recorded in the Bible was not limited to the Israelitish race or to the
twelve centuries represented by the Old and New Testaments. The biblical
writers themselves assume this fact. According to the early Judean
prophetic narratives, Enoch, who lived ages before Abraham and Moses,
was a worshipper of Jehovah (Gen. iv. 26). Cain and Abel are both
represented in the familiar story of Genesis iv., as bringing their
offerings to Jehovah. One of the chief teachings of the earliest stories
in the Old Testament is that men from the first knew and worshipped God
and were held responsible for their acts according to their moral
enlightenment. History, science, and the Bible unite in testifying that
the revelation of spiritual truth to mankind was something gradual,
progressive, and cumulative; also that it is dependent upon the ability
of men to receive it. This capacity of the individual to receive is,
after all, the determining factor in the process of divine revelation;
for God's truth and his desire to impart it are always the same. Hence,
whenever conditions favor, or national or private experiences clarify
the vision of a race or group of men, a revelation is assured.
[Sidenote: _Antiquity of human civilization and religion_]
In the light of ancient history and the result of recent excavations it
is possible, now as never before, to study the varied influences and
forces employed by God in the past to open the spiritual eyes of mankind
to see him and his truth. The geological evidence suggests that man, as
man, has lived on this earth, fifty, perhaps one hundred thousand years.
Anthropology, going farther back than history or primitive tradition,
traces the slow and painful stages by which early man learned his first
lessons in civilization and religion. From the beginning, man's
instincts as a religious being have asserted themselves, crude though
their expression was. The oldest mounds of Babylonia and Egypt contain
ruins of ancient temples, altars, and abundant evidence of the religious
zeal of the peoples who once inhabited these lauds. The earliest
examples of human literature thus far discovered are largely religious
in theme and spirit.
[Sidenote: _Primitive unfolding of the innate religious instinct_]
All these testify that early man believed in a power or powers outside
himself, and that his chief passion was to know and do the will of his
god or gods. Jesus himself bore witness in the opening words of the
prayer which he taught his disciples, that this is the essence of
religion. It was natural and inevitable that primitive man, with his
naive view of the universe, should believe not in one but in many forces
or spirits, and that he should first enthrone the physical above the
ethical and spiritual. It is the instinctive tendency of the child
to-day. The later identification of the divine powers with the sun, that
gave light and fertility to the soil, or with the moon, that guided the
caravans by night over the arid deserts, or with the other heavenly
bodies, that moved in majestic array across the midnight sky, was
likewise a natural step in the evolution of primitive belief.
[Sidenote: _Reasons why Babylonia developed an early civilization_]
Civilization and religion in antiquity developed, as a rule, side by
side. The two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, commanding
the trade of the north and the south; proximity to the desert with its
caravans of traders going back and forth from the Euphrates to the Nile;
the rich alluvial soil, which supported a dense population when properly
drained and cultivated; and the necessity of developing in a higher
degree the arts of defence in order to maintain the much contested
territory,--these were a few of the many conditions that made ancient
Babylonia one of the two earliest if not the oldest centre of human
civilization. The commercial habits and the abundance of the plastic
clay, which could easily be moulded into tablets for the use of the
scribe, also fostered the early development of the literary art. The
durability of the clay tablets and the enveloping and protecting
qualities of the ruined mounds of ancient Babylonia have preserved in
a marvellous way its early literature. The result is that we can now
study, on the basis of contemporary documents, this early and yet
advanced chapter in that divine revelation, the later culmination of
which is recorded in the Bible.
[Sidenote: _Progress during the period of city states_]
It begins as far back of Moses as he is removed from us in point of
time. Its political background at first is the little city states of
Babylonia, each with its independent organization and its local schools
of artists, whose products in many respects surpass anything that comes
from the hands of later Semitic craftsmen. Each city had its temple, at
which the patron god of the local tribe and district was worshipped. In
some places it was the moon god Sin, as at Haran and Ur beside the
desert; elsewhere, as at Nippur, Bel, or at Eridu near the Persian Gulf,
Ea, the god of the great deep, was revered. In the name of the local
deity offerings were brought, hymns were sung, and traditions were
treasured, which extolled his might. The life of these little city
states centred about the temple and its cult. To make it more glorious
the artisans vied with each other, and the kings made campaigns that
they might dedicate the spoils to the deity.
[Sidenote: _The growth of extensive empires_]
In time, perhaps as early as 4000 B.C., certain more energetic and
ambitious kings succeeded in conquering neighboring cities; they even
broadened their boundaries until they ruled over great empires extending
to the Mediterranean on the west and the mountains of Elam on the east.
