The religion of Israel;

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Chapter I

THE principal, and one might almost say the only, source for a history of the religion of Israel, before the Greek domination, is that collection of books which Christian tradition has defined as the Old Testament ; and those books are preserved, for the most part in their original language, in the Hebrew Bible. It is of these documents especially, which are held sacred by Jews and Christians, that we have now to estimate the contents and value. The other writings, numerous as they are, which deal with the history of Judaism under Greek and Roman domination, until the final overthrow of the Jewish nationality, either bear only upon the external history of religion, or do not present the same difficulties of analysis and interpretation as do the biblical records. Moreover, they are submitted by everybody, without hesitation, to the ordinary laws of criticism. Besides, if the religion of Israel still presents, during this period, many problems of which the solution is dubious, nevertheless its general position is sufficiently clear, and is known with certainty. Outlines and summaries, then, may suffice for the non-biblical sources; and we shall devote ourselves, rather, to a criticism and examination of the biblical authorities.

§ 1

The collection or canon of the Old Testaraent was not settled definitely until near the beginning of the Christian era. The compilation of the five books of Moses, so-called, or the Pentateuch, was made about the year 400 B.C. This is the Law, which is the earliest and the fundamental part of the Hebrew Bible. The second part embraces the series of writers who are known as the ancient prophets : the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings; and the farther series known as the later prophets : Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve minor prophets. In spite of his subject and purpose, Daniel did not get into this second series, which probably closed before he was made public ; but he found his way into the third part of the collection, which was called the Sacred Writings, or the Hagiographa. This third part includes the Psalms, Proverbs, Job, the Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah, Chronicles (the Paralipomena of the Greek and Latin Bibles). The ecclesiastical Bible contains, besides certain writings which circulated chiefly among the Hellenistic Jews, and which were not promoted into the official canon of the Synagogue, Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah, the additions to the books of Daniel and Esther, Ecclesiasticus, the Wisdom of Solomon, so-called, Tobit, Judith, and the two books known as the Maccabees. The series of the earlier prophets was a continuation of the Law, and must have acquired its definite form about the same time. The collection of the prophets, in the stricter sense, must have been settled a little later, towards the end of the third century before our era. The collection of Hagiographa seems to have been established in fact, if not officially recognised, about the end of the second century before Christ.

As was natural, the canonisation of all these books led to a relative fixing of their text, which was soon honoured with a meticulous respect. Nevertheless, a comparison with the old Greek version, known as the Septuagint, shows that, during the two or three centuries immediately before the Christian era, the Hebrew copies contained numerous variations ;

and that in certain books, in Jeremiah for instance, there were recensions or versions which differed considerably from one another. These differences, slight as they may be, were the continuation, in some sense, of that long work of editing and compiling, out of which process the chief books in the sacred collection have issued in their present fonn.

Certain popular songs, such as the paean of Deborah or David's elegy on the death of Saul and Jonathan, may be considered the most ancient documents in the Hebrew literature. From the times of David and Solomon the kings had official archives, and historical records soon came into existence. But from these sources, which were more or less secular, the pious writers who culled from them have utilised only those outlines and quotations which they could adapt to their purposes of edification. The first experiment in a religious literature may be placed, it would seem, in the ninth century, to which date we may assign the oldest fragments which have entered into the composition of the Hexateuch (that is, the Pentateuch and Joshua), viz., the Jahvistic and Elohistic histories.

