One True God - Abrahamic Religions - Judaism

Judaism

Main articles: God in Judaism and Names of God in Judaism

God in religious Judaism today is strictly monotheistic. This God of Israel is regarded as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and is believed to be the ultimate cause of all existence. YHWH (Hebrew: יהוה‎) is the proper Name of God in Judaism. Another name of God is Elohim, designating his justice. Elohim relates to the interaction between God and the creation, and it means "the One who is the totality of powers, forces and causes in the universe". God is an indivisible one God; as the Shema Yisrael states, its first, pivotal, words are:

שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָד - Sh'ma Yisra'el YHWH Eloheinu YHWH Eḥad - "Hear O Israel, Yahweh is our God, Yahweh alone".

The Hebrew Bible commands the Israelites not to worship other gods, but only the God of Israel who brought them out of Egypt (Ex. 20:1-4; Deut. 5:6-7).

The concept of Yahweh enlarged through the exile of Babylon and Yahweh was responsible for what happened to Israel. All the events and enemies around Israel were instruments in the divine hand because Yahweh is the only God and no other gods existed.

One of the best-known statements of Rabbinical Judaism on monotheism occurs in Maimonides' 13 Principles of faith, Second Principle:

God, the Cause of all, is one. This does not mean one as in one of a pair, nor one like a species (which encompasses many individuals), nor one as in an object that is made up of many elements, nor as a single simple object that is infinitely divisible. Rather, God is a unity unlike any other possible unity. This is referred to in the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:4): "Hear Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one."

The ancient roots of monotheistic Judaism lie in the Bronze Age polytheistic Ancient Semitic religions, specifically Canaanite religion, a syncretization with elements of Zoroastrianism and of the worship of Yahweh reflected in the early prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible. Both archaeological evidence and the Biblical texts document tensions between groups comfortable with the worship of Yahweh alongside local deities such as Asherah and Baal and those insistent on the worship of Yahweh alone during the monarchal period.

According to the Hebrew Bible, Jerusalem was a Jebusite fortress, conquered by the Israelites and made into their capital around 1000 BCE (Edwin R. Thiele dates David's conquest of Jerusalem to 1003 BCE). As a result, the Jebusite cult exerted considerable influence on Israelite religion. The Jebusites observed an astral cult involving Shalem, an astral deity identified with the Evening star in Ugaritic mythology, besides Tzedek "righteousness" and El Elyon, the "most high God".

During the 8th century BCE, worship of Yahweh in Israel was in competition with many other cults, described by the Yahwist faction collectively as Baals. The oldest books of the Hebrew Bible, written in the 8th century BCE reflect this competition, as in the books of Hosea and Nahum, whose authors lament the "apostasy" of the people of Israel, threatening them with the wrath of God if they do not give up their polytheistic cults.

The oldest writings of Judaism that survive directly date from the Hellenistic period. This includes Hebrew and Aramaic papyri with biblical fragments such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Greek documents such as the Septuagint. Scholars contend that the development of a strict monotheism was the result of cultural diffusion between Persians and Hebrews, or as a result of the contact of Israelite and Greek cultures.