The Worldview of the Old Testament

The Hebrew cosmology represents a revolutionary break with the contemporary world, a parting of the spiritual ways that involved the undermining of the entire prevailing mythological world-view... The presence of this or that biblical motif or institution in non-Israelite cultures in no wise detracts from its importance, originality, or relevance. The germ of the monotheistic idea may, indeed, be found outside of Israel; but nowhere has monotheism ever been found historically as an outgrowth or development of polytheism. Nowhere else in the contemporary world did it become the regnant idea, obsessive and historically significant. Israel's monotheism constituted a new creation, a revolution in religion, a sudden transformation.