[172] Frazer, GB, Spirits of the Corn..., I. 136 ff.
[173] Mannhardt, Baumkultus, p. 174; Frazer, The Magic Art, II. 58 ff.
[174] On the subject generally see Hölscher, Die Profeten: Untersuchungen zur Religionsgeschichte Israels, pp. 129-158 (1914).
[175] In speaking of the exercises of the early prophetical bands Robertson Smith says that “they were sometimes gone through in sacred processions, sometimes at a fixed place, as at the Naioth at Ramah, which ought probably to be rendered ‘dwellings’—a sort of coenobium. They were accompanied by music of a somewhat noisy character, in which the hand-drum and the pipe played a part, as was otherwise the case in festal processions to the sanctuary (2 Sam. vi. 5; Isa. xxx. 29). Thus the religious exercises of the prophets seem to be a development in a peculiar direction of the ordinary forms of Hebrew worship at the time, and the fact that the ‘prophesying’ was contagious establishes its analogy to other contagious forms of religious excitement” (The Prophets of Israel, p. 392 [1897]). See further, Gressmann, Palestinas Erdgeruch in der Israelitischen Religion, pp. 34 ff. (1909).
[176] Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites, p. 432.
[177] See, for interesting parallels, S. A. Cook, in Essays and Studies presented to William Ridgeway, p. 397 (1913).
[178] The Religion of the Semites, p. 432. But see S. A. Cook in the work just cited.
[179] The R.V. rendering of 1 Kings xviii. 26, “And they leaped about the altar,” is misleading.
[180] The text emendation here is obvious, it should be yithgôdâdu (“they cut themselves”) for yithgôrâru (“they assemble themselves”).
[181] This has been illustrated by the excavations on the site of ancient Gezer undertaken by the Palestine Exploration Fund.