Social-science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, by Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Fortress Press, Quote p.407 "In the Hebrew scriptures, we find a theological image of God rooted in the social structure of Israelites monarchy. Since this is a monarchy confined to a single ethnic group, the image of God is one of henotheism rather than monotheism".
Christine Hayes. Introduction to the Bible. Yale University Press, 30 Oct 2012, Quote p. 38: "In all likelihood, Hebrews of the patriarchal period (second millennium B.C.E.) as well as many first-millennium Israelites and Judeans were not markedly different from many of their polytheistic neighbors... Most scholars conjecture that ancient Israelite-Judean religion (the practices and beliefs of the actual inhabitants of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah in the first millennium B.C.E.) was at the most monolatrous (promoting the worship of one God, Yahweh, without denying the existence of other gods) rather than monotheistic (asserting the reality of one god only)." and Quote p. 300: "Yahweh, once a southern deity imported into Canaan, then the national god of Israel..."
Mark S. Smith The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2002, Quote p. 184: "That ditheism and polytheistic Yahwism were later condemned by monotheistic Yahwists does not indicate that nonmonotheistic Yahwism necessarily constituted "Canaanite syncretism" or "popular religion," tainted by Canaanite practices and therefore non-Yahwistic in character." The rest of the work discusses the gradual movement from henotheism to monotheism from the time of the Judges to the Babylonian exile, rather early claims. Also, see p.11 and see p. 64
