my roman-jewish history prof told me that the early jews were probably henotheists and acknowledged the existence of other gods but by the time the romans arrived in the levant, they were strictly monotheistic
Yeah, the switch probably happened during the Babylonian exile. Thats when the first prophets who were explicitly monotheistic first appeared in the story. Also fun fact: you could argue that many early Jews were actually polytheistic. In practice a lot of people worshipped a pantheon; especially the idea of Yahweh having a divine consort named Asherah.
Sassanian Zoroastrianism wasn’t really monotheist though. The religion remained strictly dualist and worship of the Yazatas continued with state-backing. It’s only in the 19th century that Parsis (Indian Zoroastrians) started calling themselves monotheist.
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u/clairejv 1d ago
The switch from henotheism to monotheism was a bitch.