In my book The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold, I have a chapter called “The Myth of Hebrew Monotheism,” which explains that, according to the Bible, the Hebrews/Israelites/Jews were always “whoring after other gods.” Unbelievably, rabid apologists attempting to debunk my entire body of work have even homed in on that factual analysis and tried to claim otherwise. Suffice it to say that this subject is yet another one in which the apologists are completely dishonest in their presentations, as this fact of Hebrew polytheism is clearly documented–one of the few times where the Bible actually is a document, rather than a novel–by both scripture and archaeology.
Fortunately, this fact is evidently well known within the Jewish community, as exemplified here in the following article. The important point about this discussion is that when the Jesus figure was fabricated, based on previous gods and goddesses, as well as Hebrew scriptures, it was not so difficult for many Jews to worship such a character, because they already had a long history of “whoring after” Pagan gods.
It should be remembered that in those days of almost universal idolatry and paganism, it was extremely difficult for the Jews to keep their “footing” and to resist falling back into idol worship. In fact, they often did worship idols in addition to the “Jewish” God.
