Verse

Under this twofold heading we propose to treat of everything which, eee’ to modern views, constitutes the scien- tific standpoint of a period, but which to ancient, and especially to Israelitish, notions is so closely connected with religion that it cannot be passed over in a history of religion.

This means that we are concerned, on the one hand, with the anthropo- logical or psychological notions of this period, in- cluding conceptions of the state after death ; and, on the other hand, with the ideas that were cher- ished as to the origin and purpose of the universe, the relation of man to the brute world, the opening period of the world’s history, and the future goal towards which the present course of things is moving.

As elsewhere, the notions about all these things meet us, not in didactic statements but-in the guise of narrative (so, especially, in the J oe of Gn 1-11), or in casual notices. The atter almost always take for granted that the notions in question are universally known, and hence refrain from fuller explanation or descrip- tion. Unfortunately, this leads to our being left in the dark on many an important question. 1.

The drawing of a distinction between two main constituents of the human personality—one bodily and one spiritual—must have set in as soon as men came to realize the fundamental difference between a living and a dead body. (a) The cor- poreal being, at least immediately after death, was uite the sameas before. What had been the seat of the life which had now taken flight? The readiest reply was: the breath.

Observation shows that, when the last breath has been drawn, the life dis- appears; while, conversely, the revivification of one that is dead is accomplished through the breath returning into him (1 K 17”"t-).* Alongside of this we encounter another conception, which is also ery rooted, namely, that the seat of life is to be found in the dlood.

It is true that express statements to this effect do not occur till much later (Dt 12%, Lv 174); but the very ancient pro- * The clearest evidence of the identification of breath and life is found in the circumstance that in Hebrew, as in other lan- guages (cf. Sansk. G@tman=‘ breath,’ ‘spirit,’ ‘soul’; Gr. wvedua, orig. =‘ breath,’ ‘blowing’ ; Lat. animus and anima, spiritus), the notions of ‘breath,’ ‘wind,’ ‘soul,’ ‘spirit’ are expressed by one and the same word.

Thus m5 is at once the name of the wind which dries up the waters of the Flood (Gn 81), and of the Divine breath of life which, at the Creation, hovers over the waters (12), and of the breath of life within man. In like manner it is true of the Heb. W5} that it may designate at one time the breath, at another the spirit of life within man, the soul and its tunctions(e.g.

longing or eager desire for something); but it may also stand simply for life itself, and, finally, even for the living being or (in the case of men) the person; nay, by a loose kind of usage, it may mean even ‘the person of one who is dead,’ or, without the genitive, a ‘corpse’ (Lv 198 224 et al.)

It is, of course, a glaring error, but a deeply rooted one, to give mrad all manifold senses, the one uniform render- 30) RELIGION OF ISRAEL 665 hibition to eat blood (1 S 1438-) must have been due in ancient Israel, as elsewhere on heathen Semitic soil, chiefly to the fear of absorbing another ‘life along with the blood. Under special circum- stances, indeed (as, for instance, at the sacrificial meals of brotherhoods in pre-Mosaic times; cf. above, p.

618°), this result might be desired; but in the realm of Jahwism, as far back as we can trace the evidence, such a practice was excluded. It may be added that the conception of the blood as the seat of life must have rested on the observa-— tion that, as the blood pours from a wound, the powers of life sensibly diminish, and at last dis- appear entirely—an observation which could always be made afresh when animals were slaughtered.

We shall have to speak afterwards of the import- ance for the theory of sacrifice which this view of the blood came to assume in the latest period of Israel’s history. (6) For the period with which we are dealing, another question seemed more important, namely, that as to the origin of the breath of life, upon whose presence or absence the life or death of the body depends.

The answer which the Old Testa- ment gives to this question, and which forms the basis of OT psychology, is connected most inti- mately with the religion of Jahwism, or, to be more precise, with its notion of God. But our discus- sion of this point must be preceded by a remark of a general character.

Almost all the accounts of so-called Biblical Psychology * are vitiated by the introduction of dogmatic prejudices,-and the attempt to read into Scripture a finished system of one’s own, instead of closely studying the usage of language. Especially unfortunate has been the attempt to discover in both Testaments exactly the same point of view, whereas the psychology of the OT has for its basis a dichotomy, that of the NT for the most part a trichotomy.

Keeping now to the exact terms of the funda- mental and principal passage, Gn 2’, we learn from this, in the form of narrative, that Jahweh at first formed a man [proleptically for ‘a human body’) from clods [not ‘ dust’] of the field, and then breathed into his nostrils breath of life, so that man became a living being. In view of this, there can be no doubt that Gn 2’ assumes a dichotomy in man’s personality.

As far as concerns his bodily substance, man is earth, and must accord- ingly return at death to the earth (3). But his breath of life emanates directly from an inbreath- ing of that of God, and ceases at the man’s death, when God calls back this His spirit of life to Himself.

We must not, however, think of the ‘return of the spirit to God who gave it’ (Ee 127) after the manner of the Christian hope of im- mortality, as if it meant a passing of the indivi- dual spirit to be with God, but only as a reabsorp- tion in the creative Divine spirit which pervades the whole Universe.

We should even be reminded here of the pantheistic doctrine of the world-soul, were it not that any such thought is excluded by the OT conception of God which lays such em- phasis on His living personality. * Of the special works on the subject, Beck’s Umriss der biblischen Seelenlehre (Stuttgart, 1843, 3rd ed. 1871) is based partly on Roos’ Fundamenta Psychologie ex Sacra Scriptura collecta, 1769 (Germ. tr. 1857, under title Grundztige der Seelen- lehre aus der heiligen Schrift].

Worner in his Bibl. Anthro- pologie (Stuttgart, 1887) builds largely upon Beck. Franz Delitzsch’s System der bibl. Psychologie (Leipzig, 1855, 2nd ed. 1861) is not without a certain mixture of theosophy. More im- partial are the accounts of Wendt, Die Begrijfe Fleisch und Geist im biblischen Sprachgebrauch (Gotha, 1878), and West- phal, Chair et esprit (Toulouse, 1885). J.

Koberle’s Natur und Geist nach der Auffassung des AT': eine Untersuchung zur historischen Psychologie (Munich, 1901) is a very thorough and valuable discussion of all questions relating to the conception of the external world and the life of the human soul, the attri- buting of a soul to nature, mythology, and the notion of the spiritual, together with the influence of religion upon all this.

666 RELIGION OF ISRAEL (c) Not only human but also animal life in general depends upon the possession of the Divine breath of life. Passages like Ps 1047 and Job 344" leave no doubt on this point: Jahweh is a ‘God of the living spirits of all flesh’ (Nu 16” 2716), Accordingly, the question presses itself upon our attention: What, then, is the precise diflerence which under all circumstances must be assumed to exist between man and beast?

It is not in the manner of their origin that the differ- ence lies, at least according to J. While P (Gn 1°.) makes water-animals and birds spring into being at the simple fiat of the Creator, and land- animals proceed from the earth, J (2!%) records a forming process exactly as in the case of man (v.7), that is to say, an individual creation of the animals.

In the case of the latter, however, he makes no mention of an animating by the in- breathing of the Divine breath of life, and in this alone—even if we must assume here the result of reflexion on this question—the distinction between man and beast may be seen: man received the breath of life immediately from God, and on that account he has a far more direct share in the Divine being and life than the animal, in whose case nothing more than a general animating (of the whole species) is assumed.

