Social-Political History of Monotheism

Jeremiah W. Cataldo is Associate Professor of History in the Frederik Meijer Honors College at Grand Valley State University, USA. He is the author of several books, including Breaking Monotheism: Yehud and the Material Formation of Monotheistic Identity, and Biblical Terror: Why Law and Restoration in the Bible Depend Upon Fear.

• Preface; Abbreviations; Chapter 1: Definition of Parameters and Understanding Monotheism; Chapter 2: The Prophetic Paradigm; Chapter 3: Yahweh, the God of Monarchy; Chapter 4: The Emergence of Monotheism in Yehud; Chapter 5: The Maccabean Revolt; Chapter 6: Sectarianism and Political Strife under Empire; Chapter 7: The Punishment of Palestine; Chapter 8: Heresy, Trinity, and Political Strife in Three Parts; Chapter 9: Persecution or the End of It?; Chapter 10: Chalcedon and Orthodoxy; Bibliography; Index

There are no end of histories of monotheism that concentrate on its gestation: how monotheism originated. Cataldo’s Social-Political History of Monotheism instead breaks new ground by telling the story of monotheism once it had taken shape, and how it developed. This is history on a grand scale: original, ambitious, and bracing. - Nathan MacDonald, St John’s College, Cambridge, UK