In the name of the local god, each went forth to fight, and to him was
attributed the glory of the victory. Naturally, when the territory of a
city state grew into an empire, the god of that city was proclaimed and
acknowledged as supreme throughout all the conquered territory. At the
same time the local deities of the conquered cities continued to be
worshipped at their ancient sanctuaries, and many a conquering king won
the loyalty of his subjects by making a rich offering to the god and at
the temple of a vanquished foe.
[Sidenote: _Its effect in developing the pantheon and popular theology_]
The logical and inevitable result of political union was the development
of a pantheon, modelled after the imperial court, with the god of the
victorious city at its head and the leading deities of the other cities
in subordinate positions. When, during the latter part of the third
millennium before Christ, Babylon's supremacy was permanently
established under the rule of Hammurabi. Marduk, the god of that city,
was thus placed at the head of the Babylonian pantheon. The theologians
of the day also recast and combined the ancient legends, as, for
example, those of the creation, so as to explain why he, one of the
later gods, was acknowledged by all as supreme. A relationship was also
traced between the leading gods, and their respective functions were
clearly defined. Corresponding to each male deity was a female deity:
thus, the consort of Marduk was Ishtar, while that of Bel was Belit.
Furthermore, the ancient myths appear to have been, coördinated, so that
from this time on Babylonian, theology presents a certain unity and
symmetry, although one is constantly reminded of the very different
elements out of which it had been built up.
[Sidenote: _Development of ethical standards and laws_]
Parallel to the evolution of Babylonian religion was that unfolding of
ethical ideals and laws which finds its noblest record and expression in
the remarkable code of Hammurabi (about 2250 B.C.). In its high sense of
justice; in its regard for the rights of property and of individuals; in
its attitude toward women, even though it comes from the ancient East;
and above all in its protection of widows and orphans, this code marks
almost as high a stage in the revelation of what is right as the
primitive Old Testament laws, with which it has points of striking
resemblance.
[Sidenote: _A general comparison between the religions and laws of Egypt
and Babylonia_]
The evolution of ancient Egyptian civilization and religion was parallel
at almost every stage with that of Babylonia, only in the dreamy land
of the Nile the pantheon and the vast body of variant myths were never
so thoroughly coördinated. The result is that its religion forever
remains a labyrinth. Since all interest centred about the future life,
instead of commercial pursuits, there is no evidence that the Egyptians
ever produced a legal code at all comparable with that of Hammurabi.
They did, however, develop a doctrine of sin which anticipates that of
the Hebrew prophets. While the Babylonians conceived of sin as simply
the failure to bring offerings, or to observe the demands of the ritual,
or, in general, to pay proper homage to the gods, the Egyptians held
that each individual was answerable, not only to the state, but also to
the gods, for his every act and thought.
[Sidenote: _Significance of this early religious progress_]
If they admitted of a comparison, it would be safe to say that the
Babylonian religion and law in the days of Hammurabi were as far removed
from the crude belief in spirits and the barbarous cults and practices
of primitive man as the teachings of Jesus were from those of the kingly
Babylonian lawgiver and his priestly advisers. Humanity's debt is
exceedingly great to the thousands of devoted souls who, in ancient
Babylonia and Egypt, according to their dim light, groped for God and
the right. In part they found what they sought, although they never
ceased to look through, a glass darkly.
[Sidenote: _Its arrest and decline_]
The sad and significant fact is that from the days of Hammurabi to those
of Nebuchadrezzar, Babylonian religion, law, and ethics almost entirely
ceased to develop. No other great kings with prophetic insight appear to
have arisen to hold up before the nation the principles of justice and
mercy and true piety, The old superstitions and magic also continued in
Babylonia as in Egypt to exercise more and more their baneful influence.
Saddest of all the priesthood and ceremonialism, which had already
reached a point of development commensurate and strikingly analogous to
that of later Judaism, became the dominant power in the state, and
defined religion not in terms of life and action, but of the ritual, and
so constricted it that all true growth was impossible. Hence the
religions of the Babylonians and Egyptians perished, like many others,
because they ceased to grow, and therefore degenerated into a mere
worship of the letter rather than the spirit.
IV
THE PLACE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IN DIVINE REVELATION
[Sidenote: _Advent of the Hebrews_]
Modern discovery and research have demonstrated that the truth revealed
through the Babylonians and with less definiteness through the people of
the Nile was never entirely lost. Such a sad waste was out of accord
with the obvious principles of divine economy. As the icy chill of
ceremonialism seized decadent Babylonia and Egypt, there emerged from
the steppes south and east of Palestine a virile, ambitious group of
nomads, who not only fell heir to that which was best in the revelation
of the past, but also quickly took their place as the real spiritual
leaders of the human race. Possibly their ancestors, like those of
Hammurabi, belonged to that wave of nomadic emigration which swept out
of overpopulated northern Arabia about 2500 B.C., part of it to settle
finally in Babylonia and part in Palestine.
