God is probably more than three?

[Wick Stick]

After the exile in Babylon, where Jews nurtured their religion from Zoroastrianism, Jews returned to Jerusalem with a firm monotheistic faith.
Have you wondered why the cult to other competing gods was not a problem anymore in the time of Jesus?
We find plenty of warnings and lamentations in the Old Testament due to the recurrent problem of idolatry, right?

Then, what had changed and why?

What changed was that the most of priests and Levites chose not to return to Israel. Turns out the ones leading them into the worship of various gods... were the priests.

 

[Pancho Frijoles]

What changed was that the most of priests and Levites chose not to return to Israel. Turns out the ones leading them into the worship of various gods... were the priests.

Why the new priests, those who served at the time of Jesus, didn't lead the people to various gods, as the old ones?
Idolatry had a chance (around 400 years of a chance) for a robust comeback in Israel... but it just didn't reappear.

Additionally, the religious environment had been enriched with new elements: the imminent coming of a Messiah, the belief in a Final Judgement, resurrection. What had happened?

 

[Wick Stick]

Why the new priests, those who served at the time of Jesus, didn't lead the people to various gods, as the old ones?

They tried.

The Sadducees (Zadokites if you prefer) were apostate, disbelieving in angels and the resurrection notably, but also largely beholden to foreign powers.

But they had lost the people's trust.

The Essenes wrote a lot about "wicked priests" and even went so far as to disavow temple worship and distance themselves from the centers of worship in the literal sense.

The priests were not better, or notably different. Their god was always money, and that continued.

Idolatry had a chance (around 400 years of a chance) for a robust comeback in Israel... but it just didn't reappear.

Not just Israel. It fell out of fashion throughout the entire Middle East.

More than that, really. All the peoples largely ditched their systems of nature gods - of land, skies, storms, etc - and created new pantheons of gods that were more based in the abstract - of love, war, judgment and wisdom. Later those abstract gods would become attributes of a single God - emanations or manifestations. Gnosticism bridges the gap between polytheism and monotheism.

Additionally, the religious environment had been enriched with new elements: the imminent coming of a Messiah, the belief in a Final Judgement, resurrection. What had happened?

The idea of a Messiah is all across the Old Testament. Perhaps not in the terms that Christians think of, though - they weren't looking to be saved from anything so ethereal as sins. They were looking for a concrete, physical, political leader to throw off foreign rule and establish an earthly kingdom.

Likewise, the idea of God as Judge or Avenger isn't a new concept. I think a good case could be made that jurisprudence is the central idea of Judaism.

Resurrection I'll give you. I would say that's more a case of the Jews mis-understanding their own Scriptures. With the death of the Hebrew language, the people came to rely on it's translations. And where the Hebrew text had allowed for ambiguity and differing opinions, translation forced most passages into a single interpretation.

 

[Pancho Frijoles]

They tried.
The Sadducees (Zadokites if you prefer) were apostate, disbelieving in angels and the resurrection notably, but also largely beholden to foreign powers.
But they had lost the people's trust.
The Essenes wrote a lot about "wicked priests" and even went so far as to disavow temple worship and distance themselves from the centers of worship in the literal sense.
The priests were not better, or notably different. Their god was always money, and that continued.

Sadducees had many sins and vices, but they were strict monotheists. They could be accused of many things, but not of leading Israel towards religious idols (Certainly, money is an idol, but this goes across religions and times, right? we're not taking about that form of idolatry in this moment).

So the question remains: why were the priests so strictly monotheist by the time of Jesus?

You mention that polytheism had fell out of fashion in the Middle East. I agree.... and interestingly, not in the West (Greece, Rome).
So, why was that?
You mention that people have turned to a more abstract idea of God or gods. Why was that?

Ahura Mazda was the first Universal (not national) God to be conceived in the abstract. He had no shape. Fire was used as a symbol of Ahura Mazda, precisely because "He" had no shape. We could feel its vivifying effects (light and heat), but not grasp it. Later on, Jesus and the apostles also used the metaphor of the fire to represent the Holy Spirit from God.

 

[Wick Stick]

Sadducees had many sins and vices, but they were strict monotheists. They could be accused of many things, but not of leading Israel towards religious idols (Certainly, money is an idol, but this goes across religions and times, right? we're not taking about that form of idolatry in this moment).

So the question remains: why were the priests so strictly monotheist by the time of Jesus?

I don't think the question remains. These priests, like their forebearers, didn't really believe in anything other than lining their pockets. Whatever they may have professed is largely irrelevant - it's just whatever they thought their marks wanted to hear.

You mention that polytheism had fell out of fashion in the Middle East. I agree.... and interestingly, not in the West (Greece, Rome).
So, why was that? You mention that people have turned to a more abstract idea of God or gods. Why was that?

The two groups of gods had different literary purposes.

The elder gods (titans, as it were) were nature-centric because their original purpose was to explain natural phenomena. Why does it rain in Spring, and where did the world come from?

The latter pantheon was abstract because its purpose was word-smithing. There was a crisis of language as the Middle East shifted from using runic language (cuneiform) to phonetic language. New words were needed for abstract ideas. Myths were created around gods who epitomized ideas, and then the names of those gods were added to the vernacular to represent those ideas in conversation. What is wisdom, or desire?

Ahura Mazda was the first Universal (not national) God to be conceived in the abstract. He had no shape. Fire was used as a symbol of Ahura Mazda, precisely because "He" had no shape. We could feel its vivifying effects (light and heat), but not grasp it. Later on, Jesus and the apostles also used the metaphor of the fire to represent the Holy Spirit from God.

So your contention here is that monotheism sprung from the seed of Zoroastrianism, which was then propagated across the Middle East, presumably with the spread of the Persian empire? That probably happened in some degree, but I find it hard to think that this is a single-source phenomena.

I also find an observable evolution of religion from polytheism to monotheism. The transition seems to come through wisdom traditions. I called them gnostic earlier, but they're more like proto-gnostic. Essentially, the latter gods came to be thought of as emanations or aspects of a single higher God.

And there are instances of this thinking that pre-date the Persian Empire. For instance, we find that Ninevah (in Assyria) had a period of monotheism in the 8th century BC. That's 250 years before Cyrus would have theoretically brought that thinking to the region.

Even in the Bible, we have Solomon (c. 1000 BC) anthropomorphizing Wisdom mere verses removed from declaring a single Lord. For Solomon, Fear and Wisdom were emanations of the one God - a position in-between gross polytheism and strict monotheism.

Anyhow, this got long. If you read all this, thank you for your indulgence.

 

[Pancho Frijoles]

These priests, like their forebearers, didn't really believe in anything other than lining their pockets. Whatever they may have professed is largely irrelevant

Irrelevant for what matters the most, salvation. You’re right.
I think, however, that this may be relevant for the topic of monotheism.

So your contention here is that monotheism sprung from the seed of Zoroastrianism, which was then propagated across the Middle East, presumably with the spread of the Persian empire? That probably happened in some degree, but I find it hard to think that this is a single-source phenomena.

I agree. I dont claim that Israelites got monotheism from Zoroastrians.
I do think, though, that it helped Israel’s monotheism to win the battle over competing polytheism.
It was instrumental in the evolution (not in the origin) of their faith.

Anyhow, this got long. If you read all this, thank you for your indulgence.

Yours was a very interesting post, well written and thought. I thank you for that, Wick.