Israel and threaten them with the wrath of God if they do not give up their polytheistic cults. The transition from monolatry to monotheism and the concept of idolatry can be summarized as the following: 1) Ancient Canaanites worshipped a large variety of gods, though probably not including Yahweh; 2) Canaanites in the lands that would later be known as Israel, Samaria, and Judah began worshipping Yahweh; 3) The early Israelites prioritized Yahweh worship, treating other gods as secondary; 4) The Israelites gradually merged other deities into Yahweh, associating their traits and stories with him; 5) The deities that had previously been merged with Yahweh, and some vestigial traditions and rituals associated with their worship, were eventually seen as superstitions or elements of distinct, separate religions; 6) The authors of the most ancient books of the Hebrew Bible argued that Yahweh is the only god that Israelites should worship, and that all other worship angers Yahweh, but did not overtly deny the existence of the other Canaanite deities; 7) It's possible that at some point after the Babylonian captivity, the history and memory of Canaanite gods being worshipped alongside Yahweh in mainstream Yahwistic temples were forgotten; 8) Later Tanakh authors (beginning with the Deutero-Isaiah authors) used the term avodh zereh (עֲבוֹדה זֶרֶה) meaning foreign worship and argued that "fashioning a god or idol" was foolish and futile, as Yahweh is the only god that truly exists. The other forms of worship described in the more ancient books were deemed merely ancient superstitions or misguided foreign religions. Idolaters were no longer making Yahweh jealous by making offerings to foreign gods — rather, they were making offerings to imaginary gods that had no power to reward them with any kind of benefit. This rejection of the existence of foreign gods can be seen as marking the completion of Yahwism's transition into Second Temple Judaism. References Further reading Reuven Chaim Klein (2018). God versus Gods: Judaism in the Age of Idolatry. Mosaica Press. . Bary S. Kogan (1992). "Judaism and the Varieties of Idolatrous Experience" in Proceedings of the Academy for Jewish Philosophy Eds. David Novak & Norbert M. Samuelson. University Press of America. Elliot N. Dorff (1992). "Judaism and Idolatry: In Defense of Images" in Proceedings of the Academy for Jewish Philosophy Eds. David Novak & Norbert M. Samuelsn. University Press of America. Yechezkel Kaufmann (1960). The Religion of Israel: From its