The Christian View of the Old Testament Part 7

[15] A translation of the entire inscription by R. W. Rogers is found in Records of the Past, New Series, Vol. VI, pp. 80ff. These Records of the Past contain translations of the more important ancient inscriptions.

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[16] The most important of these papyri is translated in the Biblical World, June, 1908, pp. 448ff.

[17] Francis Brown, a.s.syriology--Its Use and Abuse in Old Testament Study, p. 3.

[18] R. W. Rogers, History of Babylonia and a.s.syria, Vol. II, p. 80.

[19] Encyclopedia Biblica, Vol. I, col. 792, Note.

[20] E. W. Barnes, The First Book of Kings, p. x.x.xiii.

[21] A. T. Clay, Light on the Old Testament from Babel, p. 143.

[22] S. R. Driver, The Book of Genesis, p. liii, quoted in part from G.

A. Smith, Modern Criticism and the Preaching of the Old Testament, p.

101.

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CHAPTER V

THE OLD TESTAMENT AND COMPARATIVE RELIGION

The present is an era of comparative study. We no longer study subjects by themselves, but compare them with correlated experiences and phenomena. "In the sphere of language study we have the science of comparative philology. Language is compared with language. By means of this comparison we have found that there are groups of languages closely related to one another; and, comparing these groups with one another, we have discovered certain universal laws of language.

Comparing further the languages within each group, we ascertain the laws common to that group. By such comparison a flood of light has been thrown on language. We know Greek and Latin and Hebrew to-day as our predecessors did not know them."[1] The same principle of comparison is now applied to the study of history, of literature, of philosophy, of ethics, and of religion, including the literature and religion of the Hebrews. Men are laying to-day the entire Hebrew literature, history, and religion alongside of the literatures, histories, and religions of other {161} nations, testing them by the same methods and applying to them the same rules.

What should be the att.i.tude of the Christian toward this method of study? When the science of comparative philology first a.s.serted itself many good Christians set themselves against it, because one of its claims was that Hebrew is not the original language given by G.o.d to men. Comparative philology has won its way, and Bible students are truly grateful for the light it has shed upon sacred scripture. When the comparative study of the Scriptures was first advocated there were many timid souls who felt that this method of study was an attack upon the Bible, which could only issue in such an overturning of belief that the Church would remain helpless with a worthless Bible. Hence they set themselves with all their might against the new study as an enemy of Christianity. Is this the proper att.i.tude? In the first place, it is well to remember that the Bible has withstood all attacks for thousands of years. Its great river of truth has flowed serenely on, watering the whole earth with its life-giving streams, and refusing to be dammed up by any foe. Surely, history teaches that there need be no fear that any new method of study will bring about an end of the Bible's reign. On the other hand, history teaches the folly of resisting the progress of science along any line of investigation.

{162} True science will win its way just as surely as the teaching of the Bible will win its way into the hearts of men. Hence it would seem the part of wisdom to encourage rather than to discourage the efforts of the comparative student of the Old Testament.

As a matter of fact, we cannot do anything else unless we would stultify ourselves. We have said to the adherents of every other religion: "You say your sacred books are divine, prove it; lay your books open before the jury of the world, let the critics scrutinize them, a.n.a.lyze them, criticize them, according to the canons of modern criticism by which they criticize all books." And can we refuse to open our Bible before the jury of the world and bid it scrutinize, a.n.a.lyze, and criticize it according to the same canons which it applies to the Veda, the Koran, and other so-called holy books? Would such an att.i.tude be fair? If we believe that the Bible is different from the sacred books of other nations, that it stands on a far higher plane, unique, needing no concealment and no bolstering up with traditions and doctrines--if that is our faith, then let us lay it down open before the world and challenge men to read it, study it, and compare it with all the sacred literatures of the world. The man who really believes in the inspiration of the Bible ought not to be afraid of such a test.

He may rest a.s.sured {163} that the comparative study of biblical literature and biblical religion will prove one of the things that work together for good to all those who have a living faith in G.o.d.

An exhaustive discussion of the subject of this chapter would involve a study of all the great historical religions, known better to-day than ever before, and a comparison of them with the religion of the Old Testament. This, however, could not be done satisfactorily within the limits of a single chapter. It seems, therefore, advisable to confine the investigation to the religious beliefs, practices, and inst.i.tutions of the nations with whom the Hebrews came into more or less close contact, such as the Babylonians, a.s.syrians, and Egyptians. Political contact, which was common between these nations and the Hebrews, might furnish occasions for exerting influence in the realms of religion, law, and other elements of civilization. "When alien races and diverse faiths confronted each other it might not always be the cause of war, but it was always the occasion of psychical conflict."[2] Since the knowledge of the religions of the nations named has been supplied very largely through archaeological labors, this inquiry is simply one phase of the broader question as to the bearing of archaeology upon the Old Testament; more especially, the bearing of the archaeological material of a religious and ethical nature {164} upon the uniqueness and permanent significance of the Old Testament religion.

