in the Hindu theogony, depending on myth and circumstance. Two kinds of monotheism are cited: ethnic and syncretic. The latter kind of monotheism takes the view that "all concepts of deity are limited [but] infers an ultimately inconceivable god above all, to whom all refer," and in that category Campbell says may fall the Greco-Roman concept of deity, as well as "in the broadest sense[] the humanistic learning of Europe since the Renaissance" (Campbell 243). Further to that point, although the Golden Age philosophers in Greece flourished in the context of the Greek pantheon (Zeus, Apollo, Hera, etc.), there is evidence in their texts of the collapse of the personalities within the pantheon into a more generalized concept of God. In the Apology, for example, Socrates describes himself as "a sort of gadfly, given to the State by the God . . . always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you" (Plato 49).
Ethnic monotheism is identified with Judaism. Whereas syncretic monotheism is characterized as "inclusive, cosmopolitan, open," ethnic monotheism is "closed[] and exclusive . . . the belief that the only god is the god worshiped by one's own group, all others being false" (Campbell 242). Campbell describes as "the post-exilic monotheism of the Bible, which then [] passed to Christianity and Islam" (242-243). The ethnic character of Jewish monotheism can be seen in part in the tribal organization of the culture that corresponds to the 12 tribes of Jacob/Israel, as the founding patriarch of the Hebrews. They are enumerated in Gen. 49 and characterized as tribes at 49.28 (All these are the twelve tribes of Israel), wherein Jacob articulates his testament just before his death. The tribes were "pre-exilic," inasmuch as the flight from Egypt and the Babylonian Captivity were still to come, but--to the extent the biblical account of the Jews reflects the historical record--by the time the kingdom of David in Judah had ...