I like that bovine Yahwe. I think I even read before the their that Yahwe was a god of semi nomadic cow herders. It would make sense to forbid eating the product of competing, more sedentary pig herders.

[–] ThomasMuentzner@hexbear.net 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Could be very true.

Also pigs are more urban , so it could have been used as a Identity marker.

A thing that i kinda thought about about this "monotheism" issue

would not a Ruling Priestclass have a interest in only having "one Deity" as their refrence . otherwise they would desolve into infighting .. A king can have many Gods but a Priest ruling need a single God otherwise they splinter .. something like that.. could even be that it Sprung from a specific "Yahwe" Sub Temple that got into theological beef with it Ba'al's Priesthood and then Left their Pantheon.

[–] woodenghost@hexbear.net 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Yes, that makes sense to me. Monotheistic theocracies can splinter too over doctrinal issues, but I think the splintering is structural in polytheism. Though only if it's not just ideological, but also material. For example because different gods have different temples and their cults are mostly centered in different cities. I just quickly researched examples.

Like in Egypt it was material: when the pharaohs were weak and the priests ruled temporarily, Thebes Amun cult dominated, but still constantly competed with Ra. Much later, when the city Thebes became powerful again, they were combined to one god Amun-Ra.

In contrast, the Buddhist theocracy in Tibet recognized many deities on an ideological level, but was materially very centralized and stable for a long time.