[10] A fragment of such a work, probably emanating from the school of Ḥīvī was found by Schechter and published in J.Q.R., xiii. 345 sqq.
[11] See M. Friedländer in Publications of the Society of Hebrew Lit., 1st ser. vol. i., and 2nd ser. vol. iv.
[12] The fullest account of them is to be found in Steinschneider’s Hebräische Übersetzungen des Mittelalters (Berlin, 1893).
[13] See H. Gollancz, The Ethical Treatises of Berachya (London, 1902).
HEBREW RELIGION (1) Introductory.—To trace the history of the religion of the Hebrews is a complex task, because the literary sources from which our knowledge of that history is derived are themselves complex and replete with problems as to age and authorship, some of which have been solved according to the consensus of nearly all the best scholars, but some of which still await solution or are matters of dispute. Even if the analysis of the literature into component documents were complete, we should still possess a most imperfect record, since the documents themselves have passed through many redactions, and these redactions have proceeded from varying standpoints of religious tradition, successively eliminating or modifying certain elements deemed inconsistent with the canons of religious usage or propriety which prevailed in the age when the redaction took place. Lastly it should be recollected that the entire body of the fragments of tradition and literature belonging to northern Israel has come down to us through the channel of Judaean recensions.
The influence of the Deuteronomic tradition in redaction is seen in such passages as Genesis xxxiii. 20 (cf. xxxi. 45 fol.); Josh. iv. 9-20, xxiv. 26 fol.; 1 Sam. vii. 12, where the maṣṣēbhah or stone symbol of deity (forbidden in Deut. xii. 3, xvi. 22) is in some way got rid of (in Gen. xxxiii. 20 the word “altar” in Hebrew is substituted). Similarly in Gen. xiii. 18, xiv. 13, xviii. 1, the Septuagint shows that the singular form “terebinth” stood in the original text. But the Massoretes altered this to the plural as this form was less suggestive of tree-worship (see Smend, A. Tliche Religionsgesch. i. p. 134, footnote 1; Nowack, Heb. Archäol. p. 12, footnote 1). Many other examples might be cited, as the “suspended nun” which transforms the pronunciation of the original Mosheh (Moses) into Menashsheh (Manasseh) owing to the irregular practices of his descendant, Jonathan ben Gershom (Jud. xviii. 30). It is not improbable that in 2 Kings iii. 27 the words “from Kemōsh” stood after “great wrath” in the original document, as the phraseology seems bald without them, and the motives for their suppression are obvious.
So far as concerns the critical problems which stand at the threshold of our task, it must suffice to say that the main conclusions reached by the school of Kuenen and Wellhausen as to the literary problems of the Old Testament are assumed throughout this sketch of the evolution of Hebrew religion. The documents underlying the Pentateuch and book of Joshua, represented by the ciphers J, E, D and P, are assumed to have been drawn up in the chronological order in which those ciphers are here set down, and the period of their composition extends from the 9th century B.C., in which the earlier portions of J were written, to the 5th century B.C., in which P finally took shape. The view of Professor Dillmann, who placed P before D in the regal period (though he admitted exilic and post-exilic additions in Exod., Levit. and Numb.), a view which he maintained in his commentary on Genesis (edition of 1892), has now been abandoned by nearly all scholars of repute. In the following pages we shall not attempt to do more than to sketch in very succinct outline the general results of investigation into the origins and growth of Hebrew religion.
2. Pre-Mosaic Religion.—Can any clear indications be found to guide us as to the religion of the Hebrew clans before the time of Moses? That Moses united the scattered tribes, probably consisting at first mainly of the Josephite, under the common worship of Yahweh, and that upon the religion of Yahweh a distinctly ethical character was impressed, is generally recognized. The tradition of the earliest document J ascribes the worship of Yahweh to much earlier times, in fact to the dawn of human life. A close survey of the facts, however, would lead us to regard it as probable that some at least of the Hebrew clans had patron-deities of their own.
(a) Both Moab and Ammon as well as Edom had their separate tribal deities, viz. Chemosh (Moab) and Milk (Milcōm), the god of Ammon, and in the case of Edom a deity known from the inscriptions as Kōs (in Assyrian Kauš).[1] From the patriarchal narratives and genealogies in Genesis we infer that these races were closely allied to Israel. That in early pre-Mosaic times parallel cults existed among the various Hebrew tribes is by no means improbable. It would be reasonable to assume that Moab, Ammon, Edom and kindred tribes of Israel in the 15th and preceding centuries were included in the generic term Ḥabirī (or Hebrews) mentioned in the Tell el-Amarna inscriptions as forming predatory bands that disturbed the security of the Canaanite dwellers west of the Jordan. Lastly pre-Mosaic polytheism seems to be implied in the Mosaic prohibition Ex. xx. 3, xxii. 20.