THE EVOLUTION OF JAHVEH.
In the beginning when men created gods they made them in their own image, cruel, unrestrained and vacillating, All the early religions give evidence of the savage nature of ancient man. The departed gods, viewed in the light of modern ideals, were all ugly devils. The boasted God of the Jews is no exception. Although the books of the Old Testament do not give us the earliest and doubtless still more savage beliefs of the Israelites, the oldest portions, such as the legends embodied in Genesis and the historical books, sufficiently betray that Jahveh was no better than his compeers. It is evident that originally he was only one of many gods. He is always spoken of as a family deity—the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob. Human sacrifices were at one time offered to him (see Genesis xxii., Leviticus xxvii. 29, Numbers xxv. 4, Judges xi. 31-39,1 Samuel xv. 23, Micah vi. 6,7). He is anthropomorphic, yet anything but a gentleman. In his decalogue he describes himself as "a jealous god, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children until the third and fourth generation." He delights in blood and sacrifice. He is entitled "a god of battles," "Lord of hosts," and "a man of war." He has the form, the movements, and the imperfections of a human being. Man is said to be made in his image and after his likeness. It is plain these words must be taken in their literal significance, since, a little further on, Adam is described, in the same language, as having begotten Seth "in his own likeness and after his image" (Genesis v. 3).
Jahveh walks in the garden in the cool of the day. He has come down to see the tower of Babel (Gen. xi. 5). He covers Moses with "his hand" so that he should not see "his face"; and while Moses stands in a clift of the rock Jahveh shows him "his back parts" (Exodus xxxiii. 23). He makes clothes for Adam and Eve, and writes his laws with his own finger. After six days' work we are told that "on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed" (Exodus xxxi. 17). When Noah sacrificed we are told that "Jahveh smelled a sweet savor" (Gen. vii. 21). He creates mankind and then regrets their creation—"It repented Jahveh that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him at his heart" (Genesis vi. 6). He puts a bow in the clouds in order to remember his vow, and again and again he repents of the evil which he thought to do unto his people (see Exodus xxxii. 14; Numbers xiv.; 2 Sam. xxiv. 16; Jonah iii. 10; etc.)
Jacob wrestles with him; and when things do not go as they wish, Moses, Joshua, David and Job no more hesitate to remonstrate with their deity than the African hesitates to chide the fetish that does not answer his prayers.
In the early books Jahveh is irascible and unjust. His temper is soon up, and his vengeance usually falls on the wrong parties. Eve eats the forbidden fruit and all her female descendants are condemned to pains at childbirth. Pharaoh refuses to let the Hebrews go and the firstborn child of every Egyptian family is slain, and other dreadful afflictions are poured on the innocent people. David, like a wise king, takes a census of his nation, and Jahveh punishes him by slaying seventy thousand of the people by a pestilence (1 Chron. xxi. 1—17). He slaughters fifty thousand inhabitants of the village of Bethshemesh for innocently looking into his travelling-trunk on its return from captivity (1 Samuel vi. 19). He smites Uzzah for putting his hand to save the ark from falling (2 Samuel vi. 6, 7), and withers Jeroboam's hand for venturing to put it upon the altar (1 Kings xiii. 4). He sends bears to kill forty-two little children for calling Elisha "bald-head" (2 Kings ii. 23, 24), and his general conduct is that of a barbarous, bloodthirsty and irresponsible tyrant. We say nothing here of the character of his favorite people. "Man paints himself in his gods," said Schiller.
The captivity of the Jews and their consequent contact with other nations led to their own refinement and an enlarged ideal of their divinity. He improves much in his character, tastes and propensities. Nehemiah addressed Jahveh in the elevated tone the Persians addressed Ahura-Mazda. Whereas in the old days Jahveh ordered whole hecatombs of sheep and oxen to be sacrificed to him, doubtless because his priests liked beef and mutton (they had the meat and he had the smell)—the prophet Isaiah in his first chapter writes, "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me?" saith Jahveh. "Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow." Similarly, Micah gives worship an ethical instead of a ceremonial character: "Will Jahveh be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth Jahveh require of thee but to do justly and love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." Ezekiel bluntly contradicts Moses, and declares that "the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son" (xviii. 20).
The second Isaiah even looks forward to the time when Gentiles will acknowledge the Jewish Jahveh, and Zechariah declares "Thus saith Jahveh of hosts: In those days it shall come to pass that the ten men shall take hold of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you" (viii. 23).
Jewish vanity did not permit tolerance to extend beyond this. Even in the New Testament God only offers salvation to those who believe, and mercilessly damns all the rest. "An honest God is the noblest work of man," and theists of all kinds have found great difficulty in supplying the article.
Herbert Spencer, in a paper on "Religion" in the Nineteenth Century* well says: "If we contrast the Hebrew God described in primitive tradition, manlike in appearance, appetites and emotions, with the Hebrew Gods as characterised by the prophets, there is shown a widening range of power along with a nature increasingly remote from that of man. And on passing to the conceptions of him which are now entertained, we are made aware of an extreme transfiguration. By a convenient obliviousness, a deity who in early times is represented as hardening men's hearts so that they may commit punishable acts, and as employing a lying spirit to deceive them, comes to be mostly thought of as an embodiment of virtues transcending the highest we can imagine." And so the idea of God developes
"Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought."
* January, 1884.
For the process is not simply from the savage to the civilised—it is from the definite to the dim. As man advances God retires. With each increase of our knowledge of nature the sphere of the supernatural is lessened till all deities and devils are seen to be but reflections of man's imagination and symbols of his ignorance.