MONOTHEISM
MONOTHEISM: THE ORIGINAL RELIGION OF MAN
Copyright © 1997-2002 Zenith Harris Merrill
The Following scientific proof that earliest man's knowledge and belief in one Creator God, was this earth's original religion is from: "The A.B.C. of Biblical Archaeology," regarding the evidence of monotheism in ancient times, by Dr. Clifford Wilson MA, BD, MREd., PhD, former Director of The Australian Institute of Archaeology.
Monotheism was known in very early times. The Egyptian Book of the Dead demonstrates that the Egyptian people originally believed in one great God and not many. With the passage of time, each of the known attributes of the true God were personified as new and individual deities - and so, polytheism developed.
That view is well documented by the famous Egyptologist, Sir Wallis Budge, in his best known text, The Book of the Dead. Following are statements from the Book of the Dead as to the attributes of the true God, selected from The Papyrus of Ani:
"A Hymn To Amen-Ra ... president of all the gods ... Lord
of the heavens ... Lord of Truth ... maker of men;
creator of beasts ... Ra, whose word is truth, the
Governor of the world, the mighty one of valour, the
chiefs who made the world as he made himself. His forms
are more numerous than those of any god ...
"Adoration be to thee, O Maker of the Gods, who hast
stretched out the heavens and founded the earth! ... Lord
of eternity, maker of the everlastingness ... creator of
light ...
"He heareth the prayer of the oppressed one, he is kind
of heart to him that calleth upon him, he delivereth the
timid man from the oppressor ... He is the Lord of
knowledge, and Wisdom is the utterance of his mouth.
"He maketh the green herb whereon the cattle live, and
the staff of life whereon men live. He maketh the fish
to live in the rivers, and the feathered fowl in the sky.
He giveth life to that which is in the egg ...
"Hail to thee, O thou maker of all these things, thou
ONLY ONE. In his mightiness he taketh many forms."
Wallis Budge states:
"After reading the above extracts it is impossible not to
conclude that the ideas of the ancient Egyptians about
God were of a very exalted character, and it is clear
that they made in their minds a sharp distinction between
God and the "gods" ... Here then we have One God who was
self-created, self-existent and almighty, who created the
universe."
Wallis Budge sees monotheism as the original Egyptian belief corrupted into polytheism. He argues convincingly that the various attributes of the one great God were transferred to become other lesser gods.Budge states:
"The truth seems to me to be that the Egyptian religion never wholly lost the monotheistic element which was in it."
He suggests a similarity to the monotheism of the Hebrews.
Crude polytheism developed in Egyptian history,
with increasing numbers of deities. This is an indirect
confirmation of a beginning with monotheism - not "many
gods".
Other scholars have endorsed the arguments of Sir Wallis
Budge, and he himself quotes others. One example is:
"As a result of their studies of Egyptian texts, many of
the earlier Egyptologists, e.g. Champollion-Figeac, de
Rouge, Pierret and Brugsch, came to the conclusion that
the dwellers in the Nile Valley, from the earliest times,
believed in the existence of one God, nameless,
incomprehensible, and eternal." (p.105)
Sir Flinders Petrie, early famous Egyptologist, shared this same conclusion. In The Religion of Ancient Egypt, published by Constable, London, 1908, he wrote:
"There are in ancient religions and theologies very
different classes of gods. Some races, as the modern
Hindu, revel in a profusion of gods and godlings which
continually increase, and literally number in the millions. Others ... do not attempt to
worship great gods, but deal with a host of animistic
spirits, devils, or whatever we may call them ... But all
our knowledge of the early positions and nature of the
great gods shows them to stand on an entirely different footing to these varied spirits.
"Were the conception of a god only an evolution from such
spirit worship, we should find the worship of many gods
preceding the worship of one god ... What we actually
find is the contrary of this, monotheism is the first
stage traceable in theology ...
"Wherever we can trace polytheism back to its earliest
stages, we find that it results from combinations of
monotheism. In Egypt even Osiris, Isis and Horus, so
familiar as a triad, are found at first as separate units
in different places: Isis as a virgin goddess, and Horus
as a self-existent God.
"Each city appears to have had but one god belonging to
it, to whom others were in time added. Similarly,
Babylonian cities each had their supreme god, and the
combinations of these and their transformations in order
to form them into groups when their homes were
politically united, show how essentially they were
solitary deities at first."
Other Peoples Were Also Monotheists
Other people were also originally monotheists, knowing of
only one true God. The late Dr. Arthur C. Custance wrote a
series called The Doorway Papers (Brockville, Ontario,
Canada). In Paper 34 he gives evidence to show that this
was the case with many such people, contrary to the views of
many scholars.
Many of those scholars held to polytheism instead of
monotheism because they believed that man has evolved upward
in such areas as physical development, social relationships,
intellectual capacities, and spiritual understanding.
