A Comparative View of Religions | Page 9

of Baal, are
changed into Jerubboseth,[14] Isboseth,[15] and Mephiboseth[16], as
also the interchanging of El and Baal,[17] of Baal-jada[18] and
Eljada,[19] seem to point to an ancient period when the name Baal
(Lord) was used, like El, Elohim, El Eljon, El Schaddai, Adonai, even
among the Israelites, to designate the Supreme Being. Secondly, the
God of Abraham (Elohim), although he desires no human sacrifices,
nevertheless praises the willingness of the father to offer up his
first-born, and sees in that the highest proof of devotedness and
obedience.[20] Thirdly, circumcision, already before Moses[21] the
bloody symbol of consecration to God,[22] and also the right of Jahveh
to the first-born, and the necessity of ransoming them from him,[23]
imply an earlier conception of the deity as a being, who, although on a
higher development of the religion he is not indeed any longer thought
to desire human sacrifice, nevertheless has a right to such a sacrifice,
and thus demands indemnity for remitting it. Fourthly, the later
conception, of Jahveh as a destroying fire, and the way in which the
God of Israel is conceived in connection with fire, and as manifesting
himself in fire,[24] betray, even in the midst of a more advanced
religious development, an original relationship with the like
conceptions of the other Semites. Fifthly, even in the orthodox
Jahveh-worship, some symbols, as the twelve oxen in the porch of the
temple,[25] the horns of the altar for burnt-offerings,[26] perhaps also
the in part oxlike form of the cherubim,[27] point to an earlier worship
of the deity under the form of an ox, the symbol of the highest might,
especially among the Semitic races.[28]

In confirmation of the supposition thus suggested of a community of
origin in the religion of the Israelites and in that of the nations related
to them, there is also to be remarked, firstly, the sympathy always felt
among the people of Israel for the worship of Baal and Molech, in face
of the strongest opposition on the part of the prophets;[29] secondly,
the statement of Amos,[30] that even in the wilderness the Israelites
worshiped Molech; thirdly, the fact that in the time of the Judges,
Jephthah offered his daughter to Jahveh,[31] and still later the feeling,
not driven out even by Mosaism, that the wrath of Jahveh must be
appeased by human blood,[32] a necessity which David recognizes;[33]
fourthly, the ancient custom in Israel, as in the nations related to them,
of worshiping the deity on mountains and heights,[34] against which
the priestly legislation strove in the interest of the pure worship of
Jahveh;[35] fifthly, the heterodox worship of Jahveh in the kingdom of
the ten tribes under the form of a calf.[36]
From all this it seems fair to conclude that the religion of the oldest
forefathers of Israel had its root originally in one and the same soil with
the religion of the other Semites. Out of an earlier nature-religion there
developed among the Semites the conception of Baal, the lord of nature,
and of Molech with his inhuman worship. While, however, the other
Semites remained in this lower stage, or rather sank back more and
more into the immorality of the nature-religion,--an hypothesis
suggested by a comparison of the religious state of the nations of
Canaan in Abraham's time with their state at the time of the conquest of
the land by Joshua and afterwards,--in the family of Abraham, religious
consciousness rose to the recognition of a deity, who, although he had a
right to human sacrifices, yet did not claim such sacrifices, but was
satisfied with men's willingness to bring them to him. With this higher
development of religion, the names of the Supreme Being, Baal and
Molech, originally common to the whole race, came more and more
into contempt, and were regarded as the expression of abominable
idolatry,[37] while even the worship of Jahveh under the form of a calf,
originally permitted, was later branded by the prophets as heresy.
Though it was in the family of Abraham that even in Mesopotamia[38]
the beginning of this higher development of the Semitic religion

showed itself, which, after his migration to Canaan became the heritage
of his family, yet the patriarch of Israel did not stand alone in this
respect among the Semites. The old Canaanitish chieftains also of the
patriarchal period, Melchizedek and Abimelech, worship the same God
as he,[39] while on the other hand in his own family not all traces of
polytheistic superstition have disappeared,[40] and these traces are also
visible still later in Israel.[41]
The patriarchal religion, which afterwards with the great majority fell
into oblivion, was recalled afresh to men's minds by Moses, and the
God of the fathers was preached by him under the name before
unknown of Jahveh,[42] to whom, with the exclusion of all other gods,