The results of modern investigations into the nature of early Hebrew religion may be briefly stated as follows: Like the early Babylonian religion, the religion of Israel passed through a stage of animism. In one form this is the belief in the activity of the spirits of recently deceased relatives. But this becomes a religion only when it leads to the worship of the departed, that is, ancestor worship, of which there is no definite indication in the biblical material at our command. But there is a form of animism of which there are traces in Israel as in Babylonia, namely, the worship of spirits that were believed to be the inhabitants and possessors of certain objects and places, like trees, stones, springs, which thereby assumed a sacred character. To this form of {171} religion the name "polydemonism," which means the worship of many demons, is ordinarily given. Demon, however, is to be understood here, not in the sense of evil spirit, but simply a divine being of an inferior order. As illustrations of this belief, attention may be called to the sacred stone, Bethel, which gave the locality its name, "House of God" (Gen. 28. 19), or to the sacred oracular tree at Shechem (Gen. 12. 6; Deut. 11. 30), or to the sacred wells at Kadesh (Gen. 14. 7) and Beersheba (Gen. 21. 28-33). In general, it may be said that during the pre-Mosaic period the religion of Israel, whatever may have been true of isolated individuals, was not essentially different from the religious conceptions of the people with which we have become better acquainted through modern exploration and excavation.[11]