9781422281123

14 T HE M ONOTHEISTIC F AITHS : J UDAISM , C HRISTIANITY , AND I SLAM

of grain into the waters to appease the river god. Eventually, though, humans developed sophisticated religious systems in which rituals and sacrifices were performed at certain times each year to ensure the fertility of crops. A class of priests was created to intercede with the gods and direct worship. Humans worshiped many gods, whose names and the rituals required to please them varied greatly from place to place. People of these ancient cultures often worshiped gods that represented the sun, moon, or forces of nature. Major Sumerian gods—those the patriarch Abraham might have been familiar with, for example— included An, the god of the heavens; Ki, goddess of the earth; and their son Enlil, the god of air and storms. Egyptians generally wor- shiped Ra, the sun god, as creator of the universe, although some Egyptian traditions gave other gods the credit for creation. The Importance of Monotheism Abraham may have been a henotheist , rather than a true monotheist, as he is never said to have claimed there were no other gods. By tradition, however, he is considered the first human being to place himself completely in the hands of the one God. Because each of the gods worshiped by polytheists had separate and specific areas over which they had power, no single god could have the primary place in a person’s life. Abraham, however, focused on the commands of a single deity, rather than on trying to appease all of the gods through various rituals. By doing this, Abraham placed the one supreme God at the center of his life. Monotheism was a revolutionary idea because it radically changed the human perspective of the future. In the ancient world life and death were considered simply part of an endless cycle. Although the gods could intervene in human affairs, even the great- est of them were controlled by outside laws and forces. In the epic poem The Iliad , for example, Zeus is the greatest god of the Greek pantheon, but he cannot keep his mortal son Sarpedon from dying in battle because the Fates have decreed Sarpedon’s death. Ancient