This designation of the historical sources is borrowed from the divine names which are used in them respectively. The Jahvistic history begins with the creation of the world, and thenceforward employs the name Yahweh as the proper designation of God, implying that this name was known to mankind from the beginning. The Elohistic history only begins with Abraham, the supposed ancestor of the Hebrew people, and it assumes that the name Yahweh, the exclusive title of the Grod of Israel, was revealed only to Moses, the organiser of the Israelitish nation and the founder of its religion. These two histories were collections of legends about the origins of the Hebrew people and of their religious practices. They have as their joint foundation the cycles of patriarchal and Mosaic traditions. Though they seem to differ in appearance, the purpose of these two cycles is in reality the same ; they both aim at explaining and legalising the settlement of the Israelites in the land of Canaan. The patriarchal legends present Israel through its mythical ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, without laying much stress upon the sojourn of the Hebrews in Egypt; while the Mosaic legends, on the other hand, are written with a view to the conquest of Palestine, since they make the exodus from Egypt their basis. The story of Joseph reconciles these two legendary cycles, without, however, concealing their parallelisni.

The Jahvistic history contains an earlier cycle of legends about the origins of mankind ; a veritable mythology, of which the foreign source cannot be doubted, although the tradition of Israel has chastened the polytheism, and to a large extent has recomposed the material according to its own spirit. The story of the flood was taken certainly from Chaldsea, and a narrative more ancient than that in the Hebrew story has been found among the cuneiform inscriptions. The afiinity is much less close between the Jahvistic histories of the creation and of the first sin and various Babylonian fables. Since Palestine had felt Babylonian influences from the earliest times, we cannot assign a precise date to these borrowings, which we need not suppose to have been made either directly from or contemporaneously with the documents which have led to a belief in them.

It has been possible to discriminate between the Jahvistic and Blohistic sources, as well as to discern the other elements which have been combined into the Pentateuch, and to reconstruct them, more or less, because the work of compilation was effected by quite elementary processes, which left unaltered the particular style of each contribution. Pains were not always taken to avoid duplications whenever the texts gave parallel accounts, and the compilers were not embarrassed even by contradictions when they were not too glaring. Nevertheless, the dexterity of the joinings, deliberate omissions, glosses, and editorial manipulations have all made the connexion and position of many details extremely dubious. The sources, moreover, are not individual compositions, but collections which had already been tampered with before they were submitted to a common editorship. So that behind the Jahvistic and Elohistic documents we can guess at the work of an earlier writer, who made the original draft, combining his material with m.ore or less freedom, arranging the old legendary traditions with more or less originality, fitting into his narrative old popular songs and even such other literary matter as he had at his disposal. But this first attempt would be added to and rehandled continually by other persons, who worked in the spirit of the original editor, and who belonged, if one may so express it, to his school. It is not probable that the Jahvistic and Elohistic histories were wholly independent of one another. Both have, in spite of certain special tendencies, the same religious character. In certain places the Elohistic history seems more archaic, though many believe in the priority of the Jahvistic history, and consider the Elohistic to be in some way dependent on it. The Jahvistic history must have been written in Judah and the Elohistic in Israel. Both of them are connected with those collections of precepts which were the nucleus of the Law.

That version of the Law can be dated which was found in the temple at Jerusalem, in 621 B.C., under King Josiah ; and it is preserved for us in Deuteronomy. Everything leads us to believe that it was composed for the purpose of that reformation which its discovery produced. But the primitive text, even of this document, has been added to like that of the others; and it was manipulated again before being mingled with the Jahvistic and Elohistic histories during the times of the captivity. It was in the spirit and temper of Deuteronomy that that re-editing of Judges, of Samuel, and of the Kings was carried out, in which ancient documents, heroic and prophetic legends, extracts from the chronicles and memoirs of the kings, were all squared with theological and pietistic interests.

The chief part of the Law, which deals mainly with ritual, and which fills a portion of Exodus, the whole of Leviticus, and the larger part of Numbers, contains a compilation styled by critics the Law of Holiness.* This was * I^ev. xvii.-xxvi.

