Sub-Saharan African Diverse African cultures developed theology and concepts of deities over their history. In
Nigeria and neighboring
West African countries, for example, two prominent deities (locally called
Òrìṣà) are found in the
Yoruba religion, namely the god
Ogun and the goddess
Osun. Osun is an equally powerful primordial feminine deity and a multidimensional guardian of fertility, water, maternal, health, social relations, love and peace. One Southern African cosmology consists of
Hieseba or
Xuba (deity, god),
Gaune (evil spirits) and
Khuene (people). The
Hieseba includes
Nladiba (male, creator sky god) and
Nladisara (females, Nladiba's two wives). The Sun (female) and the Moon (male) deities are viewed as offspring of
Nladiba and two
Nladisara. The Sun and Moon are viewed as manifestations of the supreme deity, and worship is timed and directed to them. In other African cultures the Sun is seen as male, while the Moon is female, both symbols of the godhead.
Ancient Near Eastern Egyptian ,
Anubis, and
Horus, who are among the major deities in ancient Egyptian religion whereas Christian Leitz offers an estimate of "thousands upon thousands" of Egyptian deities. The deity
Shu, for example represented air; the goddess
Meretseger represented parts of the earth, and the god
Sia represented the abstract powers of perception. However, deities became systematized and sophisticated after the formation of an Egyptian state under the
Pharaohs and their treatment as
sacred kings who had exclusive rights to interact with the gods, in the later part of the 3rd millennium BCE. the chief of whom was the god
El, who ruled alongside his consort
Asherah and their
seventy sons. alongside their own
national god Yahweh. El later became
syncretized with
Yahweh, who took over El's role as the head of the pantheon, They were thought to possess extraordinary powers The most important deities in the Sumerian pantheon were known as the
Anunnaki, and included deities known as the "seven gods who decree":
An,
Enlil,
Enki,
Ninhursag,
Nanna,
Utu and
Inanna.
Marduk was a significant god among the Babylonians. He rose from an obscure deity of the third millennium BCE to become one of the most important deities in the Mesopotamian pantheon of the first millennium BCE. The Babylonians worshipped Marduk as creator of heaven, earth and humankind, and as their
national god. Marduk's iconography is zoomorphic and is most often found in Middle Eastern archaeological remains depicted as a "snake-dragon" or a "human-animal hybrid".
Indo-European Germanic , England, depicts a bound figure, who some have theorized may be the Germanic god
Loki. In
Germanic languages, the terms cognate with '
god' such as and were originally neuter but became masculine, as in modern Germanic languages, after
Christianisation due their use in referring to the
Christian god. In
Norse mythology, (singular or ) are the principal group of gods, while the term (singular ) refers specifically to the female . These terms, states John Lindow, may be ultimately rooted in the Indo-European root for "breath" (as in "life giving force"), and are cognate with (a
heathen god) and
Gothic:
anses. The Norse mythology describes the cooperation after the war, as well as differences between the
Æsir and the
Vanir which were considered scandalous by the other side.
Temples hosting
images of Germanic gods (such as
Thor,
Odin and
Freyr), as well as pagan worship rituals, continued in
Scandinavia into the 12th century, according to historical records. It has been proposed that over time, Christian equivalents were substituted for the Germanic deities to help suppress
paganism as part of the
Christianisation of the Germanic peoples.
Greek The
ancient Greeks revered both gods and goddesses. These continued to be revered through the early centuries of the common era, and many of the Greek deities inspired and were adopted as part of much larger pantheon of Roman deities. Other deities, such as
Aphrodite, originated from the
Near East. Greek deities varied locally, but many shared panhellenic themes, celebrated similar festivals, rites, and ritual grammar. The most important deities in the Greek pantheon were the
Twelve Olympians: Zeus,
Hera,
Poseidon,
Athena,
Apollo,
Artemis, Aphrodite,
Hermes,
Demeter,
Dionysus,
Hephaestus, and
Ares. Among these were the goat-legged god
Pan (the guardian of shepherds and their flocks),
Nymphs (
nature spirits associated with particular landforms),
Naiads (who dwelled in springs),
Dryads (who were spirits of the trees),
Nereids (who inhabited the sea), river gods,
satyrs (a class of lustful male nature spirits), and others. The dark powers of the underworld were represented by the
Erinyes (or Furies), said to pursue those guilty of crimes against blood-relatives. Greek deities led to cults, were used politically and inspired
votive offerings for favors such as bountiful crops, healthy family, victory in war, or peace for a loved one recently deceased.