The truth is that man is the crown of God's creation, originally perfect (before his fall), and having a very
clear understanding of the nature of God, Who was in fact his
Friend. There was no evolution of religion - in fact there
was a devolution of religion, and a falling away from the
relationship that it had been possible for man to enjoy.
Dr. Arthur Custance elaborates the argument, and he makes
the point that at first scholars examining the records of
ancient peoples: "... found themselves dealing with a tremendous number of
gods and goddesses and other spiritual powers of a lesser
sort which seemed to be always at war with one another
and, much of the time, highly destructive."
He further states:
"As earlier and earlier tablets, however, began to be excavated and brought to light, and skill in deciphering them increased, the first picture of gross polytheism
began to be replaced by something more nearly approaching
a hierarchy of spiritual beings organised into a kind of
court with one Supreme Being over all." (p. 3)
Monotheism Preceded Polytheism
Dr. Custance also quotes other scholars. For instance, he
quotes Stephen Langdon of Oxford who wrote in 1931, in
Semitic Mythology. Stephen Langdon knew full well that his conclusions would be unacceptable to "the establishment".
Stephen Langdon believed that monotheism preceded
polytheism. He made his point very clearly:
"In my opinion the history of the oldest civilisation of
man is a rapid decline from monotheism to extreme
polytheism and widespread belief in evil spirits. It is
in a very true sense the history of the fall of man."
Stephen Langdon continued to hold that view, five years later,in The Scotsman, November 18, 1936:
"The history of Sumerian religion, which was the most
powerful cultural influence in the ancient world, could
be traced by means of photographic inscriptions almost to
the earliest religious concepts of man. The evidence
points unmistakably to an original monotheism, the
inscriptions and literary remains of the oldest Semitic
peoples also indicate a primitive monotheism, and the
totemistic origin of Hebrew and other Semitic religions
is now entirely discredited."
"A Single God Is Worshipped"
Not all scholars have accepted that approach - it opposes
establishment views as to the evolution of religion.
However, despite opposing arguments, Dr. Custance shows that
subsequent excavations at Tell Asmar (Eshnunna), a few miles
south of modern Baghdad, have confirmed Langdon's view.
Once again, Dr. Custance quotes other scholars. One is Dr.
Henry Frankfort, in his third preliminary report on the
excavation:
"In addition to their more tangible results, our
excavations have established a novel fact, which the
student of Babylonian religions will have henceforth to take into account. We have obtained, to the best of our
knowledge for the first time, religious material complete
in its social setting.
"We possess a coherent mass of evidence, derived in
almost equal quantity from a temple and from the houses
inhabited by those who worshipped in that temple. We are
thus able to draw conclusions, which the finds studied by
themselves would not have made possible.
"For instance, we discover that the representations on
cylinder seals, which are usually connected with various
gods, can all be fitted into a consistent picture in
which a single god worshipped in this temple forms the
central figure. It seems that at this early
period his various aspects were not considered separate
deities in the Sumero-Accadian pantheon."
This argument about early monotheism is true of other
cultures as well. Dr. Custance quotes from Max Muller, a
German scholar who was "one of the best known authorities in
this area". He wrote in Lectures on the Science of
Language: Scribner, N.Y., 1875:
"Mythology, which was the bane of the ancient world, is
in truth a disease of language. A myth means a word, but
a word which, from being a name or an attribute, has been
allowed to assume a more substantial existence. Most of
the Greek, the Roman, the Indian, and other heathen gods
are nothing but poetical names, which were gradually
allowed to assume divine personality never contemplated
by their original inventors.
"Eos was the name of dawn before she became a goddess,
the wife of Tithonos, or the dying day. Fatum, or Fate,
meant originally what had been spoken; and before Fate
became a power, even greater than Jupiter, it meant that
which had once been spoken by Jupiter, and could never be
changed - not even by Jupiter himself.
"Zeus originally meant the bright heaven, in Sanskrit
Dyaus; and many of the stories told of him as the
supreme god, had a meaning only as told originally of the
bright heaven, the Danae of old, kept by her father in
the dark prison of winter.
"No one doubts that Luna was simply the name of the moon;
but so likewise Lucina, both derived from lucere, to
shine. Hecate, too, was an old name of the moon, the
feminine of Hekatos and Hekatebolos, the far-darting sun:
and Pyrrha, the Eve of the Greeks, was nothing but a name
of the red earth, and in particular of Thessaly. This
mythological disease, though less virulent in modern
languages, is by no means extinct."