The Sources ii

arranged at Babylon, during the captivity. Besides this, there is material similar, at any rate in plan, to the Jahvistic and Elohistic histories, and which is known as the Sacerdotal History. It begins with the creation of the world and continues till the division of Palestine among the tribes, under the leadership of Joshua. It does not linger among the antique legends, which are collected in the earlier sacred histories, farther than is necessary to connect the chief institutions and religious customs with decisive events in the past. Thus, the sabbath is connected with the creation of the world ; the abstinence from blood, with the deluge ; circumcision, with Abraham ; the whole system, of sacrifices and ritual, with the revelation at Sinai. Finally, additions were made, according to need and opportunity, to the legislative code which was formed by mingling the Sacerdotal Histories with the Law of Holiness. Many of these additions would seem to be later than the promulgation of the Sacerdotal Code, which was made by Ezra in 444 B.C. As the legal precepts of the Jahvistic record were supposed to have been dictated by Yahweh to Moses on Sinai, and those of the Elohistic records on Horeb, and Deuteronomy in the plains of Moab, so the ritual of the Sacerdotal Code had also been taught by God to Moses on Mount Sinai. It is well known that the Code of Hammurabi, which has been discussed so frequently of late, was revealed in a similar way to the King of Babylon by the god Shamash.

The Scribes who flourished after Ezra detached that part of the Sacerdotal Code which was concerned with the division of the Promised Land, and then, by amalgamating the two compilations formed from joining the Jahvistic and Elohistic history on to Deuteronomy, and uniting the Sacerdotal History with the Levitical Legislation, they made up the Pentateuch.

The utterances of the prophets seem to have been collected at once by their disciples, and preserved. The most ancient collection is that of Amos (about 750), which has received only slight and unimportant additions. The collection of Hosea's utterances, which is a little later, has come to us under very similar conditions. The Book of Isaiah consists of two parts, which can be distinguished easily : i., chapters 1-39, and ii., chapters 40-66. Not a line of the second part can be attributed to the prophet who was a contemporary of Hezekiah. Two-thirds of this part were written shortly before Cyrus took Babylon, and the remaining third was composed in the times of the Persian domination. The first part of the book contains prophecies by the original Isaiah, amplified by details borrowed from the Book of Kings, and by prophetical fragments belonging to many epochs, even as late as the Greek domination. The Book cannot have acquired its existing form, until near the end of the third century before our era.

The Book of Jeremiah includes a relatively large number of authentic utterances, dictated by the prophet to his disciple Baruch, and some biographical information, arranged probably by the same disciple ; but the whole was finally re-cast, filled out with later pieces, and coloured. The Book of Bzekiel, perhaps, of all the prophetical collection, has the most regular construction, and has suffered least from re-editing in traditional interests. About a third of the Book of Micah, who lived at the same time as Isaiah, is authentic ; the remainder was added later, and especially after the exile. Nahum wrote a little before the fall of Nineveh (608 ?) ; but his prophecy, which is very short, has been enlarged by a psalm placed at the beginning, and this is post-exilian. Zephaniah wrote under Josiah, but his prophecy appears to have been highly coloured. Habakkuk, the contemporary of Jeremiah, prophesied against the Chaldseans ; but his utterance has been lengthened by two pSalms, one as a prologue and the other as a kind of epilogue. Obadiah and Joel both lived after the captivity. Haggai was contemporary with the rebuilding of the teruple under Darius I. Zechariah belonged to the same period ; but the second part of his titular book is not his, and seems to have been written under the Greek domination. The so-called Book of Malachi is anonymous, and was undoubtedly written shortly before the promulgation of the Sacerdotal Code by Ezra. The romance of Jonah riiust have been composed about the year 300, and the psalm which that prophet is imagined to have composed in the stomach of his fish was added later.

Thus, the handling of the prophets' books was very similar to that of the books which are called historical. They were all utilised for the edification of the Jewish community ; and, for this purpose, they were pitched in the key, so to speak, of the religious evolution. The multiplication of anonymous prophecies, after the captivity, bears witness to the decay of the prophetical ministry ; and the number of pseudonymous prophecies in the apocalyptic literature, which begins with Daniel, is a consequence of its total disappearance, though anonymous fragments were still added by collectors of prophecies to writings which bore the name of some author. The fortune of these apocrypha depended on the credence which was given them.

