Also: good post. Hee.

I think generally speaking you're quite correct in your points about Iconoclasm in the Judeo-Christian tradition prefiguring many of the most prominent contemporary atheist arguments, and it's interesting to see just how prominent and widespread they are in the bible. A girlfriend in a college told me that she thought Abraham was the first Philosopher in positing a one supreme god as a ground of being(s), and I find very little to dispute in that statement, and in yours, except for one point. The notion of "first" and in your case "earliest" examples are not exactly correct.


Anyway, I think you're pretty correct in your statements, but the thing is a lot of similar bursts of both 1) iconoclasm and) ontology happened around the same time, between 600-400 BCE. Certain scholars call this the inception of the "Axial Age". I'll cite two examples in the Indian and Greek traditions.

Indian

As far as I can tell (not very far), the bible was composed between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE. This also, incidentally, is the exact same time period given for the life of Siddhartha Gautama and the inception of Buddhism. Hinduism (some parts? there's some question as to how unified it is) is in fact theistic religion in a lot of ways, furnishing proofs and analyses of their own Prime Mover that they identify as Ishvara. Buddhism is mainly remembered as attacking the notions of karma, reincarnation, and caste, but it also dealt a massive blow the overarching theism present in the typical Hindu religion. The result was a number of schools of Indian philosophy reacting directly against typical buddhist atheist arguments for the next 800 years or so. The Nyaya and Vaisheka schools stand out most particularly, both giving interesting proofs for a prime mover of sorts.

It's also worth noting that even prior to Buddhism, around 700-600 BCE, the Upanishads were written and the Vedanta school of Hindu Philosophy was established. The latter tradition tended to search for a unified (or dual for some schools) ground for all beings, with heavy emphasis on consciousness. These traditions are where the Atman is Brahman sayings come from. I'd think such a thing qualifies as iconoclastic, and ontological.


Greek Philosophy


The second and perhaps more relevant case is that of the Ancient Greek tradition of Philosophy. Socrates was born in 469 and died in 399 BCE. But actually more interesting philosophers for our purposes are what nowadays called the PreSocratic Philosophers. The most prominent one relevant to this discussion is a man named Xenophanes of Colophon, who was born around 540 BC and and lived to almost a hundred, reputedly. His best known verses were attacks on the typical Homeric theology of personal polytheism, which he thought nonsense: "But mortals suppose that gods are born, wear their own clothes, and have a voice and body. Ethiopians say their gods are snub-nosed and black; Thracians that theirs are blue-eyed and red-haired." It was fairly revolutionary, and it carried all the way to Socrates', who in Plato's Apology, was executed for atheism for arguing against this received view of the Gods.

Ontology is also very present in the Presocratic philosophers. Xenophon was reputed to be a Spinoza-like Monist, however that's less well-documented I think. His most prominent student, though, was Parmenides of Elea, who was the first Greek to explicitly single out "το ον" or "Being". He posited that Being was One and Unchanging, and Nothingness quite impossible. He also was the first to explicitly make reference to the distinction between Truth and Illusion, or the way of truth and the way of appearance. The earliest Ontological statement, though, if I recall correctly (and this is according to Heidegger, so) is from Anaximander, who posited Void as the substratum and origin of all things, which "must return to the void according to justice" or something like that.

Anyway, we see two almost exactly parallel traditions of both iconoclasm and ontology, which is good evidence for something like the Axial age. Undoubtedly they eventually cross-pollinated each other, but I don't know really quite how much. It's definitely unclear what came first. In fact, my guess is that the thoughts had been around for some time and it simply took a while to get them written down. One mediary between the Jewish monotheism and the Greeks could in fact be the Egyptians, and I'm sure that Xenophanes was influenced by them. I'm not sure how to fit Akhenaton into things, but he's certainly, certainly a fascinating contemporary (or predecessor? Need to read a bit more) to the Jewish tradition.

Anyway, that's all for now. Please forgive the inevitable typing errors and lack of citations or full quotes. I haven't been able to refine this with a computer proper. Anyone who's more interested in anything or wants quotes I will discuss happily until you are tired of it!