protomonotheism

Proto-monotheism is a scholarly term describing a stage in the religious development of some cultures in which a single deity is elevated above others or is worshipped as supreme, while other gods may still be acknowledged or regarded as subordinate. It is not necessarily full monotheism, since multiple deities can remain part of the belief system, but the supreme god is given primacy in worship or in official ideology.

The concept is most often discussed in the context of ancient Israel and neighboring cultures, where some scholars argue that early Israelite religion operated as henotheism or monolatry—worship of Yahweh as the supreme god without insisting on the denial of other gods. Over time, this view is said to have evolved into a stricter monotheism. The notion is also invoked in debates about other ancient Near Eastern cases, such as the cult of the sun disk Aten in 14th-century BCE Egypt, where centralized worship of a single divine principle is debated as to whether it amounted to true monotheism or a form of exclusive monolatry.

Scholarly opinions on proto-monotheism are mixed and contested. Proponents see it as a plausible transitional stage in the shift from polytheism to monotheism, while critics argue that the evidence does not consistently demonstrate a unified, exclusive worship of one god or that the term risks projecting later religious developments onto earlier periods. As a historiographic concept, proto-monotheism is used as a framework to analyze religious change rather than a verifiable, uniform doctrine across cultures.