheistic cults. The birth of the Hebrew nation was a definite action by God to bring people BACK to monotheism, namely a worship of the One True Creator God.

Note that Egypt DID NOT exist prior to the Flood. The conventional chronology is WRONG as showed by David Rohl. China also did not exist as a nation prior to the Flood and they were originally monotheistic as shown by the recent scholarly work by Dr. Ginger Tong Chock shows.