Monotheism and Polytheism
Jesus brought the next wave of monotheism to West Asia six hundred years later with the development of Christianity. Christianity was the first religion to insist that not only should you worship only one god, but the other ones were not really even gods at all, but demons. This has some similarity to the Zoroastrian idea that some minor gods are on the side of the Lie, and some relationship to the Jewish idea that you should only worship your own one God, but it takes both ideas to more of an extreme. Christianity gradually took over most of the western part of West Asia, the part that was under Roman control, but the Sassanian part of West Asia remained Zoroastrian until about 700 AD.
The most recent religious movement of West Asia is Islam, which was taught by the Prophet Mohammed in the Arabian peninsula in the late 600's AD. Islam draws from earlier West Asian religions, but is even more fiercely monotheistic than Christianity is, with the mantra "there is no God but God." The establishment of the Islamic Empire in the late 600's and 700's AD spread Islam from Spain to China, nearly wiping out Zoroastrianism, and even today most of that area still follows Islam. The conquest of Turkey by the Ottomans in the 1200's AD spread Islam to Turkey, Greece, and the Balkans as well.
To read more about polytheism and monotheism, check out these books from Amazon.com or from your library:
The Usborne Book of World Religions, by Susan Meredith (1996). For kids.
Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia, by Jean Bottero (2001).
God Against the Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism, by Jonathan Kirsch (2004). From Akhenaten in Egypt, through Judaism and the rise of Christianity. Lively, popular writing.
A World Full of Gods: The Strange Triumph of Christianity, by Keith Hopkins (2001). Entertaining account of what it was really like at non-Christian and early Christian religious events. Not for young kids.
Main West Asia page
Main religion page
Kidipede - History for Kids
