isunderstanding respecting the extent of the
Babylonian influence, he adds, "The view of the world and religion are
one for the ancient Oriental."[3] In this statement Winckler robs the
Old Testament religion of all originality; he considers it simply a
natural development of the Babylonian religion. Friedrich Delitzsch,
in his lectures on "Babel and Bible,"[4] expresses the same idea in a
slightly modified form and attempts to show the predominance of
Babylonian thought in the Hebrew conception of the origin of the world,
the Fall, the Flood, life after death, angels, demons, the devil, the
Sabbath, a large part of the sacrificial cult, the directions
concerning the priesthood, the name and worship of Jehovah, and even in
the monotheistic conception of Deity. How much truth is there in these
claims? Or, to put the question in another form, If the religious
{165} ideas expressed in the Old Testament have parallels among nations
commonly called heathen, and if these extra-biblical ideas cannot be
explained as dependent on the Bible, does it follow that the ideas of
the Bible are appropriated from these nations, and if so, what becomes
of the uniqueness, the sacredness, the inspiration of the Old
Testament? In order to answer the question adequately it is necessary
to consider in detail the most important phases of the religious ideas
of the Hebrews on the one hand, and of the nations with whom the
Hebrews came in contact on the other.

Fundamental to all religious thinking is the conception of Deity. The
origin of the Babylonian conception of Deity, which shows more striking
similarities to the ideas of the Old Testament than do the conceptions
of the other nations above mentioned, belongs to a period of which
little or nothing is known. But there are indications that a
fundamental aspect of the earliest religion of the country was animism,
that is, the belief that every object was possessed and animated by a
spirit. "Life was the only force known to man which explained motion,
and, conversely, motion was the sign and manifestation of life. The
arrow which sped through the air, or the rock which fell from the
cliff, did so in virtue of their possessing life, or because the motive
force of {166} life lay in some way or other behind them. The stars,
which slowly moved through the sky, and the sun, which rose and set day
by day, were living beings. It was life which gave them the power of
movement as it gave the