The religion of Israel

Front matter

PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY PRESENTED BY

John Stuart Conning, D.D.

Barton, George A, 1859-1942

Preface

This little book is written for college undergraduates, and is, accordingly, not a systematic treatise on Old Testament Theology. The writer has had considerable experience in teaching both graduate and undergraduate students and has endeavoured to put into the following pages the kind of information in which, as he has learned, college undergraduates take an interest, and to present it as he has found they like to have it presented. He has found that the undergraduate wishes to know the truth as fully and frankly as it can be known, and, while he has not always the disciplined patience to enjoy the details which the more mature student must master, he is interested in watching the development of great movements in history, and in tracing the forces that shaped them.

In the following pages an effort is made to present for such students the development of Israel's religion from Its primitive Semitic beginnings to the coming of Christ. Since even those students who have had a course in the literature of the Old Testament seldom have been taught how to use the earlier books from the historical point of view, it seemed best to devote a chapter to that subject. As the history of its religion

PREFACE

involves the history of the nation, it was also necessary to treat the origin of Israel in the light of our latest information. Having disposed of these topics, the story of the unfolding of the religion is in several chapters traced from the time of Moses to the beginning of the Christian era. In these chapters an effort is made to emphasize the spiritual and social forces that were at work, to let the great creative personalities pass before the mind, and to follow in broad outline the changes in organization, spiritual vision, and ethical practice. Two chapters are then devoted to topics that could not well be treated with the general history, but which are in themselves of great importance, i.e., the development of the priesthood, and the belief in angels and demons. The remaining chapters are devoted each to some important phase of the manifold Jewish religious thought and activity in the centuries after the exile.

Many students have testified that there is no subject of greater intellectual interest than the Old Testament, when studied from the historical point of view. It is the writer's hope that in reading this book some undergraduates may find their interest awakened in one of the most fascinating and important phases of human history.

A considerable portion of chapter II formed part of an article in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, and much of the material of chapters IV-VIII appeared in a series of articles in the Biblical fVorld, Vol. XXXIX. The writer hereby expresses his

PREFACE

thanks to the American Philosophical Society and the University of Chicago Press for permission to use this material here. It has been revised, brought up to date, and adapted to its present use.

As the writing of this book neared completion In June, 19 1 6 (Its printing has been delayed by conditions produced by the great war) , the writer requested the late Francis Brown, President of Union Theological Seminary, to permit the book to be dedicated to him, In recognition of the debt under which President Brown had placed all students of Hebrew by the production of his Hebrew Lexicon. In a letter dated June 27th, 19 1 6, President Brown granted the desired permission, and added: "I am glad and grateful if the Lexicon has been of use to you. I could make a much better one now, and perhaps this may be revised sometime." In speaking of his health President Brown added: " I am really much better, and hope to go to work In the autumn, though I shall have to walk softly for a while." When autumn came. Instead of returning to his work he passed to his reward on October 15, 19 16.

George A. Barton.

Bryn Mawr, Pa.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I The Semitic Background i

II The Value of the Early Biblical Narratives i8

Chapter I

Evolution and Revelation — The Hebrew Semites — Semites lived in Arabia — Were Animistic — Semitic Social Organization — Deities connected with Springs — Deities of Fertility — Pillars and Asheras — Circumcision — Animal Sacrifice — The Passover — The Autumn Festival — Law of Revenge — The Ban — Ecstatic Prophecy — Religion a Body of Ceremonies.

Religion may be viewed from either the human or the divine point of view. From the divine standpoint God reveals truth; from the human, man discovers it. Even a superficial study of the history of religion makes it clear that there has been in the course of the centuries an advance in the apprehension of truth and in the grasp of moral and religious ideals. Viewed from the divine side revelation has been progressive; looked at from the human, it has been evolutionary. He who speaks of the evolution of religion does not thereby deny the divine element, nor he who speaks of revelation, the human factor. If, then, in the following pages we seek to trace the evolution of the religion of Israel, we shall be but treating In the favourite phraseology of the time the progress of revelation in Israel.