[Sidenote: _Why were they the chosen people?_]
Whatever be the exact date of their advent, the much mooted and more
fundamental question at once presents itself, Why were the Hebrews "the
chosen people"? It is safe to assert at once that this was not arbitrary
nor without reason. Moreover, the choice was not that of a moment, but
gradual. Rather the real question is, By what divine process were the
Israelites prepared to be the chosen people that their later prophets
and the event of history declare them to be? Certain definite historical
reasons at once suggest themselves; and these in turn throw new light
upon the true relation of the Old Testament to divine revelation as a
whole.
[Sidenote: _Their preparation to be the chosen people: genius for
religion_]
There is undoubtedly a basis for what Renan was pleased to call, "the
Semitic genius for religion." It is a truly significant fact that the
three great conquering religions of the world, Judaism, Christianity,
and Mohammedanism, sprang from Semitic soil. To this might be added the
religion of Babylonia, which, was unquestionably the noblest of early
antiquity. In general the Semitic mind is keen, alert, receptive, and
intuitional rather than logical. Restless energy and the tendency to
acquire have also tended to make them leaders in the widely different
fields of commerce and religion. The patriarch Jacob is a remarkable
example of these combined qualities and results. By day he got the
better of his kinsmen, and by night he wrestled with God. These combined
and highly developed characteristics of mind and nature at least suggest
why the Semites have furnished the greatest prophets and prophet nations
for the moulding of the faith of the world.
[Sidenote: _Inheritance through their Arabian antecedents_]
In contrast with contemporary Semitic nations, and especially the highly
civilized Babylonians, the Hebrews were fortunate in their immediate
inheritances through Arabian or Aramean ancestors. The wandering,
nomadic life leaves no place for established sanctuaries, with their
elaborate ceremonial customs and debasing institutions inherited from
more primitive ages. Instead, that life imposes limitations that make
for simplicity. The mysteries and constant dangers of the wild desert
existence also emphasize the constant necessity of divine help. The long
marches by night under the silent stars inspire awe and enforce
contemplation. The close unity of the tribe suggests the worship of one
tribal god rather than many. From the desert the ancestors of the
Hebrews brought strong bodies, inured to hardship, and a grim austerity
that found frequent expression on the lips of their prophets and a
response in the minds of the people, when luxury threatened to engulf
them. They also inherited from their desert days those democratic ideas
and high ideals of individual liberty which, enabled Elijah and Isaiah
to stand up add champion the rights of the people even though it
involved a public denunciation of their kings.
[Sidenote: _Contact with Babylonian civilization_]
On the other hand, the Israelites undoubtedly became in time the
inheritors of the best in religion and law that had been attained by the
older Semitic races. Their late traditions trace back their ancestry to
ancient Babylonia. Already for long centuries, by conquest and by
commerce, the dominant civilization of the Euphrates valley had been
regnant in the land of Canaan, The Tell-el-Amarna letters, written from
Palestine in the fourteenth century, employ the Babylonian language and
system of writing, and reveal a high Semitic civilization, closely
patterned after that of Babylonia. When the Israelites settled in Canaan
and began to intermarry and assimilate with the older inhabitants, as
the earliest Hebrew records plainly state (_cf_. Judg. I.), they found
there, among the Canaanites, established civil and religious
institutions and traditions which were largely a reflection of those of
Babylonia. Also, when in the eighth and seventh centuries Assyrian
armies conquered Palestine, they brought Babylonian institutions,
traditions, and religious ideas. We know that during the reigns of Ahaz
and Manasseh these threatened to displace those peculiar to the Hebrews.
Again, during the Babylonian exile the influence of the same powerful
civilization upon the thought and religion of Israel was also strongly
felt. Thus the opportunities, direct and indirect, for receiving from
Babylonia much of the rich heritage that it held were many and varied.
[Sidenote: _Heirs of the older Semitic civilizations_]
Certain parts of the Old Testament itself testify that the wealth of
tradition, of institutions, of laws, and religious ideas, gradually
committed to the Semitic ancestors of the Hebrews and best preserved by
the Babylonians, was not lost, but, enriched and purified, has been
transmitted to us through its pages. A careful comparison of the
biblical and Babylonian accounts of the creation and the flood leaves
little doubt that there is a close historical connection between these
accounts. Investigation reveals in language, spirit, and form many
analogies between the laws of Hammurabi and those of the Old Testament
which suggest at least an indirect influence. Many of the ceremonial
institutions of later Judaism are almost identical with those of
Babylonia. While it is exceedingly easy to over or under estimate this
influence, it is a mistake to deny or ignore its deep significance.
