One may find it difficult to completely miss a giant cross in the middle of a college campus, I found it impossible. Far be it for me to sensor another or ridicule them in public for the right to state how much they love the object their messiah was killed upon. So I sat and read my book (a book about Nietzsche, whose famous saying was echoing across my brain. "I have killed all the gods for my immortality") and watched the amusing sight. Looking at this contradiction of logic, celebrating the death and not the life of the supposed greatest teacher to live, I got to thinking about the god they proclaim.

I have heard it said that God is eternal and unchanging. That he is a God of consistency. This can be used to justify the belief of an unchanging moral code that comes from god. It can also be used to justify the more abstract of the beginning paradox. That is that the universe had a finite beginning and that God exists outside of time in an unchanging sea of eternity. (Which if I may digress once more, is to say that God exists in a sea of nothingness. I have a short riddle to end my digression. What exists nowhere in space? What exists nowhere in matter? What exists nowhere in Time? There are two answers God and nothing. That is to say they are one in the same.) Is Yahweh truly an unchanging God? More intriguing has Judaism and therefore Christianity and Islam always been monotheistic?

The answer to these questions are a resounding no and no. What the great unchanging god used to be one of many? Yes, it is true folks, the God Yahweh used to be one in a pantheon of Judaic gods. The God now proclaimed under the monotheistic religions was the patron god of a certain region in Judea and was considered one of many gods. Theophile James Meek's article titled Monotheism and the Religion of Israel starts off by accepting that fact. "No Modern scholar of any standing today believes that the Hebrews of the Patriarchal Period were anything but polytheistic..." (The Patriarchal Period refers to the period in which the three fathers of Judaism lived. Abraham, Issac and Jacob) He goes on to say that Moses was monotheistic. (The only source for the existence of a man named Moses is in the bible, so this is to say the person who very well may have been made up was monotheistic.) What became of those gods of old?

There are several theories on these old gods the one I am particularly fond of comes from a book entitled Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity by Polymnia Athanassaidi and Michael Frede. This book is a series of lectures by Oxford professors about the various forms of pagan monotheism. They proposed that the lesser gods of Judaism's importance were degraded slowly over time, until they were absorbed by the greater god. Those lesser Gods became aspects, soldiers and messengers of the greater. It used to be that they would pray to a certain God for protection of a certain tribe or a certain god for protection of crops or for rain ect. This happened until Yahweh started being seen as the head god and the others were pushed down to subservient rolls. Does this sound a bit familiar? Is there a being in this theology that can be described as aspects,soldiers, or messengers for god? Any mention to certain servants of god? An Angel would fit this description pretty well. We all know of the passages where god sends a messenger angel, or an angel of death. They are an army of ghosts from a polytheistic past.

Beyond this lesson in history there are implications. There are very few possibilities for this god left. A few examples would be god would have to be changing. The moral code that god sends to us could no longer be trusted. As Socrates would point out what makes good? Is it what is beloved by the Gods or is it beloved by the Gods because it is good? If it is the latter what if what is stopping it from changing? Tomorrow, for all we know, God could decide that murder and rape are good things. What of the beginning paradox then? If god is in eternity and constantly changing than why wouldn't the laws of physics be changing with him? So go ahead and erect your crosses and hold up your signs with outdated "wisdom". I can take comfort knowing when you go to bed and pray at night you are just praying to one god in the pantheon of forgotten gods.

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