We shall take three views of monotheism: the early proto-monotheistic view found in Genesis (Lord Eloim), the Judaism established by the Deuteromic writers(Lord Yaweh), and Jesus' experience of the Kingdom of God. The proto-monotheism of Genesis expresses the distinction between God and man as a dietary one. The Lord Eloim has eaten from the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. Man in his state of innocence has eaten only of the Tree of Life, and after the fall only of the Tree of Knowledge. Genesis is characterised by covenant following the fall, the nature of sacrifice (the sacrifice of an animal - Abel, and of vegetation - Cain, and human sacrifice - Abraham and Isaac), birthright (Isaac and Jacob, Jacob and Joseph etc)... and the punishment of God towards those who do not keep the covenant (the Tower of Babel, the flood, destruction of Sodom etc). What is the relation of covenant to the oral drive ? In part, covenant is agreement, the pronouncement of a promise, but the covenant itself is not limited to the oral, it places the whole subject under the government of the oral - actions caused by words. Sacrifice itself is a displacement of the parricidal memory from the primal scene, repetition of the murder of the innocent (father) is a form of cleansing for the tribe, the existential fear from the primal scene is reproduced by the story of the Fall, it is sufficient that the existential fear caused by the primal scene is reproduced, even if the cause of that fear cannot be acknowledged.

... Under the Law the concept of sacrifice is displaced by taboo - the division between clean and unclean, Jew and Gentile etc. Orality is supplanted by textuality - the Books of the Law - and the Symbolic Order becomes a complex interplay of abomination and purification, labelling, naming: a taxonomy.

... With Christ, orality returns to the organising role within the religious consciousness. It has authority, it can perform magic, it can speak with God. The silent (ie passive) pose of the subject is replaced by Jesus affirmation of the spoken word ("go into all the world and preach..." etc.) Orality implies desire and hence a need to identify a loss, the fight of Judaism against the Great Mother is not replaced directly with the Christic 'Father' relationship, although the theory of the Gospel implies a Heavenly Mother, the anti-Mother inheritance from Judaism, the rejection of the Earth, Blood, Women, Death, mysticism etc, forced an ambiguous gender for God (called Father, but with none of the imperialistic male characteristics, his attributes of love, mercy, tenderness, forgiveness etc are all feminine).