Roman depicting the creation of man by
Prometheus, with major Roman deities Jupiter, Neptune, Mercury, Juno, Apollo, Vulcan watching The Roman pantheon had numerous deities, both Greek and non-Greek. The non-Greek major deities include Janus, Fortuna, Vesta, Quirinus and Tellus (mother goddess, probably most ancient). Some of the non-Greek deities had likely origins in more ancient European culture such as the ancient Germanic religion, while others may have been borrowed, for political reasons, from neighboring trade centers such as those in the
Minoan or
ancient Egyptian civilization. The Roman deities, in a manner similar to the ancient Greeks, inspired community festivals, rituals and sacrifices led by
flamines (priests, pontifs), but priestesses (Vestal Virgins) were also held in high esteem for maintaining sacred fire used in the votive rituals for deities. This Roman religion held reverence for sacred fire, and this is also found in Hebrew culture (Leviticus 6), Vedic culture's Homa, ancient Greeks and other cultures. Varro stated, in his
Antiquitates Rerum Divinarum, that it is the superstitious man who fears the gods, while the truly religious person venerates them as parents. The best state is, adds Varro, where the civil theology combines the poetic mythical account with the philosopher's. All other deities of the Inca people have corresponded to elements of nature. Inca people have revered many male and female deities. Among the feminine deities have been
Mama Kuka (goddess of joy), ''Mama Ch'aska
(goddess of dawn), Mama Allpa
(goddess of harvest and earth, sometimes called Mama Pacha
or Pachamama), Mama Killa (moon goddess) and Mama Sara
(goddess of grain). The male deity Inti'' became accepted as the Christian God, but the Andean rituals centered around Inca deities have been retained and continued thereafter into the modern era by the Inca people.
Maya and Aztec In
Maya culture,
Kukulkan has been the supreme
creator deity, also revered as the god of
reincarnation, water, fertility and wind. In
Aztec culture, there were hundred of deities, but many were henotheistic
incarnations of one another (similar to the
avatar concept of Hinduism). Unlike Hinduism and other cultures, Aztec deities were usually not anthropomorphic, and were instead zoomorphic or hybrid icons associated with spirits, natural phenomena or forces. The Aztec deities were often represented through ceramic figurines, revered in home shrines.
Polynesian The
Polynesian people developed a theology centered on numerous deities, with clusters of islands having different names for the same idea. There are great deities found across the Pacific Ocean. Some deities are found widely, and there are many local deities whose worship is limited to one or a few islands or sometimes to isolated villages on the same island. Although most early Christian theologians (including
Origen) were
Subordinationists, who believed that the Father was superior to the Son and the Son superior to the Holy Spirit, this belief was condemned as heretical by the
First Council of Nicaea in the fourth century, which declared that all three persons of the Trinity are equal. Jesus Christ, according to the
New Testament, is the self-disclosure of the one, true God, both in his teaching and in his person; Christ, in Christian faith, is considered the incarnation of God.
Islam Ilah, '
(; plural: '), is an
Arabic word meaning "god". It appears in the name of the monotheistic god of Islam as
Allah (''
). which literally means "the god" in Arabic. and the first statement of the shahada, or Muslim confession of faith, is that "there is no '' (deity) but Allah (God)", who is perfectly unified and utterly indivisible. The term
Allah is used by Muslims for God. The Persian word
Khuda () can be translated as god, lord or king, and is also used today to refer to
God in Islam by Persian,
Urdu,
Tat and
Kurdish speakers. The
Turkic word for god is
Tengri; it exists as
Tanrı in
Turkish.
