Mr. Oxford next avers that 'the earliest form of the Israelite religion
was Fetishism or Totemism.' This is another example of Stade's logic.
Finding, as he believes, names suggestive of Totemism in Simeon, Levi,
Rachel, and so on, Stade leaps to the conclusion that Totemism in Israel
was prior to anything resembling monotheism. For monotheism, he argues,
could not give the germs of the clan or tribal organisation, while Totemism
could do so. Certainly it could, but as, in many regions (America,
Australia), we find Totemism and the belief in a benevolent Supreme Being
co-existing among savages, when first observed by Europeans, we cannot
possibly say dogmatically whether a rough monotheism or whether Totemism
came first in order of evolution. This holds as good of Israel (if once
totemistic) as it does of Pawnees or Kurnai. Stade has overlooked these
well-known facts, and his opinion filters into a cheap hand-book, and is
set in examinations![15]
We also learn from Mr. Oxford's popular manual of German Biblical
conjecture that 'Jehovah was not represented as a loving Father, but as a
Being easily roused to wrath,' a thing most incident to loving fathers.
Again, Mr. Oxford avers that 'the old Israelites knew no distinction
between physical and moral evil.... The conception of Jehovah's holiness
had nothing moral in it' (p. 90). This rather contradicts Wellhausen: 'In
all ancient primitive peoples ... religion furnishes a motive for law and
morals; in the case of none did it become so with such purity and power as
in that of the Israelites.'[16]
We began by examining Mr. Huxley's endeavours to find traces of
ancestor-worship (in his opinion the origin of Jehovah-worship) among the
Israelites. We next criticised Mr. Spencer's efforts in the same quest,
and the more dogmatic assertions of Mr. Oxford and Stade. We now return to
Mr. Huxley's account of the evolution from ghost-cult to the cult of
Jehovah.
From the history of the Witch of Endor, which Mr. Huxley sees no reason to
regard as other than a sincere statement of what really occurred, he
gathers that the Witch cried out, 'I see Elohim.' These Elohim proved to
be the phantasm of the dead Samuel. Moved by this hallucination the Witch
uttered a veridical premonition, totally adverse to her own interests, and
uncommonly dangerous to her life. This is, psychically, interesting.
The point, however, is that _Elohim_ is a term equivalent to Red
Indian _Wakan_, Fijian _Kahu_, Maori or Melanesian _Mana_, meaning the
'supernatural,' the vaguely powerful--in fact X. This particular example
of _Elohim_ was a phantasm of the dead, but _Elohim_ is also used of the
highest Divine Being, therefore the highest Divine Being is of the same
genus as a ghost--so Mr. Huxley reasons. 'The difference which was
supposed to exist between the different Elohim was one of degree, not of
kind.'[17]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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