Of the fact of there being two distinct doctrines respecting the Almighty in the Old Testament no scholar has a doubt. In the one, God is represented as the sole Being who rules and influences the world: whatsoever was done He was regarded as the doer of it. He had no powerful enemy who could thwart His will, no adversary who could withstand Him successfully. In the other the existence of two rival powers is distinctly recognised--Jehovah and Satan--the Aryan Mara, the tempter, who plot and counterplot against each other, and even condescend to personal wrangling. The most conspicuous example which we can give of these two doctrines is to be found in 2 Sam. xxiv. 1, in which we are told that Jehovah moved David to number Israel, whereas in 1 Chron. xxi. 1, evidently written by a modern scribe, we find that Satan, the adversary, was he who incited the king to perform this deed. We see the duality of persons conspicuously put forward in the first and second chapters of Job, in which Satan is represented as being at large, not being even under the surveillance of Jehovah. See also 1 Kings xxii. 20-23, wherein we find Jehovah at a loss how to bring about a certain result, and assisted out of a dilemma by a lying spirit--who can do what the Lord could not effect! We may say that the story is a fiction, but no Hebrew dare have spoken thus of Jehovah had he ever heard of Moses and his laws. As we cannot imagine that a revelation from God to the Hebrews would be thus changeable, we can come to no other conclusion than that the Jewish writings were of human origin, and their first doctrines modified by those of other nations to whom the Hebrews were subjects or enslaved. To this consideration we may add, that when the Israelites came in contact with the Medes and Persians, they were merely a 'posse' of slaves, a crowd of prisoners removed from their own land without a shadow of power, or any influence, and only anxious to induce those who had conquered their late masters, the Babylonians, to have pity on their misery, and restore them to beggared Jerusalem. The idea of the Hebrews gaining friends by endeavouring to induce the Persian Magi to change their faith and embrace that of the poor and probably despised Jew is preposterous. On the other hand, there would be every possible inducement for the Hebrews to study the faith of that people whose God had given them victory over the Chaldeans. See in corroboration of this Ps. cxxxvii., especially the two last verses.