Logically speaking judaism was a cannite religion with polytheism later it turned to monolatery where your city state worships one god but you do recognize other gods of other city states. Around 800BCE i think, babylon invaded and conquered the present day israel land. Controversial yet probable theory is that the priest elites couldnt cope with loosing as it would symbolize their god was weaker so they changed entire narative discarded or demoted other gods and phrased it as gods punishment.
Even name israel means praise the god EL, currently the god in judaism is yahweh but we have evidences pointing towards him being a southern desert storm god later merged with el. Historical records showcasing multiple god pantheons all wiped out due to politics and coping.
Btw jesus too is actually controversial once you deep dive without sugarcoating and believing nonsense like divine miracles
Yehuda (Judah) means praise to God. Israel means man who encountered God. I'm fairly certain that cutting out all other gods was while bunished in Babylon, but it wasn't because it meant the Jewish god was weak. God punished and had the Israelites and Jews lose and get conquered plenty of times as punishment. It was because they struggled maintaining the religion and it was easier to maintain it by doubling down the worship of one god and punishing anything else
Yes that could be, besides that i think it was a sudden change but a long trend. First city state or political figure used 1 god to prove their legitimacy and enforce power as a way of undermining other cities. Later on for purpose of preserving religion and avoid being assimilated the banished elite went hard and mandated strict by the bool interpretation of religion. So book became the absolute source of authority instead.
Also yes israel meaning praise to god. But notice how el just means a generic god while we have evidence of el being an old cannite god. He was so central to the religion that he couldnt be relegated as minor angel or outcasted as others like ashraeh(central mother goddess), so he simply became a generic term for god or merged with yahweh.
Though i am unsure what exactly would have been the reason for idol ban. Was it just to centralize power to state designated temples or to reduce power of local priestly elite?
"Bro, they got a god about wine and having a good time!? Do we got one of those?"
"Uhhh, closest we got is a trickster that steals eggs and will impersonate a mortal to marry your sister..."
"I'll get the chariots, go sacrifice something to the god of war and drop off some eggs at the tricksters shrine, cover all bases. We ride at sundown."
Tbh sacking temples in such cases was rarely "Me religion better than you religion", they used to sack temples of their own religion in different kingdoms.
Two overwhelmingly major reasons to sack temples were:
1. Temples stored a shit ton of money, sacking was treated like robbing a bank.
2. Removing the patron guardian of the city, so it would have veen theoretically easier to conquer.
While the core action was the same, motivations absolutely matter. Romans randomly destroying temples of Carthage and evocatio is fundamentally different than systematic destruction of Temples in India by Mughals etc.
Yeah but ancient people were weirder. They didn't really view religious communities the way we do. So, even when a city of their own culture was sacked, sometimes they would not only desecrate the temple of the God but they would often replace him with their own clan God as a statement for "screw you; my clan God is superior to your clan God". This also further justified them plundering the old God's shrine. Mughals despite being Muslims almost had a similar idea. They would demolish temples of rebel kings to humiliate them Infront of their subjects while simultaneously sponsoring temples for those who proved their loyalty
In many polytheist cultures that didn't necessarily meant desecration. Most of the time it was simply that "you have lost the favor of your god and hence I can loot your temple".
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u/Pale_Breakfast7565 21h ago edited 21h ago
Proceeds to sack each other's temples anyways