Quote Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla View Post
Yes, Yahweh is recorded as having a wife, or perhaps it it is the wife of El, as Yahweh and El were originally distinct entities (Yahweh was the intercessor between Men and El in one version).

I confess to not being especially interested - I don't buy into the "Polytheistic into Monotheistic after Babylon" argument, largely because the current version of the theory states that the Jews abandoned all their Gods but El/Yahweh, which makes little logical sense.

If your Gods have failed you, why keep their King? No, you get rid of all of them and you adopt better Gods, usually the ones that beat your God.

No, I think there was always a strand of monotheism in Judaic theology, albeit a minority one, and it came of age after the Jewish state was virtually destroyed by the Babylonians
Well I'm not too fond of the idea that because of the Babylon exile (can't come up with the correct word for a reason , guess it's just too late) people forsake those gods because of it. I'd assume it was slower evolution and at most points there'll have been multiple ideas/theologies current. Which I think is the rather the rule anyway. I think Yahweh took on some of the characteristics of El and slowly perhaps took his role and replaced them. It's something that happened at least with other Semitic gods, for a variety of reasons. Perhaps even got the wife passed down. Possibly El and Jahwah both had Ashera as a wife at the same time, but at different communities/places/ethnicities/... Things get borrowed, assimilated, discarded,... in religion and during such long periods and less connected communities and all that makes for a complicated and not unilinear evolution. Monolaterism was probably an earlier step to take before monotheism and I'd actually doubt this idea originated from the jews themselves, not only because earlier examples are known, but exactly one is known from Babylon. If messianism wasn't something that came to be much later (hellenistic age), we'd even have a stronger case. Of course there could have been other or perhaps there were multiple external influences for Monolaterism or monotheism. If I only had the time to read up on the subject as it does interest me somewhat how the 'big religions' came to be, or rather how clearly they are a product of their own society, their problems, their external influences and all.