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A national god is a guardian deity whose special concern is the safety and well-being of an ethnic group ( nation ), and of that group's leaders. This is contrasted with other guardian figures such as family gods responsible for the well-being of individual clans or professions, or personal gods who are responsible for the well-being of individuals.
In antiquity (and to some extent continuing today), religion was a characteristic of regional culture, together with language, customs, traditions, etc. Many of these ethnic religions included national god(s) in their pantheons, such as
In antiquity, each ethnic group ( nation ) had its own pantheon, which may or may not have overlapped with that of neighbouring groups. Many of these religions had guardian figures, which then sometimes included national gods, who were considered responsible for the safety and well-being of the nation and of its people, with a special concern for the nation's ruler and guardian. These national gods stood alongside the personal gods (that is, the patron gods who took a special interest in an individual's personal well-being). Additionally, there were the family gods associated with the care of a clan or profession, as well as gods associated with specific situations or the protection thereof (fertility, health, war, contracts and so on).
This perception of divinity was common in the ancient world. Deities were often geographically localized by association to their main cult centers, and in the Ancient Near East were often tutelary deities of their respective city-states. Many of the individual ethnic groups also considered itself the progeny of its national gods. For example, in the region that is now Yemen, the Sabaeans, the Minaeans and the Himyar each perceived themselves to be the children of respectively Almaqah, Wadd and Shamash. [15] Similarly, in Canaan, Milcom held that role for the Ammonites, while Chemosh did so for the Moab.
Yahweh's role as god of the Kingdom of Judah and the Kingdom of Israel is a key reason for that figure's adoption as the monist figure by the Yahweh-only movement of the 7th-century BC.[ citation needed ] Yahweh's subsequent exaltation as a supreme figure occurred not because national gods were necessarily heads of their pantheons (this was certainly not the case for the national gods of the peoples surrounding Israel), [16] but as a reaction to the changing political landscape, in which other national gods had previously become exalted in that fashion. [17] Because peoples were perceived to effectively worship the same gods, merely by different names (Smith (2008) [17] terms this "translatability"), Yahweh's function as a national god had previously automatically equated him with other national gods. Thus, with the rise of the multi-cultural Assyrian Empire in the 10th century BC, the concomitant rise of the Assyrian's nation god Assur to inter-cultural prominence influenced how national gods were generally perceived. Moreover, the political unification of the fractured nation-states under a single supreme head of state encouraged the idea of a multi-national "one-god" worldview as well. [17] By the 7th-century BC however, Assyria was in decline and the smaller nation-states began to reassert their independence. In this context, the development of a "one-god" worldview in 7th century BC Kingdom of Judah can be perceived as a response to the diminishing claims to cultural hegemony of the Assyrian "one-god" ideology of the time. [17] The process is evident in some parts of the Torah which predate the 6th century BC and thus preserve vestiges of the theology centered on a national god during the 10th-century BC monarchic period. [18] "The OT [= Old Testament ] is still conscious of the fact that Yhwh, the national god of Israel, originally was one of the gods in the council of El." (Deut 32:8-9*) [16]
In search of a national culture and identity away from the Catholic religion imposed by Spain during its colonisation of the Philippines, those who instigated the Philippine Revolution proposed to revive indigenous Philippine folk religions and make them the national religion of the entire country. The Katipunan opposed the religious teachings of the Spanish friars, saying that they "obscured rather than explained religious truths." After the revival of the Katipunan during the Spanish–American War, an idealized form of the folk religions was proposed by some, with the worship of God under the ancient name Bathala , which applies to all supreme deities under the many ethnic pantheons across the country. However, the re-vitalization process of the indigenous faiths of the Philippines did not progress further as the Filipino forces were defeated by the Americans in 1902, which led to the second Christian colonization of the archipelago. [19]
Christian missionaries have repeatedly re-interpreted national gods in terms of the Christian God. This fact is reflected in the names of God in various languages of Christianized peoples, such as Shangdi or Shen among Chinese Christians, Ngai among a number of tribes of Kenya, etc.
