Mythology among the Hebrews and Its Historical Development

683. Ewald, Ausführl. Lehrb. d. hebr. Sprache, § 164. c; Grammar transl. Nicholson, § 343 end.

684. Aug. Knobel, Die Bücher Numeri, Deuteronomium und Josua, p. 544. On the Northern origin of this book most candid Biblical critics are agreed.

685. Ursprung der Sagen von Abraham, Isak und Jakob. Kritische Untersuchung von A. Bernstein. Berlin 1871.

686. As the drawing up of the Canon belongs to an age in which the antagonism between North and South had ceased to exist, the literary products of the North which were still preserved from old times obtained a place in it, though always brought into harmony with the all-pervading theocratic character by occasional interpolated modifications of sentiment.

687. With respect to the originality and the specifically Hebrew character of the notion of Jahveh, I consider the most correct assertion yet made to be what Ewald declared in reference to the alleged Phenician Divine name Jah; for when we examine the passages and the data on which Movers’ and Bunsen’s opposite view is based, their apocryphal nature strikes us at the first glance. This is especially true (to mention one case only) of the passage of Lydus, De mens. IV. 38. 14: Οἱ Χαλδαῖοι τὸν θεὸν ΙΑΩ λέγουσιν ... τῇ Φοινίκων γλώσσῃ καὶ ΣΑΒΑΩΘ δὲ πολλαχοῦ λέγεται κτλ (See Bunsen, Egypt’s Place in Universal History, vol. IV. p. 193). As to the occurrence of the name Jahveh in the Assyrian theology there is not yet sufficient certainty. Eberhard Schrader, who refers to it, imagines the name to be borrowed from the Hebrew (Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament, p. 4).

688. To this may be added that the Moabite Stone speaks of the vessels of Jahveh which king Mesha carried off as plunder from the Northern kingdom (line 18). Kuenen goes too far in finding a connexion between the worship of Jahveh in the Northern kingdom and the figures of bulls (Religion of Israel, I. 74 et seq.)

689. In the article Ueber die nabathäischen Inschriften von Petra, Hauran u.s.w., in the Zeitsch. d. D. M. G., 1860, XIV. 410.

690. This must not be placed in the same category with cases in which the insertion of [ ] can be explained phonologically (Ewald, Ausführliches Lehrb. der hebr. Spr. § 192. c; Böttcher, I. 286). See the Agadic explanation of this, which I have quoted in the Zeitsch. d. D. M. G., 1872, XXVI. 769.

691. The changes of name mentioned in 2 Kings XXIII. 34, XXIV. 17, should also be considered here. It is not probable that these changes were ordered by the Kings of Egypt and of Babylon; for in that case the names received in exchange would have been quite different, Egyptian and Babylonian respectively in form (compare Dan. I. 7). The change of Elyâḳîm into Yehôyâḳîm is especially noticeable, for it is a direct alteration of an Elohistic into a Jahveistic name. Such a change is usually the simple consequence of a religious revolution, as is seen in other cases. Thus, e.g. King Amenophis IV., when he directs his fanaticism against the worship of Ammon, and places that of Aten in the foreground, changes his Ammonic name into Shu en Aten, ‘the light of the solar orb.’ See Brugsch, L’histoire d’Égypte (1st ed.), I. 119, and Lenormant, Premières civilisations, I. 211. Of Moḥammed also we are told that he altered those portions of his followers’ names which savoured of idolatry, substituting monotheistic terms; thus one ʿAbd ʿAmr had his name changed to ʿAbd al-Raḥmân (Wüstenfeld, Register zu den genealogischen Tabellen, p. 27). The pious philologian al-Aṣmaʿî always calls the heathen Arabic poet Imru-l-Ḳeys, Imru Allâh, changing the name of the heathen god Ḳeys into the monotheistic Allâh (Guidi on Ibn Hishâmi’s Commentary etc., Leipzig 1874, p. XXI.).

692. As Pope in the Universal Prayer: ‘Father of all: ... Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!’—Tr.

693. For instance Strauss, in the Zeitsch. d. D. M. G., 1869, XXIII. 473. But not only Jahveh, but even Elôhîm was brought from China. The glory of publishing this eccentric idea to the world belongs to M. Adolphe Saïsset, who wrote a whole book, entitled Dieu et son homonyme, Paris 1867, to prove very thoroughly that the Elôhîm of Genesis was really—the Emperor of China! The book is 317 octavo pages long.