By the theory that the man first formed was directly animated by God, expression was given to the perception which—although without a clearly defined philo- sophie terminology —had evidently established itself at an early date, that man alone possesses individuality, and is therefore a being capable of individual communion with God, whereas the animal always represents only an example of its species.

—J, however, gives expression in another way to the notion of the inferiority of the animal world to man when (Gn 2) he quite unambigu- ously describes animals as having been created on man’s account and named by him, with the result, however, that there could be found among them none corresponding to man, and thus suitable to be a ‘help’ to him.

(d) From God’s direct animating of the first created human being we are not, however, to infer that the same thing is presupposed for each particular human individual. The OT has been wrongly burdened with this so-called ‘Creationism,’ which supposes God to create a special soul for every newly begotten body, and to unite it about the 40th day with the embryo.

On the contrary, the OT from first to last is based upon ‘Tradu- cianism’:; he who begets the body implants at the same time the germ of the life or the soul. Other- wise, the view would be impossible by which the OT is unquestionably dominated, that through the process of generation even moral weakness, the inclination to sin, passes as an inheritance from parents to children.

This is not ‘original sin’ in the sense in which it is mostly taught in Protestant confessions, namely, as implying the imputing of the guilt of Adam to all his posterity, but original sin in the more general sense, according to which that term is applied to the strong and almost irresistible inclination to sin, which appears to be inseparably bound up with human nature as such, and consequently looks as if it were the result of descent from parents of like disposition.

Thus it is intelligible why allusions to this hereditary sinful disposition are introduced for the most part as furnishing a motive for the forgiveness of sin. In view of the fact that ‘the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth’ (Gn 871), God cannot apply the strictest standard of judgment.

In ad«ition to Ps 517) (‘ Behold, in guilt was I born, and in sin did my mother conceive me’), the locus classicus for this doctrine of the natal quality of vin, we have to take specially into account for the RELIGION OF ISRAEL same purpose Job 144 (‘How could a clean come from an unclean? Not one.’) 15% 25‘*—late pas- | sages, but manifestly intending to express nothing | more than is meant already by J in Gn 871.

In the last-cited passages from Job the ques- tion is put, ‘How can one born of woman be pure [before God]?’: this shows how the connexion between descent and sinfulness was more_pre- cisely thought of. The latter as moral weakness is the natural ress4 of the physical weakness of the body. Man is in the narrower sense the off- spring of woman, the weaker vessel and the one | more exposed to physical hardships. From her, man inherits moral as well as physical (Job 14!) weakness.

(e) In view of all this, it might have seemed natural that the material substratum of human personality, the flesh or the body [the Heb. v3 may stand for either], should be regarded as the seat of sin, just as the NT cdpt undeniably has this collateral notion attached to it. But, in spite of appearances such as arise from Gn 6%, it is wrong to conclude that such a view was held.

It is true that the flesh or the body, in consequence of its origin from the earth, is a type of the decaying and transitory (cf. the characteristic contrast in Is 318 ‘Their [the Egyptians’] horses are flesh, and not spirit’), and this thought attaches itself almost always to the very frequent expression ‘all flesh’ (z.e. either all men or all earthly livin creatures).

But the truth that the flesh, althou; an occasion also of moral weakness, is not thought of as per se sinful and therefore unclean, is unmis- takably implied in the circumstance that in sacri- — fice it was used as a gift to God, and such a gift could never have been in itself wnclean. | (f) The habit already mentioned of putting | upon the OT a trichotomous view of human per- sonality was due almost entirely to a false con- ception of the nephesh (wp} commonly tr.

‘soul’), and of its relation to the réah (m7 commonly tr. ‘spirit’). This distinction between soul and spirit — naturally caused the actually existing dichotomy | of body (or flesh) and spirit of life to be missed. The | real state of things is as follows. Aslongasthe | Divine breath of life is outside man, it can never a be called nephesh but only rdah (more completely | riah hayyin, i.e. ‘spirit or breath of life,’in which — sense we find also nishmath hayyim used [e.g.Gn | 27]).

On the other hand, the breath of life which | has entered man’s body and manifests its presence | there may be called either réah or nephesh. The | two alternate in poetical parallelism in such a way that the same functions are attributed at one time SS __ —— for it. Further, it may be noted that both very frequently stand in parallelism with 3) (‘heart,” ‘disposition,’ also ‘understanding or insight,’ the heart and not the head being with the Hebrews | the seat of intellect).

But in no case should that use of nephesh, whereby it stands for particular functions of the soul or even for a complex of these, be confused with its signification of ‘person — or living being’ (and even ‘corpse’; cf. above, . 665 n.) In this latter sense nephesh could never have its place taken by rdiah or lébh. : The roligiods significance of the anthropological views represented by the above-described dich- | otomy is at once apparent.

Everything whic in any way can be recognized as spirit and life is brought into direct relation to God, and has its origin in Him, and Him alone. The Pauline saying, ‘In him we live, and move, and have our | being’ (Ac 178), corresponds exactly to the postu- lates of OT psychology.

The latter proceeds se | RELIGION OF ISRAEL RELIGION OF ISRAEL 667 eonsistently in its derivation of al/ human thought | a transformation as if it were merely the acci- and will and action, that it speaks not only of a ‘spirit’ (réah, i.e. in this instance the same as : perviple,: ‘disposition,’ or even ‘capability for’). of wisdom, knowledge, and fear of God (Is 11), or of skill in art and expertness (Ex 28°), but even of a spirit of jealousy (Nu 5"), of dizziness (Is 194), of deep sleep (29!

°), ete. Moreover, this spirit is frequently (so in the two passages from Isaiah) spoken of as directly sent by Jahweh. He causes an ‘ evil spirit,’ t.e. a spirit of discord, to come be- tween Abimelech and the Shechemites (Jg 9%), and in like manner lets an ‘evil spirit,’ i.e. a spirit of melancholy or of insanity, take possession of Saul after the departure of the spirit of Jahweh (1S 16").

* In this theorem of the universal activity of the spirit, and indeed of the spirit emanating directly from God, we have one of the strongest evidences of the living character and dignity of the ancient Israelitish conception of God. The latter did not take its rise as a result of the preaching of the prophets. The prophets, on the contrary, found it ready to their hand, made large use of it, and, wherever necessary, deepened it and cleared it of excrescences.

The question as to the nature and the com- ponents of man’s personality was one that could not fail to engage the attention of ancient thought in other quarters as well. Along with the ob- servations which point to its answer, it always forced itself afresh to the front, and in particular exercised an influence even upon the formation of oo But nowhere did the attempts to solve the problem stand in so close a relation to religion as was the case in Israel. 2.

It is otherwise with those questions belonging to the realm of psychology which relate to: the destiny of man, the goal of the development of humanity or of one particular people. Gacctihe of this kind presuppose a greater advance of thought, and, above all, a rich historical experi- ence.

Reflexions on his destiny are quite beyond man in a state of nature; and, even where a com- mencement has been made with political and social order, he holds to empirical results, without in- quiring after the Whence and the Why. To belong to a particular people with particular settlements and under the protection of a particular national od, is as much a matter of course to him as to ave an occupation by which he procures a, liveli- hood.