The Hebrews were one of the Semitic peoples. The evolution of their religion took place, accordingly, upon soil prepared by the religious conceptions of the primitive Semites. In order either to trace the evolution or to estimate the permanent significance of the religious message of the Old Testament it is necessary to glance at the Semitic background of Israel's religion. Israel was a Semitic people, and without some knowledge of her Semitic inheritance one can not discriminate between the ancestral and the original in her religious institutions and customs, nor so easily separate the eternal from the transitory in the Old Testament.

The Semitic nations known to history were the Babylonians, Assyrians, Aramaeans, Phoenicians, Hebrews, Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites, Carthagenians, Arabs, and Abyssinians. While a non-Semitic people, the Sumerians, contributed much to Babylonian civilization, that civilization was on the whole Semitic. The languages of these Semitic nations are closely akin to one another. Their resemblances often remind the student of the kinship between the modern derivatives of Latin — French, Italian, and Spanish.

A close kinship also existed between the Semitic peoples and the peoples called Hamitic, — the Egyptians, Berbers, and the tribes of Somaliland. This kinship Is attested by linguistic affinities, and of It there can be no doubt. How this kinship came about is differently interpreted by different scholars. Egyptologists such as Erman and Breasted hold that it came about In consequence of a large infiltration of Semites into Egypt at an early time. Such a migration of Semites into Egypt from Asia has long seemed to the writer an Inadequate explanation of the phenomena,^ for the similarities are not confined to the ancient Egyptian language, but run through the Berber dialects which are spoken through the whole of North Africa to the Atlantic, and through the dialects of Somaliland, which are also spoken to the present day. These fundamental likenesses indicate that at a remote epoch the Semites and the Hamltes were one stock.

This kinship to the Hamltes does not, however, concern us here. The point which Is of interest to our subject is that the Semites, even If at some very remote period they had migrated from North Africa, lived for a long time (so many scholars now believe^) in the desolate peninsula of Arabia, and little by little, as they became too numerous for that barren country to support, spilled over Into the more fertile lands to the northeast, north, and northwest of Arabia (not to mention Abyssinia to the southwest), thus forming In time the various Semitic nations catalogued above. Even If the beginnings of the fundamental Semitic institutions had their birth In North Africa, they were brought to their perfection through long residence In Arabia. As several of these fundamental Institutions existed for a long time in Israel, and some of them are per-

1 See the writer's Sketch of Semitic Origins, New York, 1902, pp. 9-12.

2 For different theories, see the writer's Sketch of Semitic Origins, New York, 1902, Ch. I.

petuated by the Jews to the present time, a brief glance at the most important of them will help to clearness of thought in seeking for that which is vital in the religious message of Israel.

Like all people at a similar stage of evolution, the ancient Semites thought that every place, tree, rock, spring, etc., had its spirit, or was inhabited by a spirit. Out of these spirits the Semitic deities were in time developed. It thus happened that all Semitic deities were regarded as fixed to certain localities, — an idea that was only slowly outgrown. Thus Yahweh, the God of Israel, was first thought to dwell at Horeb ( i Kgs. 19: 8 f.), and later in the temple on Zion at Jerusalem (Isa. 31: 4, 5, and 9). It took a long experience of pain to teach one of the later psalmists the great lesson of the omnipresence of God (Ps. 139:7-16).

Arabia, a land a thousand miles long, with an average width of six hundred miles, is one of the most barren countries in the world. Desolate mountains of igneous rock are separated by broad, elevated, unwatered plains, which produce only a few hardy, thorny shrubs. In parts, as in the region called the Nafud, the gravel of these plains gives place to sand which drifts like snow. There is almost no rainfall, and rivers are unknown. The only fertile spots occur at those rare intervals where, through the volcanic action of remote ages, a rift in the rocks conducts water from unknown, faraway sources to the surface of the ground and forms a spring. Irrigation from this spring produces in that subtropical climate an abundant vegetation. As one wanders across the desolate sun-burned spaces which constitute the larger part of Arabia, the contrast of the cooling waters and refreshing shade of these oases becomes unspeakably impressive.

