Henotheism

Henotheism is a temporary form of monotheismNathan MacDonald, Deuteronomy and the Meaning of "Monotheism" (2012), pp. 53-54, Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck (2nd and Revised edition), ISBN 978-3-16-151680-1.A. Van Selms, "Temporany Henotheism", Symbolae Biblicae et Mesopotamicae (FS. F. de Liangre Böhl; [M. Beek-A. Kampen, eds.] Leiden 1974), pp. 341-348. that places exclusive devotion on a single Deity, worshipped as the one and only God for a short period of time; it could be best explained as the "belief in individual gods appearing alternatively as the highest gods".Hermann Oldenberg, The Religion of the Veda (1993), p. 59, Delhi, Motital Banarsidass, ISBN 81-208-0392-2. Henotheism is confused with monolatry sometimes, but they are different concepts of religious belief.
==History==
The term Henotheism was originally coined in 1860 by Friedrich Max Müller, a German Indologist, philologist and historian of comparative religion. Müller applied it to the temporany, ritual and liturgical worship of one single God at a time, especially in Vedas; thus, is a form of devotion that was practiced by Hindus only. He employed it in conjunction with the term Kathenotheism in order to distinguish Hinduism ( in particular) from Greco-Roman polytheism and Abrahamic monotheisms, and present Hindu beliefs in a more comprehensible way to European scholars that knew nothing of Eastern religious traditions.Sharada Sugirtharajah, Imagining Hinduism: A Postcolonial Perspective (2004), pp. 43-45, NY, Routledge, ISBN 0-203-63749-6.
The distinction between monotheism and henotheism was stated by Müller as follows:
Afterwards, his contemporary religious scholars (among them, his colleagues) tried to give a more precise definition of the term, and its correlation to monotheism and monolatry; aside from slight differences, they all agreed with Müller that henotheism is a legitimate but nonetheless temporany form of monotheism. However, both the terms Henotheism and Kathenotheism have soon become obsolete, and hardly survived criticism from late academics.Arthur B. Keith, The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads, Part 1 (1989), p. 89, Harvard Oriental Series Vol. 31 (Delhi, Motital Banarsidass, Harvard University Press), ISBN 81-208-0645-x.
==Examples==
===Hebrew Bible===
We can see the last stages of the evolution from henotheism to monolatry, and finally from monolatry to monotheism within the pages of the Hebrew Bible itself. At first the Hebrews practiced henotheism as seen in the commandment by Yahweh/El to have "no other gods before me" (), which only makes sense if other gods are held to exist. After the Hebrews became fully monotheistic around the time of the Babylonian Captivity, and Yahweh started to be regarded as the only One God of Israel, the injunction against idolatry remained in the Scriptures as an admonishment: according to the Israelites, to worship other people's gods in foreign lands meant to abandon their national God and the Land of Israel. Thus, Jewish monotheism was the outcome of this process of isolation and stabilization of their ethno-religious identity during the Exile.
===Christianity===
Christianity, which retains the Old Testament as scripture, also condemns idolatry and explains this peculiarity by merging all Baal worship or Marduk worship (or even the veneration of Mary, according to Protestants) into Satan worship. That way the commandment from God not to worship other gods is not tacit acknowledgment of the existence of other gods, but simply God trying to keep people from being snared by the wiles of the Devil.
====Mormonism====
Mormonism's doctrine that God the Father is but one of many Gods shares a few similarities with henotheism, but is distinguished from it by the absence of recognition of other gods (including resurrected humans granted their own universe over which to rule) in any devotional sense - only God the Father, and God the Son Jehovah/Jesus Christ are held to be worthy of devotion.
Moreover, Mormons have been frequently criticized by other Christians (mostly Trinitarians) because they don't accept the Trinity as it was established in the Nicene Creed;D. C. Peterson and S. D. Ricks, "Comparing LDS Beliefs with First-Century Christianity" (March 1988), lds.orgT. L. Givens, P. L. Barlow, The Oxford Handbook of Mormonism (2015), pp. 638-640, NY, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-977836-2. Mormons are more prone to define their conception of the Godhead as a "social" interrelation between God the Father (the "Supreme Being" and "Creator"),"God the Father", True to the Faith (2004), 74–76, lds.org God the Son and Holy Ghost:G. B. Hinckley, "The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost" (March 1998), lds.org they all form the Godhead, but they're also autonomous and distinct Persons; the Father and the Son have physical bodies, whereas the Holy Ghost has a spiritual one (this definition of the Triune God has been accused of "Tritheism"). Thus, Mormons are charged with heresy by some Trinitarian Churches.
==See also==
*Heresy
*Polytheism
*Monolatrism
==External links==
==Notes==
==References==
Category:Paradigms of religion