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THE EVOLUTION OF OLD
TESTAMENT RELIGION

BY
W. E. ORCHARD, B.D.

LONDON
JAMES CLARKE & CO., 13 & 14, FLEET STREET
1908

TO
My Wife

[PREFACE]

The substance of this book was originally delivered as a Course of Lectures to a week-night congregation. The Lecture form has been retained, and this accounts for the repetition of the leading ideas, while the practical interests of Church life account for the insistence on the religious value and lesson. It is hoped that this, which might be irritating to the professional student, may be helpful to the ordinary reader who is repelled by the technicality of critical works, and often fails to discern the devout spirit by which such works are inspired, or to discover what religious interest is served by them.

Where everything is borrowed from other writers, and no claim to originality is made, detailed acknowledgment would be impossible, but the resolve to attempt some such course in place of the usual form of a week-night service was formed in the Hebrew class-room of Westminster College, Cambridge, while listening to the Lectures on Old Testament Theology and Messianic Prophecy, delivered by the Rev. Professor Dr. Skinner (now Principal), in which accurate scholarship was combined with a deep insight into the present religious importance of these subjects. Grateful acknowledgment is also due to the Rev. J.R. Coates, B.A., who kindly read through the proofs and made many valuable suggestions.

W. E. ORCHARD.

Enfield, August, 1908.

[CONTENTS]

LECTURE		PAGE
	Introduction	[vii]
I.	The Semitic Races	[19]
II.	The Primitive Religion of the Hebrews	[31]
III.	Mosaism	[55]
IV.	The Influence of Canaan	[83]
V.	Prophetism—Early Stages	[107]
VI.	The Religion of the Literary Prophets	[135]
VII.	The Effect of the Exile	[169]
VIII.	The Work of the Priests	[195]
IX.	The Religion of the Psalmists	[215]
X.	The Religion of the Wise	[241]
XI.	Messianic Expectations	[265]

[INTRODUCTION]

It is a matter of common knowledge that within the last few decades a tremendous change has come over our estimate of the value of the Old Testament, and that this change is of the gravest importance for our understanding of religion. But what the exact nature of the change is, and what we are to deduce from it, is a matter of debate, for the facts are only known to professional students and to a few others who may have been led to interest themselves in the subject. With some, for instance, the idea prevails that the Old Testament has been so discredited by modern research that its religious significance is now practically worthless. Others believe that the results arrived at are untrue, and regard them as the outcome of wicked attacks made upon the veracity of the Word of God by men whose scholarship is a cloak for their sinister designs or a mask of their incapacity to comprehend its spiritual message. There is perhaps a middle course open to some who have found a message of God to their souls in the Old Testament, and who, on hearing that the authorship of this book has been questioned or the historicity of that passage assailed, are unmoved, because they believe that it does not matter who wrote the Pentateuch or the Psalms so long as through these documents they hear the voice of the living Word of God. Here then is a subject on which there exists a distressing confusion, and, moreover, a subject in which ignorance plays no small part. Save with a few devout souls who have made a long and continuous study of the Scriptures, it may be doubted whether there is any widespread knowledge of the actual message of the Old Testament, even among Christian people. There are certainly many people willing to defend the authority of the Bible who spend very little time in reading it. The favourite Psalms and the evangelical passages of Isaiah are probably well known, and beyond this there is but the knowledge gained in early days, from which stand out in the memory the personalities of Samson and Saul, David and Goliath, and Daniel in the lion's den, together with the impressive stories of the Flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the crossing of the Red Sea, and the fall of Jericho. A very little is probably carried away from the public reading of the Scriptures in places of worship. It cannot be said that this acquaintance conveys any real impression of the magnificent message that lies embedded in these thirty-nine books which go to make up the Old Testament. Now whatever harm may be charged to the modern methods, it can at least be claimed that neglected portions have been carefully studied, the meaning of obscure passages discovered, and much of importance and interest brought to light; but more than this, it has been discovered that the essential message of the Old Testament lies largely apart from those narratives and personalities that impress the superficial reader, and rather in the record of a gradual development of the conception of God and of His purpose in calling Israel to be the recipient of His self-disclosure. It has been found that the striking figures of the landscape are of less importance than the road that winds among them along which revelation moves to its final goal.

