As someone whose elementary school and college friends were disproportionately Jewish and who has been thinking about Jewish folklore recently it strikes me that Rabbis (being scholars rather than priests) are just way more like Wizards than Clerics. I'm 100% certain I'm not the first person to notice this either.
And like, the way that Clerics (as usually written) find their true strength through Faith rather than through Thinking Really Hard About The Nature Of Reality etc. is also super Christian.
Idk I'm not a theologian or Jewish or religious at all and don't feel qualified to say much more than what I have. It's just extremely clear to me that D&D and its descendants often struggle to represent religion that doesn't feel very Christian in practice, format, or outlook. And our fantasy writing/rpgs deserve more than that.
the fact that D&D was largely designed by an evangelical christian shines through like a nova when you start learning how historical greek and roman religion worked.
in most D&D settings, people pick a god they like or have an affinity with and worship them with prayers and acts of devotion, by living in accordance with their teachings, by taking vows etc. etc. this is not polytheism, this is flavoured christianity -- do you pray to God (the sea) or God (fire) or God (nature)? in historical european religions, you don't pray to poseidon and sing hymns to him, you pay fealty to him because he has the power to decide whether you live or die. if your last trip was good, clear sailing then you make an offering to one of his temples as thanks, because not thanking him is a quick way to incurr his wrath and get yourself killed. before a risky voyage you make a sacrifice to get on his good side so he'll intervene to help you, and if the priest administering the sacrifice determines that poseidon isn't pleased with your offering, you don't sail.
polytheistic religion is best understood as having relationships with nonphysical people, and those relationships vary depending on your society's social relations -- gods are kings whose favour must be gained by acts of fealty and service and whose wrath must be placated, while spirits and fae and nymphs are community members whose consent must be sought before you cut down that part of the forest, or build this house, or redirect this river.
i am something of a skeptic where religion is concerned so forgive me for jumping to questions of power right out of the gate. but: i never feel that dnd clerics feel like they really convey the power that christians themselves feel they have? the thing that makes christians such scary tyrants is their absolute, unbridled confidence in the rightness of their own path, and even from within i have long since gotten the impression that a lot of christians' own internal peace comes from the omnipotence of Their One Guy as well. if your guy is the One True Guy then both your duty and your power emerge from this fact; it is your job to spread his glory because the only other option is burn, since all other gods are false, and you can't be touched because your guy is the most powerful being there is. but all dnd clerics know their god is not the sole deity in the world.
so what's even the point? in real polytheism the answer is pay fealty to poseidon or he'll drown your fuckin ships, but the world of dnd doesn't even use divine fealty to gate magic off, since wizards can do it too. vibeswise they're just kind of less cool wizards because they have to live by the code of some fucker you've never heard of but he hits hammers good with big magic and gives these nerds a fire spell or two so they spend all their spare time asking what he wants. the trade doesn't feel like it justifies itself unless you're bad at book learning, and like -- look, we can pretend for years that religion is a matter of deep personal resonance but the honest reality is that these things are essentially transactional. if dnd's mechanics work as they do every society that functions by dnd's rules should be getting less religious over time as they work out ways to accomplish by wizardry what clerics accomplish through divine blessing.
clerics are boring in dnd because gods in dnd are slightly better-dressed warlock patrons; none of these fuckers feel like they even APPROACH the power of a being like zeus, because if they did, everyone would have to watch out for them instead of just their personal clerics, but they don't approach the power of the abrahamic god either because otherwise he would be an even BIGGER deal. i want to say "in dnd a god is a military technology" but even THAT makes them sound way cooler than they are. in dnd what a god really is is a set of shackles on a cleric's potential
I’m not sure where D&D’s obsession with Clerics following individual gods comes from—I don’t think it appears in the 1974 booklets, but I can’t say for sure. I think there’s a clearer read of Clerics as Christian in earlier editions, but the metaphor breaks down in later ones. See, for example, Marcia’s analysis of Fighters, Mages, and Clerics as analogies for Nobility, Bourgeoise, and Clergy.
Side note: 5e classes have so much annoying overlap! (A Ranger is a Rogue with a pet, a Barbarian is a naked Fighter, a Cleric is just the theme of a Warlock with the powers of a Wizard, etc)
I much prefer Armour Astir’s approach of smashing Cleric and Paladin together into a recognizable “I am going to follow the holy dictates of my god” archetype, and having a separate archetype for “my patron grants me immense powers but for their own personal reasons.”
