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CHAPTER XXV THE PAST STAGES OF THE JEWISH RELIGION The need for a reorientation to the history of the Jewish religion-The henotheistic stage of the Jewish religion-The contest between the syncretistic and anti-syncretistic tendencies--The origin of the "Day of the Lord"-The prophetic movement-The theocratic stage of Jewish religion-The function of the Temple in Jerusalem-The Torah as the will of God-The growth of eschatology-The other-worldly stage of Jewish religion-Religion the chief outlet of national life-:-The rabbinic conceptio,! of God-The rabbinic conception of Torah-The rabbinic conception of Israel-The meaning of the continuity of the Jewish religion. THE past is always with US; our idea of it not only influences the present but also conditions the future. In the words of Zangwill, "We shall never get the future straight until we disentangle the past." For most Jews of our day, the past is little more than a chaotic blur. Formerly, every Jew had a fairly definite idea of how Judaism happened, and on the basis of that idea he could envisage and plan a future for Judaism. But now that Jews cannot accept the traditional version of the origin and development of their religion , and know no substitute version that might give them historical perspective, they have no means of gauging the Jewishness of whatever religion they are inclined to foster. The modern Jew cannot utilize the past as a means of rendering the present significant and the future worthwhile until he reinterpret the traditional ideas about the past, and form a coherent and organized understanding of how his people came to have so unique a religion. In any reconstruction of the past there are bound to be gaps, but so long as they are gaps which can be bridg~d by intelligible conjecture they cannot be so baffling as when they are closed by accounts of miracles. In the traditional version of the Jewish past, it is held that the Patriarchs, Moses, the Prophets and the Sages entertained essentially the same conception of God and sought to live up to the same law, both moral and ritual. This view conforms with the theurgic conception of Jewish religion, which assumes the intervention of the supernatural in the affairs of men. That conception, the modern Jew finds untenable. 350 THE PAST STAGES OF THE JEWISH RELIGION 351 To visualize the past of Jewish religion, we must avail ourselves of the reconstruction of history made possible through the scientific study of the Bible and post-biblical literature.1 The Jewish past has not been restored in all its details. The scientific reconstructions differ among themselves, and are to a large extent hypothetical. For our purpose, however, it will suffice to accept the basic ideas which have been established by scientific research, and concerning which there is unanimity among the investigators. These ideas may be generalized in the form of the proposition that the history of the Jewish religion is a history of three types or stages of religion, each merging so gradually into the next that the changes in the God-idea long remained imperceptible. It is only in recent times that the dynamic character of the continuity of the Jewish religion has been recognized. What is meant by the dynamic continuity of the Jewish religion can be made clear only by a somewhat detailed account of the metamorphosis of the principal beliefs in the course of the various stages of the Jewish past. The very assumption that religious beliefs can alter their form puts them in a class apart from supernaturally revealed truths, or from rationally acquired truths. Such a view of religious beliefs is based upon the conception of religion as an integral element of a civilization, which undergoes change along with the civilization. The traditional view of the Jewish religion is derived from the overt account given in the Pentateuch and interpreted by the generations of scribes, teachers and commentators who until recently were the moulders of the Jewish consciousness. According to that account, Israel's ideas of God, its religious emotions and practices had their origin in a series of theophanies. These theophanies were specific events in the lives of individual men. There was one occasion when God made his presence evident to the entire nation and communicated his will to them. In the light of tradition, it is incorrect to speak of the evolution of Jewish religion. Though the religious ideas, emotions and habits...

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