It may be objected that the new inspiration, which so many who have studied the Scriptures by these methods claim to have felt, throws quite a new emphasis on our conception of the Old Testament and is revolutionary of all that we have been accustomed to believe concerning it; that the methods are such as could not legitimately be applied to the Word of God, and are the products of a criticism which is puffed up with a sense of its own superiority; and that the results are discreditable to the Old Testament, since they allege that some of the narratives are unhistorical, some passages and even whole books unauthentic, and traditions on which the gravest issues have been staked shown to have nothing more than a legendary basis. There is much in these objections that is natural, but much that is misunderstanding. It is true that the contribution which the Old Testament makes to religion is estimated differently from what it was fifty years ago, and it must be allowed that this brings a charge of having misunderstood the Scriptures against generations of scholars and saints. But it is admitted that all matters of knowledge are open to misunderstanding. It is no argument against the conception that the earth moves round the sun, that the contrary idea was held in other ages. We know that the understanding of the Old Testament has been obscured, often by those who ought to have been the greatest authorities on its meaning. Jesus read into the Scriptures a meaning unrecognised by the authorities of His day, and dealt with them in a fashion that was regarded as revolutionary. To some of the Scriptures He appealed as to a final authority, but others He regarded as imperfect and only suited to the time in which they were written. The Jews of His day venerated every letter of the sacred writings, and regarded the very copies of the Law as sacred to the touch, and yet on their understanding of the Scriptures they rejected the mission and message of Jesus. Christian scholarship has undoubtedly followed rather after the Rabbis than after Christ. The message of the Old Testament that the new methods have made clear certainly appears to be more in conformity with the Spirit of Christ than with that of His opponents, and if this is revolutionary then it is no new thing; religion always moves along such lines.

Great offence has been caused and insuperable prejudice aroused among many by the name under which these methods have become known. The name, "higher criticism," conveys to most people a suggestion of carping fault-finding and an assumption of superiority. This is due to an entire misunderstanding of a technical term. Criticism is nothing more than the exercise of the faculty of judgment, and, moreover, judgment that ought to be perfectly fair. The sinister suggestion that is conveyed in the word is due to the fact that our criticisms are so often biassed by personal prejudices. But this only condemns our faults, and not the method. "Higher" criticism does not mean any assumption of superiority, but is simply a term used to distinguish it from "lower" criticism. The criticism that endeavours to ascertain the original text by a comparison of the various documents available is called lower, and that which deals with matters higher up the stream of descent by which the writings have been conveyed to us, namely, matters of date and authorship, is called higher criticism. It might well be called literary and historical criticism, in distinction from textual criticism. It employs historical methods, and uses the simple tests of comparison and contemporaneity. For the understanding of a particular age, it prefers those documents that describe the times in which they were written, and give indirect evidence, rather than those histories which were written long after the event and which reveal a purpose other than the strictly historical. Fortunately, we have in the Old Testament many such contemporary and indirect witnesses in the writings of the Prophets. They are not consciously writing history, but they tell us indirectly what the practices of their day were, and especially what religious ideas were prevalent; for it is these things that they feel called upon to attack. With these reliable standards we can compare the regular histories, which were necessarily written at a much later age, and very often to serve some religious purpose.

Now it is this method, which is surely a true and proper one, that has changed our estimate of the history and development of religion in Israel. Are we to condemn the method without examination because it destroys certain traditions about the Bible which we have received largely from Judaism?—the Judaism which could find no place for Jesus! But it will be answered that these methods yield results that are incompatible with the inspiration of the Bible, and are unworthy of God's revelation to us. But how are we to decide what is compatible with inspiration? We can only tell, surely, by seeing what these results are and by discovering whether they bring any inspiration to us. Can we be certain, without examining the facts, to what lines the revelation of God is to be restricted? Is this not coming to the Bible with a theory which we have manufactured and which will surely distort the facts? It will be said that anything less than absolute accuracy makes void any claim to be a Divine revelation. Let us consider what this means. We know that the historical spirit, which endeavours to see history as it actually happened quite apart from our desires or sympathies, is an ideal which has only emerged with the general spread of education, and that in ancient times history was written largely with a view to edification, and especially for giving such lessons as would lead to right principles being adopted for the future. It was not the accuracy of the material but suitability for its purpose that weighed with the historian. Now, with these conditions existing, was it impossible for God to speak to men through their conceptions of history, or had He to wait until the historical spirit prevailed? Could He not use the early legends which they believed, and through them bring the truth to men? We know that the greatest of all religious teachers did not scruple to embody the highest truths in such parables as lowly minds could receive. We may demand that revelation shall be infallible, but this would need in turn an infallible person to receive it, and even then an infallible interpreter. An infallible revelation would mean that there could never be any progress in revelation; that it would have to be given perfect in one process; that it would have to be authenticated to men by authority, since it would be beyond the understanding of a fallible mind; that it would break in upon every other experience, remain isolated, and never be grasped by that strong conviction which we call faith; and this would entail a destruction of the mental faculties of man, and an acknowledgment that communication between God and man is really impossible. Could not God speak to man in his infancy, and with the growing understanding would there not be growing light?