694. Vergelijkende Geschiedenis, pp. 555, 561.

695. To this group belongs, on Arabian ground (besides the well-known ʿarrâf and kâhin), the muḥaddath ‘the well-informed;’ on whom see De Sacy’s Commentary on Ḥarîrî, 2nd ed., p. 686.

696. Mommsen, History of Rome, edition of 1868, III. 446 et seq.

697. This is meant only as a general assertion, and is the general impression left by the Prophetical books. There are, in this as in other respects, various grades perceptible between the different Prophets. The prophetical Jahveistic idea is not so powerful and exclusive in all as in the Babylonian Isaiah.

698. ‘I am I’ (hû being equivalent to the verb to be)='I am who I am.'—Tr.

699. See Kuenen, Religion of Israel, III. 41.

700. Bunsen must be named as the writer who lays the most stress on the importance of this anî anî hû, bringing this formula into connexion with the metaphysical definition of the idea of Jahveh (God in History, I. p. 74 et seq.). Lessing’s ‘Nur euer Er heisst Er’ (only your He is called He, Nathan der Weise, I. 4) is with justice adduced by Bunsen.

701. B. Constant de Rebecque, Du Polythéisme Romain, II. 102, quoted by Buckle, Civilisation, II. 303.

702. It is best to read with Gesenius miḳḳesem for miḳḳedem.

703. Hosea XIV. 4 [3] must also be noted, where the alliance with Assyria is condemned in the words ‘Asshur will not save us; we shall not ride on horses.’ See also Zech. IX. 10, X. 5, Micah V. 9 [10].

704. See Ezek. XXXVII. 15–28.

705. See on the other side Zunz in the Zeitsch. d. D. M. G., 1873, p. 688, thesis 14 et seq.

706. These two passages (Mic. VI. 4 and Mal. III. 22 [IV. 4]) appears not to have been noticed by Michel Nicolas in his 'Etudes critiques sur la Bible,' Paris 1862, I. 351, where he says of Moses, ‘Son nom ne se trouve que deux fois dans les écrits des prophètes qui sont parvenus jusqu'à nous—(Esaie, LXIII. 12; Jér. XV. 1).’

707. I have given particular prominence to this on account of the opposite view taken by Max Müller in his Chips, I. 361 et seq.

708. His fondness for humanising God by anthropomorphic expressions is the only feature, the reasons for which are not patent.

709. See Knobel, Die Bücher Numeri, Deuteronomium und Josua, pp. 539, 554.

710. See Knobel, Die Bücher etc., p. 529.

711. The relative clause is dependent upon Debharîm only.

712. See Knobel, Die Bücher etc., p. 579.

713. See Supplement to the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung of June 19, 1874.

714. I will here cite a passage of Ibn Chaldûn, although not decisive on questions like the present: ‘Know that the Persians and Indians know nothing of the Ṭûfân (deluge); some Persians say that it took place only at Babylon.’ (History, vol. II.) Edward Thomas, in the Academy, 1875, p. 401, quotes a passage of al-Bîrûnî, in which it is said that the Indians, Chinese and Persians have no story of a Deluge, but that some say that the Persians know of a partial deluge. Burnouf believed the idea of a Deluge to be originally foreign to Indian mythology, and to have been borrowed, probably from Chaldaic sources (Bhâgavata Purâṇa, III. XXXI., LI.). A. Weber (in the Indische Studien, Heft 2, and on occasion of a critique of Nêve’s writings on the Indian story of the Deluge, in the Zeitsch. d. D. M. G., 1851, V. 526) declares himself in favour of the indigenousness of the Indian story, in opposition to Lassen and Roth, who agree with Burnouf.

715. The similarities and differences of the respective stories of the Deluge are lucidly placed side by side by George Smith in The Chaldean Account of Genesis, p. 286 et seq.

716. Tuch, Commentar über die Genesis, 1st ed. 1838, p. 149; 2nd ed. 1871, p. 47.

717. Academy, 1873, no. 77. col. 292.

718. See Westminster Review, April 1875, p. 486.

719. Geschichte des Alterthums, 4th ed. 1874, I. 186.

720. The Chaldean Account of Genesis, pp. 60–112.

721. Consult also Dr. Jacob Auerbach’s article Ueber den ersten Vers der Genesis in Geiger’s Zeitsch. für Wissenschaft und Leben, 1863, Bd. II. p. 253, who, I now see, comes very near to these ideas, but does not express them fully or clearly.

722. This view is expounded by Kuenen in his Religion of Israel, II. 156.