If you analyze these various conceptions according to their basic metaphysical claims about the nature of the divine, that diversity collapses quickly.
This is why we can say that Jews, Christians, Muslims, etc. worship the same God, for example. Yes, they disagree about God - and these are very important and even profound differences, to be sure, pace the indifferentists - but the basic object of belief can be said to be the same.
OTOH, the basic nature of polytheistic gods is radically different. The pagan gods are fully immanent, because a truly pagan understanding of the divine lacks transcendence. You do not find a true distinction between creator and creation here. Where we do find purported "creator" gods, it is always something like mutation of some primordial chaos and not a genuine creatio ex nihilo. If you cannot draw a distinction between the creating cause and the created effect, then you do not have transcendent divinity. Divinity in such a scheme is just another part of the world.
> If you analyze these various conceptions according to their basic metaphysical claims about the nature of the divine, that diversity collapses quickly.
The word "basic" is doing a lot of lifting in that claim. Borborites believed in and practiced the sexual sacrament. Ophites believed that Christ was the serpent in the garden of Eden. Some Cathars believed that Eve's daughters copulated with Satan's demons and bore giants. These stories have been told for a long time, and some versions are literally opposite to others - with opposite meaning derived. From my perspective, the nature of human cognition, especially over deep time, results in exploring every internally representable version of an idea or in this case a theology.
It seems to me that conceptualization around the divine has evolved radically over time, and can only appear unified from the relatively limited perspective of the individual.
This is why we can say that Jews, Christians, Muslims, etc. worship the same God, for example. Yes, they disagree about God - and these are very important and even profound differences, to be sure, pace the indifferentists - but the basic object of belief can be said to be the same.
OTOH, the basic nature of polytheistic gods is radically different. The pagan gods are fully immanent, because a truly pagan understanding of the divine lacks transcendence. You do not find a true distinction between creator and creation here. Where we do find purported "creator" gods, it is always something like mutation of some primordial chaos and not a genuine creatio ex nihilo. If you cannot draw a distinction between the creating cause and the created effect, then you do not have transcendent divinity. Divinity in such a scheme is just another part of the world.