It was this contrast, combined with the grim struggle for existence in such a country that gave to the early Semite his conception of deity. One can easily understand how, in such an environment, the spirit of an oasis, — a spirit which could produce such refreshing waters, such cooling shade, such delicious fruits, and sustaining crops, — would become to him a beneficent deity. It is not strange that in such an environment fertility, — the power to give life, both vegetable and animal, — should seem to the Semite the divlnest of all powers. It was natural, therefore, that practically all Semitic deities were thought to be closely connected with hfe processes, and to be especially Interested in fertility and reproduction.

The social organization of the early Semitic tribes in Arabia was matriarchal,^ and religious conceptions, the world over, are expressed in the terms of the social and political organization of a people's life. People do not call their god a king until they have a king as a part of their political economy, nor do they call him a father, where fatherhood is not a prominent feature of their social organization.

1 See W. R. Smith's Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, 2 ed., London, 1903; and the writer's Semitic Origins, New York, 1902, Ch. II.

It Is not strange, therefore, that the early Semites regarded the principal deity of each oasis as a goddess, and the next important deity as her son. The goddess appears to have been the spirit of the spring which gave the oasis Its fertility, and was consequently thought to reside In the spring; the son appears to have been regarded as the spirit of the vegetation, or more specifically, of the palm-trees which grew near the spring. They called the mother goddess by a name which is found among all the Semitic nations known to history. It appears among the Babylonians as Ishtar; among the Phoenicians as Ashtart. It was called by the Greeks Astarte, and perverted by later Hebrews to Ashtoreth. It apparently meant " the Self-waterer." ^ We do not know the primitive name of the goddess's son. In Babylonia he was called Dumuzl (corrupted In Hebrew to Tammuz), which meant "Son of life." Naturally these deities were thought to feel and act as the barbarous men and women of that early stage of development felt and acted.

It was natural that. In a religion which originated In such an environment, certain springs, trees, and rocks should be considered sacred, for they were the residences of deities or spirits. It was also natural that, when Semites settled In lands watered by rivers, these rivers should be considered sacred too. Thus In the code of laws promulgated by the Babylonian king, Hammurapi,

^ See the Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. xxxi, p. 355 fthe river is several times regarded as a god, and in II Kgs. 5 : IO-I2 it is implied that divine qualities were thought to belong both to the river Jordan and to the two rivers at Damascus.

As deities of fertility the Ishtars and Tammuzes were thought to approve of the sexual relations which existed in primitive Semitic society; indeed, they were thought to be especially anxious to encourage those relations. Among all early peoples it has been thought that acts that occur, as we say, by chance are especially directed by a god. As these primitive deities were thought to be especially interested in fertility, it was customary to leave the selection of a partner to the first sexual act in the life of a woman to chance, in order to secure to her the blessings of the mother goddess. This custom survived among several of the Semitic nations down to late times. An outgrowth of this custom, which arose after the establishment of priesthoods, was the consecration of men and women to represent this function of the deity.^ These men and women were -not prostitutes in the ordinary sense of the term. The purpose of their existence seems to have been to secure fertility to those men and women who were barren. The institution was not begotten by immoral tendencies; it simply represented a very primitive point of view. Doubtless at times it was put to uses that were more sensual than religious, but such was not its original purpose. This

1 See the article " Hierodouloi," in Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, New York, 1908, Vol. VI.

Institution was known In Israel as among the other nations, and was not eradicated until the reform of Joslah In 621 B. c. (II Kgs. 23: 7).

Closely connected with these conceptions of fertility were the pillars and asheras which stood beside Semitic altars. The pillars were rude stones which roughly represented a phallus, the asheras represented In different ways at different times the physical gateway of life. These, too, survived at the altars of Yahweh In Israel until the reform of Joslah (II Kgs. 23: 7, 15).

