Roland

I didn't realize that The History Channel had broadcast a documentary based on the Finklestein/Silberman book. It can be found on youtube.

I must say it's a pretty gutsy work for the History Channel, and it doesn't seem to pull any punches. In fact, in Part 5, the narrator states flat out that the early Israelites "invented" monotheism (though I know that's open to debate, still to phrase it that way is pretty amazing).

Sorry if this has been posted on here before, but I thought I'd point it out for anyone, like myself, who was unaware of the film's existence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05Oe1...eature=related

Malachi151

Except that even that isn't true. First of all, "monotheism" was around before the Jews were "monotheists" and secondly the Jews never really were true monotheists until after the rise of Christianity. Essentially all of the Jewish scriptures, save one example I think, portrays "God", "the Lord of hosts", as one god among many. He was the one and only god for the Jewish people, but basically every book in the Hebrew Bible (except one) treats the gods of other cultures are equally real and true gods, they just aren't the gods that the Jews were supposed to worship.

Really, the Christian concept of monotheism comes more from Greek philosophy than it does from Judaism.

gstafleu

Depends on what you call monotheism. Christian monotheism isn't all that "mono" either: trinity, devils, angels for example.

According to a book on Greek mythology I started to read (sorry, don't have the ref handy) the Greek pantheon towards the end of the era started to converge to "all Zeus all the time," so it was becoming "monotheistic" as well.

The Jews, around and after exilic times, seem to have started a move away from monolatry (there are lots of gods but you should only worship ours) towards monotheism (there really is only one god: ours). You can of course argue how thorough that process was and how "mono" the result was.

The other branch of Abrahamism, Islam, which claims with its "there is no God but God" to be super-mono, isn't really all that mono either. It has satan, angels, djinnies etc.

Nevertheless, if you want to pinpoint a place in the development of Abrahmism where monotheism started, exilic times are not a bad place. It is not an absolute, of course, more the start of a trend.

Were the then-Jews the first to do so? Hard to say. If you think Zoroastrism started ~1000 BCE, then the honours may go to it--although similar aspersions on its degree of monoism can be shed as well. And then we have that Pharao who for a short time instituted (when?) "all Ra all the time" or something like it.

So, if you are an absolutes-fetishist, then the Jews do not get the honour of having invented monotheism--but then, neither does anyone else. In relative terms, though, they are a reasonable candidate.

Gerard Stafleu

Roland

I think I may have done the documentary an injustice here. Even though the statement is made in Episode 5, in later parts it is shown how Judaism began as a polytheistic religion. I was just impressed that a major TV channel would allow something like that to be said at all - implying, essentially, that religion itself is likely a man-made invention.

Kosh

Well, it's the least they could do after the insulting "digging for the truth" series with the Indian Jones poser host!

credoconsolans

The History Channel does do some good stuff. I enjoyed "Walking in Jesus' Footsteps" I think the show was called. As usual, they told the bible story about a certain place or person, then showed the modern pilgrims coming to Israel to visit said place and their pious reactions, then they switched to the sheepish archaeologists who completely debunked the story and place and showed them as the holy tourist money traps that they really are.

Minimalist

Give some credit to Zoroaster for inventing monotheism...for all the good it ever did.

vicjagger

Thanks for pointing that out. I found it very enjoyable.

Roland

You're welcome!

mg01

Don't forget about Akhenaten in Egypt. You could even consider the effort to reattribute everything to Marduk in Babylon in the Babylonian version of creation in the Enuma Elish and the "Fifty Names of Marduk" as an even earlier form if you loosened the 17th century CE definition enough.

Was that documentary actually produced by the History Channel? I seem to recall it was independent and HC just aired it.

Archeology reveals the "popular" Israelite religion of the 9th-6th century to be anything but monotheistic. The terms henotheism (my god is X, but there other gods exist) and monolatrism (my god is better than your god) were invented by Biblical scholars to describe it. In this context, the book of Kings is actually quite humorous in places where the YHWHistic author(s) constantly complain about the Kings making like the natives.