Monolatry

Monolatry is the belief that many gods exist combined with the insistence on worshipping only one chosen deity. The word derives from the Greek *monos* ("single") and *latreia* ("worship"); the term is sometimes credited to the biblical scholar Julius Wellhausen. **Distinctions.** Monolatry differs from monotheism, which holds that only one god exists, and from henotheism, which centers on devotion to a supreme god while accepting the validity of worshipping others. Monolatry's defining feature is exclusive *worship* of one god without denying that the others are real. **Atenism.** A frequently cited example is the religion promoted by the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten (14th century BCE), who elevated the solar disk Aten to supreme status and, by about the ninth year of his reign, made Aten effectively the sole object of state worship with himself as intermediary. Scholars usually classify this as monolatry rather than monotheism, since Akhenaten suppressed the worship of other gods without arguing that they did not exist. **Ancient Israel.** Historians commonly describe early Israelite religion as monolatrous or henotheism: phrasing such as the First Commandment's "you shall have no other gods before me" demands exclusive worship rather than denying other gods' existence. During the 8th century BCE, exclusive YHWH-worship competed with cults of Baal and other deities, and strict monotheism is generally dated to the period of the Babylonian exile (6th century BCE) and after. See also Henotheism and Monotheism.