Monolatry

Monolatry (Ancient Greek: μόνος, , lit. 'single', and λατρεία, latreia, 'worship') is the belief in the existence of many gods combined with the insistence on the exclusive worship of a single chosen deity. The term was possibly first used by Julius Wellhausen. Monolatry is distinguished from monotheism, which asserts that only one god exists, and from henotheism, which accepts both the existence of other gods and the validity of their worship. The clearest ancient example is the Atenism introduced by the pharaoh Akhenaten in the fourteenth century BCE, which elevated Aten to sole object of worship in Egyptian religion without denying that other gods existed; Egypt reverted to its traditional religion under his successors. Some scholars have also argued that the ancient Israelites practiced a form of monolatry or henotheism before the Babylonian captivity, citing passages in the Torah that acknowledge other gods, though medieval Jewish commentators read the same texts as monotheistic. In modern religion, the classification has been applied to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which teaches that the Godhead comprises three distinct beings and that other divine beings exist; the label is disputed within the church. Mormon cosmology discusses the existence of many Gods, and a method by which any human can become a God, but Mormons only worship the Godhead and ignore the other gods, as stated by the founder of the religion Joseph Smith: "Paul says there are gods many and lords many; but to us there is but one God, and one Lord".