The fundamental transformation of religion in late antiquity is usually perceived as the passage from Greco-Roman polytheism to Christian monotheism. The present work seeks to offer a more sophisticated analysis of the complex relations between polytheistic, dualistic, and monotheistic trends in late antique religion.
From early Christianity to the emergence of Islam, the long late antiquity denotes a truly revolutionary period in the history of religions. In many ways, religious ritual patterns and theological worldviews were then radically transformed throughout the Near East and the Mediterranean. In particular, the traditional polytheistic systems collapsed, giving way to various forms of monotheism and dualism. In Dynamics of Monotheism in Late Antiquity, Guy G. Stroumsa seeks to analyze this multifaceted revolution as a whole, rather than focusing, as is usually the case, on distinct religious communities and traditions, such as Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Gnosticism, Christianity, Manichaeism, and earliest Islam. Many of the elements of religious change in our period can be perceived as a praeparatio coranica, as it were, as they set the scene for the advent of Islam. The thrust of the book is to identify the key dynamics through which religious change happened in the kaleidoscope of religious conceptions. The analysis emphasizes the dialectics between monotheist and dualist perceptions and systems. It will also seek to identify the core elements of the Abrahamic religions in the making.