1 Compare the author’s Pagan Christs, pp. 66–95. ↑
4 Compare Hugo Winckler, Geschichte Israels, i, 56–58. ↑
5 Compare Tiele, Outlines, p. 87; Hist. comp. des anc. relig. p. 342 sq.; Kuenen, Relig. of Israel, iii, 35, 44, 398. Winckler (Gesch. Israels, i, 34–38) pronounces the original Semitic Yahu, and the Yahweh evolved from him, to have been each a “Wetter-Gott.” ↑
6 The word is applied to the apparition of Samuel in the story of the Witch of Endor (1 Sam. xxviii, 13). ↑
7 The unlearned reader may here be reminded that in Gen. i the Hebrew word translated “God” is “Elohim” and that the phrase in Gen. ii rendered “the Lord God” in our versions is in the original “Yah-weh-Elohim.” The first chapter, with its plural deity, is, however, probably the later as well as the more dignified narrative, and represents the influence of Babylonian quasi-science. See, for a good general account of the case, The Witness of Assyria, by C. Edwards, 1893, ch. ii. Cp. Wellhausen, Proleg. to Hist. of Israel, Eng. tr. pp. 196–308; E. J. Fripp, Composition of the Book of Genesis, 1892, passim; Driver, Introd. to the Lit. of the Old Test. 1891, pp. 18–19. ↑
8 Winckler, Gesch. Isr. i, 29–30. ↑
9 Cp. Meyer, Gesch. des Alt. i, 398. ↑
10 See the myth of the offerings put in it by the Philistines (1 Sam. vi). ↑
11 1 Sam. iii, 3. Cp. ch. ii, 12–22. Contrast Lev. xvi, 2, ff. ↑
12 1 Sam. iv, 3–11. Cp. v. vii, 2. ↑
14 1 Kings xii, 28; Hosea viii, 4–6. Cp. Jud. viii. 27; Hosea viii, 5. ↑
15 Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 196. But see above, p. 79. ↑
17 2 Kings xviii, 4, 22; xxiii, 48. ↑
19 Jer. i, 18; iii, 16; vi, 13; vii, 4–22; viii, 8; xviii, 18; xx, 1, 2; xxiii, 11. ↑
20 Jer. ii, 28; xi, 13. ↑
21 So Kuenen, vol. i. App. i to Ch. 1. ↑
22 Amos v, 21, 22. ↑
23 Hosea ii, 11; vi, 6. ↑
26 Cp. M. Müller, Nat. Rel. pp. 560–61; Psychol. Rel. pp. 30–32; Wellhausen, Israel, p. 465. If the Moabite Stone be genuine—and it is accepted by Stade (Gesch. des Volkes Israel, in Oncken’s Series, 1881, i, 86) and by most contemporary scholars—the Hebrew alphabetic writing is carried back to the ninth century B.C. An account of the Stone is given in The Witness of Assyria, by C. Edwards, ch. xi. See again Mommsen, Hist. of Rome, bk. i, ch. 14, Eng. tr. 1894, i, 280, for a theory of the extreme antiquity of the alphabet. ↑
27 Dr. Cheyne (Art. Amos in Encyc. Biblica) gives some good reasons for attaching little weight to such objections, but finally joins in calling Amos “a surprising phenomenon.” ↑
28 Driver, Introd. to Lit. of Old Test. ch. vi, § 2 (p. 290, ed. 1891). Cp. Kuenen, Relig. of Israel, i, 86; and Robertson Smith, art. Joel, in Encyc. Brit. ↑
29 Cp. Wellhausen, Israel, p. 501; Driver, ch. vii (1st ed. pp. 352 sq., esp. pp. 355, 361, 362, 365); Stade, Gesch. des Volkes Israel, i, 85. ↑
30 E.g. Ps. l, 8–15; li, 16–17, where v. 19 is obviously a priestly addition, meant to countervail vv. 16, 17. ↑
31 Cp. Kuenen, i, 156; Wellhausen, Prolegomena, p. 139; Israel, p. 478. ↑
32 As to a possible prehistoric connection of Hebrews and Perso-Aryans, see Kuenen, i, 254, discussing Tiele and Spiegel, and iii, 35, 44, treating of Tiele’s view, set forth in his Godsdienst van Zarathustra, that fire-worship was the original basis of Yahwism. Cp. Land’s views, discussed by Kuenen, p. 398; and Renan, Hist. des langues sémit. p. 473. ↑
33 Cheyne, Introd. to Isaiah, Prol. pp. xxx, xxxviii, following Kosters. ↑