Dr. Custance states (p.10) "... However little Muller shared
the Christian view of man's spiritual history, he
nevertheless admitted freely:
"There is a monotheism that precedes the polytheism of
the Veda; and even in the invocation of the innumerable
gods the remembrance of a God, one and infinite, breaks
through the mist of idolatrous phraseology like the blue
sky that is hidden by passing clouds." (Quoted from
History of Sanskrit Literature)
MODERN "PRIMITIVE" TRIBES AS WELL AS ANCIENT
PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT ONE GOD
Dr. Custance relates the concept of monotheism to other
early cultures, such as China, Greece and Rome, and the Middle East.
He states: "The evidence shows that he (man) began with the true Light and now has his understanding increasingly
darkened. The evidence for this among primitive people
is to be found in every corner of the world where such
people now exist or have existed within recent times.
And paradoxically, the more primitive they are, the
simpler and the purer is their faith often found to be."
Dr. Custance elaborates these arguments with substantial
evidence, touching a wide range of early people.
The Earliest Groups Had A Greater Understanding About One God
So-called primitive people had this idea of one great God. Again quoting Dr. Custance: "Without a doubt the most informative work on the monotheism of primitive people is that by Wilhelm Schmidt, which, though originally a many-volumed work in German, was published in 1930 in a condensed English translation as a single volume, "The Origin and Growth of Religion: Facts and Theories".
"Schmidt first traces the history of thinking on the
subject of the origin of religion as it developed during
the last century. He points out, briefly, that Herbert
Spencer was largely responsible for the first evolutionary interpretation of "religion", noting that he anticipated Darwin by seven years, as is shown by his
article, The Development Hypothesis, which appeared in The Leader dated 20th March, 1852.
"On the basis of present evidence it is now apparent that Spencer was completely wrong. Spencer held that
primitive people began by worshipping ancestors and that
as civilization developed ancestors "naturally" were
formed into hierarchies, and hierarchies in turn led to
ranks, the highest ranks becoming deities."
Thus it becomes clear that many modern scholars are wrong in
their ideas about monotheism. Monotheism, not polytheism,
was first. Dr. Custance further states: "What Schmidt is able to prove conclusively is that if primitive cultures are grouped on the basis of their cultural level and these groups are then placed in an ascending order, it is found that the lowest groups have the purest concept of God and that as one progresses from mere hunters to food gatherers and storers, to food growers in the form of pastoral nomads maintaining flocks, to food growers in the sense of settled land use, and on up the scale to semi-urban communities, one finds at first a simple faith in a Supreme Being who has
neither wife nor family.
"Under Him and created by Him are the primal pair from
which the tribe is descended. According to Schmidt we
find this form of belief among the Pygmies of Central
Africa, the South-east Australians, the inhabitants of
North central California, the primitive Algonkins -
and to a certain extent the Koryaka and Aimu."
This of course goes right against such arguments as that the
worship of ancestors was very early in man's religious
development. Schmidt further states: "The falsity of Spencer's theory is shown by the mere fact that ancestor-worship is very feebly developed in the oldest cultures while a monotheistic religion is already clearly and unmistakably to be found there ...
"It is also unfortunate for Spencer's theory that the
highest development of ancestor-worship does not come
till the most recent times ..." (Schmidt, op.cit., p. 71)
As for animism, it is supposed to have developed from the
idea that man had a soul, and that therefore all living
things (including plants) had souls or at least an inner
reality. Thus man supposedly moved along an evolutionary
path of believing that the whole spirit world was personal -
leading to both animism and poly-demonism (and the fear of
many demons who must be placated). Supposedly this led to
the displacement of these many demons by one great power to
whom all others must be subservient.
The evidence now available from recovered records does not
support this hypothesis that so clearly opposes the Biblical
record of one great Being, the true Creator God Who created
man in His own image.
Despite many "scholarly" views to the contrary, historical
and other records reject animism as the "original" religion
and they indicate that Jewish people and others besides
Christians have known of the one true God.
That is also made very clear in the writings of a modern
writer, Don Richardson. In his book Eternity In Their
Hearts, he challenges the smug conclusions of scholars,
Huxley, Spencer, Tylor, and others who believed: "They had thoroughly debunked all pretensions about the supernatural origin of religion. Religion, they claimed, evolved mentally just as biological forms evolved physically.
Back on the Kalahari Desert, in the
Ituri forest, and innumberable other locations, however; the
young anthropologists were getting down to a deeper level
of questioning. They would ask the animists: "By
the way, who made the world?" and were startled to hear
them respond, often with a happy smile, by naming a
single Being who lived in the sky.
"Is he good or bad?" was a usual second question.
"Good, of course", was the invariable reply. "Show me
the idol you use to represent him", the researcher might
ask. "What idol? Don't you know that he must never be
represented by an idol?"
This of course opposes the teachings of many modern
scholars. However, as Don Richardson says:
"They began discovering what thousands of missionaries
had already known for a hundred years - that about 90% of
the world's folk religions are permeated with
monotheistic presuppositions.
