Religious Monotheism

If the evidence of texts designated as holy scripture is that religion is as old as the earth itself and that, according to Judaeo-Christian tradition, it can be dated to the creation of Adam and Eve. But religion also has other historical and geographical roots that can be traced to the Paleolithic period, the geological time period in which development of human life within the familiar meaning of the term has been identified. Human life is associated with four paleontological periods known as the Quarternary Hominidae, with the first or basal Quarternary starting at a maximum of 3 million and a minimum of 1 million years ago ("Human Life" 211-212). Hominids of the basal and Early Quarternaries, which include examples of Homo erectus, are not generally considered "culture-bearing" creatures in the modern meaning of the term (Robinson 439). However, the earliest human species, Australopithecus africanus, 3 million years ago had anatomical, environmental, and behavioral similarities to modern Homo sapiens (Robinson passim; Day 1045). But even if Australopithecus is a transitional genu

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form that flourished briefly in the lower Nile region, it is undoubtedly the case that Judaism, which was shaped decisively at the eastern Mediterranean, was the first religion in history to make monotheism a doctrinal foundtion with unviersalist application. Johnson uses historical texts to identify the history of the Jews as such. His central thesis is that the books, from Genesis to Jeremiah, illustrate gradual emergence of a philosophy that is distinctively Jewish and that became distinctively Western. Monotheism was fundamental to this, and it was this that permeated the West, in part as a reaction to and departure from the culture of polytheism and from any alien culture. Johnson comments that the Jews were "the only people in the world today who possess a historical record, however obscure in places, which allows them to trace their origins back into very remote times" (7). Related to refinement of montheism is the perception by the Jews of a moral-ethical universe deriving from the power of the one god. While this may be said to be consistent with the Greek notion of ethics, the nexus of morality with the divine assumes a different character in the traditions and cultures of Palestine to the west of the Mediterranea from t
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Approximate Word count = 4928
Approximate Pages = 20 (250 words per page)

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