But what is remote from the reflexion of the individual already occupied the popular mind collectively in primeval times, and led to those profound speculations which meet us to-day in the form of the myth, #.e. the clothing of speculative thoughts in history.

The people of Israel are no more strangers to such myths than are other nations, and in this particular they have con- formed to the course which we may observe in the case of all ancient peoples: they have taken over from prehistoric times a store of myths and legends, to which they have then given a particular development on their own soil, subjecting them in part to transformation.

The manner in which this has been done gives the most valuable indica- tions as to the inmost character of the popular mind. And here we come face to face with the fact that in this point Israel holds a unique osition, The myths taken over from foreign 1eathen soil have been so transformed and filled with truly religious contents that they have become for all time a part of the revealed religion of Israel.

For we cannot consent to regard such * From the standpoint of trichotomy this would have to be expressed something to the effect that reason forsook him, while the functions of the ‘soul’ continued unimpaired. But the point is that no such distinction between raiah and nephesh Ww known to the Hebrew mind. dental result of the inward impulse which drives men to religious and philosophical speculation, but as a fruit of the spirit of God working in Israel as the people of revelation.

And the cir- cumstance that the spirit of God resorted to this clothing of the profoundest religious thoughts in the form of childlike naive narratives, appears to us so far from being a cause of offence that we see in this accommodation to the human under- standing an evidence of superior Divine pedagogic and wisdom.

(a) This remark applies in a very special manner to that myth which first concerns us here, namely, the story of Paradise and the Fall (Gn 2 and 3); for this is intended to answer the question as to man’s original destiny and the reasons for his actual condition now.

hile the derivation of the Biblical story of the Fall from a Babylonian source* is as yet unproved, in spite of numerous attempts to establish it, its connexion with the parallel narrative in the Zend religion does not admit of any doubt. That the latter, moreover, is not a later corruption of what, according to the orthodox conception, is the strictly historical narrative of the Bible, is evident from the simple fact that the dualistic basis (2.¢.

the opposition, essential to the Zend religion, be- tween ‘a good and an evil deity) manifestly played a ruling part in the original narrative. The Hebrew narrator, whose conception of God left no room for this dualism, has got rid of it only by the difficult expedient of making the serpent (which in the Zend religion is the embodiment of the evil deity) a creature of God, like all the rest of the animals.

In this way, indeed, the question remains unanswered how this creature of God comes to step out of the ranks of the rest and to assume a hostile attitude towards the Creator. We shall make no attempt here at an analysis of the narrative as a masterly, unsurpassed ac- count of the origin of sin.

We remark only that we cannot, with many moderns, find its deepest meaning exhausted by setting it down as a de- scription of how sin comes into being in the case of every individual, or of how man rose from a condition of primitive rudeness and unconscious- ness to conscious freedom and culture. On the contrary, Christian dogmatics was and is quite within its right in discovering in Gn 2.3 an account of a Fall, ze. of the origin of sin and the consequent woes of the world.

Man’s original state, according to the Divine will, was one of undisturbed fellowship with God, who also had His dwelling- place within the sphere of man’s abode, the Garden of Eden. The root of sin is eee which wilfully seeks to go beyond the ounds prescribed by God, and produces disregard of His clear prohibition.

But the fruits of dis- obedience are the loss of the former intimate communion with God, expulsion from His home, a life of endless toil and trouble, and at last death in place of the eternal duration of life that was formerly open to him. This myth has been called a lament over the loss of Paradise, and has heen set in parallelism with the Greek myth of the Golden Age. There is justification for both these ways of looking at it.

But with all this the main point must not be overlooked, namely, the em- * There appears to be no doubt that the conception of Para- dise with its four rivers is borrowed from Eastern (? Babylonian) myths, and that the description of the rivers (Gn 210-14) is q later insertion in the early narrative. With regard to this insertion {not to the whole myth] Stade may be right in holding (art. ‘Der Mythos vom Paradies, Gn 2. 3, und die Zeit seiner Einwanderung in Israel’ in ZAT'W, 1903, p. 172 ff.)

that it was not adopted prior to the middle of the 8th cent. B.o. The de- scription of Paradise possesses religious interest only in so far as it serves as a preparation for the story of the Fall(see below) : for cae present purpose everything else may be lef} out of account. 868 RELIGION OF ISRAEL hasis which is laid in the Biblical record on the ateful significance of sin and its worst conse- uence—exclusion from the Garden of Eden, i.e. rom communion with God.

Here we have not only—as happens elsewhere so frequently in myths —forebodings, but actual perceptions of a profound religious character, to which cognate myths of other nations present no parallel. (6) We remarked above that questions as to the nature and destiny of man are far below the horizon of individual reflexion in the primeval history of a people, and arise only when a higher stage of development has been reached. One ex- ception, however, must be made.

This relates to the question, What befalls man at last after the death of the body? Hitherto we have only touched lightly upon this question, in speaking of possible survivals of Animism in the pre-Mosaic religion of Israel. We there (see above, p. 614*) found that the belief in the existence of shades or ‘spirits of the dead’ must have found strong and peculiar support in the appearances of the dead in dreams.

But here we have to do with the whole circle of conceptions that centre about Shé’ol * or the under world, the place of assembly of the dead. The reason why we have not discussed these earlier is simply because it is not till the period with which we are dealing that the mention of Shé’ol is de- monstrable, and because we have no sure ground for attributing the Shé’6l-belief to the Mosaic, not to speak of the pre-Mosaic, period.

There is nothing impossible in the supposition that it was found as early as that, but the view is equally open to us that this whole circle of conceptions was first encountered by Israel upon Canaanitish soil and thence taken over by them. Support for this view might be found in the circumstance that necromancy, which stands in the closest connexion with the Sh@’6l-belief, also came under the notice of the Israelites for the first time, to all appear- ance, in Canaan.

This does not prevent our tracing its origin in the last resort to Babylon.t Now, it cannot be proved that the Babylonian influence first made itself felt, as is so often asserted at present, in the time of Solomon. On the contrary, the earliest notices of Shé’ol (Gn 37* 4235 [in almost identical terms in 44” 51], Nu 16% 83, all probably J) certainly leave the impression that we hive here to do with a conception universally familiar, and hence requiring no more precise de- scription.

From the early passages nothing more can be gathered than that Bnei is thought of as a subterranean space, for one ‘goes down’ to it. Yet it cannot be doubted that the other two con- stant characteristics of Shé’ol—the thick dark- ness which pews there, and the impossibility of returning thence—were connected from the first with its conception.

t But detailed descriptions belong one and all to later times, even to the latest of all,§ and it is difficult to say whether (as, * Regarding the etymology of Dinw, it may suffice here to remark that it is impossible to accept either the derivation from the root sh@’al, ‘ask,’ ‘demand’ (as the place that claims all living for itself), or that from shd‘al with the assumed mean- ing of ‘to be hollow’ (so that Shé@6l would be the ‘hollow’ or ‘cavern’).