The importance of this study is suggested in the following quotation from a prominent a.s.syriologist, Hugo Winckler: "We come in the end to this, that we can distinguish only two views of the world which the human race has known in its historical development: the old Babylonian, and the modern empirical naturalistic, which is still in process of development and is yet struggling with the old one in many departments of life."[3] To avoid misunderstanding respecting the extent of the Babylonian influence, he adds, "The view of the world and religion are one for the ancient Oriental."[3] In this statement Winckler robs the Old Testament religion of all originality; he considers it simply a natural development of the Babylonian religion. Friedrich Delitzsch, in his lectures on "Babel and Bible,"[4] expresses the same idea in a slightly modified form and attempts to show the predominance of Babylonian thought in the Hebrew conception of the origin of the world, the Fall, the Flood, life after death, angels, demons, the devil, the Sabbath, a large part of the sacrificial cult, the directions concerning the priesthood, the name and worship of Jehovah, and even in the monotheistic conception of Deity. How much truth is there in these claims? Or, to put the question in another form, If the religious {165} ideas expressed in the Old Testament have parallels among nations commonly called heathen, and if these extra-biblical ideas cannot be explained as dependent on the Bible, does it follow that the ideas of the Bible are appropriated from these nations, and if so, what becomes of the uniqueness, the sacredness, the inspiration of the Old Testament? In order to answer the question adequately it is necessary to consider in detail the most important phases of the religious ideas of the Hebrews on the one hand, and of the nations with whom the Hebrews came in contact on the other.

Fundamental to all religious thinking is the conception of Deity. The origin of the Babylonian conception of Deity, which shows more striking similarities to the ideas of the Old Testament than do the conceptions of the other nations above mentioned, belongs to a period of which little or nothing is known. But there are indications that a fundamental aspect of the earliest religion of the country was animism, that is, the belief that every object was possessed and animated by a spirit. "Life was the only force known to man which explained motion, and, conversely, motion was the sign and manifestation of life. The arrow which sped through the air, or the rock which fell from the cliff, did so in virtue of their possessing life, or because the motive force of {166} life lay in some way or other behind them. The stars, which slowly moved through the sky, and the sun, which rose and set day by day, were living beings. It was life which gave them the power of movement as it gave the power of movement to man himself, and the animals by whom he was surrounded."[5] Besides this belief in animism, the Babylonian religion shows evidences of a belief in ghosts that were related to the world of the dead. These ghosts were thought to exercise an evil influence upon men and could be cast out only by the use of incantations.

But, while these elements belonged to the early religion, Babylonian religion as it actually meets us even in the earliest inscriptions has reached a higher stage of development. There appear many local deities; every center of human habitation had its special patron deity; for example, Babylon was the city of Marduk; Nippur, of Enlil; Ur, of Sin; Sippara, of Shamash; Cuthah, of Nergal; a.s.shur, of Ashur; etc.

These deities are usually a.s.sociated with natural phenomena; foremost among them stand the sun and the moon; but by the side of these many other natural objects or forces were personified and deified.

It is probable that in the beginning, as the result of limited observation and speculation, the number of G.o.ds in the Babylonian pantheon was relatively small. However, in the course of time, {167} they became greatly multiplied as the result of a wider observation of the phenomena of nature, political changes, and theological speculation. Over against this tendency to multiply deities there shows itself, in the course of the centuries, a tendency to diminish the number of G.o.ds, and in the end comparatively few remain, until in the late Babylonian period the worship seems to have been confined chiefly to Marduk, Nabu, Sin, Shamash, and Ishtar. Some of the great thinkers of Babylonia seem to have gone even so far as to consider the various deities manifestation of the one G.o.d Marduk. There is in existence a tablet of the Neo-Babylonian period which states that Marduk is called Ninib as the possessor of power, Nergal as lord of battle, Bel as possessor of dominion, Nabu as lord of business, Sin as the illuminator of the night, Shamash as the lord of right, Addu as the lord of rain, etc.[6] It is seen, then, that monotheistic tendencies are not absent from the Babylonian religion. But they never go beyond the realm of speculation. "The Babylonians, with all their wonderful gifts, were never able to conceive of one G.o.d, of one G.o.d alone, of one G.o.d whose very existence makes logically impossible the existence of any other deity. Monotheism transcends the spiritual grasp of the Babylonian mind."[7] In the words of Delitzsch, "Notwithstanding all this, however, and despite {168} the fact that many liberal and enlightened minds openly advocated the doctrine that Nergal and Nebo, that the moon-G.o.d and the sun-G.o.d, the G.o.d of thunder, Ramman, and all the rest of the Babylonian pantheon, were one in Marduk, the G.o.d of light, still polytheism, gross polytheism, remained for three thousand years the Babylonian state religion--a sad and significant warning against the indolence of men and races in matters of religion, and against the colossal power which may be acquired by a strongly organized priesthood based upon it."[8]

