The Universal Polytheism and the Case of the Jews

This essay considers Robert Parker’s theory of “the universal polytheism” in relation to the case of ancient Jews, who are widely thought to have excepted themselves from the cross-cultural translation of gods (most famously in Jan Assmann’s influential account). Here, however, Novenson surveys the mass of ancient evidence for interpretatio or translation of the Jewish god (as Zeus, Dionysus, Helios, Ouranos, Physis, and more), and conversely for the interpretatio or translation of gentile gods by Jewish writers (as the divine council, angels, demons, and more). It is argued that ancient Jews did participate, in their own way, in Parker’s universal polytheism.