• Peter Nathan

What, then, of the claims of Judaism and Christianity to be monotheistic religions? Jewish scholars have long realized that there was a difference between the ideas of a deity in the Tanakh (the Jewish Scriptures) and the subsequent reasoning of the rabbis. Various people have tried to categorize the Jewish approaches to monotheism and the reasons for their changes. In the same vein as inclusive monotheism, some have proposed “hierarchical monotheism,” with the God of Israel being the ultimate God. The gods of other nations could exist, but the only one that Israel was to worship was their God. He reigned supreme over the other gods.

• Hierarchical Monotheism
• EddyM

Hierarchical Monotheism ~ there are multiple Deities, one of them is the Supreme Being and others are subordinate to Him (as in Sat Vaishnava)

• God’s Multiple Personality (Dis)Order
• Bruce Wells

In [Benjamin D.] Sommer’s view, monotheism is not denying the possibility that other gods exist; instead, it affirms the complete supremacy of one particular deity to whom all other heavenly (and earthly) beings–whether called gods or angels–are subservient. Thus, Sommer’s monotheism is not the kind of ontological monotheism that most people envisage but rather a hierarchical monotheism.

• The Odyssey by Homer

The Odyssey as being in conversation with The Bible, and study of the myths and the way in which said myths are employed being very revealing as to the motivations of the Old Testament writers (namely to erase a positive history in order to replace it with a hierarchical monotheism).

• Professor Pierre Hadot and the Task of Philosophy

Not only was Christianity contaminated by the pagan idea of theology, but the ancient Christian idea of hierarchical monotheism, so central to early Christianity, could be found within the evolution of paganism itself, especially under the influence of the imperial ideology.

• Lisa Paul Streitfeld
• The Hieros Gamos: A Theology for the Twenty-first Century

[There was an] elevation of Marduk as a national god who has conquered the Goddess creator and therefore rules supreme under a hierarchical monotheism.

• Jack David Elle

Michael Cerutti opens the proceedings by pleading the case for two quite different types of monotheism, which blur the distinction between monotheism and polytheism. In hierarchical monotheism, there might be a ‘high god’ like Zeus or Odin but other lower gods as well, often in some sort of ‘divine division of labor.’ Such a god may be one among many, but he is also first among many, a god of gods. In syncretistic monotheism, whatever other gods or spirits may share divinity with the high god are seen as emanations, sometimes literally parts, or perhaps varying names, of the one god. While the first type may still be recognizably polytheistic for most modern audiences, the second is much more complex: even allegedly monotheistic Christianity supports an idea of a god made of three persons.

• Touraj Daryaee
• To Learn and to Remember from Others

The Middle Persian phrase: ēn parastak ī bay ī bayēn ī jahūdēn “this place of worship of the god of the gods of the Jews’ suggest a hierarchy of deities which bodes well with Ohrmazd and the other yazatas of the Zoroastrian tradition in late antiquity. Here then we are not faced with the strict ethical monotheism of the Jews, but the description of a hierarchical monotheism of Zoroastrianism.

• John A. Selbie et al.
• Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (v.3)

The Shamanists have their own Olympus, while among the Yakuts and Turks, who come more into contact with Christianity, there is noticeable a tendency to hierarchical monotheism. The supreme deity of the Altaians – Ulglien, or, as he is called in some places, Khormtrsta-Tengri (the Uyim-artoyen of the Yakuts) – stands far higher and farther removed from mortals than the thunder-bearing Zeus.

• D.M. Murdock
• Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection

As is the case in other religions and mythologies, such as the Indian, the Egyptian faith at times has appeared to represent a sort of “polytheistic monotheism” or “polytheistic monism” that ascribes divinity to a vast proportion of creation, while maintaining the cosmos to be one.

• Muata Ashby
• African Origins of Civilization, Religion, Yoga Spirituality and Ethics Spirituality

... here we are confronted with the African concept of Polytheistic Monotheism, system of religion presenting a Supreme Being with many “lesser gods and goddesses” who serve the Supreme and sustain Creation ....

• Jeebus ur Christ
• AM, Lvl 5

Hinduism is a Polytheistic monotheism (Oxymoron, but then they believe the only one god Brahman and his three great gods, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva and the many little godlings. It would be easy to convert the one god to god and his three great gods to archangels and the many little godlings to angels).

• The Companion Guide To Zeitgeist: Part 1
• Acharya S

... as is the case in other religions and mythologies, such as the Indian, the Egyptian represents a sort of “polytheistic monotheism” that ascribes divinity to a vast proportion of creation, while maintaining the cosmos to be one.