Somewhat akin to the pillars just mentioned were circles of stones arranged In a perpendicular position. These were called by the Hebrews Gilgals. Such circles may still be seen In the land beyond Jordan, and are no doubt of pre-hlstoric origin. What the exact significance of these circles was we cannot now divine. The enclosure within them was rendered sacred, and Is apparently still so regarded by the trans-jordanic nomads.^ These Gilgals Israel took over, and In time some of them were explained by traditions of their own. Thus one In the Jordan valley was regarded as having been made of stones taken from the bottom of the Jordan at the time of the Hebrew crossing (Josh. 4: 20).

A part of this primitive cult was the rite of circumcision. This rite can no longer be regarded as the peculiar possession of the Hebrew people, though It was interpreted by Jews as the special sign of Yahweh's covenant with them (Gen. 17: 1-15). In reality It Is a most

iSee Biblical World, XXIV, p. 177.

primitive institution; it originated so early that it was practised by Egyptians as well as by Semites. Egyptian reliefs made prior to 2500 B. c. portray the operation, while the examination of many mummies proves that it was practised. It would seem to have originated at a time when the Hamites and Semites were still one stock. The rite was performed on both men and w^omen. Scholars are in doubt as to the original purpose of circumcision. Some hold that it was intended to be an offering of a part of the body as a sacrifice to the deity in lieu of the whole; others, that it was intended as a consecration of the organs of reproduction to the deity, intended to secure from the goddess the blessing of fertility; ^ still others that it was intended as a mere physical convenience. It seems to the writer that the second motive mentioned is more likely to be the correct one.

Whatever the motive may have been, the antiquity of the origin of circumcision and its widespread practice outside of Israel are now beyond doubt. It Is one of those institutions which the chosen people inherited from their Semitic ancestry. As so often happens In religious history this rite underwent a new Interpretation at their hands; It lost Its primitive significance, and became the symbol of their choice by Yahweh. Under

1 See the article " Circumcision " In Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, New York, 1908, Vol. III.

Toy, Introduction to the History of Religion, New York, 19 13, p. 72, thinks that probably at first circumcision had no religious significance whatever.

lO THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL

prophetic influence circumcision became the " outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace," for Deut. 30: 6 speaks of a circumcision of the heart, which should enable Israel to love Yahweh with all the heart.^ The Apostle Paul carried this further and discarded the outward rite, holding that he who had the inner experience did not need the outward sign ( Rom. 2 : 28 f. ; Col. 2: 11). All this does not alter the fact of the pre-Israelitish origin of the rite, which was slowly spiritualized by Israel, and which, though discarded for a spiritual reality by Paul, is still practised by Israelites. Another institution closely connected with circumcision was animal sacrifice.^ Animal sacrifice is peculiar to no nation or race. All people have, at a certain stage of mental development, practised it. It can be traced among the ancestors of the philosophically minded inhabitants of India and Greece as well as among the less philosophical Egyptians and Semites. It is based on two conceptions: i, that the gods are corporeal beings and need food; 2, that in disposition they are like men, and are irritable and savage when hungry, but more mercifully inclined when the pangs of appetite are satisfied. Every nation which has advanced to a high mental and religious plane has had a struggle to throw off this point of view. The method adopted to rationalize

1 See for similar treatment of it, Jer. 4:4, and Lev. 26:41.

2 Animal sacrifice included human sacrifice. This was practised by the Hebrews, at least sporadically, until a late time, as the sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter (Jud. 11:34-40) and the sacrifice of children in the reign of Manasseh prove (II Kings 21:6; Jer. 32:35).