Rather is it from a root shi, which includes the notions of wide gaping and deep sinking. Hence the idea underlying the Heb. Sh&6l is that of a subterranean cavity. This does not exclude the supposition that the form Shé6/ in this sense is due to the Hebraizing of a foreign word—according to Zimmern (ap. Beer, ‘ Der biblische Hades,’ p. 15), of the Bab. shil[ijam, ‘west’; cf. Enoch 221, where also Shé’ol is situated in the West.

t On the undeniable points of contact between the Babylonian and the Israelitish Shé’él-belief, cf. especially A. Jeremias, Die bab.-assyr. Vorstellungen vom Leben nach dem Tode (Leipzig, aie and Holle und Paradies bei den Babyloniern? (Leipzig, 1903). { We here leave out of account the calling up of spirits of the dead by necromancers, which was an article of the popular faith, but outside the pale of Jahwism.

§ Of the very copious literature on this subject we note RELIGION OF ISRAEL for example, in the bold picture of Is 11%, or the approach to a distinguishing of a Tartarus within the under world in Ezk 323, Is 1415, also (?) Hos 134) they are to be set down to the account of foreign influence or of independent poetic imagina- tion.

The decision between these two possibilities is all the harder because of the way in which the conception of Shé’dl is constantly mixed up with pictures derived from the rest of the grave. But this does not justify the view that by Shé’ol—at least originally—nothing more was meant than the grave. No doubt, the idea of a place of as- sembly of the dead would derive ever fresh nour- ishment from the contemplation of the roomy cave-tomb in which pe a whole tribe of contemporaries were buried.

* It was all too natural to think of those who had been united in life as still holding converse with one another there. But passages like Gn 37° exclude the thought of any fellowship in the grave. The question, what part of the man goes after death into Shé’ol, cannot be answered from the standpoint of the dichotomy of the OT, which has been already described. For the body is laid in the grave and falls a prey to corruption.

The breath of life returns to God, and with its separation from the body the man ceases to be a nephesh or living being. In spite of all this, it is everywhere taken for granted that at death an in- definable somewhat of the personality descends to Shé’ol, and there—not exactly lives on, but—vege- tateson.

This can be explained only by assuming that the old conception of Shé’6l had already taken firm root when that view of man’s nature originated which subsequently became the prevailing one, and which was irreconcilable with this conception. The dichotomous theory plainly belongs to Jah- wism, while the other conception is a relic of pre- Jahwistic or ex-Jahwistic influences, and is nearly allied to the Greek belief in manes.

At a man’s death a kind of image or outline of the whole personality detaches itself from the corpse. it wants blood, and hence it is without real life (which has its seat in the blood), it is invisible,— save when it appears in dreams or is called up by necromancy,—and it is for ever chained to Sh@ol.

It cannot be proved that the condition and appearance of the shades were thought of as exactly the same as those of the man at the moment of death, and that it was on this account that there was such a dread of mutilations of the body. The mention of Samuel’s mantle in 1 § 28" specially : F. Bottcher, De inferis rebusque post mortem futuris ex Hebreorum et Greecorum opinionibus, vol. i. [embracing only the Heb.

part; no more appeared], Dresden, 1846 (although in many respects antiquated, still of value as a commentary upon the relevant passages); B. Stade, Uber die alttest. Vor- stellungen vom Zustand nach dem Tode (Leipzig, 1877); A. Bertholet, Die israel. Vorstellungen vom Zustande nach dem Tode (Freiburg, 1899); R. H. Charles, A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life in Israel, in Judaism, and in Christianity: or Hebrew, Jewish, and Christian Eschatology (London, 1899); L. Aubert, art.

‘La vie aprés la mort chez les Israélites’ in Rev. de Théol. et Philos. 1902, p. 140 ff. ; G. Beer, art. ‘Der biblische Hades’ in Theol. Abhandlungen zu Hhren H. J. Holtzmanns (Tibingen, 1902). Cf. also the works of Schwally, Frey, Griineisen, Matthes, cited above (p. 6144, note), in speaking of the controversy as to Animism and Ancestor Worship.

* This is undoubtedly the origin of the pretty frequent ex- pression ‘ gathered to his fathers’ (also ‘to his people or to his fellow-tribesmen’) or ‘go to or be laid with his fathers’ (Gn 258 3529 4929. 33, Dt 3250, Jg 210,1 K 210), But the employment of this formula in the case of Abraham, Moses, and Aaron, as well as David, shows that it was used also in a wider sense, namely, of going to Sh@’6l.

The importance attached to the mingling of one’s bones with those of relations (2 S 2113) is sufficiently explained by the fact that this seemed the most honourable and at the same time the safest form of obsequies. On the other hand, the denial of sepulture was regarded as a great misfortune (cf. 2 8 2110, Jer 2219, and the frequent threat to give bodies to be eaten by wild beasts and birds).

No doubt (as among the Greeks), there was a fear that the spirit of ne unburied dead would roam about without rest entering Shé’6l. ui eel Sis ee eee ae SE Ter RELIGION OF ISRAEL shows, however, that the shades were thought of in general after the fashion in which their originals had been accustomed to appear on earth. According to what is at present the prevail- ing opinion, the old conception of Shé’6l survived down to the last in the express designation of the shadowy being as nephesh.

If so, we should have to assume for this word not only the senses de- scribed above (namely, the spirit of life specialized in a human body, and hence=‘ life,’ and also ‘person’ or ‘living being’), but a third wholly ditferent meaning.

* Very strong support appears to be given to this by the circumstance that even in jate passages we hear expressly of a going down of the nephesh into Shé’dl or of its sojourn there, or, finally, of its rescue from Shé’ol (Ps 16% 30419) 4916 (15) 8613 894148), Pr 23%; cf. also Ps 9417, where instead of Shé6l we have the poetic déimah, ‘silence’).

But in all these passages nephesh may quite well be understood as equivalent to ‘life’ or (as happens frequently elsewhere) simply a cir- _ cumlocution for the personal pronoun (‘ my soul’ being=‘1’ or ‘me’). Thus in Ps 16” the mean- ing is ‘ Thou wilt not give over my life (07 me) to Shé’ol,’ t.e. ‘Thou wilt not suffer me to die.’ Ps 304) must, on Schwally’s theory, mean: ‘Thou _ causedst the phantom image of my person, which _ was already in Shé’ol, to come up from it again.

’ But the speaker had not actually died, his life only seemed already a prey to Shé’ol, but obtained a timely rescue from it. If the defenders of nephesh méth or the bare nephesh as equivalent to ‘soul of the dead’ should appeal in support of it to the contrasted expression nephesh hayyah, ‘living soul’ (Gn 27 e¢ al.)

, they would over- look the fact that nephesh méth or (abbreviated) mnephesh in the passages in question stands for neither more nor less than ‘corpse’; and this, by the touching of which uncleanness is occasioned, is surely something quite different from the in- visible phantom image of the living personality which goes straight to Sheol. Nephesh méth in the sense of ‘corpse’ is based simply upon the very frequent (cf. ¢.g. Lv 2! ‘if any one offereth to Jahweh,’ etc., 5? 718 etc.)

weakening of the mean- ing ‘person’ to the notion of ‘some one’; and nephesh hayyah, ‘living being,’ is not opposed to another form of being of the nephesh, but is a pleonasm intended to lay greater stress upon the main idea (cf.

our own expression ‘a living per- sonality,’ which would not suggest to any one the contrast of ‘a dead one An argument against Schwally’s contention lies in the very cir- cumstance that nowhere is the plural of nephesh used for manes, as we should then have certainly expected. From the time of the Exile (probably for the first time in Is 14°) they are called réph@im, i.e. probably ‘ flaccid ones,’ but never néphashith.

