One God?

To understand it from a modern day fundamentalist evangelical, you know the one that thinks you should learn about his religious biases in public schools, there is only one god.

Bear with me here it starts getting confusing real fast. So there’s one god but this god is three gods, WHAT? Yeah three. Count’em God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. You can’t make this shit up… well I guess you can because they made this shit up.

But let’s tackle that whole can o’ nonsense in a later lesson. In this lesson I’d like to cover how the “chosen people” were a mostly polytheistic bunch of hillbillies up to the time of Josiah and even then it took quite a browbeating by the temple elite to get them to whittle their worshiping down to just the one god.

The archeological record is unambiguous in the number of finds showing the veneration of any number of additional gods in the archeological digs of the Israelites in the Levant. To get a sample of those finding click the link below.

Archeological record

The archaeological evidence suggests that ancient Israelite religion was not strictly monotheistic in its early stages. Several key findings indicate the worship of multiple deities, including Yahweh alongside Asherah and other gods.

1. Kuntillet Ajrud (8th Century BCE)

Findings: A collection of inscriptions and drawings on pottery found in the Sinai Peninsula at Kuntillet Ajrud.
Significance: The inscriptions include the phrase “Yahweh and his Asherah,” suggesting that Yahweh was worshiped alongside a consort, Asherah, a Canaanite goddess.
Reference: Meshel, Ze’ev. Kuntillet ʿAjrud: An Israelite Religious Center in Northern Sinai. Israel Exploration Society, 2012.

2. Khirbet el-Qom (8th Century BCE)

Findings: Another inscription mentioning “Yahweh and his Asherah” was found on a tomb at Khirbet el-Qom, west of Hebron.
Significance: Supports the idea that Asherah was considered a divine companion to Yahweh by some ancient Israelites.
Reference: Dever, William G. Did God Have a Wife? Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel. Eerdmans, 2005.

3. The Elephantine Papyri (5th Century BCE)

Findings: Jewish military colony records from Elephantine (Egypt) mention a temple to Yahweh, but also reference other gods like Anat-Yahu (a fusion of the Canaanite goddess Anat with Yahweh).
Significance: Indicates that Jewish communities outside Israel continued polytheistic worship.
Reference: Porten, Bezalel. Archives from Elephantine: The Life of an Ancient Jewish Military Colony. University of California Press, 1968.

4. Terracotta Figurines and Asherah Worship

Findings: Hundreds of female figurines have been found in Israelite homes, believed to represent Asherah or fertility goddesses.
Significance: Their widespread presence suggests that goddess worship persisted among Israelites despite official monotheistic reforms.
Reference: Kletter, Raz. The Judean Pillar-Figurines and the Archaeology of Asherah. British Archaeological Reports, 1996.

5. Samaria Ostraca (8th Century BCE)

Findings: Inscribed potsherds from Samaria record names incorporating theophoric elements (Baal, El, etc.), indicating devotion to multiple deities.
Significance: Shows the continuation of Canaanite polytheistic influences in Israelite society.
Reference: Cross, Frank Moore. Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic. Harvard University Press, 1973.

Conclusion

These archaeological finds strongly suggest that early Israelite religion was henotheistic or polytheistic before the emergence of strict monotheism, which became dominant during and after the Babylonian exile.

That eventually Jewish and by fiat Christians coalesced to one god (or three? LOL) is the current state we find ourselves in now. We’ll be covering this in future lessons but now you know there was an evolution of belief. Evolution? isn’t that one of those things that the Fundamentalist Evangelicals don’t believe in? Yet somehow it was imperative for the creation of their belief system.