Mythology among the Hebrews and Its Historical DevelopmentGoldziher, Ignác
Religion
Mythology among the Hebrews and Its Historical Development
Goldziher, Ignác
Jewish mythology; Judaism -- History -- To 70 A.D.
This community of language greatly promoted the introduction of
Canaanitish religion among the Hebrews. Although the above-mentioned
names impressed the Hebrews differently, being not yet limited to a
specially religious signification, yet the knowledge of their meaning as
words, which was native to the Hebrews, promoted the acquisition of the
ritual attached to them by the Canaanites. Thus it came to pass that
besides Êl, Elôhîm, ʿElyôn, Shadday, even Baʿal received worship from
the Hebrews in Canaan, of which the Biblical documents often speak (and
he is not likely to have been the only divine person borrowed from the
Phenicians), and that those names which had previously begun to assume a
religious sense were, by intellectual as well as practical intercourse
with the Canaanites, filled with the force they had to the Canaanites.
It is therefore the exact opposite of the real state of things to call
the Elôhîm-idea specially Hebrew, and make Jahveism Canaanitish, as some
Dutch theologians do. It is equally impossible to suppose the names
themselves to have been unknown till then to the Hebrews, as J.G. Müller
infers in connexion with his ethnological hypothesis.[631] The names, as
component parts of the language, are the property of Canaanites and
Hebrews alike; only their theological employment and the worship founded
upon them are to be regarded as Canaanitish. But it is especially this
employment of the names which has to be considered in relation to the
History of Civilisation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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