Biblical Hebrew Forum

[lorencrow AT earthling.net (Loren Crow)]

At 12:16 AM 1/14/99, Ken Litwak wrote:
>My point in aprticuarl, and I will ask you
>directly Loren, how much of what you believe to historical, from the
>moment youread this post, going backwards as far as you want, is based
>solely on archaeological and epigraphic evidence as opposed to wrien
>sources?  NOt much, I  bet.

Must it be an either/or matter?  I'd prefer to use *all* of the available
evidence, rather than exclusively one kind or another.  If I'm working as
an historian, this practically defines my task.  I would want to note,
however, that it is very uncertain from what period the stories in, say,
Samuel-Kings derive.  It is much more certain what period material culture
comes from.

>  How much of your view of what is historical
>is based on pure, objective history?  None, I bet.

Since I have no idea what such a beast would look like, I cannot fathom
this question.  I think, though, that you're asking about the degree to
which my idea of what happened (wie es eigentlich gewesen) may be biased.
Probably somewhere between "somewhat biased" and "heavily biased."  But
that fact does not excuse me from continuing to read, mark, and inwardly
digest as many of the data as lies within me to do.

>  So we should stop
>with this nonesense about needing archaeolgoical evidence ike that would
>prove something.  Do you disagree?

What I said was not that we should go out and find more archaeological
evidence in order to prove something, but that the archaeological evidence
we already have really does prove something.  Those are quite different
from one another.  We already have archaeological and epigraphical evidence
readily to hand, and one deliberately ignores that evidence only at the
peril of one's own soul.

Now back to the question: is there such a thing as monotheism in ancient
Israel?  First we need to clarify the word.

By monotheism I mean a philosophical belief that there can be only one true
God.  I do not mean the belief that our God is the only one that matters
for us, and that other gods are ineffective compared to our God.  This is
called henotheism, and is merely an extension of the royal ideology that
has My (i.e., the king's) God being able to conquer all the others.  When
prophets like 2 Isaiah and Jeremiah rant and rave against those who
practice idolatry, their ranting is not against those who devote themselves
to other gods, but against those who make and worship images.  Indeed, in
many cases, the images could just as well be YHWH as anybody else.

Nor do I mean the injunction to worship YHWH alone as a moral duty.  This
is called monolatry, not monotheism.  Thus, when the Decalogue has God say
that "I...am a jealous God," the whole implication is that there *are*
other gods out there and that worship of them jeopardizes my relationship
with YHWH.

Monotheism, rather, is the *philosophical* position that there *can be* and
*must be* only one God.  Monotheism rejects polytheism because polytheism
implies that there is no ultimately meaningful order in the universe (and
hence, no "uni-verse").  Monotheism is the assertion that there is such
ultimate order.

So far as I can see, no OT text approaches that sort of theoretical
character, and therefore I do not find any monotheism in the OT.

Those who do not agree with my definition of the word will doubtless not
accept my conclusion.  In that case I can only point out how important it
is to make sure we agree on definitions before we get into such
discussions!

Cheers!
Loren


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"It is vain and foolish to talk of knowing Greek."
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