As a born-and-bred third-generation atheist, I never made much of an effort to understand theology, which is, I gather, the study of the nature and attributes of god or gods. But no god, nothing to study. No problem. Theology will always be for me "the subject without an object." And therefore when I read Michael Coogan's The Ten Commandments (Yale, 2014), I was surprised by own ignorance. For example, I had taken it for granted that the Bible was a document of monotheism. No god but god, Jahweh. And also that the monotheism of the ancient Hebrews was their gift to civilization (though why to believe in one god was a better idea than to believe in a plethora of godlings will always remain a mystery to me). But Coogan makes it clear that I've gotten it all wrong. The commandment "you shall have no other gods before my face" distinctly postulates the existence of "other gods."
These other gods appear in the Bible in a number of guises and particularly as '"the host of heaven." Some were apparently worshipped even in the Temple itself. It is reported in Kings that the reformer Josiah ordered "all the vessels made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven" be removed from the sacred precincts. The ancient Hebrews were therefore not monotheists, but henotheists (a lovely word new to me), which Coogan defines as "the recognition that while other gods may and do exist, only one is to be worshipped" (14).
So it seems that what has been represented to naive ol' me as a case of moral development, from polytheism to monotheism, is better understood as a kind of religious nationalism or jingoism: our god is better than your god -- so let's everyone pay him exclusive attention. Or perhaps, more vulgarly but just as accurately, in the words of the spiritual leader Hank Williams, move over little god, big god moving in -- have I quoted this exactly right? -- just as Jahweh moved in on El Shaddai and the rest of the crowd. One of my friends says that the essence of organized religion is "my prince of peace can beat up your prince of peace."
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