Meanwhile, whatever we feel about these abstract principles, we ought to know the facts. In the pages that follow an endeavour is made to present the results at which a consensus of opinion has arrived. There will be no great time spent in argument for or against these facts. Such are to be sought in the scientific works and in the dictionaries, which alone can deal adequately with these facts, but since many altogether refuse to consider the facts because of the inferences which they think can be drawn from them, this book is an earnest plea for earnest men to consider whether it is not open to be shown that from these facts there comes to us a much clearer understanding of God's ways with man; a more certain conviction that in the past God has actually spoken through the Scriptures; a clue to a better understanding of the place Jesus occupies in the history of revelation; and what we all need greatly to-day: a preparation of heart that we may follow the leading of that Spirit who ever has and who ever will guide into all truth those who are willing to follow Him. The aim of this book is that the reader may feel that the voice which speaks in his own heart and the voice which has guided man through all his strange history is One, and is of God.

[THE SEMITIC RACES]

Read, as Introduction to this Lecture, the Tenth Chapter of Genesis.

This is one of the most interesting documents in anthropology. It is an attempt at a scientific ethnology, and seems to have been expanded from the closing verses of the preceding chapter. It will be noticed that those verses are in poetical form (R.V.), and are likely to be very ancient.

Note the principles of classification:—

(1) Geographical. It is a very incomplete summary of the peoples of the earth. Only those nations are mentioned that fill the horizon of the writer's knowledge. That horizon will be found to correspond very largely with that of the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

(2) Prejudice. The evident kinship of some peoples is denied on the ground of dislike; for the same reason, Moab and Ammon, who are well known, are simply omitted.

The real test of kinship is language, which is here ignored.

The names are not to be taken as individuals. Of this the very form is witness: Ludim is plural, Mizraim is dual, Tarshish is the name of a place, and Amorite is gentilic.

Notes:—

Verse 2. Madai = Medes. Javan = the Greeks, or more particularly, the Ionians.

Verse 4. Tarshish is probably Spain. Kittim = the Cretans. Dodanim (read Rodanim 1 Ch. i. 7) = the inhabitants of Rhodes.

Verse 6. Mizraim: the name for Egypt. Canaan: here and elsewhere said to be descended from Ham. Beyond all doubt the Canaanites were a Semitic people and spoke a language akin to Hebrew. Religious antagonism and the fact of their conquest demanded in the popular imagination a different ancestry.

Verse 14. "Whence went forth the Philistines" is misplaced, and should follow after "Caphtorim" (Amos ix. 7).

Verse 21. Eber: the name of the supposed ancestor of the Hebrews.

Verse 22. Elam = Persia. Racially the Elamites were quite distinct from the Semites. This inclusion may be a clue to the date of this Table of Nations; friendship with Persia dates from Cyrus (Sixth Century B.C.).

(See Driver's "Genesis.")

[Lecture I]
THE SEMITIC RACES

The Hebrew nation forms a branch of that group of the human family known as the Semites. Their relation to the other great racial divisions of mankind is far beyond the reach of our enquiry, and we cannot even penetrate to a period when the Semites formed an unbroken family. At the remotest date to which history can take us we find the family already widely dispersed, with distinct national characteristics well developed, and their common ancestry quite forgotten in their violent hatreds of their unrecognised kinsmen. Indeed it is only the test of language which still preserves for us an indisputable proof of their common origin. Their existence can be traced back to a very remote date, for fragments of their literature and other evidences of civilisation have been discovered that have been dated 5000–4000 B.C., and even at that period the language shows signs of phonetic degeneration that require a still further period for the process to have reached this stage.