After a certain period of hesitation, most critics have decided to bring down the composition of the Psalms, except perhaps of a veryfew, to a date after the exile, under the Persian domination, and even into the times of the Maccabees, The whole of the sapiential books appear to be later than the captivity. The Book of Job was written under the Persian domination, and it is not all from a single hand. The collection of Proverbs is apparently of the same age. Ecclesiastes is later, and must have been composed in the times of the Greek domination, probably towards the close of the third century. The Proverbs got into the canon as a production of Solomon, and so did Ecclesiastes, though it was not admitted without serious difficulty. Attributed also to Solomon, a collection of songs for wedding feasts was able to get into the Bible, and to hold its position there ; the Song of Songs, as we have it now, is also of the third or second century B.C. It has no bearing on religious history, except through its allegorical interpretations ; or, rather, through the complete inversion which has transformed it into a sacred and pious writing. The Book of Ruth would seem to have been written for a controversial purpose by a contemporary of Ezra and Nehemiah. Esther is certainly later than the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes and the establishment of the Asmoneean dynasty. Towards the middle of the third century may be placed the composition of that historical summary, edited in the spirit and style of the Priestly Code, which contained originally the Chronicles as well as the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah. The Lamentations attributed to Jeremiah are not by that prophet. They were written partly during the exile and partly after the return. The Book of Daniel was composed during the persecution by Antiochus Epiphanes, probably in the early part of the year 164. It was issued under the name of a legendary personage, who was made contemporary with the last Kings of Judah, with Nebuchadnezzar and the last King of Babylon, and with Cyrus.

The First Book of the Maccabees tells the history of the Jewish people from the accession of Antiochus Epiphanes until the death of the High Priest Simon Maccabseus. It is the finest piece of historical writing that Jewish antiquity has bequeathed us ; but, at the same time, it is almost a secular production. The author wrote near the opening of the first century before the present era. With the Second Book of the Maccabees, which deals only with the early period of the Maccabsean rising, we are taken back into the atmosphere of edifying Uterature. The editor lived before the taking of Jerusalem by TituSj and he professes to abridge an earlier writer, Jason of Cyrene, who must have composed his work in the latter half of the second century B.C. The Book of Tobit is a pious novel, founded on a popular story; it was composed probably in the second century before our era by some Jew of the dispersion. Judith is also a romance, but more national than pious ; it is very similar in tendency to Esther, and is most probably of the same period. The Epistle attributed to Jeremiah is a production of Hellenistic Judaism, and it is not possible to date it even approximately. The whole of Baruch seems to have been written after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70. The Book of Ecclesiasticus was put together about the year 200 B.C. ; it would have been admitted into the Hebrew canon, with Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, if the author, instead of advertising himself, had placed his work under the patronage of Solomon. The author of Wisdom took that course ; but, as he wrote in Greek, he was only able to get into the canon of the Christian Church.

In conclusion, it will be fitting to mention here the psalms attributed to Solomon, and which were written about the year 50 B.C., as well as the pseudonymous apocalypses, which followed the precedent of Daniel, those of them at least which preceded the arrival of Christianity. The Book of Enoch is a collection of writings which are later than Daniel ; but most of them, if not all, are earlier than the Christian period. The Assumption of Moses was issued early in our era ; and there are compositions of Jewish origin in the Sibylline Books. Many other apocryphal writings are lost. From the time of Antiochus Epiphanes more especially, Hellenistic Judaism was most prolific in pseudepigraphical writings, which were composed for purposes of controversy and edification. One may assert, without being paradoxical, that impersonality has been the leading characteristic of Israelitish literature from its beginning ; but that anonymity prevailed in ancient times, while in Judaism, and since the Greek domination, pseudonymity grew to outrageous proportions. This habit is not without significance for the historian ; neither has it failed to raise many problems for the critics.

§ 2

It was neither a simple nor an easy task to construct a consistent and fairly certain history from this chaos of traditions, which were manipulated and changed perpetually : from this mass of writings which were without author or dates, unless they were spurious and misdated.