For the truth mentioned above, that the whole conception of Shé’ol lies outside genuine Jah- wism, and was at all times a part, indeed, of the popular faith, but not of religion proper, there is evidence not only in the stern rejection of necro- mancy (as the appendage of another, heathen, religion), but, above all, in the denial of any relation between the inhabitants of Shéol and the objects and arrangements of the upper world —in particular, those of the theocracy.

Only the living are members of the latter, and have a share in its blessings; at death every connecting link with itis broken. In Shé’6l there is no more giving of thanks or praise to God (Ps 68) 301°) 11517, Is 3818"-)_nay, Go2 Himself does not remember the * So esp. Schwally, Leben nach dem Tode, p. 7 ff. (founding upon nephesh méth of Ly 2111 and Nu 66, which Schwally renders by ‘Totenseele’), also in Archiv fiir Relig.-Wissensch. iv. 2, p. 181 ff.; Willy Staerk, art.

‘Nephesh hajja und nephesh mét’ in SK, 1903, p. 156f. ieee nephesh does not die, but changes its form of existence’ RELIGION OF ISRAEL 669 shades any more, or work wonders for those that dwell in ‘the land of forgetfulness’ (Ps 88% ™#), The fortunes of their children do not concern them (Job 14?! 2171), ‘for there is no work nor device nor knowledge nor wisdom in Shé’6l, whither thou goest’ (Ec 9").

* There is no contradiction be- tween all this and the way in which, according to Pr 15" and Job 26°, the omniscience, nay, accord- ing to Ps 1398, even the omnipresence of God, is extended even to Shé’ol. This is the necessary consequence of the highest stage of the conception of God ; but even here a direct relation of God to the inhabitants of Sh@ol is not asserted.

_ In spite of its very loose connexion with genu- ine Jahwism, the conception of Shé’6l—like the Hades-belief of the Greeks and all the cognate phenomena in other religions—contains an im- portant religious feature.

The tenacity with which it maintains itself all through the centuries, notwithstanding its irreconcilability with the pre- vailing anthropological presuppositions (see above), is a strong testimony to the fact that man’s natural way of thinking revolts at the notion of a com- plete annihilation of the living personality, even if it has to content itself with a sorry substitute for a real continuation of life.

Even in this there are fruitful germs of a later doctrine of immor- tality, and we shall afterwards see that these were not. wanting also in the soil of Jahwism. 3. To the realm of notions which we have in- cluded in the title of the present section under the general term Weltanschauung, belong, in the first place, those relating to the origin of the world.

(a) Unfortunately, our only source of information on this point for the present period is the Jahwistic record contained in Gn 2*%, It is very probable, however, that only a part of this (the story of the creation of men and animals) has been preserved ; while the introduction, which also must surely have contained some more detailed account of the creation of heaven and earth,t has now been dropped, perhaps on account of its deviations from the immediately preceding cosmogony of P.

But, even granting that J would have contented himself with a summary mention (in v.*”) of the creation of the world by Jahweh, his narrative, with all its naiveness, remains a worthy and valuable counter- part to the re gcosmogony. Like the latter, it avoids all intermixture of a mythological char- acter—in particular, all thought of an evolution such as is usually bound up inseparably with the cosmogonies of ancient religions. ahweh is always exalted above matter, cee!

distin- guished from it, and ruling over it. s in the case of every truly religious Weltanschauung, our *It may be that this conception of Shé’6l first arose in the later period, which was influenced by Prophetism (so Charles, Critical History, etc., see above, p. 668>, note §$), whereas at an earlier time an influence of the spirits of the dead upon the upper world was held to be possible.

True, we have no other evidence for the latter assumption than the existence of the practice of necromancy so peremptorily forbidden (cf. Is 819) by the prophets. The further assumption of Charles, that the earlier conception grew out of Ancestor Worship, cannot, to say the least of it, be proved in face of what we have said already (p. 614 ff.) ‘The same remark applies to Beer’s theory (‘Der biblische Hades,’ p. 3ff.)

, that the Shé’él-belief is a sur- vival of the cult of subterranean gods and demons. : + When Stade (ZATW, 1903. p. 178) argues that the belief in Jahweh as the Creator could have taken its rise only as a result of the preaching of the prophets, this is certainly correct in so far as the idea of the creation and control of the Universe is concerned.

For this idea is essentially irreconcilable with the recognition of foreign national gods, and becomes possible for the first time on the basis of a consistent monotheism. But this does not exclude naive ideas about a creative activity on the part of the national god (e.g. a creation of man), as is shown by numerous analogies in popular and nature religions. Perhaps the very naiveness of the Jahwistic cosmogony supplied a motive for its suppression. Of.

the remarks of Gunkel in Schépfung und Chaos (Gottingen, 1895, p. 159). He considers that, in early days, people, in speaking of the creation of ‘the heavens and the earth,’ probably thought primarily of the land of Canaan and the skies of Canaan.

670 RELIGION OF ISRAEL RELIGION OF ISRAEL record is thoroughly anthropocentric ; and man is not only (as in Gn 1) the goal and crown of creation, but to such a degree is he its central point that the world of animals is created solely on his account, with the result that in no way do they come up to his dignity and exalted position. It requires a second, wondrous new creation to rovide man with the ‘help’ who is bone of his one and flesh of his flesh.

God Himself brings her to him; so that upon His appointment rests that fellowship against which even the strongest ties of blood are not to prevail. If we note, further, that it is only upon the basis of monogamy that this whole description attains to its full mean- ing, all the more must we pronounce that we have here a view of the nature and the mystery of marriage as beautiful and worthy as could be conceived of.

Here, again, the religion of Israel exercised a powerful influence on its estimate of earthly relationships and duties. (6) If an underlying Babylonian source for Gn 2 can be proved only in part, and not at all for ch. 3 as yet, it is different with other components of the Hebrew primitive history. In these a far- reaching Babylonian srfinahbet har been assumed, and the traces of this have been sought almost everywhere in the OT down to the latest times.

But it has become more and more evident that a strong scepticism is justified in face of the excessive zeal of the ‘ Panbabylonists.’* We are not, indeed, to be held as calling in ques- tion the possibility of an extensive influence of Babylonian culture and religious ideas upon Canaan. The cuneiform letters discovered in 1887 at Tel el- Amarna in Egypt, which were addressed about B.C.

1400 from the Euphrates lands to two Pharaohs, prove the existence of a very active intercourse between Babylon and Egypt vid Canaan, and it is possible (though not strictly proved) that even then a footing had been gained in Canaan by the ancient Babylonian mythology, which was subsequently taken over by the Israelites when they entered the Promised Land.

A great influx of Babylonian ideas has been claimed also for the time of world, wide intercourse in the reign of Solomon, not to speak of the numerous occasions of direct contact with Assyria from the middle of the 9th cent. B.C. downwards. Still the only instance where the dependence of the Biblical narrative upon a Baby- lonian archetype is absolutely unquestionable is (a) the story of the Deluge.

And even here the dependence shows itself rather in subordinate points (like the repeated sending out of birds), and not in the main point—the cause of the judg- ment of the Flood. Ve the Biblical record this is always traced to moral causes: the Flood comes as a well-merited punishment on the wholly de- generate race of man; Noah only, on account of his righteousness, finds favour in God’s sight.