In a modern context, the term of a "national god" addresses the emergence of national churches within Christianity. [ citation needed ] This tendency of "nationalizing" the Christian God, especially in the context of national churches sanctioning warfare against other Christian nations during World War I, was denounced as heretical by Karl Barth. [20]
Carl Jung in his essay Wotan (1936) identifies the Germanic god of the storm (leader of the Wild Hunt), Wotan, as the national god of the German people, and warns of the rise of German nationalism and ultimately the then-impending catastrophe of Nazism and World War II in terms of the re-awakening of this god:
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One of the primary ancient Vedic deities in Hinduism is Indra. He is the king of Svarga (Heaven) and the Devas (gods). He is associated with lightning, thunder, storms, rains, river flows and war. Indra's mythology and powers are similar to other Indo-European deities such as Jupiter, Perun, Perkūnas, Zalmoxis, Taranis, Zeus, and Thor, suggesting a common origin in Proto-Indo-European mythology. Starting in the late late 19th century, Bharat Mata, a divine personification of India (Bharat), came into existence after the Indian Rebellion of 1857 against the British and is seen as the goddess of India and the Indian people by Hindus, Jains, and some Buddhist.
The history of ancient Israel and Judah begins in the Southern Levant region of Western Asia during the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. "Israel" as a people or tribal confederation appears for the first time in the Merneptah Stele, an inscription from ancient Egypt that dates to about 1208 BCE, with the people group possibly being older. According to modern archaeology, ancient Israelite culture developed as an outgrowth from the Semitic Canaanites. Two related Israelite polities known as the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) and the Kingdom of Judah had emerged in the region by Iron Age II.
Henotheism is the worship of a primary god or gods that does not deny the existence or possible existence of other deities. Friedrich Schelling (1775–1854) coined the word, and Friedrich Welcker (1784–1868) used it to depict primitive monotheism among ancient Greeks.
Yahweh was an ancient Levantine deity, and national god of the Israelite kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Though no consensus exists regarding the deity's origins, scholars generally contend that Yahweh emerged as a "divine warrior" associated first with Seir, Edom, Paran and Teman, and later with Canaan. The origins of his worship reach at least to the early Iron Age, and likely to the Late Bronze Age, if not somewhat earlier.
Mesopotamian religion was the original religious beliefs and practices of the civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia, particularly Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia between circa 6000 BC and 400 AD. The religious development of Mesopotamia and Mesopotamian culture in general, especially in the south, were not particularly influenced by the movements of the various peoples into and throughout the area. Rather, Mesopotamian religion was a consistent and coherent tradition, which adapted to the internal needs of its adherents over millennia of development.
Hadad, Haddad, Adad, or Iškur (Sumerian) was the storm and rain god in the Canaanite and ancient Mesopotamian religions. He was attested in Ebla as "Hadda" in c. 2500 BCE. From the Levant, Hadad was introduced to Mesopotamia by the Amorites, where he became known as the Akkadian (Assyrian-Babylonian) god Adad. Adad and Iškur are usually written with the logogram 𒀭𒅎dIM—the same symbol used for the Hurrian god Teshub. Hadad was also called Pidar, Rapiu, Baal-Zephon, or often simply Baʿal (Lord), but this title was also used for other gods. The bull was the symbolic animal of Hadad. He appeared bearded, often holding a club and thunderbolt while wearing a bull-horned headdress. Hadad was equated with the Greek god Zeus, the Roman god Jupiter, as well as the Babylonian mythology Bel.
Asherah is a fertility goddess in ancient Semitic religion who appears in a number of ancient sources. She also appears in Hittite writings as Ašerdu(s) or Ašertu(s). Her name is sometimes rendered Athirat in the context of her cult at Ugarit.
Idolatry in Judaism is prohibited. Judaism holds that idolatry is not limited to the worship of an idol itself, but also worship involving any artistic representations of God. The prohibition is epitomized by the first two "words" of the decalogue: I am the Lord thy God, Thou shalt have no other gods before me, and Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any image in the sky, on earth or in the sea. These prohibitions are re-emphasized repeatedly by the later prophets, suggesting the ongoing appeal of Canaanite religion and syncretic assimilation to the ancient Israelites.