It is not surprising that several scholars have thought it impossible to find a key to the religious history of Israel before the Babylonian captivity ; and that, relying upon the tone and certain peculiarities of the final re-editing, they have maintained that all the books of the Hebrew canon were composed after the exile. This view would simplify the task of the historian enormously ; but it would mean a considerable suppressing of criticism, and so of history. A closer study of the peculiar genius of this literature, more attention to the processes of editing and of construction, and to the various elements which are combined sometimes in the same book and even on the same page, enable us, it would seem, to acknowledge more genuine material, and to derive from it a richer store of information.

No text, really, can be worthless to an historian ; because his first business is to settle its meaning, and then, if he can, to discover its origin. For instance, a story about the creation of the world, which one may read in the Bible or elsewhere, may not be historical in itself ; but it does express the beliefs and thoughts of given times and circumstances. The Book of Job is not a record of patriarchal history, but it does inform us about the problems which were being stirred in Jewish minds under the pressure of the Law. Stories like Esther and Judith, or Jonah and Tobit, if they be taken literally, give us only false notions about the relations of Israel with Nineveh and the Assyrian monarchy, or with the Kings of Persia and their court at Susa ; but they are invaluable witnesses to the religious and moral atmosphere, or to family relations, or to the bitterness of national feeling, in the Jewish community at certain definite epochs. The history of primitive ages in the sacerdotal documents of the Hexateuch is a tissue of exaggerations and impossibilities ; but how much does it not reveal to us about the mentality of the Jews as they returned from exile? And do not all the primitive legends enable us to realize in a living way the times which preceded the theological reformation and the predominance of the Law? Thus the chaos becomes a veritable mine for those who understand how to work it.

Assuredly, however, historical information is more easy to compile for the post-exilian times ; although the pre-exilian are not wholly dark. No one disputes the general outlines of Israelite history after the establishment of the Kingdom : a short period of unity, under David and Solomon ; a schism between Bphraim and Judah under Solomon's successor, and an ensuing period of hostility ; Ephraim then threatened by Damascus, and soon after destroyed by Assyria; Judah overthrown a little later by Babylon ; but its remnant forming itself again into a community with religious autonomy under the sovereignty of Persia, Greece, and Rome. Now this frame-work of political history may be reconstructed froni our existing documents ; and, in a similar way, our documents are fitted into this frame-work. So also is the evolution of the religious history, which was always in the closest relation with the political history.

The system of Deuteronomy which was so unreal in its presentation of the past, and the conceptions of the Priestly Code and of Chronicles which were even more artificial, were not able to eliminate every thing which stultified them in the genuine traditions of antiquity. Post-exilian Judaism only recognised one sanctuary where it was lawful to sacrifice to the God of Israel : this is a certain fact, guaranteed by all the evidence which we have, both sacred and profane, for the last period of Jewish history, that is to say after the captivity. But tradition asserts that this fact, which was equally strange and undeniable, was of Mosaic institution ; though this did not hinder the avowal that it was not the ancient practice. For it names the King who destroyed the sanctuaries outside Jerusalem, namely Josiah ; and it goes on to describe the occasion : the priest Hilkiah finding in the Temple a book of the Law which prescribed this rule. Josiah had no knowledge that Yahweh had made this revelation to Moses, and all his predecessors had been as ignorant of their duty as himself. Tradition also affirms that they had not carried it out. Deuteronomy, too, does not require this unity of sacrificial service as a thing natural and needing no explanation ; it describes it, rather, as a measure directed against the innumerable sanctuaries which existed throughout the country. From this clue, and from many others which are subsidiary to it, we can see that Deuteronomy, at any rate in its chief contents, was the very book of which the discovery caused the action of Josiah. Deuteronomy, moreover, in style and language has the closest similarity to Jeremiah, who was the leading prophet of that age.