The mythological background, which presents itself sometimes in a very offensive way in the Babylonian narrative, wholly disappears in Genesis. Over against men responsible for their actions stands the righteous and almighty God alone. (8) Of late, special emphasis has been laid on what are supposed to be a number of OT allusions to the Babylonian story of Creation, or, more precisely, to the victorious struggle of the god * Amongst these the first place belongs to Frdr.

Delitzsch, in view of his first two Berlin lectures on Babel und Bibel (Leipzig, 1902 and 1903), which have given birth to a violent controversy and an interminable literature. We content ourselves here with naming two of the most recent writings which treat soberly of the points in dispute: Zimmern, Biblische und Babylonische Urgeschichte3, Leipzig, 1903 (cf.

also his Keilin- schriften und Bibel, Berlin, 1903]; and Gunkel, Jsrac/ und Babylonien: der Einfluss Babyloniens auf die israclitische Religion, Gottingen, 1903. Marduk with the ocean, personified as a woman, Tiamat (7.¢., as appellative, ‘sea’), and the mon- sters that assist her. A large part of Gunkel’s able and ingenious work (Schépfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit: eine religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung uber Gn 1 und Apoc. Joh.

12, Got- tingen, 1895) is devoted to an attempt to discover numerous traces of this myth in the OT. He rightly repels the objection that Gn 1 now forms 4 part of the latest Pentateuchal source, P. This circumstance does not exclude the possibility that this cosmogony, which in its present form is accommodated to the very highest conception of God, may be based upon a far older form of the myth. ‘The points of contact between Gn 1 and the Tidmat-myth are, however, few and uncertain. The Heb.

¢éhom (nina), over which darkness hangs (v.”), is, it is true, the masculine corresponding to the Bab. tidmat; but there is nothing to suggest any other meaning than the simple ‘sea’ or ‘ ocean.’ As little can it be proved that the large water- animals of v.” are originally of a mythological cast. But the recollection of the conflict of Marduk with the dragon is supposed to be preserved, above all, in certain mythological names—Rahab, Levi- athan, Behemoth.

The fact that all * the passages where these occur are very late (Ezekiel, Deutero- Isaiah, Job, late Psalms) might not count for much, It would be quite intelligible if the ancient mythologumena were again dragged to the light and utilized for poetical ends, when once the triumph of absolute monotheism appeared to have removed all danger of their Leing misunderstood or misapplied.

A stronger objection is, that a considerable number- of the alleged allusions can be referred only by very artificial methods to the conflict with Tiamat. How, for instance, if the kernel of the Genet consists in the killing and cutting in pieces of Tiamat, can the serpent at the bottom of the sea, which Jahweh commands to bite (Am 9%), possibly be Tiamat?

Of the — Rahab passages, Is 519, Ps 89%, Job 26% and 9 (‘Rahab’s helpers’) should in all probability be — referred to the defeat of Tiamat, only that the | conqueror is naturally not Marduk, but Jahweh. In Ps 874 Rahab is a symbolical name of Egypt, while in Ps 40° the plural réhabim is a designa- tion of the false gods, but surely not in the sense of ‘dragons of chaos.’ Of the Leviathan passages, Ps 74! should perhaps be interpreted mythologi- cally.

On the other hand, in Ps 104% there is absolutely no necessity for such an interpretation. In Is 27! Leviathan the fleeing serpent, and Levi- athan the coiled serpent, coupled with the dragon in the sea (Egypt), are again nothing but symboli- cal designations of two world-powers. In Job 3° it is much more natural to interpret Leviathan as a monster in the heavens which threatens to swallow up the sun. The poetical author of Job 40258.

(4118) certainly means by Leviathan nothing but the crocodile. And his Behemoth (40*) stands in the same way simply for the mpeeeste As little are we compelled to explain Job 712, Ps 4470(%), Jer 51%: 6. 42 as allusions to the Tidémat-myth ; and even in Ezk 29° and 32" there is, at most, only “a a general comparison of the Pharaoh to a bound monster.

Gunkel sees an allusion to the binding of the primeval ocean (Ps 104%, Job 38%, Pr 8%, Jer 5% ue 3155, Ps 337 653()), all that the present writer can a discover is a reference to the omnipotence of Jahweh, who commands even the waves of the * At most we should have to except only the serpentof Am 93 =} (see above) and Rahab of Is 307 (as a designation of Egypt).

But not only is the authenticity of the last passage disputed, but the correctness of its text is very doubtful, and, finally, rahab may here be quite well an appellative ‘raging ’ ‘ blusi ing’). Cf. vol. iv. p. 1958. : In all the passages, finally, where a RELIGION OF ISRAEL sea, but nowhere any allusion to a conflict with the ocean as a mythological monster.

But, even if all the passages cited by Gunkel were coloured by such allusions, they would be still quite without relevancy as affecting our esti- mate of the religion of Israel for the period we are considering. For, apart from the fact that, in the few passages that are certainly entitled to be considered, Jahweh expressly takes the place of Marduk (i.e.

there has been a complete trans- planting of the myth to the soil of Jahwism), we must, further, note with emphasis that in every instance we have to do with the utilizing of those mythological reminiscences in poetry. ‘Now, the freedom of which the Hebrew poets availed them- selves in this matter is as far from supplying a standard whereby to judge of their religious beliefs as the mention of Scylla and Charybdis by a modern writer would be a fair test of his beliefs.

(y) Finally, the attempts that have been made to give a mythological sense to the vessels of Solomon’s temple appear to us to have failed com- letely: e.g. the supposition that the so-called razen sea (1 K 7) represents the ¢2hém or prim- eval ocean, or that the oxen aresymbolsof Marduk. * | On this question the present writer must express his full accord with Stade, who (ZATW, 1903, p.

179) sees in these vessels no evidence that at that time the myths possibly attached to them had been adopted by the Israelites, or that they were even known tothem. ‘It was nota religious need, but the needs of kingly pomp, that led to the intro- duction of a foreign institution into the temple.

The Pheenician artist, who was called in to execuie the ,ork, wrought according to the fashions of style with which he was familiar, and turned out a product which could be transferred from a Phe- nician al ioe to the temple of Jahweh.’ From all sides, then, it may be considered as established that the extent of Babylonian -nfluence upon the religion of Israel—at least for the pre- exilic period—has been considerably overestimated. Examples of dependence and of allusions are not to be denied.

But upon the soil of revelation the foreign material undergoes such transformation, and appears in such a new light, when viewed from an immeasurably higher moral and religious stand- point, that the question has not unreasonably been asked whether, in many passages, we should speak, not of dependence and imitation, but rather of a polemical intention towards the alleged source.

The further question, whether to this period religious expectations as to the futwre (connected with the theologumenon of the ‘ Day of the LorD’) should be attributed, will have to be discussed in the following section. IV. THE PERIOD OF THE WRITING PROPHETS, DOWN TO THE EXILE. i. THz SOuRCES.—As sources for this period, which embraces some 180 years, we have to take account not only of the Prophetical writings, but also of portions of the Pentateuch and of the His- torical literature.