The primitive home of the Semites cannot have been, however, where these ancient remains have been found, namely, in the Euphrates valley, for the records themselves show that they were only immigrants there and had replaced the original inhabitants, who came of Sumerian stock. Neither was it in Palestine, as our own Bible will tell us; but it is probably to be sought in Arabia, where the purest Semitic stock is still to be found. In this desert home the race was bred that was destined to have such a tremendous influence on the history of the world, and it is largely to this desert training that we can trace influences which have made them what they are. The battle for life in that inhospitable land would mould a physique capable of extraordinary endurance, and to this we can perhaps trace the virility of the modern Jew, who has resisted for centuries the poisonous ghettos of European cities and remains far healthier than his indigenous neighbours. This hard training fitted them for an exacting life, and in the Phœnicians they became the traders of antiquity, and in the Carthaginians and Saracens, warriors not to be despised. Hardness easily becomes cruelty, and purely Semitic empires, such as Assyria, developed a barbarous cruelty, the story of which is told on their inscriptions and in the denunciations of the Hebrew Prophets. There is something in the Semitic character that is disliked by Western nations, and the Jews have been subjects of relentless persecution in mediæval times, and are still capable of arousing bitter hostility, as may be seen from those violent eruptions of anti-Semitism which occasionally burst through the cosmopolitanism of Western Europe. The well-defined limitations of their primitive home—crushed in between the continents of Europe, Africa and Asia, the neutral ground of the Eastern and Western worlds—seem almost to be reflected in the limitations of their mental development. The Semitic tongue is crude in its simplicity and incapable of expressing an abstract idea, and it is natural to find as a result that the philosophical faculty is almost entirely missing. Although they have given to the world an alphabet, a system of numeration which has made mathematics possible, and the beginnings of measurement and of the science of astronomy, yet their mind is not scientific in the modern sense. They possess, as perhaps no other race, the gift of telling stories of wonder and mystery, and for a simple tale of love and pathos they are unsurpassed. They have produced the finest lyrical literature of the ancient world, but have contributed hardly anything to dramatic or epic poetry, and their achievements in art have been cramped by their religious prejudices.

But in the realm of religion they are supreme, and have become the high-priests of humanity, for from them have gone forth three great religions, and one of these capable of development into the universal religion of mankind. These faiths have not been slowly evolved from the national consciousness, but have both sprung from and been embodied in inspiring personalities; for have they not given to the world Moses and the Prophets, Mahomet, and the Son of Man?

The Semites are divided by anthropologists into the following groups: Southern Group—North Arabians, Sabæans, Abyssinians; Northern Group—Babylonians, Assyrians, Aramæans, Canaanites, Hebrews; and all these groups seem to have been formed from the original stock by migrations from their home in Arabia. The contracted area of the Arabian peninsula, the inability of the land to support a large population, coupled with their restless spirit and the constant feuds between the tribes, made emigration a necessity at a very early period. The exact history and order of these migrations it is now impossible to trace, but it would seem that the first great movement was eastward, whither they were drawn by the culture and wealth of the Sumerian civilisation in the Euphrates valley. It is quite possible that this movement commenced 6000 years before Christ. At a later date they seem to have invaded Egypt and left some traces upon the language and customs of that land.

The land of Syria would offer a near and easy home for the emigrants, and yet the first Semites to arrive in Palestine seem to have come from the Euphrates. The inhabitants they displaced were the Hittites, who probably came from Asia Minor; they were Turanians, and were akin to the present inhabitants of Armenia. It is only lately that excavation has revealed the remains of a Hittite Empire in Palestine. The first Semitic tribes to reach Palestine pushed down to the seaboard, where they developed a wonderful maritime civilisation and became the daring traders and explorers who are known in history as the Phœnicians; the other tribes occupied the hill country and became the Canaanites of Bible story. Of the next migration westward, the Bible preserves a popular account in the story of the journey of Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees. Now Abraham and his descendants were called Hebrews, and this name is traced to an ancestor who was called Eber or Heber. It is doubtful whether an individual so named ever existed. The name "Hebrew" means "one from the other side," and would therefore have been a suitable name for those who crossed the Euphrates, coming from Arabia; but of this movement the Bible knows nothing. Some have supposed that the name was given much later to the tribes who entered Palestine across the Jordan. The discovery of the Tel-el-Amarna tablets has somewhat complicated our understanding of these events. These tablets were letters written by the vassal-kings of Syria to their overlord Amenophis III., King of Egypt, and in them the King of Jerusalem calls for help against some tribes who are invading the country and whom he names Habiri. Now the date of this correspondence is about 1500 B.C., and if these are the Hebrews, we shall have to suppose that not all the tribes of Israel went down into Egypt or that the Exodus took place some two centuries earlier than the date given in the Bible; but the whole question of the identification of the Habiri is not yet certain.