A reformation postulates an existing state which it is desirable to change, because it is unsatisfactory. Before Josiah, every town or hamlet possessed its own place of worship, where it sacrificed to the national God. A collection of laws, which was shorter and more archaic in form than Deuteronomy, the Book of the Covenant, embedded in Exodus, authorizes sacrifice "in every place where Yahweh has caused his name to be remembered."* Besides this, Amos and Hosea, who preached in Ephraim, did not require that men should go to Jerusalem to sacrifice. They protested against sacrifices in general, because they saw that there was a better and more efficacious way of serving God, The legends of Samuel and Elijah exhibit those prophets themselves sacrificing away from the sanctuary of the ark, and in a manner not prescribed by the ritual attributed to Moses, It is not less significant that the Jahvistic and Elohistic histories take the patriarchs to the very sanctuaries which were condemned by Deuteronomy : to Bethel, to Shechem, to Hebron, to Beersheba, as though to dedicate them in perpetuity to the worship of Yahweh, To these patriarchal and prophetic legends might be added legends from the heroic days of the Judges, which bear witness to religious practices * Exodus XX, 24, very different from those which are authorized by the legislation of Deuteronomy and of the Priestly Code.

The various documents fall into groups, and throw light upon one another. Ezekiel is a prelude to the Sacerdotal Code which guided the reformation of Ezra and Nehemiah ; and the Chronicles depend on it, as giving a misrepresentation of history in agreement with the sacred legislation. Jeremiah goes with Deuteronomy, which was ushered in by the ministry of Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah ; and which itself inspired the commentary on the traditions deposited in the books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings, Taken out of their setting, these traditions and the patriarchal legends give some notion of the religion of Israel before the literary prophets, and before any official promulgation of a law attributed to Moses.

These legends themselves justify certain deductions, more or less probable, concerning the origins of the Israelite people and religion. They were not imagined altogether by the contemporaries of the early Kings of Israel and Judah ; but they represent national memories, more or less vitiated and transformed by the lapse of time. Although the patriarchal legends, for instance, teach us nothing about the personages who figure in them, for the good reason that they never existed ; yet they do inform us, not only about the genius of ancient Israel, but about its origins, about the events which moulded it into a people, and about its relations with its neighbours or with the populations which preceded it on the soil of Palestine. None of these things can be indifferent to the history of a religion which has been modified by these circumstances and connexions. If the deductions, which have been mentioned, cannot have either the precision or the certitude of direct and authentic evidence they do not cease to be legitimate, provided they are used with tact. Indeed, they constitute the history of times which are wanting in more exact information. Abrahanx and Sarah are mythical personages ; but their legend proves the importance of the sanctuaries at Hebron, and the annexation of them to the God of Israel. For these holy places existed before the coming of the Hebrews, and they belonged to the Gods which were specially venerated by the populations of Canaan. It is hardly rash to guess that Abraham and Sarah were the ancient divinities of the district, who were harmonised in the legend so as to be subordinated to the God who supplanted them. We are told that Jacob, after wrestling with Tahweh through a whole night, was called Israel by the God who failed to conquer him. This miractilous contest is no more historical than the battle of the Titans with Jupiter; but it enables us to see clearly that the tribes who were considered the posterity of Jacob only took the name of Israel at the period of the conquest. It also leads us to suspect that Jacob himself was a divine personage ; and, as the memories of the patriarch are connected with the sanctuary of Bethel, his place of worship probably was there. Abraham never went into Egypt ; but the fable which brought him there was made to support the Mosaic legends, as they required an old connexion of the Hebrews, while still nomads, with the land of the Pharaohs. The legend of Joseph has a similar meaning ; and as it was pretended that the tomb of this patriarch was at Shechem, it came about that Shechem had a sacred cave like that of Machpelah at Hebron ; and the hero said to be buried in it no doubt originated also in a God. The legend of Isaac, which gravitated round Beersheba, leads us to suppose that Isaac also had been the divinity of that shrine.