[Sidenote: _Recipients of all that was best in earlier revelation_]
Thus one of the chief elements in the providential training of the
Hebrews as the heralds and exponents of the most exalted religious and
ethical truths revealed before the advent of the Prophet of Nazareth was
the fact that they were the heirs and interpreters of the best that had
been hitherto attained. Babylonia, Egypt, and later, Persia and Greece,
each contributed their noblest beliefs and ideals. In the Israelites the
diverse streams of divine revelation converged. The result is that,
instead of many little rivulets, befouled by errors and superstitions,
through their history there flowed a mighty stream, ever becoming
broader and deeper and clearer as it received fresh contributions from
the new fountains of purest revelation that opened in Hebrew soil.
[Sidenote: _In close geographical relations to the earlier civilizations_]
Clear evidences of the divine purpose to be realized through the obscure
peasant people who lived among the uplands of central Canaan are found
in a study of the characteristics of the Old Testament world. It is
indeed the earliest and one of the most significant chapters in divine
revelation. Most of its area is a barren wilderness, supporting only a
small nomadic population. The three fertile spots are Babylonia, Canaan,
and Egypt. The first and last are fitted by nature and situation to be
the seats of powerful civilizations, destined to reach out in every
direction. Canaan, on the contrary, is shut in, with no good harbors
along the Mediterranean; and its largest river system leads to the Dead
Sea, far below the surface of the ocean,--an effective negation to all
commerce. Although thus shut in by itself, Canaan lies on the isthmus of
fertile land that connects the great empires of the Nile and the
Euphrates. On the east and south it is always subject to the influences
and waves of immigration, that come from the Arabian desert. It
attracted from their nomadic life the ancestors of the Israelites, and
during their early period of development gave them a secluded home. When
they were ready to learn the larger lessons in the stream of life, Egypt
and the great empires of the Tigris and Euphrates valley contended for
them, conquered and ultimately scattered them throughout the then known
world. While their conquerors, Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia,
Greece, and Rome, the greatest powers of the ancient world, took from
them their gold and their freedom, from the same conquerors they appear
to have received the infinitely more precious treasures of tradition and
thought.
[Sidenote: _Trained by remarkable national experience_]
Great as was their heritage from the past, the truth that came through
the Hebrews themselves constitutes by far the greatest and most
significant part of that revelation which the Old Testament records.
Their history suggests the ways in which, Jehovah opened the spiritual
eyes of the people. From the beginning to the present day it has been
characterized by a series of crises unparalleled in the life of any
other race. Experiences, intense and often superlatively painful, have
come to them in rapid succession, forcing them to think and develop. The
little street Arab, alert, resourceful, uncanny in his prematurity, is a
modern illustration of what grim necessity and experience can produce.
It was in the school supremely adapted to divine ends that Jehovah,
trained his people to be his spokesmen to the world.
[Sidenote: _Guided by unique spiritual teachers_]
Other peoples, however, had their crises and yet had no such message as
did the Israelites. What made the crises in the history of the
Israelites richly fruitful in ethical and spiritual truth was the
presence within their midst of certain devoted, responsive teachers, and
especially the prophets, who guided them in their time of peril,
interpreted its significance, and appealed to the awakened conscience of
the nation. Like begets like. At the beginning of Israel's history
stands the great prophet Moses, and during the long centuries that
followed the voice of the prophets was rarely hushed.
[Sidenote: _Taught by inspired prophets_]
In seeking the ultimate answer to our question, How were the Israelites
prepared to be the chosen people, we are confronted by a miracle that
baffles our power to analyze: it is the supreme fact that the Spirit of
the Almighty touched the spirit of certain men in ancient Israel so that
they became seers and prophets. This is their own testimony, and their
deeds and words amply confirm it. The experiences of men to-day also
demonstrate its possibility. Indeed it is not surprising, but most
natural, that the one supreme Personality in the universe should reveal
himself to and through human minds, and that the most enlightened men of
the most spiritually enlightened race should be the recipients of the
fullest and most perfect revelation. It is the truth that they thus
perceived, and then proclaimed by word and deed and pen, that completed
the preparation of the chosen people, for it was none other than the
possession of a unique spiritual message that constituted the essence of
their choice. Furthermore, as the greatest of the later prophets
declares (Is. xl.-lv.), that divine choice did not mean that they were
to be the recipients of exceptional favors, but rather that they were
called to service. By the patient enduring of suffering and by voluntary
self-sacrifice they were to perfect the revelation of God's character
and will in the life of humanity.
[Sidenote: _Jesus' relation to the Old Testament_]