THE SEMITIC BACKGROUND II

sacrifices In India may still be traced in the literature of that country.^

Some scholars hold that among the Semites sacrifice was commensal, that is, that its essential feature was a meal of which the worshipper partook and of which the god was supposed to partake. The food, according to this view, became a material bond between the worshipper and the deity.^ Others hold that the essential feature of the sacrifice in this primitive time was the bursting forth of the blood.^ The deities were thought to be barbarous and unfeeling. When they were offended they, Hke the human beings of the time, could only be appeased by a bloody offering. Perhaps both elements entered into the conception. Men have, the world over, misunderstood God. They have thought him hard and cruel, — a being who demanded blood, — one who could be moved as men can be moved by appealing to appetite or the lust for vengeance. They have thought of God as altogether like to themselves.*

Such animal sacrifice Israel inherited from her Semitic ancestry, and with conscientious reverence perpetuated. Prophets protested,^ but ancient ideas were too strong to yield. The law of Deuteronomy, which limited sacrifice

1 See Bloomfield, Religion of the Veda, New York, 1908, p. 33 f. and 215 f.

2 See W. R. Smith, Religion of the Semites, 2 ed., London, 1894, Chs. VI-IX.

3 S. I. Curtis, Primitive Semitic Religion Today, New York, 1902, pp. 216-228.

to one place, reduced it to a minimum, but continued the theory that It was necessary. In course of time, because of the limitation of the Deuteronomic law, the synagogue developed a worship without sacrifice, but Judaism ever regarded this as worship of a lower plane than that of the temple. The destruction of the temple in 70 A. D. brought Jewish sacrifices to an end, but to this day Orthodox Judaism looks to their restoration. If the temple at Jerusalem Is ever restored. It was left for Christianity to develop a theory of religion In which animal sacrifice has no place.

Another inheritance which was in reality a part of animal sacrifice, was the Institution of the passover. This feast, as celebrated in Israel, was a reinterpretatlon of the primitive Semitic festival of the yeaning time, at which some of the gifts of the goddess of fertility were returned to her In the form of sacrifices.^ Perhaps In early times the sacrifices of the yeaning time consisted of first-born animals and Included the firstborn of men as well. At all events it was long regarded as a religious obligation to offer the first-born in sacrifice to Yahweh. Later It was considered right to substitute a lamb for the first-born of men and asses. To justify the substitution In the case of human beings, the story was told that Abraham w^as directed from heaven to make such a substitution.^ This story Is not really the story of the sacrifice of Isaac, as It is often called, but

1 See Barton, A Sketch of Semitic Origins, New York, 1902, pp. 108- III.

2 See Genesis 22.

the story of the rescue of Isaac from this barbarous fate.

From the early Semitic time there descended along with the passover another festival that was celebrated in the autumn. Among the oasis dwellers this festival was celebrated at the time of the date harvest at the end of summer.^ After the Hebrews settled in Canaan, where the grape harvest was a prominent agricultural fact, while the date harvest was a negligible quantity, the feast was reinterpreted as a celebration of the ingathering of the grapes.^ The wailing which had preceded the festival, and which had been in the wilderness period expressive of the death of Tammuz or of vegetation in the fierce summer heat, was also given a new interpretation and was made a wailing for sin. Memory of the origin of the festival in the conditions of the previous nomadic life was kept alive by the custom of living in booths or tents during the week of the feast.^

In the unsettled life of the Semitic nomad there was no regularly constituted authority or any code of laws. Such sheiks or chieftains as they had were local or tribal leaders, possessing only such authority as their fellow tribesmen chose to give them, and no means of enforcing their authority except the public opinion of the tribe. Through long centuries of such life there gradually grew up certain principles of rough and ready justice which

1 Barton, .4 Sketch of Semitic Origins, New York, 1902, pp. 111-115. 2Deut. 16:13. 3 Lev. 23 : 34, 40.

received the sanction of all, and which were in time thought to have divine sanction. These principles were embodied In the lex talionis or unwritten laws of retaliation. According to this unwritten law, If a man knocked out another's eye, his eye must be knocked out. If he knocked out another's tooth, his tooth must be knocked out. If he Injured another's hand, a corresponding injury must be Inflicted upon his hand. If he killed another, he himself must be put to death. It became the sacred duty of the one next of kin to the slain man to avenge the blood of his kinsman. Wherever Semites went they carried deeply Ingrained in their customs this law. In the code of Hammurapl, which comes from Babylonia, a majority of the penalties Imposed are but detailed applications of this principle, and the principle with all the force of a divine law prevails among the nomadic Arabs until the present time.