It is, however, with those Hebrew tribes who were afterwards known as the children of Israel that we have to do; and however remote, and by whatever stages it is to be traced, their Semitic relationship is certain. Their own tradition of the birthplace of Abraham shows that they are conscious of their common origin with the Babylonians; the stories in Genesis acknowledge their kinship with Moab and Ammon, even though national hatred has coloured the account of their birth (Gen. xix. 30–38). They formed a brotherly covenant with Edom, and Ishmael is recognised not only to be kin but to be the elder. The Canaanites were disowned wrongly, for they were certainly Semites; but the Philistines rightly, for they came into Palestine over-sea from Crete.

We need always to bear in mind that our Bible is the product of Semitic thought, and whatever its universal message, it is expressed in the forms of Semitic genius; and yet that the Hebrews stand out from the other Semitic nations is indisputable, and the distinguishing mark is the purity of their religion. What is the cause of that difference? How came such a tender root out of such a dry ground?

Renan is responsible for the popular idea that the Semites have a natural tendency towards Monotheism. The idea should present no difficulties for a theory of Revelation, but it is certainly not true. It is not true of the general type of Semitic religion, and it cannot be claimed, in the face of the Prophets' record of their countrymen's lapses, that it was true even of the Hebrews. If it were said that there was that in Semitic history and character which, provided opportunity were given, would offer a congenial soil for the reception of monotheistic ideas, it would be the utmost that could be said. Neither is there more truth in the antithesis that contrasts the Aryan conception of God as immanent with the Semitic as transcendent; for in their primitive stages Aryan and Semitic religions are alike.

Primitive Semitic religion is indeed quite polytheistic; every tribe has its own god and this god is closely identified with a particular locality. Therefore, to be an outcast from the tribe meant to be an exile from the protection and service of the god. This idea can be found in the Bible as late as David, who thought that if he were driven forth from his own land he would have to serve other gods (1 Sam. xxvi. 19). The god is conceived to be the father of the tribe, while the land is the mother, and this in quite a physical and literal sense. The same idea is of course frequent in the Greek religions, and some such conception must be the original of the strange tradition in Genesis (vi. 1), which describes a union between the sons of God and the daughters of men. The connection of the god with the tribe is therefore simply a matter of blood descent, and the blood becomes in consequence invested with sacred virtues. The blood of the tribe cannot be shed by one of the members without incurring the vengeance of the god; and the use of the blood of animals in various ceremonies may point to the belief in a common ancestry for men and animals; in some tribes the animal is regarded as a superior being, and is actually worshipped. The blood of animals even is thought to be too sacred for human consumption, and is therefore set apart by libation as suitable food for the god. Seeing that the connection between the god and man is only tribal, the shedding of the blood of any other tribe is quite allowable; for the tribal god cares only for his own people, and others cannot approach him (2 Kings xvii. 27). It is evident that a religion based upon such ideas can never be a factor in the moral development of a people. It only needs to provide for help against enemies, counsel in times of national affliction, and oracles for difficult problems of judgment; therefore, in times of national prosperity and security, it will play no part beyond that of custom; and custom often seems the stronger in proportion to its lack of meaning.

We may insist that the Hebrew religion is superior to all this because it owes its origin to the special revelation of God; but even that does not preclude us from enquiring through what natural causes this revelation came, if we believe that natural causes form some part of the working of the Divine mind.

Now these ideas common to Semitic religion persisted among the Hebrews and were only shaken by the earnest ministry of the Prophets, and eventually destroyed by the reflection which followed the national disaster of the Exile. The continued national trouble of Israel was therefore a factor in her advance in the truth, and she stands as a witness to the possibility of suffering being an educative force. Moreover, she found that her Promised Land was only a little strip hemmed in between the desert and the sea, where all dreams of world-empire were forbidden. Then it was that this nation turned her thoughts to a spiritual kingdom, and looking across the sea that she feared to cross saw a day when the distant isles should be her possession, because she had given to them the Law of Jehovah, and the knowledge of God.

THE EVOLUTION OF OLDTESTAMENT RELIGION