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Monotheism in History

Spyder Todd 2008

00:35 / 04.09.03

Ok, a warning: this is not a religious debate. And I'll complain if it starts becoming one. I need a little help on a research project of mine, and I was hoping you brilliant people could help. I need to know the origins of monotheism. Who thought of it? Where did it originate (I think it's Israel, but I could be wrong)? So that's it. A history question is all right now I guess.

16:42 / 04.09.03

Well, Akenaton (or Akhenaten, or what have you) is usually given credit for introducing the concept, focusing worship on the sun disk Aton as the source of all life. Whether this decision was based on personal piety or his desire to get political power from the priestly class is still under question.

One author that might be helpful is Karen Armstrong. I've read The Battle for God, about extremism in Protestant Christianity, Judaism, and Shia and Sunni Islam. She is able to explain the more arcane bits of theology in a very clear and understandable way. A History of God, also by Armstrong, seems to be more focused on the past 4 millenia rather than current events; I haven't read it.

01:09 / 05.09.03

Akenaton is probably the very first, although that revolution failed pretty spectacularly. The Hebrews are generally credited with introducing the first successful monotheistic religion. Rosemary Radford Ruether (in 'Sexism & Godtalk') gives a quick-and-dirty history of how nomadic patriarchal monotheism arrived on the religious scene:

"It is possible that the social origins of male monotheism lie in nomadic herding societies." [such as the Hebrews wandering the in desert] "These cultures... tended to image God as the Sky-Father. Nomadic religions were characterized by exclusivism and an aggressive, hostile relationship to the agricultural people of the land and their religions" (53).

If you were a nomadic desert people, you couldn't form an attachment to the land, as agricultural societies did... but the sky would be your constant companion, and rain a miraculous source of sustenance. A nomadic tribe would also depend on the prowess of hunters to provide food, since you couldn't grow it yourself -- a more violent way of life than that of settled, agricultural people.

How this all contributes to an ideology of ONE God I'm not entirely sure, but that's where it all started. The Hebrews conquered the Canaanites, "thou shalt have no other gods before me," and voila! Instant monotheistic religion.

Spyder Todd 2008

15:04 / 05.09.03

Thanks peoples. Couple questions: how does Abraham fit into this? Is he just a 'fictional' character or something else? And where would I find more information on this Akenaton?

19:26 / 05.09.03

Abraham is a Genesis character, and everything in Genesis was written after the Hebrews fled Egypt. (And all of that was revised multiple times by various parties throughout the B.C. era.) I believe the consensus among historically critical theologians is that Abraham would have been invented/remembered by the post-escape Hebrews, just as they invented/remembered the Creation story, the Flood, and Joseph and his Technicolor Dreamcoat.

So if you're going according to the Biblical narrative, yes, Abraham would be credited as the first monotheist. If you're going according to history, the Hebrews were the first successful monotheists, and they likely created the story of Abraham to give themselves a spiritual forefather (because what patriarchal religion would be complete without a patriarch?). And, as I'm sure you know, the big Three religions all sprang from Hebrew tradition, so they share that common Abrahamic myth.

Akenaton was the father of King Tut, I think (can anyone else back me up)? Check out any Egyptian history sources you can find, and I'm sure he'll be mentioned. He basically threw the Egyptian pantheon out with the bathwater and set up Aton-Ra (the sun god) as the one and only True God. The Egyptians humored him for a while, but after his death, they jettisoned his theories and went back to their old gods. He may have even been murdered... I'm not too up on my Egyptian history, sadly. But pick up any Egyptian history book and you should be able to find more on him.

Spyder Todd 2008

12:51 / 10.09.03

Hey, thanks. Any more? (this is me getting this back to the top)

14:52 / 10.09.03

You might find something if you snoop into Vedic Hinduism and concepts of the Brahman or Oversoul.

I think that *might* predate the Egyptians, and is a *kind* of monotheism that just got mislabeled by Europeans, who viewed the savage Indians as polytheist pagans from the get-go.

17:26 / 10.09.03

Well, if we're going that direction, you could also possibly consider early matriarchal religions (we're talking pre-written language here, so there's not a lot of concrete proof) as a form of monotheism... Mother Earth as the source of all life, etc. In Minoan society she got a consort (and thus slid into semi-polytheism), but the theory seems to be that before that there was one goddess/mother life-force.

For more info along these lines, check out 'The Once and Future Goddess,' by Elinor Gadon, 'When God Was a Woman,' by Merlin Stone, and/or 'In the Wake of the Goddesses' by Tikva Simone Frymer-Kensky.

Grand Panjandrum of the Pointless

19:49 / 10.09.03

Info on Akhenaten or Akhenaton. Tutankhamun was definitely one of the sons of Akhenaten- his name was originally Tut-ankh-aten ( Image-living- of the sun disk (Aten)), which he changed to Tutankhamun (living image of Amun) when the old religion was restored after his father's death
As elithe deuro says, Akhenaten shook up Egypt quite severely. He moved the Pharonic capital to a new city at Tell-el-Amarna.- another name for the Akhenaten period is 'Amarna Period'. Art produced at Amarna violated most of the traditional conventions of Egyptian culture- and is mostly v.ugly, with people who have odd shaped heads and look slightly like aliens. It did manage to produce the Nefertiti bust tho' (Nefertiti being Akhenaten's wife) This is in the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, and is beautiful.
There was a book written linking Akhenaten and Moses some years back- it was in my local library. Unhelpfully enough, I can't remember who wrote it or what it was called (dammit). But it should be easy enough to find.

Grand Panjandrum of the Pointless

20:41 / 10.09.03

Nefertiti looking pretty