On Yaweh and Judaism

"Reading about the transition from local polytheistic culture to Judaism has me wondering if records didn't survive of Greek and Egyptian religions, what it would be like to have modern monotheistic traditions based on any of the various Greek or Egyptian gods? Yahweh used to be just one member of a pantheon."


"This is such a weird subject. It seems to me like they didn't really become so monotheistic (so easily).

There's references to Yaweh being a dragon floating around in many theories, and the whole story of Yaweh v Leviathan really sounds more to me, like power usurping within heaven, that Yaweh defeating Leviathan made it his kingdom, as the titans overthrew the powers, and the Gods overthrew the titans; a very popular part of semi-monotheism(?) back that long ago- basically every religion from back then, had a story about the main power being overcome by it's "child" (so to speak). But Yaweh is more benevolent than the other "dragon gods" (the story feels more like Prometheus than some others), so the reason that this transition is defining a new religion, is because your culture only transitions Gods, when the old Gods are no longer convenient. If the world is a lot more violent and scary, you don't blame it on the culture of humanity, you blame it on the Gods turning their back on you, so you elect a new God to over-throw it, and in exchange for your worship, he'll keep you safer, make you stronger, give you more wisdom...

There were a lot of kind of... sectoral groups in ancient religions; where say, in Greek mythos, they will acknowledge and respect all the Gods, but there may be just one of those Gods whom they believe is at the pinnacle of their local culture. Groups who are devoted TO Athena, TO Zeus, TO Ares, etc. So it was, to a degree, something 'kind of' monotheistic. (So it goes to say, that with time and sectoral cultivation, other ancient polytheistic religions could have produced a monotheistic religion.)

It doesn't make any sense for the transition between poly and monotheism to be so sharp, or else it would have occurred in a lot more places than to just... this one culture (and several thousand years later, a few others). I've even felt swept by the nature of a dragon of order defeating a dragon of chaos, how it 'creates', and how that parallels a lot of what was coming out of Asian culture at the time, too. Not to mention Sumerian culture! It's something developed over long periods of time by gradual, deeper cultural cultivation and separation.

Yaweh's transition is from the usurper in the name of good, to dragon slayer, to God of the people, is just a matter of time, not unlike the evolutionary path of many other religious views."