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Students have acquired competence to interpret key texts of the Old Testament on the development of monotheism from the perspectives of the history of religion as well as theology.

For centuries, the god of Israel was but one of the many deities of the ancient Near East. Only in the seventh century BCE, we can see tendencies towards the official sole veneration of YHWH in Jerusalem, and only at the transition from the Babylonian Exile to the Persian period , in the second half of the sixth century BCE, Judean theologians started to claim that the God of Israel is the only God of the universe. In the ancient world, this idea must have appeared absurd. Yet, the discovery of monotheism was extremely consequential: neither Judaism, nor Christianity, nor Islam would have emerged without it. This course introduces to the historical development of monotheism along selected text of the Old Testament and in the context of the imperial theologies of the ancient Near East. 

lecture

oral exam

Markl, Dominik, „Das babylonische Exil als Geburtstrauma des Monotheismus“, in: Dorothea Erbele-Küster, Nikolett Móricz und Manfred Oeming (Hg.), „Gewaltig wie das Meer ist dein Zusammenbruch“ (Klgl 2,13). Theologische, psychologische und literarische Zugänge der Traumaforschung (Hermeneutische Untersuchungen zur Theologie 89), Tübingen 2022, 65–97.

Römer, Thomas, Die Erfindung Gottes. Eine Reise zu den Quellen des Monotheismus, Darmstadt 2018. 

Smith, Mark S., The Origins of Biblical Monotheism. Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts, New York 2003.

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