The First Commandment prohibits 'having other gods' before the living God YHWH, which is a response to the multifarious polytheistic world in which this command was deposited. But in their discussion of Divine revelation or explication of Israel's history, many Bible writers inadvertently mentioned the names of 'other gods' (and while some commentators confuse the Bible with the Word of God, the Bible contains 'other gods' but the Word of God obviously doesn't).

It should be carefully noted that pagan gods were not simply empty effigies, but rather personifications of elements of observable reality. The battle of the Bible writers was not against these very real elements, but rather against the personification and veneration of them. Yahwism is not simply a monotheistic variant of a polytheistic world view but a radical departure from the whole business of religious sentiment. The Jews were known as the people without a god, because their deity was not a personification of a part of observable reality, and was not expressed in an effigy. The God of the Jews was Truth, their dedication was demonstrated in honesty, and their devotion resulted in a kind of proto-science and certainly not in anything that is in any way even remotely similar to a contemporary religion.

The Bible is also not, as is commonly believed, a history of Israel as a political entity, but rather the history of mankind's understanding of reality; from humanity's most basic inherent drive to know Truth (Genesis 4:26) to the effects of the truth-seekers within Egypt's culture (Genesis 12:10, 46:3) to those in Babylon and Persia (Daniel 6:3, Esther 10:3) and finally those within the Greco-Roman world, ultimately culminating in Jesus of Nazareth.

Find below a list of 'other gods' mentioned in the Bible, or read our articles on the First Commandment and on whether the Bible is the Word of God.

Also have a look at our article on Homer and Homeric influence on the Bible.