Thus in the Pentateuch there are the later and latest strata of J and E, and the Book of Deuteronomy ; in the Historical books we have the prophetically influenced sections of Judges and Samuel (such as 1 § 1. 21-6 8, 8. 10!7-4 15), but, above all, the first Deuteronomic redaction of the Books of Kings (c. 600 B.c.) For our present pur- poses we can practically leave out of account the So Kittel in his Com. on Kings (in Nowack’s Hdkom., Got- tingen, 1900, p. 64), following Kosters (Theol.

Tijdschr. 1879, p. 445ff.) According to Gunkel (/.c. p. 153, cf. also 164 f.), the 12 oxen must rather have si in some relation to the 12 _ signs of the zodiac. RELIGION OF ISRAEL 671 circumstance that the exact chronological position of the particular passages referred to is still the sub- ject of much controversy. For there is practically complete agreement that they are dependent upon the preaching of the pre-exilic writing prophets, and that is the only point that concerns us.

Besides, the whole of the historical literature of this period exhibits such a uniformity of ideas that the ques- tions of analysis of sources and precise dating possess only a subordinate importance. For this reason we may leave open the complicated ques- tions connected with the origin of Deuteronomy, namely, whether the law-book introduced by Josiah in 621 is to be regarded as the original Deutero- nomy or was compiled from older codifications.

So far as the description of the process of develop- ment of the OT religion is concerned, the present Book of Deuteronomy may quite properly be treated as a unity. On the other hand, no little difficulty attaches to the questions of literary criticism affecting the main sources, namely, the Prophetical writings themselves.

Here even the most cautious and conservative of critics have been compelled by the latest investigations to make such concessions as would have been considered impossible twenty years ago. Of course this is not the place to describe exhaustively either the process of literary criticism which has led to this, or the results of this criticism.

But it may be as well to indicate clearly the general viewpoints which have forced themselves upon investigators in ever, growing measure, and without which a just judgment and a correct employment of the Prophetical writings are impossible. There are two facts which must be kept steadily in view, because they suffice to explain all the phe- nomena in the Prophetical literature.

(a) In the first place, it is, throughout, a religious literature ; it does not profess to give anything, and we must accordingly not look to it for anything, that goes beyond religious purposes. (6) Secondly, Israel, to which we owe the Prophetical writings in their | present form, had as yet no idea of what we call ‘literary property.

’* The question was not in what terms a prophet of Jahweh had spoken in former times, but whether those terms were still fitted to fulfil the religious purpose which he once meant to serve. If this did not appear to be the case, it was regarded as not only.

perfectly right, but as a sacred duty, to modify the original form of expression, to give a milder turn to what was too harsh and no longer applicable to a differently constituted age, to expand and state more clearly what was too concise or obscure, to introduce matter that was wanting in the original but indis- pensable for a later age.

To this last category should be assigned a good part of the material on which at one time great stress—and that rightly— was laid, namely, so-called Messianic prophecy.

When the threatenings of punishment uttered by the pre -exilic prophets had been fulfilled, when the people languished in exile, or after the Return dragged on a miserable existence under the oppres- sion of the hostile world-power, it could not but seem a piece of cruelty to let words of threaten- ing be the sole or even the predominating feature in the Prophetic oracles, at a time when the people were filled with burning zeal to secure by painful fulfilment of the Law that great change in their lot which had long been promised.

We can under- stand how, under such circumstances, consolation and promise had an ever larger place given them within the framework of the traditional Prophetical writings —nay, how, for instance, the Book of Isaiah could come to assume the form of an an- * Of. what was said above (p. 6258) on the custom of tracing back all the legislation to Moses.

672 RELIGION OF ISRAEL thology of Prophetical oracles and be even under- stood and read by the people as such — oracles which in all probability embrace a period of well- nigh 500 years. In saying this we do not mean to give our assent to what an illegitimate hyper- criticism has exalted to a principle, that no word of comfort or of promise is to be allowed to the pre-exilic prophets. But we do mean to claim a perfect right to test fully the authenticity of the various Prophetical words.

It is surely not the outcome of a frivolous and unbelieving spirit to seek an answer to the question whether Micah (41°) could have predicted in one and the same breath the carrying captive of Jerusalem to Baby- lon, and (v.!!) the miraculous deliverance of the city out of the power of its besiegers. Here sober criticism has a readily available resource, namely, to assign the prediction of the destruction of many peoples before the walls of Jerusalem to a much later date then the 8th cent. B.c.

In cases where this resource is not available, such criticism will readily waive any decision. Fortunately, there remains enough that is certain and unassail- able to enable us to understand and to depict the ways of God in Hebrew prophetism. ii, NAME AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE WRITING PROPHETS,* — 1. In speaking of the nébvim (p. 650 ff.)

we avoided as far as possible the name ‘prophets,’ so as not to obliterate the deep-seated distinction between them and the Jahweh prophets properly so called, the suc- cession of whom begins with Amos. We found it necessary, indeed, to recognize even those nébi’im who clustered about Elijah and Elisha, and espe- cially the last named themselves, as organs of Jahweh, in whom ‘the spirit of Jahweh’ worked as a mysterious agency, and who could accord- ingly be rightly called ‘men of God.

’ But on closer examination we discover such characteristic differences between the two kinds of prophets that we cannot, for instance, place even an Elijah upon the same footing as Os. The writing prophets t are essentially connected with the ancient seers (rd’%m), as is expressly testified in 1S 9° ‘Those who are now called “prophets” (néb??m) were called in former times “seers.

”’ The old names (r0’tm and hézim) in an honourable sense appear elsewhere only in Is 30" ; * Of the very extensive literature on the characteristics of rophetism and the theology of the writing prophets, we note, in addition to the works cited on p. 6500n., the following: B. Duhm, Die Theologie der Propheten, Bonn, 1875 [a work which already occupies the standpoint of the Reuss-Graf hypothesis, although on questions of literary criticism the author is still pretty conservative]; Ed.

Konig, Der Offenbarungsbegriff des AT, Leipzig, 1882, 2 vols.

[mainly an analysis of the self- consciousness of the prophets and of their leading statements based upon this, regarding (1) their miraculous powers, call, and endowment with the Spirit of God ; (2) the manifestation and speaking of God as the source of the revealed message, Konig maintaining that in this matter the prophets see and hear with the bodily senses; (3) the fact that it is not their own heart that is the source of the prophets’ predictions] ; A.

Kuenen, De profeten en de profetie onder Israél: Histor.- dogmat. Studie, 2 vols., Leiden, 1875 [Eng. tr. under title ‘Prophets and Prophecy in Israel,’ London, 1877]; W. Robert- aon Smith, The Prophets of Israel and their place in History, to the close of the 8th cent. B.C., Edinburgh, 1882 [2nd ed., 1895, with Introduction and Additional Notes by T. K. Cheyne]; J. Darmesteter, Les prophetes d’Israél, Paris, 1892; A. F.

Kirk- patrick, The Doctrine of the Prophets (Warburtonian Lectures for 1886-1890), London, 1892; P. Schwartzkopff, Die prophe- tische Ofenbarung nach Wesen, Inhalt und Grenzen, Giessen, 1896 ; F. Giesebrecht, Grundlinien fiir die Berufsbegabung der alttest. Propheten (in ‘Greifswalder Studien zu Ehren H. Cremers,’ Gitersloh, 1895, pp. 37-81); Leitner, Die prophe- tische Inspiration (in Bardenhewer’s ‘ Biblische Studien’ [Rom. Catholic]), Freiburg i. B., 1896; Ed.