Judaism (12th century BCE to 150 BCE),
Paleo-Hebrew (10th century BCE to 135 CE), and square
Hebrew (3rd century BCE to present) scripts Judaism affirms the existence of one God (Yahweh, or YHWH), who is not abstract, but He who revealed himself throughout Jewish history particularly during the Exodus and the Exile. However, states Breslauer, modern scholarship suggests that idolatry was not absent in biblical faith, and it resurfaced multiple times in Jewish religious life. According to Aryeh Kaplan, God is always referred to as "He" in Judaism, "not to imply that the concept of sex or gender applies to God", but because "there is no neuter in the Hebrew language, and the Hebrew word for God is a masculine noun" as he "is an active rather than a passive creative force".
Mandaeism In
Mandaeism,
Hayyi Rabbi (lit=The Great Life), or 'The Great Living God', is the supreme God from which all things
emanate. He is also known as 'The First Life', since during the creation of the material world,
Yushamin emanated from Hayyi Rabbi as the "Second Life." "The principles of the Mandaean doctrine: the belief of the only one great God, Hayyi Rabbi, to whom all absolute properties belong; He created all the worlds, formed the soul through his power, and placed it by means of angels into the human body. So He created
Adam and Eve, the first man and woman." Mandaeans recognize God to be the eternal, creator of all, the one and only in domination who has no partner.
Asian Anitism Anitism, composed of an array of indigenous religions from the Philippines, has multiple pantheons of deities. There are more than a hundred different
ethnic groups in the Philippines, each having their own supreme deity or deities. Each supreme deity or deities normally rules over a pantheon of deities, contributing to the sheer diversity of deities in Anitism. For example,
Bathala is the Tagalog supreme deity, Mangechay is the Kapampangan supreme deity,
Malayari is the Sambal supreme deity, Melu is the Blaan supreme deity, Kaptan is the Bisaya supreme deity, and so on.
Buddhism Although Buddhists do not believe in a
creator deity, deities are an essential part of Buddhist teachings about cosmology,
rebirth, and
saṃsāra. The
deva realm in Buddhist practice in Southeast Asia and East Asia, states Keown, include gods found in Hindu traditions such as
Indra and
Brahma, and concepts in
Hindu cosmology such as
Mount Meru. In the ancient
Vedic texts of Hinduism, a deity is often referred to as
Deva (god) or
Devi (goddess). Devas or deities in Hindu texts differ from Greek or Roman
theodicy, states Ray Billington, because many Hindu traditions believe that a human being has the potential to be reborn as a
deva (or
devi), by living an ethical life and building up saintly
karma. Such a
deva enjoys heavenly bliss, till the merit runs out, and then the
soul is reborn again into
Saṃsāra. Thus deities are henotheistic manifestations, embodiments and consequence of the virtuous, the noble, the saint-like living in many Hindu traditions.
Jainism Jainism does not believe in a creator, omnipotent, omniscient, eternal God; however, the cosmology of Jainism incorporates a meaningful
causality-driven reality, including four realms of existence (
gati), one of them being
deva (celestial beings, gods). Jain texts reject a trans-cosmic God, one who stands outside of the universe and lords over it, but they state that the world is full of
devas who are in human-image with sensory organs, with the power of reason, conscious, compassionate and with finite life.
Zoroastrianism (center) with
Mithra (left) and Ahura Mazda (right) at
Taq-e Bostan,
Iran Ahura Mazda (); is the
Avestan name for the creator and sole God of
Zoroastrianism. The literal meaning of the word
Ahura is "mighty" or "lord" and
Mazda is
wisdom. and the only deity who is worthy of the highest veneration. He was originally represented anthropomorphically, but, by the end of the
Sasanian Empire, Zoroastrianism had become fully aniconic. == Local, regional, and universal deities ==