Even the most spiritual expressions of the Babylonian religion, the so-called penitential psalms, bear witness to the fact that the writers continued to worship many deities. In one of the most spiritual of these psalms, the psalmist prays:

That the heart anger of my lord be appeased, A G.o.d unknown to me be appeased, A G.o.ddess unknown to me be appeased, A known and unknown G.o.d be appeased, A known and unknown G.o.ddess be appeased, That the heart of my G.o.d be appeased, The heart of my G.o.ddess be appeased, G.o.d and G.o.ddess, known and unknown, be appeased.[9]

Some of the hymns and prayers addressed to certain deities read almost as if the authors were monotheists. But this is due simply to the fact that just at the time they are interested in the power or {169} splendor or favor of a specific deity. Again and again the fact that they believe in the existence of other deities, and in their duty to pay homage to different deities, crops out. At no period of the religious history of Babylonia is there any indication of a clear and well-defined monotheism.

In Egypt also a tendency toward monotheism manifested itself, especially during the reign of Amenophis IV, soon after B.C. 1400,[10]

that is, during the period when the Hebrews were in Egypt. He tried to do away with the worship of many deities and to establish as the one supreme deity the orb of the sun; but after the death of Amenophis, who was considered a heretic, the new cult disappeared without exerting any noticeable influence on Egyptian religion. There certainly is no evidence that either the Babylonian or the Egyptian monotheistic tendencies influenced in any direct way the development of Israel's religion.

Turning now to the religion of the Old Testament, we soon discover that Hebrew religion, including the conception of Deity, pa.s.sed through various stages of development, the earliest of these belonging to the period before Moses. The first thing to be noted about this period is that, in spite of the close relation of the ancient Hebrews with Babylon, the early Hebrew conception of Deity does not seem to have been influenced in any marked manner by that of Babylonia; nor {170} is there any indication of Egyptian influence. On the other hand, the oldest Hebrew conceptions show marked similarities with the religion of their nomadic neighbors, as reflected, for example, in the oldest traditions of the Arab tribes. This does not mean that an indirect influence may not have been exerted by Babylon; indeed, the absence of such influence would be very strange in view of the fact that, according to Hebrew tradition, the truth of which cannot be doubted, the ancestors of the Hebrews came from Babylonia, from the city of Ur, the princ.i.p.al center of the worship of the Babylonian moon-G.o.d, Sin.

The results of modern investigations into the nature of early Hebrew religion may be briefly stated as follows: Like the early Babylonian religion, the religion of Israel pa.s.sed through a stage of animism. In one form this is the belief in the activity of the spirits of recently deceased relatives. But this becomes a religion only when it leads to the worship of the departed, that is, ancestor worship, of which there is no definite indication in the biblical material at our command. But there is a form of animism of which there are traces in Israel as in Babylonia, namely, the worship of spirits that were believed to be the inhabitants and possessors of certain objects and places, like trees, stones, springs, which thereby a.s.sumed a sacred character. To this form of {171} religion the name "polydemonism," which means the worship of many demons, is ordinarily given. Demon, however, is to be understood here, not in the sense of evil spirit, but simply a divine being of an inferior order. As ill.u.s.trations of this belief, attention may be called to the sacred stone, Bethel, which gave the locality its name, "House of G.o.d" (Gen. 28. 19), or to the sacred oracular tree at Shechem (Gen. 12. 6; Deut. 11. 30), or to the sacred wells at Kadesh (Gen. 14. 7) and Beersheba (Gen. 21. 28-33). In general, it may be said that during the pre-Mosaic period the religion of Israel, whatever may have been true of isolated individuals, was not essentially different from the religious conceptions of the people with which we have become better acquainted through modern exploration and excavation.[11]

