Motive of Early writing, is to Shere the goodness of Jahuch

in the past.

CHAPTER V

RELIGION IN THE EARLY LITERATURE

IT can hardly be doubted that a considerable literature existed in Israel from the time of Solomon at least. But from that and earlier times only fragments have come down to us. It was apparently in the ninth century that it occurred to religiously minded men to write a connected story of the earlier traditions of their people. Their work has been preserved embedded in the books of the Hebrew canon from Genesis to II Samuel inclusive. Critical analysis restores these early documents to us in the J and E strata of the Pentateuch, and in the hero stories of Judges and Samuel. The religious motive of the authors is evident: they desire to record the evidences of Yahweh's goodness to his people in the past and thus to stir the gratitude and stimulate the fidelity of their contemporaries. The authors sympathised with the prophetic party which, under the lead of Elijah, was strenuous in opposing the innovations of Jezebel. In their opinion the best vindication of Yahweh was the record of his dealings in the past. They therefore embodied in their narratives some of the ancient poems which glorified the God of Israel. By common consent the oldest of these is the Song of Deborah. This is a song of triumph composed to commemorate a signal victory over the Canaanites. The victory is ascribed to the direct intervention of Yahweh who, from his distant home in the south, came on the thunder-cloud to deliver his people. The various tribes are praised or blamed according to the part which they took or refused to take in the conflict. Patriotism and religion are one-to take the part of Israel is to come to the

help of Yahweh. The conclusion is a vigorous curse against the enemies of Israel as the enemies of Yahweh: “So let all thine enemies perish, Yahweh! But let them that love thee be as the sun in its strength!" (Judges 5:31.)

Similar religious and patriotic faith is revealed by the testament of Jacob (Gen. 49). The author will encourage the tribes by giving them a sense of Yahweh's protecting care or else warn them of the danger of going contrary to his righteous will. The low estate of Simeon and Levi is attributed to their cruelty, upon which Yahweh has visited a penalty. Reuben has lost his birthright because of an act of lawlessness committed by the ancestor of the tribe. On the other hand, the tribes most prosperous are the objects of Yahweh's favour. Joseph is under the direct protection of the God of Bethel, who strengthens him for war and gives him the blessings of fruitfulness: "Blessings of the heaven above, blessings of the depth below, blessings of the breast and of the womb." Here Yahweh is evidently the God of the rains, of the underground reservoir, and of animal fruitfulness. So he appears in the other ancient poem, the one called the Blessing of Moses. In this the felicity of Ephraim is ascribed to Yahweh, to whom is addressed the prayer: "The best that the sun brings forth, and the best that the moon causes to spring up, the treasures of the ancient mountains and the precious things of the eternal hills, the best of the earth and its fulness and the good pleasure of him that dwells in the bush, come upon the head of Joseph and on the crown of the crowned one among his brothers" (Deut. 33:14-16). The favour of Yahweh, however, is not extended to Judah, in spite of the fact that the Jerusalem temple is in possession of this tribe, for the author is able only to pray that Yahweh may fight for him and restore him to the unity of the tribes. Yahweh, therefore, is present in the northern kingdom and at the local sanctuaries. Zebulon and Issachar are happy in that they are in possession of sacred places to which they invite the neighbouring clans: "They call peoples to the mountains; there they offer right

eous sacrifices" (v. 19). Levi is especially blessed (in sharp
contrast to what is said in the older poem) in that he is in full
possession of the priesthood: "Thou hast given to Levi thy
Thummim, and thy Urim to thy beloved, whom thou didst
try at Massah, didst contend with at Meribah; who said of
his father: 'I know him not'; he considered not his brothers
nor his children; for they obeyed thy commandment, and
kept thy instruction; they teach Jacob thy testimonies,
and Israel thine oracle; they bring sweet savour to thy
nostrils and whole burnt offerings on thine altar."

