there were stages to the monotheist transformation. The oldest stage is the normative ethics found in Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics title. There is a connection to an imposed Alexander world conqueror narrative. I believe that this was when the old testament narratives were linearized and a psyops framework was imposed on the original disparate phoenician/egyptian/babylonian/canaanite narratives - this is the manetho/apion stage to which josephus appended his own confession in Against Apion and during which the various components of the documentary hypothesis were joined together by the septuagint 70 scholars committee in ptolemaic alexandria.
The next one comes with the psyops of Flavians at the time of roman greek transfer. Atwill will fill in a parallel stage consisting of the Flavian construction of Rabbinic Judaism - the first inking of the 'religion of the book' paradigm - (as opposed to and an explicit replacement of the preceding <i>temple</i> judaism - which had its mirrors in the Mt Gerizim Jews, babylonian jews, etc - and which had continued despite the septuagint/OT attempts). Dura Europos synagogue (2nd c) had a mural of the infant Moses in the arms the Shekinah (Patai's The Hebrew Goddess) which obviously was not opposed to "jewish" sensibilities at the time. This is the era of revisionist monotheism - (think british mediated construction of a "monotheistic" sikhism/brahmos, etc). The important thing to realize is that the monotheist narrative was imposed on the "texts" in a psy-ops framework (eg Waheguru battling the hindu "pantheon" in SGGS is simply a point re-interpretation, not reality).
Next stage is the augustinian stage of 'divine will'. This was attributed to manicheans, that is, to persians (ie Augustine was purportedly a manichean who converted) and was designed to combat persians, against whom all previous versions had been unsuccessful. (This is the specific thread that continues into Islam).
As for Islam, acc to scholars, the language of the koran is most similar to syrian form of arabic and it is v likely that it was a conversion attempt by Christians of interior arabs. I'm not sure how Ariansim fits into everything. What is amazing is that enetire greco-roman civilzation bit the dust while the arab first cousins continued blissfully with their paganism.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->4. Consider too, for example, one of the notions fundamental to Modern Jurisprudence: `will'. There have been umpteen discussions about this notion in Philosophy, Law, Psychology, etc. Clearly, or so we think, human beings have a will and exercise it as well. What is the origin of this picture of human beings? Till 300 B.C.E. this notion was `absent' in what we call the western culture today. Neither the Greek thinkers (like Plato or Aristotle), nor the Roman jurists (who wrote their law digests) had such a notion or such a picture of human beings. <b>The first person to struggle with this notion and write tracts about it</b><b> was Saint Augustine, one of the most influential Fathers of the Christian Church. Why did the Christians find this notion important? </b>Because, they think, the universe exemplifies the Will of God and human beings should subordinate themselves to this Will. That is to say, the human will must subordinate itself to the divine will. What is human `will' then? What does this subordination consist of? These and many similar questions arose *within* the ambit of Christian theology, presupposing a Christian picture of Man. (A picture that was neither Greek nor Roman, and is definitely not Indian.) Yet, how many of us do not practice Law, read and write about human will and even assume *as an empirical fact* that it is in the nature of being human that we have will? (This is no *fact*, but a Christian theological picture of man.)<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The next one comes with the psyops of Flavians at the time of roman greek transfer. Atwill will fill in a parallel stage consisting of the Flavian construction of Rabbinic Judaism - the first inking of the 'religion of the book' paradigm - (as opposed to and an explicit replacement of the preceding <i>temple</i> judaism - which had its mirrors in the Mt Gerizim Jews, babylonian jews, etc - and which had continued despite the septuagint/OT attempts). Dura Europos synagogue (2nd c) had a mural of the infant Moses in the arms the Shekinah (Patai's The Hebrew Goddess) which obviously was not opposed to "jewish" sensibilities at the time. This is the era of revisionist monotheism - (think british mediated construction of a "monotheistic" sikhism/brahmos, etc). The important thing to realize is that the monotheist narrative was imposed on the "texts" in a psy-ops framework (eg Waheguru battling the hindu "pantheon" in SGGS is simply a point re-interpretation, not reality).
Next stage is the augustinian stage of 'divine will'. This was attributed to manicheans, that is, to persians (ie Augustine was purportedly a manichean who converted) and was designed to combat persians, against whom all previous versions had been unsuccessful. (This is the specific thread that continues into Islam).
As for Islam, acc to scholars, the language of the koran is most similar to syrian form of arabic and it is v likely that it was a conversion attempt by Christians of interior arabs. I'm not sure how Ariansim fits into everything. What is amazing is that enetire greco-roman civilzation bit the dust while the arab first cousins continued blissfully with their paganism.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->4. Consider too, for example, one of the notions fundamental to Modern Jurisprudence: `will'. There have been umpteen discussions about this notion in Philosophy, Law, Psychology, etc. Clearly, or so we think, human beings have a will and exercise it as well. What is the origin of this picture of human beings? Till 300 B.C.E. this notion was `absent' in what we call the western culture today. Neither the Greek thinkers (like Plato or Aristotle), nor the Roman jurists (who wrote their law digests) had such a notion or such a picture of human beings. <b>The first person to struggle with this notion and write tracts about it</b><b> was Saint Augustine, one of the most influential Fathers of the Christian Church. Why did the Christians find this notion important? </b>Because, they think, the universe exemplifies the Will of God and human beings should subordinate themselves to this Will. That is to say, the human will must subordinate itself to the divine will. What is human `will' then? What does this subordination consist of? These and many similar questions arose *within* the ambit of Christian theology, presupposing a Christian picture of Man. (A picture that was neither Greek nor Roman, and is definitely not Indian.) Yet, how many of us do not practice Law, read and write about human will and even assume *as an empirical fact* that it is in the nature of being human that we have will? (This is no *fact*, but a Christian theological picture of man.)<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->