ABSTRACT
The Axial Age constituted a significant shift in human consciousness, one that manifested in four main centres and represented a breakthrough in three domains: spiritual/religious, moral/ethical and intellectual/cognitive. It has been the subject of sustained research and debate, one that has undergone three major turns: philosophical-normative, historical-sociological and evolutionary-developmental. These different approaches have attempted to establish, respectively, the unity of humankind, an expansion of the original Axial Age under the broader notions of axiality and axial civilizations, and the primarily cognitive character of its breakthrough. It is generally agreed that the four main and best-documented centres of the Axial Age are Ancient Israel, Greece, China and India. The axial status of Ancient Israel is based largely on a monotheism that was championed by critical and independent prophets from the ninth century bce onwards. They professed a devotion to Yahweh alone, took an ethical stance in defense of the oppressed and social justice for all, and rejected the pre-axial god-king relation.
