Monolatry: The Israelites Believed in Many Gods

In this episode of The Bible for Normal People Podcast, Pete talks about monolatry, and he explores the following questions:

• What is monolatry?
• If Israel believed that many gods existed, why was their God Yahweh the only deity worthy of worship?
• What does Psalm 95 tell us about what the Israelites believed?
• If the Israelites were monolatrous, how do they explain the greatness of Yahweh?
• Where did the divine name come from? And what’s up with “Lᴏʀᴅ”?
• Who is the king of all of the gods?
• How do the plagues help us understand the theology of monolatry?
• What’s with the beef between Yahweh and the egyptian gods?
• What did fertility have to do with theology in the ancient world?
• What does monolatry have to do with all the idol talk in the bible?
• What do the judgements passed on the kings of Israel have to do with worshiping the gods of other nations?
• Who is the Satan in God’s heavenly board meeting?
• What is the Divine Council?
• What do we do with these images of heavenly board meetings and divine councils in the Bible?
• How is god talked about in ancient tribal cultures and how do we respect that?

Mentioned in this episode: