Lehre und Wehre St. Louis, Missouri — April 1913, Seite 153

German transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

Cited in Eckhardt's Reallexikon (1907) under: Synoden

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Moderner Unglaube in der Generalsynode. 153

finden, daß die Autoren des Alten Testaments ihren Glauben an die
Unsterblichkeit und die Gewalt Satans, ihre Dämonologie und ihren
. zum Teil von andern Völkern geerbt haben. Delk schreibt:

ere are certain ascertained facts resultant from historical
criticism which are generally accepted and which have modified
theology. First, I would place the phenomenon présented by the
action and reaction of the contemporaneous beliefs of the nations
with which Israel came in contact in her historical and theological
development. On the whole, she protécted the cardinal beliefs in
God, righteousness, sin, forgivenéess, and Messiahship from pollution.
But that her writers adapted myth and legend and allegory to her
on ends; that her knowledge of the nature, character, and will of
God was progressive; that there was a struggling advance in moral
ideals and practice; that the ideas of immortality, Satanie power,
demonology, and sacrificial cults were partly an inheritance from
other peoples, is the common teaching of every modern writer on
Jewish history and thought. Secondly, we must reckon with The
Documentary Theory' in Old and New Testament literature. It
is 4 twice-told tale that no longer do scholars attribute the writing
of the Pentateuch to Moses. That much of the material may have
been furnished by him is probable. But that the early chapters of
Genesis, the traditional date of much of the legislation and the
temple cults, the description of Moses' death are divided from both
earlier and later sources than was at first supposed is now self⸗-
evident to every informed reader of Biblical eriticism. Modern re-
search has made plain that thereé are at least three stages of Old
Testament history which vary in character and historie accuracy. We
find in the first chapter of Genesis early traditions of creation, either
from Babylonian or prehistoric Semitic tribes adapted to the mono-
theistic belief of Israel. The ages described were marked by myth,
allegory, and primitive ideas as to the meéethod of creation and the
origin and distribution of tribes and languages. The second period,
the patriarchal, was bathed in an atmosphere of legend. The core
of the stories was historic, but the note of legend and romance gave
an idyllie and patriotic halo to the early patriarchal life of ISrael.
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, were actual personages, but their
biographies move in the glow of an heroic idealism. From the time
of Israel's settlement in Cana the gatheéring of historical data for
religious purposes began. The art of writing had béen known for 2
thousand years before in Babylonia, but it is sheer presumption to
say that definite written records were kept of the patriarchal or
early period of Israel's history. Every later century added definite-
ness to the sacred writings. True, we can never hope to clearly
demonstrate the various sources which were utilized by the writers
and redactors of the Old Testament, but the readjustment of place

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