Despite, or perhaps because of, the vast scholarship on the subject of biblical monotheism there are any number of disagreements over, and conceptions of, the religion of the Israelites.¹ As with Zoroastrianism, it is reasonable to begin with the information we do have: Judaism as a modern religion which has long been the paradigm of monotheism, alongside evidence of an antecedent religion which was not identical. Mark S. Smith pragmatically warns against indulging “...claims of ‘practical monotheism,’ ‘de facto monotheism,’ ‘virtual monotheism,’ or even ‘monolatry’ [which] overlook the biblical evidence to the contrary, retrojecting onto ‘biblical Israel’ a singularity of divinity that the Bible itself does not claim for ancient Israel.”² Smith's concern is valid given the history of biblical scholarship and it is not the purpose of this study to seek evidence in favor of the ‘purity’ of monotheism from the earliest roots of this religion. Instead, this work is aimed at deconstructing inappropriately strict categories of numeric mono- and polytheism, disentangling worldviews from divine head-counts, and attempting to understand the logical roots of such historically unordinary religions.³ It is within this framework that we will examine the potential relationship between Jewish monotheism and the religion of the Israelites.

Of the things which can be concretely stated about the religion of the Israelites, the significance of the deity Yahweh is key.⁴ In order to understand the magnitude of this significance in the religion, we must note, as Smith writes:

In reconstructing the history of Israelite religion, it is important to neither overemphasize the importance of deities other than Yahweh nor diminish their significance. On the one hand, it would appear that each stage of Israelite religion knew relatively few deities....On the other hand, the Israelite evidence should be neither minimized nor ignored. The data indicates a significant range of religious practice within ancient Israel.⁵

Smith's comments suggest a middle path which considers that the deity who would become the singular divinity (Yahweh), and other deities, are contextualized within the religion. For our purposes it is important to understand how, like the religion of the Indo-Iranians, the worship of multiple deities does not preclude a monotheistic worldview which could be refined into the sort of monotheistic religious system we can recognize today.⁶ Assmann identifies a distinction between interpretations of biblical monotheism: 'exclusivity of belonging' and 'exclusivity of existence'.⁷ It is the former which was particularly emphasized in the Israelite religion (and which may lead to the latter) as exemplified by the development of the idea of a covenantal relationship between the deity and the people. It is within an examination of this specifically concept of the ‘Covenant’ that we can begin to understand the relationship between Israelite religion and Judaism.

Assmann emphasizes the significance of 'exclusivity of belonging' and suggests that the presence of other deities does not detract from the significance of Yahweh – rather their existence bolsters the importance of this belonging.⁸ In short order he draws a parallel between the ideas of 'one God' and 'chosen people':

Paradoxically, the implied existence of other gods is of fundamental importance to the basic idea of biblical monotheism. The opposition of 'God' and 'gods' reflects the opposition of Israel and the nations (goyim, or gentiles), and the difference of uniqueness that sets 'God' apart from the 'gods' reflects the difference of being among the chosen or choseness and of belonging within the b’rît ('covenant') that sets Israel apart from the nations. In the same sense that the idea of the chosen people presupposes the existence of other peoples, the idea of the 'one God' (YHWH aechad) presupposes the existence of other gods.⁹

Assman suggests that the oppositional position of the Israelite deity in relation to other deities does not organically detract from the significance of Yahweh. It is possible that Assmann's implication is accurate and the 'exclusivity of belonging' informed the development of the concept of 'exclusivity of existence' which, while giving up the acknowledgment of other deities retained the conception of a 'chosen people' in the face of political opposition. Smith contextualizes this sort of henotheistic relationship within variations of worship:

As the interaction of Baal worship and Yahwistic cult attests, Yahwism could vary from coexistence or identification with other deities to outright rejection of them. In this case, polytheistic Yahwism is indicated. The assimilation of El and the asherah symbol into the cult of Yahweh points to Yahwism's Canaanite heritage. At some early point, Israel perhaps knew a stage of ditheism in addition to its devotion to Yahweh.¹⁰

This is important to our understanding of the development of the sense of 'exclusivity of belonging' not as a religious development born of a polytheistic system like others in the Near East, but instead as natural product of a monotheistic worldview (within a proto-monotheistic religious structure) from which an idea such as the Covenant¹¹ might logically emerge.

The use of terms such as 'natural product' and 'logically emerge' might appear to some as ignorant of the propagandistic push toward the strict monotheism that is associated with post-exilic Judaism.¹² Our inquiry into 'whence' came such a type of religion must address not merely the clear connections between the recognizably monotheistic Zoroastrianism and Judaism and their respective proto-monotheistic antecedents, but also the processes by which such change could have occurred. It is clear from the presence of aspects of ancient Iranian religion in Zoroastrianism that such roots are strong enough to suppose an organic development from the former to the latter. This could plausibly be considered a refinement of a monotheistic worldview from within proto-monotheistic system, rather than the throwing off of an established polytheistic structure. But what of the Israelites? Was the transition into Jewish monotheism the product of a revolution which overthrew an established polytheistic religion (which up to that point had been integral to the identity of a people)? In order to answer these questions, we must examine the rhetorical movement which could be argued to have driven such a revolution.

One of the issues that arises in attempting to address the movement from the Israelite religion to something resembling Judaism as understood today is the question of timing. Smith observes that many scholars mark the Exile of the Judean elite to Babylon as an appropriate date for this shift, for it accompanied and catalyzed various social and cultural changes thus making logical an assumption that such religious innovation would follow as well.¹³ Smith quotes biblical historian Baruch Halpern regarding this date:

B. Halpern rightly suggests that it is unlikely that Second Isaiah was an innovator of monotheistic discourse: 'Had Second Isaiah, Cyrus’ Judahite spin-doctor, not had Jeremiah’s (and Deuteronomy’s) voice crying on his own arrival from the steppe, his explicit monotheistic claims would have fallen on deaf ears, and probably set them ringing to boot.' Monotheistic rhetoric probably emerged shortly before the exile.¹⁴

While Smith's conclusion to Halpern's comments does not minimize the power of an event such as the conquest of Judah by the Babylonians to catalyze religious change it does suggest that the shift within the Israelite religion did not begin as a result of the Exile. It is also worth noting that while there is little doubt that the Exile and Babylonian period probably had a strong effect on the development of early Judaism, it is difficult to conceive of that effect as facilitating radical change away from the established religion of the Israelites. Given the catastrophic loss, it is more reasonable to assume that, in seeking the grounding of normalcy, familiarity, and identity which is natural in the grief process¹⁵ Israelites in exile would be more likely to embrace those elements of their religion that had long been integral to their religious culture and social identification.¹⁶ Biblical scholar Carleen Mandolfo identifies this effect as underlying the utilization of the prophetic marriage metaphor in the Hebrew Bible: “...the marriage metaphor tapped into Israelite men’s deepest anxieties. Concomitantly, it spoke to a need to establish a stable national identity...It makes sense that the social chaos Judah was experiencing prior to 587 B.C.E. would result in a metaphor that reflects the need to control chaos on the national level by appealing to the personal.”¹⁷ This idea is important to identifying the motivation for why Israelites in exile might embrace a shift to Jewish monotheism: even a modest understanding of human modes of grieving suggests support for a notion that the Israelites faced with such loss would not be moving away from the familiar, but toward it.