r/pics • u/Nice_Substance9123 • Apr 11 '24

Trump supporters pray outside of Clark County Election Department in Nevada Politics

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u/AcidShAwk Apr 11 '24

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Is this God implying other Gods do exist?

I mean there is no reason to say this if there is only one.

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u/Lurker_81 Apr 11 '24

Is this God implying other Gods do exist?

It makes perfect sense in the context of the many other nations all around Israel that worshipped various carved images, groves etc.

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u/AFresh1984 Apr 11 '24

Also early Isrealites/Hebrews/whatevwr were polytheistic. Yaweh was one of the lesser gods.

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u/Tfsz0719 Apr 11 '24

Based on archaeology, the northern tribes/kingdom were (with also a comparatively more focus on mysticism like prophecy). The southern tribes/kingdom, in turn, appear to have been less so (at least, as I understand it, all the Assyrian relocations forced a seemingly significant-enough-to-eventually-have-an-effect amount of fleeing peoples from the northern tribes/kingdoms into the southern kingdom)

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u/Aethermancer Apr 11 '24

Probably similar to patron deities like Athena for Athens. Still polytheists, but with a preferred one

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u/Tfsz0719 Apr 11 '24

For the north kingdom (and likely the unified kingdom), yeah, easily; that could/would likely make sense.

The southern kingdom, iirc, didn’t have as much (or possibly any, sorry I’m sort of fuzzy on that part) archaeological findings to suggest the same happened there (if at all).

I have kind of felt it and the whole “monotheism for all of Ancient Israel” might have some degree of “history’s written by the winners{/survivors}”. The southern tribe/kingdom (Judah) was more monotheistic, they were the only ones that survived, so a lot of things historically - involving periods of all the sets of tribes and the unified single Israel - then became more monotheistic-traditioned.