Konig, Das Berujfungs- bewusstsein der alttest. Propheten, Barmen, 1900. + The emphasis we lay on the word writing in this title is not Intended to deny that there were true prophets of Jahweh in Israel besides these (cf. what was said above, p. 6564, about Micaiah ben-Imlah, and what is said in Jer 2620. of Uriah ben-Shemaiah); but we can judge only of those about whose mesgages we have written evidence.

RELIGION OF ISRAEL for in Mic 3” the ‘seers’ (coupled with ‘sooth- sayers’) mean false prophets ; in Is 29” ‘ the pro- phets’ and ‘the seers’ are wrong explanatory glosses; and, finally, in Am 7" the term ‘seer’ (hézeh), with which Amaziah the priest addresses Amos, has a flavour of contempt about it. But the reply of Amos (v.'

4) must not be misunder- stood, as if he absolutely repudiated any claim to be a ‘prophet’ (n@b#’), because the word naht had questionable associations to him coming down from those néb?im of the time of Saul and of Ahab. This is quite impossible simply on the ground of Am 2" and 3%, where Amos himself speaks of the néb?’¢m in the most honourable sense. oreover, we read in 7!5 that God charged him to ‘go as a prophet’ to His people Israel.

The meaning of Amos in 74 can only be, then, that he disclaims being a professional prophet, in the sense familiar to Amaziah, or a member of a prophetic guild. On the contrary, the call to be a prophet surprised him in the midst of occupations of a wholly different kind: Jahweh took him from the herd.* 2. Here we have already a very essential differ- ence between the prophets of early times and the writing prophets.

The latter are conscious of an express call, at a definite moment, by Jahweh to their office. We have not an ac account of this in the case of all of them; but its preciseness in the case of five justifies our assuming that from the time of Amos onwards a similar call was experienced by all true prophets of Jahweh. We have already spoken of Amos’ own witness to hie call.

According to Hos 1*, the commencement of Hosea’s prophetic nn contemporaneous with his recognition that Jahweh intended even the prophet’s unhappy experiences in his married life to be a reflexion of Israel’s relation to Him- self. Isaiah records a vision he had in the year that king Uzziah died, when the Divine commis- sion was given him to drive the people by his message into ever-increasing obduracy.

Attempts have been made to explain this vision—the onl one in Isaiah—as simply the literary garb invent for inward reflexions and conflicts, so that the prophet’s own determination would take the place of an express Divine call. But all such attempts are shattered by the earnest terms of the narra- tive, which will not permit us to think but of a real occurrence. The very same is the impression we receive from Jeremiah’s record of his call in the 13th year of Josiah.

Quite remarkable here is the emphasis laid (15) on the choice and con- secration of Jeremiah to the prophetic office even before his birth. How could any one invent a thing of this kind and proclaim it as a word addressed to him by God? But as little could he have added the supplementary invention that he tried to evade the Divine commission (v.”) by leading want of skill in speaking, and youth.

Rather must we see here again an experience the prophet once had, which left an ineffaceable im- pression upon his memory. In the case of Ezekiel, his exact dating of his first vision (1+) by year, month, and day, is the pledge that he too is conscious that his call to be a prophet (2°) was a definite occurrence. As it is not in man’s power of his own initiative to effect the call to be a prophet, or to complete it by his own determination, so, on the other hand, he has no power to evade it.

Nay, as even the boldest will tremble involuntarily when the roar of a lion is heard in the neighbourhood, so the man to whom the word of Jahweh has come must prophesy (Am 38). The most striking testimony to this is found in Jer 207, With an impatience * The meaning of Amos becomes still clearer if, with Riede’ (SE, 1903, p. 163 f.), we render ‘I was no prophet,’ ete.

RELIGION OF ISRAEL bordering close on blasphemy, the prophet here reproaches Jahweh with having enticed him (by tlhe call to be a prophet) and prevailed upon him, so that he has become a laughing-stock and an object of ridicule. But, he goes on, ‘when I thought, I will not make mention of him nor speak any more in his name, then there was in mine heart as it were a burning fire shut up in m bones, I wearied myself with holding out, but was unable.

’ It would be no easy task to weaken the convincing power and force of this testimony to the unique character of Hebrew prophetism, by pointing to any analogous phenomena elsewhere. 3. A characteristic of the nébi’im in the old sense was a condition of ecstasy, occasionally rising to rapture and holy freiizyy-and the first of these, namely ecstasy, we find witnessed to also in the case of the writing prophets.

For, even apart from the vision, which likewise implies a condition of trance, there is repeated mention of ‘the hand of Jahweh’ being strong upon the prophet (Is 8", Ezk 314), or coming upon him (Ezk 1° 3” 37} 401), or falling upon him (8!), or being over him (3372, here with the more precise note that it was ‘at evening’), and on account of which he sits solitary (Jer 15!”).

In all these passages ‘the hand’ is an expression for the Divine influence which lays irresistible hold upon the prophet, being almost the equivalent of ‘the spirit of Jahweh,’ which likewise ‘falls’ upon the prophet (Ezk 11°), and imparts to him special revelations from God. In the case of Ezekiel, the effect of the hand of Jahweh is almost always to induce a vision. Nevertheless, there is plainly a consider- able difference between this kind of ecstasy and that of the ancient nébiim.

It is true that under all forms the extraordinary influence of the spirit of God presents an unfathomable mystery. But on the part of the writing eels we find no trace of their being plunged by this influence into a condition of amentia or unconscious rapture. They always retain a clear consciousness and a distinct recollection of what they saw in spirit and of what was said to them.

* Otherwise it would be impossible for them to describe the vision or to announce the word of God that came to them in their ecstasy. 4. Now, it is quite true that in opposition to this it has been maintained (so, in great detail, by A. Klostermann in SK, 1877, p. 391 ff., and again recently by Duhm in his Commentary on Isaiah, p.

129) that, at least in the case of Ezekiel, by the prophet’s own confession, lepti nditions, namely, temporary loss of the power of motion and speech, must be assumed, although this morbid condition did not exclude an exact recollection of the hallucinations of sight and hearing that were experienced during the catalepsy.

In point of fact, Ezekiel tells us that, after his vision of the cherubim-chariot, he went in bitterness (7D) in the heat of his spirit, and that he then sat stunned with astonishment (o°7¥D) in the midst of his people for seven days (3+). He speaks, further *This simple fact refutes the ancient orthodox theories, such as that which goes back to Philo, that human reason left the prophet, to make room for the Divine spirit.

Equally futile are all attempts to reduce the prophets to mere instru- ments of the Divine spirit, devoid of will, and comparable to a flute in the hand of the player or a pen in the hand of the scribe. Such attempts suffer shipwreck on the rock of what is an undeniable fact, that the individuality of the different prophets is very clearly revealed in their style and their manner of speech. Isaiah writes quite differently from Jeremiah, and the latter, again, quite differently from Ezekiel.

Of course all this does not exclude the possibility of a heightening of the natural gifts and powers of the prophets by the influence of the Divine spirit. Such a process is evident, for instance, in the manner of speech of the herdsman Amos, which is as forcible as it is clear. Jerome’s opinion regarding the ‘rustic 3tyje’ of Amos must be pronounced quite unproved and in- correct,