Every reader of the Old Testament is aware that this principle Is enshrined in the laws of the Pentateuch,^ but probably few realize to what an extent It was thought to have back of It the authority of Israel's God. The story told in 2 Sam. 21 : 1-14, which Is treated below, p. 82, is an Interesting revelation of the way in which this law was regarded. Yahweh was thought to have sent a famine of three years' duration upon the whole land because the bloody penalties, which this law demanded, had not been exacted, and was only appeased by a ghastly conformity to the law, which makes a modern reader shudder. It Is one of the gains that scientific study brings us that we no longer think of this law as really given by the one God, but as a barbarous inheritance from Israel's Semitic forebears.

Another barbarous Semitic custom which was perpetuated for a time In Israel was the herem or ban. The word Is sometimes translated In the Revised Version "devoted," as in Josh. 6: 17, 18, and sometimes "utterly destroy" as In Josh. 6:21 and i Sam. 15:3, 8. The custom represented by this word was In brief this: when for any reason the hatred of a people towards an enemy had been fanned to a white heat, those entertaining the hatred, thinking that their god shared their feelings, vowed, if they could conquer the hated ones, to utterly destroy them as an act of service to their own god. When once such a vow had been taken, all sacred associations compelled those taking it to execute It. A massacre thus became a religious duty, and wholesale murder a divine service. This, too, was an ancestral custom, which the better spirit of Israel finally sloughed off.

Still another Institution which Israel shared with her Semitic neighbours was ecstatic prophecy. The Idea that epileptics and those whose nervous constitutions are so delicate that they are easily thrown off their balance are possessed of spirits either good or bad has been widely prevalent among mankind.^ If the spirit by which the

1 See Davenport, Primitive Traits in Religious Revivals, New York, 1905.

l6 THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL

patient is possessed Is thought to be a good one, the utterances of the patient are regarded as an oracle. Such a prophet was found at the court of a king of the Phoenician city of Gebal ^ about iioo B. c, and, If we had fuller records, It would probably be found that they existed In other parts of the Semitic world. Israel's early prophets were of this sort. Such was the company of people whom King Saul In his early life joined, and such was the prophet Into which he for a while turned.^ Even Ellsha, at a later time, employed music to Induce such an ecstasy so that he could give an oracle.^

Fortunately for us and for the world such prophecy was displaced In Israel by something better. Ecstasy gave place In the great literary prophets to vision, — to that spiritual sight which God sometimes gives to consecrated souls, when with wills dedicated, hearts aflame, and all their mental powers alert and active, they address themselves to the deepest problems of life.

It should also be noted that the early Hebrews shared with their Semitic kinsmen the view that religion consisted of a body of ceremonies to be gone through with, rather than a body of beliefs to be accepted. The world was thought to be full of supernatural powers of which man stood In awe. If one did not behave toward these powers as the powers themselves thought proper, in anger they might blast one's life. Just as one must

1 See Breasted, Ancient Records, Egypt, IV, Chicago, 1906, p. 280.

observe a polite etiquette In approaching a powerful man, so the ceremonies of religion were the proper manners to be observed In one's relationship with the gods. So long, then, as the right practices were carried out, one might believe what he wished. Connected with different gods were various myths that had grown up to explain their actions or their nature. These myths one could accept or reject. If only his outward conduct was Irreproachable. At first, accordingly, religion consisted of a body of ceremonies.

1. Semitic Conceptions of Deity; cf. W. R. Smith, Religion of the Semites, 2 ed, London, 1894, Lecture II; G. A. Barton, A Sketch of Semitic Origins, New York, 1902, ch. iii ; Hastings, Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, New York, 1908, Vol. VI, pp. 247-252 ; Toy, Introduction to the History of Religion, New York, 1913, §§ 751-764.