By Bart D. Ehrman, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Like the pagan cults, Judaism, too, focused on the divine realm, and the power of God that could help people survive, and even thrive, in the present life. Yet, being a Jew was not only about following certain religious practices. It involved being part of a community that shared the same lineage, history and culture; in modern terms, it involved an ethnicity.
Monotheism, Polytheism, and Henotheism
First among Judaism’s distinctive features was monotheism. The most obvious religious feature of ancient Judaism is that unlike virtually everyone else, Jews worshiped one God and not a number of different gods.
Here we need to define two more terms: polytheism and henotheism. Polytheism refers to the worship of many gods. Henotheism, however, is a less familiar term. Henotheism comes from two Greek words that mean one god. It refers to the worship of a single god, while acknowledging that there are indeed other gods that other people might choose to worship.
The Israelites
This will come as a surprise to many people, but throughout most of the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Old Testament, the Israelites for the most part are henotheists. They acknowledge that there are other gods, but they are going to worship only the God of Israel. We find this in the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. One of the Ten Commandments is, “You shall have no other gods before me.”
This presupposes there are other gods, but one is not supposed to prioritize them above Yahweh, the God of Israel.
Monotheism insists that there is in fact only one God, who is alone to be worshiped. All the others are not God. One does not find this very often in the Hebrew Bible. The place we find it most is in the later part of the book of Isaiah, where God will inform the prophet, “I alone am God and there is no other.” That’s monotheism.
Although we do find that in some places in the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Old Testament, but most of the Old Testament assumes that the Israelites were originally henotheist. By the time of Jesus, after the Hebrew Bible was written, many or probably most Jews were monotheist.
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Other Superhuman Beings
So, Jews throughout the world at the time focused on the worship of this one God; this God in Jewish thinking had created the world, and he was completely in control of it. The other gods were not gods at all, or they were just the gods of other people.
Jews did think that there were other super human beings in existence. It’s not that Jews believed that there were just humans and God. There were angels, archangels, other principalities and powers, and cherubim and seraphim. So, there were these other supernatural beings, but at least in standard Judaism, these other beings were not to be worshipped. Some Jews did worship them and got into trouble for it.
Only the one God was to be worshiped, and this obviously made Jews stand out in their environment.
The Covenant
Another thing that made Jews stand out was their view of the covenant. Jews believed the one creator God had made a covenant with them, the Jews, to be distinctively their God so that they would be his chosen people.
The term covenant comes from political discourse. It refers to a kind of peace treaty that was common in the ancient world. One city state would conquer another area and a treaty would be made between the powerful ruler and the people who were now his subjects. The ruler would agree to protect these people from attack in exchange for their exclusive devotion.
The Ritual of Circumcision
The ancient Jewish traditions indicated that God had come up with this kind of agreement with the father of the Jews, Abraham. Abraham was promised to be given countless descendants who would be his people and God would protect them and would give them the promised land as their eternal home.
The sign of this covenant in the Hebrew Bible itself was the ritual of circumcision given to Abraham. Baby boys were to be circumcised, and this distinguished Jews from all others, in the Jewish perspective. Needless to say, this practice made Jews appear to be very strange to many outsiders. But within the Jewish community itself, it was seen to be a mark of distinction, showing that they are set apart from the rest of the world.
Distinctive Yet Similar
And yet, even though Judaism stood out as distinctive within the broader Roman world, it was certainly recognizable as a form of worship, comparable in many ways to the polytheistic cults surrounding it. The cultic activities of Judaism were in many ways broadly similar to those in pagan cults, involving principally practices of prayer and sacrifice.
Just as pagan cults had temples where the gods were known to be present, and where priests were there to perform the sacrifices, so too Judaism had a temple in Jerusalem where sacrifices were to be made, and officially appointed priests who could make them.
So, even though Judaism was highly unusual in some ways, it was not absolutely different from all the other cults.
Common Questions about the Distinctive Features of Judaism
The Jews believed that the one creator God had made a covenant with them, the Jews, to be distinctively their God so that they would be his chosen people.
Throughout most of the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Old Testament, the Israelites for the most part are henotheists. They acknowledge that there are gods, but they are going to worship only the God of Israel. We find this in the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. One of the Ten Commandments is, “You shall have no other gods before me.”
Just as pagan cults had temples where the gods were known to be present, and where priests were there to perform the sacrifices, so too Judaism had a temple in Jerusalem where sacrifices were to be made, and officially appointed priests who could make them.
