R.C. Sproul

And that we call, of course, monotheism.

Now, in this theory, in the 19th century, the guns were leveled against the Old Testament religion.

And the idea was that even Jewish religion did not come to monotheism until very late in Jewish history.

until the seventh or eighth century prophets developed this concept of monotheism.

They denied, for example, that Moses was a monotheist or that Abraham was a monotheist, and they say, if we look in the early stages of the Bible, we see Abraham, for example, talking to these men by the oaks of Mamre, and these men are supposedly angels.

Well, what the text is really saying, the critics observed, was that Abraham was speaking to the God in the tree.

Or we have the episode where Balaam's ass speaks.

Say, what is that but animism?

A talking mule giving human powers and qualities to a dumb animal.

And even earlier than that, you have the creation account and the account of the temptation of Adam and Eve in the garden where this serpent comes in.

and starts to speak.

And the critics say, see, here you have animism.

And then, later on, polytheism.

And where do you suppose they find the concept of polytheism?

You guessed it, in the name Elohim.

Critics looked at this and they said, well, see, even the Jews were polytheists because on the first page of the Old Testament, we hear about the gods working in creation.

Elohim is a plural name.

And so Jewish religion goes through the same transformation that other religions do.

Well, I'm happy to say...

that in the main, although not altogether, a lot of these theories that were so popular in the 19th century, after being subjected to the philosophy of the second glance, have been discredited.