Digital approaches to the study of Ancient Monotheism

This paper sets out a research program, with the aim of providing collaborative and methodological tools for studying ancient Monotheism. The program takes for granted that the huge amount of information, from many fields of study, puts such a task well beyond any one scholar, and in fact requires a considerable team of researchers. The technological solution suggested for such collaboration is Mediawiki software. As its proven success in supporting Wikipedia has shown, it is both a highly efficient for recording and cataloguing data, and a tried and true tool for online collaborative work. Methodologically, this project faces multiple challenges. The most immediate of these is the question of definition: what is the subject matter? My aim here is to go beyond the classic approach of first reaching a theological definition of Monotheism and then looking for its origins. Rather, it is to define the basic traits (theological, mythological, institutional, visual etc.) most prevalent in Monotheism today, and to trace their development in antiquity. For this purpose I plan to employ new theories which have not yet seen extensive use in the Humanities: memetics and network theory. Both methodologies are nicely applicable for use with Mediawiki. In the paper I give a rudimentary explanation how these two methodologies may open new possibilities for research, with hope of paving a way towards a digitally based quantitative analysis as a possible basis for historical argumentation.