ABSTRACT
The emergence of monotheism in ancient Israel has long been a subject of some contention in biblical scholarship. A variety of theories shaped by a variety of scholarly, cultural, and religious investments attempt to explain its origins, many of them only thinly disguising an eagerness that Israel be the first locus of revelation for the oneness of divinity. For some modern scholars of the nineteenth century in particular, the concern has to do with shoring up the position of western culture through a progressive model of monotheistic development toward modern scientific theories of a unified cosmos. For others, the concern is more pietistic, centered on belief that the revelation of divine oneness and unity is a distinguishing mark and so a special revelation of Judaism (or, by extension, Islam or Christianity). For example, in the mid-twentieth century William Albright argued for a ‘‘Mosaic revolution’’ that rejected a gradual development and located the emergence of Israelite monotheism instead in a particular transforming, exodus ‘‘moment,’’ giving weight to the idea that Israel’s monotheistic claims were both unprecedented and unique in the ancient world.2
