wither the more local myths, and this tendency was reenforced by the
adoption of a new god, Yahweh, the God of the Kenites. Yahweh was a
god of the lightning who thundered from Mount Sinai, and he was a god
of battles, just as was Thor, the thunder-god of the Scandinavians.
This war god naturally obtained their allegiance during the years of
conflict with the Canaanites, and gained in prestige as time elapsed.
The Canaanites had their local Baal cults and myths, and these were
associated with agricultural festivals and with that worship of
fertility which was so wide-spread among the ancients. The followers
of Yahweh, on the other hand, were hillmen and shepherds and their
rites were closely connected with sacrificial observances.

{27}

As time passed, the two races mingled and the tendency was toward an
amalgamation of their respective cults. But a storm of protest set in,
led by the prophets and the simpler, less concretely naturalistic
religion prevailed. The very simplicity of the cult of Yahweh made it
a fitting basis for that ethical development which we associate with
the names of Amos, Hosea, Isaiah and Jeremiah. Only an ignorance of
the ethical deepening of other religions can excuse the belief that
this ethical development was absolutely unique. Probably it is the
aspect of national monotheism, or henotheism, as it should more
accurately be called, which impresses so many, whereas this feature was
an historical accident. To claim that the Hebrew development was
unique and therefore supernatural is to assume that the relatively
unique must be supernatural. But such an assumption has no foundation
in experience, for differences in the development of nations are the
rule rather than the exception. Shall we say that English
constitutional development is supernatural because no other nation
achieved such a form of government by itself? Shall we assert that
Greek art was supernatural because it was unique? Is it not evident
that the wish has been father to the thought in this case? All early
peoples have looked upon themselves as chosen and upon other peoples as
gentiles and barbarians. We have accepted this prejudice of the
Hebrews because we have adopted a modified form of their religion with
its racial traditions.

But while conditions in Palestine were not favorable to the flowering
of a rich and delicate mythology, it would be false to deny the
presence of a mythological motive in the Hebrew