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Quote by: ZNFYRH  Aud
If I might be permitted to over-simplify, it almost seems like there is a "missing link" between the transition from polytheism to monotheism.
From my best understanding of reading multiple sources over the past few hours, it almost seems as though monotheism stemmed from polytheistic religions allowing focus on one specific god in their faith.
This wasn't uncommon, as villages in specific geographic areas found that one particular god represented aspects of the environment that they held important.
There tends to be a shift of some kind towards the idea of focusing worship on just that one god to centralizing worship for that one God.
I'm still looking into when and where that shift occurred. |
I agree with your analysis. Monotheism didn't come from nowhere, and in some cases, there seems to be a fine line between mono and polytheism.
Take modern Christianity for example. Mono or poly? It seems as if it could be both, considering worship towards the holy trinity, the virgin mary, other deities such as angels and saints. But this religion does hold to the ultimate worship and stress of one God.
It seems like a lot of monotheistic religions share this ambiguity, and so definately could stem from earlier polytheistic religions stressing more worship into one deity, such as is found in both Sumer and many other religions around that time.
I would definately be interested if you found at which point polytheism began to blend with monotheism, as this is what I myself have been looking for.