Page:The Polytheism of Genesis Chapter 1.djvu/9

 In our next and concluding paper of this series we shall refer again to this polytheism of the Hebrews. Here we feel that we have said enough to show that the polytheism exhibited in Gen. 1:26 was but the reflection of that believed in by the Hebrew people as a whole at the time it was written.

— In my claim that the Hebrews had originally been and continued to remain polytheists, I am perfectly aware of the fact that there is no definite trace of any special gods existing among the Hebrew-Israelites that had belonged to their Babylonian and Aramaic forefathers as peculiarly their own original deities. In this sense, of course, it is true that "there is no trace of a Hebrew polytheism." But this is an entirely different matter from the denial that there is any trace "of a once-prevailing Israelitish polytheism." The Arabian forefathers of the Israelites, when they conquered Babylon, because they were polytheists, themselves adopted the polytheism of their new home. The Aramaic-Hebrews did the same thing, and so did the Egyptian-Hebrews, and finally the Canaanite-Hebrews. These facts show plainly that the Hebrews from the first had been polytheists whose original gods they at each migration exchanged for those of the country in which they took up their abode. All this seems to us to present a very clear trace of "a once prevailing and still continuing Israelitish polytheism." A. E. W.