The tone of this poem and by consequence the tone of
the writer who included it in his narrative is in sharp con-
trast with that which we find a little later in the written
prophets. The poem shows an optimistic faith in the God
of Israel. This God is not thought of as dwelling in the
temple at Jerusalem but manifesting himself at the many
sanctuaries of the northern kingdom. The tribe or guild
of Levi is not the Jerusalem priesthood but the company
of ministers of the high places. Yahweh smiles upon them
and upon the nation for whom they minister: "There is
none like the God of Jeshurun, who rides on the heavens
for thy help, and in his majesty on the clouds. Thy refuge
is the eternal God, and underneath are the everlasting arms;
he drove the enemy before thee and commanded to destroy
them" (vss. 26 f.).

The poems from which I have cited have been preserved for us by the two Pentateuchal writers whom we have called J and E and by the author who collected the hero stories of the book of Judges. The motive which led to the preservation of the poems moved the writers also in their choice of material from early tradition. Three classes may be distinguished in this material. There is, first, that which makes up the greater part of the book of Genesis and in which the forefathers of the nation are the actors; then the account of the wilderness wandering or the beginnings of the national life; and, finally, the stories of the heroes who secured Israel in possession of the land of Ca

naan. For the first period the material must have been drawn from folk-lore and, as we shall see, from early mythology. The authors had a much larger material to draw from than they actually put on record, as is seen from some of their briefer notices. For example, we are told how, as Jacob went on his way, the angels of God met him and he said: "This is God's camp; so they call the name of the place Camp" (Mahanaim, Gen. 32:2f.). This is a reference to the local tradition which accounted for the name of the place; the author might have given it at length, as he did so many others, had he been so minded. In like manner the account of Jacob's purchase of a piece of ground at Shechem (Gen. 33: 18f.), the death of Deborah (35:8) and of Rachel (35 : 19), might have been expanded, but the author dismisses them with brief mention. The reason is probably that they did not serve his religious purpose.

In the lives of the patriarchs this religious purpose is twofold. First, the stories set forth the divine guidance of Israel, beginning with the forefathers; secondly, they show these same forefathers as models of piety and obedience. When we come to the wilderness wandering the same thought of divine guidance is prominent, but the people are not models of obedience. Rather they are held up in their frequent unbelief and murmuring as warnings for later generations. In the lives of the heroes again we see the power of Yahweh manifested in giving his people victory and securing them in possession of the land which he had promised to the fathers. It is evident that the writers are not interested in history for its own sake but for its revelation of the power, the love, and the forbearance of Israel's God. The contrast between these narratives and such a piece of plain historical writing as we find in the account of Absalom's rebellion is sufficiently striking to show what I mean.

The Pentateuchal writers take their material from a great variety of sources, and some of it is of great antiquity. Our present knowledge enables us to say that a part of it comes from Babylonia, a part of it bears the marks of the early

nomadic or half-nomadic life of the Israelites, another part is the product of the soil of Canaan, and in some cases at least there may be Egyptian influence. A question which has been much mooted of late years is: How much of this material can properly be called mythological? The answer will depend on our definition of myth. If by a myth we understand a story which pictures the processes of nature as actions of anthropomorphic gods, there are no myths in the Old Testament. The story of the twelve labors of Heracles, if it be a poetic representation of the progress of the sun through the twelve signs of the zodiac, is a myth in the proper sense of the word. But it has no parallel in the Hebrew Scriptures. The tendency to discover ancient divinities in the persons of the patriarchs-Joseph a sungod, Jacob a moon-god-has no warrant in our present text. Even if it could be proved that some of the incidents in the lives of these patriarchs are parallel to some things narrated of the sun-god and the moon-god, we must still recognise the fact that to the writers Joseph was not a divinity of any kind, but a man of Hebrew race whose life was like that of any other man except for the distinct providential guidance which it illustrates. Abraham may have been a local divinity once worshipped at Hebron. In the narratives we are considering he is only the ancestor of Israel, a man of extraordinary piety, no doubt, but still a man.

Except in the early chapters of Genesis (to which we shall return presently) myths do not form any important part of the material with which our authors deal. Legends or sagas, however, are distinctly traceable. A saga is a story which represents a nation or tribe as an individual. The growth of saga in Israel, as among the Arabs, was helped by the fact that the name of a clan or tribe was often used as a collective, that is, as though it were the name of an individual. Thus in the first chapter of Judges, Judah is said to have invited his brother Simeon to come with him into his portion. The narrator is well aware that Judah and Simeon are clans and not men, but the language might lead