Semitic Monotheism

Ernest Renan remains the most important figure in the French study of religion. His attitudes to both Judaism and Islam must be understood against the backdrop of his notion of the two main races of humankind, the Semitic and the Indo-European, an idea which he had already developed in his early work on the Semitic languages and which continued to inform his thought throughout his life. In Renan’s view, the Semites represent a lower combination of human nature. They had for him no mythology, no epics, no science, no philosophy, no fiction, no plastic arts, no civil life … In other words, the Semites did not develop any of the fields that the Europeans understand as integral to a true living culture. In religion, the lack of myths (due to the monotony of their native deserts) meant a paucity of gods.