From the Stone Age to Christianity (1940 Albright), book

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From the Stone Age to Christianity: Monotheism and the Historical Process (1940) is a book by William Foxwell Albright.

Abstract

In a sweeping historical study, spanning from the seventeenth century BCE until the time of Jesus, Albright traces the rise of monotheistic Christianity from the earliest times of pagan polytheism. From the start, Albright stresses the profound importance of archeological discoveries and underscores that the historian needs to employ a rigorous methodology, which parallels that of the natural scientist. After spending perhaps an inordinate amount of time on the religion and cultural milieu of Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, Albright suggests that the period between 1350 and 1250 B.C. was ideally suited to give birth to monotheism, and argues that Moses, the founder of Yahwism, was a monotheist. Though nearby Canaanite cultures encroached on the "pristine purity of the temple-cult," Albright argues that the prophetic movement was like a refreshing west wind, which blew and dispersed the stagnant air of the Canaanites. Moreover, he also demonstrates that the Israelite religion continued to be defined by monotheism through Deutero-Isaiah and into the Hellenic age. Accordingly, for Albright the monotheistic statements of Deutero-Isaiah were not innovations on a previous polytheistic or henotheistic Israelite religious system, but a "conscious effort to recapture both the letter and the spirit of Mosaism which, the Deuteronomists believe, had been neglected or forgotten by the Israelites of the Monarchy" (319). When Christianity arose out of Judaism during the Greco-Roman times, the religion maintained its monotheism, despite God appearing in three hypostasis, one of which was Jesus.

In contrast to previous scholars, such as Wellhausen and Smith, who presented Israel's religious tradition in evolutionary terms, whereby, in an ammended Hegelian fashion, Israel moved in successive stages from animism, to totemism, to polytheism, to henotheism or monolatry, and to finally monotheism, Albright modified this view. As was typical of many scholars from modernity, Albright too presented Israel's unfolding story as the natural evolution from polytheism to monotheism, but maintained that from the time of Moses onward, Israel's religion was thoroughly monotheistic, and remained consistently so even to the time of Hillel or Christ. Accordingly, he could claim: "The tradition of Israel represents Moses as a monotheist; the evidence of ancient Oriental religious history, combined with the most rigorous critical treatment of Israelite literary sources, points in exactly the same direction. The tradition of Israel presents the Prophets as teachers and reformers, not as religious innovators.... Mosaism is a living tradition, an integrated organismic pattern, which did not change in fundamentals from the time of Moses until the time of Christ; Moses was as much a monotheist as was Hillel" (401). Thus, Jewish monotheism achieved its ultimate climax in Christianity. The students of Albright, most notably Frank Cross and David Noel Freedman, continued in the trajectory of Albright and through a prolific amount of later publications sought to demonstrate that the Old Testament contains several ancient poems, which both date to the last second millennium and reflect all the essential components of Yahwistic monotheism. The most outspoken opponents to this perspective were Morton Smith and Berhand Lang, the latter of whom claimed that "Die Religion des ältern Israel, uns nur aus der biblischen Polemik gegen sie bekannt, ist polytheistisch."

~Deborah Forger

Editions and translations

Published in Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1940. 2nd ed. 1946 (repr. 1957). Translated into German (1949), French (1951), Hebrew (1953), Polish (1967), Norwegian (1977), and other languages.

Table of contents

  • 1. New Horizons in History
    • A. The Archaeological Revolution
    • B. The Discovery and Interpretation of Ancient Near-Eastern Written Documents
    • C. The Discovery and Interpretation of Unwritten Documents from the Ancient Near East
    • D. Oral and Written Transmission of History
  • 2. Toward an Organismic Philosophy of History
    • A. General Tendencies in the Philosophy of History
    • B. Current Aspects of Historical Determinism
    • C. The Epistemology of History
    • D. Some Fundamental Principles underlying History
    • E. Toward an Organismic Philosophy of History
  • 3. Praeparatio
    • A. The Evolution of Material Civilization in the Near East from the Earliest Times to the Seventeenth Century B.C.
    • B. The Religious Life of the Early and Middle Bronze Ages
  • 4. When Israel was a Child (Hosea 11:1)
    • A. The Ancient Oriental Background of Israelite Origins
    • B. The Hebrew Background of Israelite Origins
    • C. The Religion of Moses
  • 5. Charisma and Catharsis
    • A. The Charismatic Age of Israel
    • B. The United Monarchy and the Beginnings of the Prophetic Movement
    • C. The Divided Monarchy and the Charismatic Prophets
    • D. Catharsis
  • 6. In the Fulnes of Time (Galatians 4:4)
    • A. The Rise and Diffusion of Hellenic Culture
    • B. Judaism and the Religious Life of the Hellenistic Age
    • C. Non-Hellenic Currents in Hellenistic Judaism
    • D. Jesus the Christ
  • Epilogue

External links

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