Another and very different conception appears from the time of the exodus on. The most striking feature of this new conception is that the Israelites now worship one G.o.d, whom they consider their own peculiar Deity, while they look upon themselves as his own peculiar people. True, the earlier conceptions did not disappear entirely or immediately; but for the religious leaders there was but one G.o.d who had a right to demand Israel's loyalty. Jehovah, or Yahweh, was the name of this G.o.d, and the religious watchword was, "Jehovah, the G.o.d of Israel; Israel the people {172} of Jehovah." Now archeology has shown the name "Yahweh" to have been used as a divine name long before the time of the exodus; but archaeology has also shown that the conception of the nature and character of Yahweh held by the religious leaders of the Hebrews from the time of Moses on is peculiar to them. Says R. W.

Rogers, "There can, therefore, be no escape from the conclusion that the divine name 'Yahweh' is not a peculiar possession of the Hebrews."[12] Then he continues: "At first sight this may seem like a startling robbery of Israel, this taking away from her the divine name 'Yahweh' as an exclusive possession, but it is not so. Yahweh himself is not taken away: he remains the priceless possession, the chief glory of Israel. It is only the name that is shown to be widespread. And the name matters little. The great question is, What does this name convey? What is its theological content? The name came to Israel from the outside; but into that vessel a long line of prophets from Moses onward poured such a flood of attributes as never a priest in all western Asia from Babylonia to the sea ever dreamed of in his highest moments of spiritual insight. In this name and through Israel's history G.o.d chose to reveal himself to Israel, and by Israel to the world. Therein lies the supreme and lonesome superiority of Israel over Babylonia."[13]

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Archaeology has revealed the pantheon of Babylonia and a.s.syria; the inscriptions have also set in a clear light the nature and character of the G.o.ds as conceived by their worshipers. For example, the G.o.ds are looked upon as a part of the process of creation, as may be seen from the opening lines of the story of Creation:[14]

When no one of the G.o.ds had been called into being, And none bore a name, and no destinies were fixed.

Then were created the G.o.ds in the midst of heaven.

An idea of the character of these deities may be gathered from the description of a heavenly banquet scene in the same poem:

They made ready the feast, at the banquet [they sat], They ate bread, they mingled the wine.

The sweet drink made them drunken ...

By drinking they were drunken, their bodies were filled.

They shouted aloud, their heart was exalted, Then for Marduk, their avenger, did they decree destiny.

Certainly, not all the religious thinkers of Babylonia held these low conceptions. In some of their prayers and hymns they rise to lofty spiritual and ethical conceptions which compare quite favorably with expressions found in the Old Testament. In a hymn addressed to Shamash, the sun-G.o.d, are found these lines:

Who plans evil--his horn thou dost destroy, Whoever in fixing boundaries annuls rights.

The unjust judge thou restrainest with force.

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Whoever accepts a bribe, who does not judge justly--on him thou imposest sin.

But he who does not accept a bribe, who has a care for the oppressed, To him Shamash is gracious, his life he prolongs.

The judge who renders a just decision Shall end in a palace, the place of princes shall be his dwelling.

The seed of those who act unjustly shall not flourish.

What their mouth declares in thy presence Thou shalt burn it up, what they purpose wilt thou annul.

Thou knowest their transgressions; the declaration of the wicked thou dost cast aside.

Every one wherever he may be is in thy care.

Thou directest their judgments, the imprisoned dost thou liberate.

Thou hearest, O Shamash, pet.i.tion, prayer, and appeal, Humility, prostration, pet.i.tioning, and reverence.

With loud voice the unfortunate one cries to thee.

The weak, the exhausted, the oppressed, the lowly, Mother, wife, maid appeal to thee, He who is removed from his family, he that dwelleth far from his city.[15]

Far be it from the writer to rob the religion of Babylonia of any of its glory. Nevertheless, he ventures to a.s.sert without any fear of contradiction that we may search the pantheon of Babylon, from one end to the other, and we shall not find one G.o.d who in nature and character can compare with the Jehovah of Israel as proclaimed by the great prophets and glorified by the sweet singers of the nation, a G.o.d "merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in loving-kindness and truth." We may well speak of a "great gulf, {175} which is fixed between primitive Semitic conceptions of G.o.d and the n.o.ble spiritual views of him set forth under divine illumination by Isaiah."[16] It is due to this fundamental difference in the conception of the nature and character of Deity that the religion of Israel became "a living and ethical power, growing and increasing until Jesus, greatest of the prophets, completed the message of his predecessors," and Christianity was born.