34 There is a cognate dispute as to the condition of the Samaritans at the time of the Return. Stade (Gesch. den Volkes Israel, i, 602) holds that they were numerous and well-placed. Winckler (Alttestamentliche Untersuchungen, 1892, p. 107) argues that, on the contrary, they were poor and unorganized, and looked to the Jews for help. So also E. Meyer, Gesch. des Alt. iii (1901), 214. ↑
35 Cp. Rowland Williams, The Hebrew Prophets, ii (1871), 38. This translator’s rendering of the phrase cited by Zephaniah runs: “Neither good does the eternal nor evil.” ↑
36 Cp. E. Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums, iii, 216. ↑
37 Mal. ii, 17; iii, 13. Cp. ii, 8, 11. ↑
38 Cp. Jer. xxxiii, 24; xxxviii, 19. ↑
40 Ch. v. Renan’s translation lends lucidity. ↑
41 Driver, Introduction, p. 378. Prof. Dillon (Skeptics of the Old Testament, p. 155) goes so far as to pronounce Agur a “Hebrew Voltaire,” which is somewhat of a straining of the few words he has left. Cp. Dr. Moncure Conway, Solomon and Solomonic Literature, 1899, p. 55. In any case, Agur belongs to an age of “advanced religious reflection” (Cheyne, Job and Solomon, p. 152). ↑
42 Driver, Introduction, p. 378. ↑
43 Biscoe, Hist. of the Acts of the Apostles, ed. 1829, p. 80, following Selden and Lightfoot. ↑
44 S. Schechter, Studies in Judaism, 1896, p. 189, citing Sanhedrin, 386, and Pseudo-Jonathan to Gen. iv, 8. Cp. pp. 191–92, citing a mention of Epicurus in the Mishna. ↑
45 The familiar phrase in the Psalms (xiv, i; liii, 1), “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God,” supposing it to be evidence for anything, clearly does not refer to any reasoned unbelief. Atheism could not well be quite so general as the phrase, taken literally, would imply. ↑
46 Cp. W. R. Sorley, Jewish Christians and Judaism, 1881, p. 9; Robertson Smith, Old Test. in the Jewish Ch. ed. 1892, pp. 48–49. These writers somewhat exaggerate the novelty of the view they accept. Cp. Biscoe, History of the Acts, ed. 1829, p. 101. ↑
48 Cp. the implications in Ecclesiasticus, vi, 4–6; xvi, 11–12, as to the ethics of many believers. ↑
50 Kalisch, Comm. on Leviticus, xxv, 8, pt. ii, p. 548. ↑
51 In the Wisdom of Solomon, iii, 13; iv, 1, the old desire for offspring is seen to be in part superseded by the newer belief in personal immortality. ↑
52 Schechter, Studies in Judaism, 1896, p. 216. Compare pp. 193–94. ↑
53 See Supernatural Religion, 6th ed. i, 97–100, 103–21; Mosheim, Comm. on Christ. Affairs before Constantine, Vidal’s tr. i, 70; Schürer, Jewish People in the Time of Jesus, Eng. tr. Div. II, vol. iii, p. 152. ↑
55 Cp. Horace, 1 Sat. v, 100. ↑
56 Rev. A. Edersheim, History of the Jewish Nation after the Destruction of Jerusalem, 1856, p. 462, citing the Avoda Sara, a treatise directed against idolatry! Other Rabbinical views cited by Dr. Edersheim as being in comparison “sublime” are no great improvement on the above—e.g., the conception of deity as “the prototype of the high priest, and the king of kings,”—“who created everything for his own glory.” With all this in view, Dr. Edersheim thought it showed “spiritual decadence” in Philo Judæus to speak of Persian magi and Indian gymnosophists in the same laudatory tone as he used of the Essenes, and to attend “heathenish theatrical representations” (p. 372). ↑
57 See Ps. xc, 2; Prov. viii, 22, 26. ↑
58 This is seen persisting in the lore of the Neo-Platonist writer Sallustius Philosophus (4th c.), De Diis et Mundo, c. 7, though quite unscientifically held. ↑