A supreme deity, supreme god or supreme being is the conception of the sole deity of monotheistic religions, or, in polytheistic or henotheistic religions, the paramount deity or supernatural entity which is above all others.
Interpretatio graeca or "interpretation by means of Greek [models]" is a discourse used to interpret or attempt to understand the mythology and religion of other cultures; a comparative methodology using ancient Greek religious concepts and practices, deities, and myths, equivalencies, and shared characteristics.
Ancient Semitic religion encompasses the polytheistic religions of the Semitic peoples from the ancient Near East and Northeast Africa. Since the term Semitic itself represents a rough category when referring to cultures, as opposed to languages, the definitive bounds of the term "ancient Semitic religion" are only approximate.
A pantheon is the particular set of all gods of any individual polytheistic religion, mythology, or tradition.
The Canaanite religion was the group of ancient Semitic religions practiced by the Canaanites living in the ancient Levant from at least the early Bronze Age through the first centuries AD. Canaanite religion was polytheistic and, in some cases, monolatristic. Some gods and goddesses were absorbed into the Yahwist religion of the ancient Israelites, notably El, Baal and Asherah, until the Babylonian captivity where they worshipped Yahweh alone.
Qos also Qaus, or Koze was the national god of the Edomites. He was the Idumean structural parallel to Yahweh. The name occurs only twice in the Old Testament in the Book of Ezra and Nehemiah as an element in a personal name, Barqos, referring to the 'father' of a family or clan of perhaps Edomite/Idumaean nəṯīnīm or temple helpers returning from the Babylonian exile. Outside the Bible, Qos is frequently invoked in names found on documents recovered from excavations in Elephantine, where a mixed population of Arabs, Jews and Idumeans lived under the protection of a Persian-Mesopotamian garrison.
As polytheistic systems evolve, there is a tendency for one deity to achieve preeminence as king of the gods. This tendency can parallel the growth of hierarchical systems of political power in which a monarch eventually comes to assume ultimate authority for human affairs. Other gods come to serve in a Divine Council or pantheon; such subsidiary courtier-deities are usually linked by family ties from the union of a single husband or wife, or else from an androgynous divinity who is responsible for the creation.
The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities in Ancient Israel is a book on the history of ancient Israelite religion by Mark S. Smith, Skirball Professor of Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at New York University. The revised 2002 edition contains revisions to the original 1990 edition in light of intervening archaeological finds and studies.
The origins of Judaism lie in the Bronze Age amidst polytheistic ancient Semitic religions, specifically evolving out of the polytheistic ancient Canaanite religion, then co-existing with Babylonian religion, and syncretizing elements of Babylonian belief into the worship of Yahweh as reflected in the early prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible.
The phrase false god is a derogatory term used in Abrahamic religions to indicate cult images or deities of non-Abrahamic Pagan religions, as well as other competing entities or objects to which particular importance is attributed. Conversely, followers of animistic and polytheistic religions may regard the gods of various monotheistic religions as "false gods", because they do not believe that any real deity possesses the properties ascribed by monotheists to their sole deity. Atheists, who do not believe in any deities, do not usually use the term false god even though that would encompass all deities from the atheist viewpoint. Usage of this term is generally limited to theists, who choose to worship some deity or deities, but not others.
A deity or god is a supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred. The Oxford Dictionary of English defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greater than those of ordinary humans, but who interacts with humans, positively or negatively, in ways that carry humans to new levels of consciousness, beyond the grounded preoccupations of ordinary life".
Yahwism is the name given by modern scholars to the religion of ancient Israel. Yahwism was essentially polytheistic, with a plethora of gods and goddesses. Heading the pantheon was Yahweh, the national god of the Israelite kingdoms of Israel and Judah, with his consort, the goddess Asherah, and second-tier gods and goddesses such as Baal, Shamash, Yarikh, Mot, and Astarte, each of whom had their own priests and prophets and numbered royalty among their devotees.
