If there is only one god, why are there so many monotheisms?

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All believers in one God derive their spiritual existence from the same deity, however that deity is called. Among the three "families" of monotheisms (Judaisms, Christianities, and Islams), therefore, each system reflects different anthropologies as well as theologies. This perspective also may have spurred the development of monotheistic "holy war." As we know from the Bible, there was plenty of violence and strife among Israelites and in the ancient world in general. "Holy war," whether named Crusade or Jihad, was always a distinct possibility (and not infrequently, also a reality) among competing religious expressions within as well as between monotheisms. The wars between Sunnis and Shi`is and the Albigensian Crusade mark only two of the best-known examples of "holy war" waged within monotheistic systems. And Judaism also has its expression of “holy war,” called milchemet mitzvah, though not developed nearly to the extent as Christianity and Islam. We have observed how monotheism may have emerged from a paradigm shift caused by the conquests of empire. Even the God of Israel, who was not engaged in any truly successful conquest of empire, assumes the universal image of "God of Armies" (the meaning of "Lord of Hosts"). Perhaps, ironically, because it never actually became a political Empire-God, the God of Israel was the only God of the ancient Near Eastern world that survived the Roman Empire. The later militant opposition of the Christian Byzantine Empire, both on the battlefield and in the propaganda of the Church, spurred the Muslims to develop their own nasty polemics. The Qur’an, however, like the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, contains both militant and peaceful material, either of which can be activated by religious scholars when the need arises. A universal monotheism never existed, and it never will exist.