"They knew, of course, that Huxley, Tylor and the others
would be disappointed, not to mention embarrassed. Some
researchers may have shelved this aspect of their
research to avoid embarrassing their high priests. In
any case, these later revelations did not find their way
into early textbooks. The result: Anthropology and the
public developed a collective "blind spot!" Andrew Lang
was alone in protesting the suppression of this
contradicting data."
Finally, Dr. Wilhelm Schmidt, an Austrian, set out
in the 1920's to compile every "alias of the Almighty"
discovered by explorers around the world.
It took Schmidt an amazing six volumes totalling 4,500 pages to detail them all! A minimum of a thousand more examples have come to light since then.
An approximate 90 percent or more of the folk religions on this planet contain clear acknowledgment of the existence of
one Supreme God! Schmidt's classic "Der Ursprung der
Gottesidee" (The Origin of the Concept of God) was finally
published in 1934.
He pays tribute to Andrew Lang before him for, in
anthropologist Gordon Fraser's words, presenting to the public the facts of the matter, when it was
almost intellectual suicide to oppose the doctrine of
evolution and its high priests. Fraser himself, also spent much of his life extending Lang's and Schmidt's research. G. Foucart's treatment of the subject in the Encyclopedia of Religion
and Ethics further confirms the conclusions of these
three unblinded men: "The nature, role, and characteristics of this universal sky-god may be concealed under the most
diverse forms, but he is always more or less
recognisable to the historian of religions and always
identical in essential definition ... The sky-god has
reigned everywhere. His kingdom still covers the
whole of the uncivilised world. (He reigns over much
of the civilized world as well as under different
names.) No historical or proto-historical motive can
be assigned as a cause, and neither the migration of
races nor the diffusion of myths and folklore affords
the slightest justification of the fact. The
universality of the sky-god and the uniformity of his
essential characteristics are the logical consequence
of the uniformity of the primitive system of
cosmogony."
"King Solomon said it much more concisely: "(God) has
also put eternity in the hearts of men!" Ecclesiastes 3:11,
Don Richardson elaborates with tribe after tribe, even
showing that there were hymns with theology that was clearly
consistent with the fact of one true God. Here is one
selection, from the Karen people of Burma:
"Y'wa is eternal, his life is long.
One aeon - he dies not!
Two aeons - he dies not!
He is perfect in meritorious attributes.
Aeons follow aeons - he dies not!"
Such people actually refer to Him as Creator. Another hymn
extolled Y'wa as Creator:
"Who created the world in the beginning?
Y'wa created the world in the beginning!
Y'wa appointed everything.
Y'wa is unsearchable!"
Still another hymn conveyed deep appreciation for Y'wa's
omnipotence and omniscience, combined with acknowledgment of
a lack of relationship with Him:
"The omnipotent is Y'wa; him have we not
believed.
Y'wa created men anciently;
He has a perfect knowledge of all things!
Y'wa created men at the beginning;
He knows all things to the present time!
O my children and grandchildren!
The earth is the treading place of the feet of Y'wa.
And heaven is the place where he sits.
He sees all things, and we are manifest to him."
It almost seems that such people have the Bible record of
creation before them. Don Richardson states:
"The Karen story of man's falling away from God contains
stunning parallels to Genesis Chapter 1:
"Y'wa formed the world originally.
He appointed food and drink.
He appointed the "fruit of trial."
He gave detailed order.
Mu-kaw-lee deceived two persons.
He caused them to eat the fruit of the tree of trial.
They obeyed not; they believed not Y'wa ...
When they ate the fruit of trial,
They became subject to sickness, aging, and death ..."
These Karen people had obstinately adhered to their own folk
religion dispite high pressured attempts by the Burmese
to convert them to Buddhism" ... and they had, throughout their generations, from the inception of their history, expected a white brother, one who would bring a book authored by Y'wa the Supreme God.
Don Richardson demonstrates that the Greek term Deos (God) has gone through pronunciation/ geographical changes, to be Deos in one area, Deus in another, and Theos in a third. It was only a minor step to Zeus, a major "God" in Greek mythology. The meanings have gradually changed, but the original concept is readily traced to one common source.
This world-wide belief in monotheism explains how
"illiterate yet practical minded, close-to-the-earth
Santa/folk religionists insist so firmly that there is in
fact an omnipotent and moral beneficent Creator."
Don Richardson shows that such findings have "disturbed evolutionists more than any other cultural phenomenon." Evolutionary theorists hold that the concept of one Supreme Being was reached only after proceeding through more lowly beliefs such as fetishes, nature gods, and polytheism. They now find that the more "primitive" the tribe, the more advanced, their ideas about one true God - monotheism!
Return to Index of Topics.