No Other Gods: Emergent Monotheism in Israel

by Robert Karl Gnuse

This is the first full-scale assessment of the theological, social and ideational implications of our new understandings of ancient Israel's social and religious development. Scholars now stress the gradual emergence of Israel out of the culture of ancient Palestine and the surrounding ancient Near East rather than contrast Israel with the ancient world. Our new paradigms stress the ongoing and unfinished nature of the monotheistic 'revolution', which is indeed still in process today. Gnuse takes a further bold step in setting the emergence of monotheism in a wider intellectual context: he argues brilliantly that the interpretation of Israel's development as both an evolutionary and revolutionary process corresponds to categories of contemporary evolutionary thought in the biological and palaeontological sciences (Punctuated Equilibrium).

Genres: Religion

392 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1993

Reviews

[Rachael · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book explores both the emergence of monotheism in ancient Israel and offers a critique of other theories which have been proposed about that topic. Gnuse offers a very exhaustive listing of the scholarship in the area, outlining all the major theories, and potential drawbacks. Some areas of contention he discusses are whether or not the coming of monotheism was early (Iron Age) or post exilic , whether Asherah was viewed as Yahweh's wife, whether the coming of monotheism was a revolution or the result of a major sudden breakthrough and whether or not the Israelites kept themselves distinct from their Canaanite neighbors or were, effectually, Canaanites themselves. Gnuse argues that monotheism emerged out of a natural mixing of highland and lowland Canaanites interacting with foreigners and their gods and concretized in the post-exilic era, complete with a devil about 200 BC.

All of this was interesting. Where he lost me is his insistence on using biological evolution as some kind of paradigm by which to compare the 'evolution' of the ideas of monotheism. I don't think he gains anything at all by this comparison and his ideas of biological evolution seem a bit confused. He clearly thinks that monotheism is overall superior, more sophisticated, encouraging more ethical thought etc., whereas biological evolution has no such valuation or teleology. Parts of his monograph became excessively repetitive and particularly boring were some of his criticisms of the larger paradigms scholars often use to understand what happened in Israel, such as Eliade's.

Overall it was useful and I learned a lot, but the length of the book could have easily been lessened by a third.

[Alicia Vasseli · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing book that really helped me with my own faith. If you struggle with the implications of a compiled and evolved judeo Christian tradition, you should read this. It was about how the monotheism of the Israelites was a natural progression of philosophical thought throughout history and how those ideas have shaped our current practice of faith, and how we still today can shape our own understanding of our faith.