The miopic Yahweh

So, if Yahweh, the OT God, doesn't seem to know the world beyond the Jordan valley... doesn't know about the abundance of Europe, the vast variety of the African continent, the wonder of the seas beyond the Mediterranean, and certainly not the beauty of the north American continent, nor the density of the south American continent, let alone the culture of the Asian peoples, how can such a god have anything to say on my life? In short, he can't. So what do I care for a god whose only concern seems to be for one tribe of people? In short, I can't.

At this point it seems necessary to refer to a question I first heard raised many years ago. At the time it seemed innocuous. I flippantly dismissed it for its' simplicity. It was Bertrand Russell in his little book, Why I'm Not A Christian, asking, "If we don't believe in many gods, why do we believe in one?" That is the most pertinent question of faith, at least of monotheistic faith as it has come to be in the west. And from that question I began to search for an understanding of how and why monotheism arose and then spread, from Egypt, through the Levant, and then across Europe and the Americas.