ion, including the conception of Deity, passed through
various stages of development, the earliest of these belonging to the
period before Moses. The first thing to be noted about this period is
that, in spite of the close relation of the ancient Hebrews with
Babylon, the early Hebrew conception of Deity does not seem to have
been influenced in any marked manner by that of Babylonia; nor {170} is
there any indication of Egyptian influence. On the other hand, the
oldest Hebrew conceptions show marked similarities with the religion of
their nomadic neighbors, as reflected, for example, in the oldest
traditions of the Arab tribes. This does not mean that an indirect
influence may not have been exerted by Babylon; indeed, the absence of
such influence would be very strange in view of the fact that,
according to Hebrew tradition, the truth of which cannot be doubted,
the ancestors of the Hebrews came from Babylonia, from the city of Ur,
the principal center of the worship of the Babylonian moon-god, Sin.

The results of modern investigations into the nature of early Hebrew
religion may be briefly stated as follows: Like the early Babylonian
religion, the religion of Israel passed through a stage of animism. In
one form this is the belief in the activity of the spirits of recently
deceased relatives. But this becomes a religion only when it leads to
the worship of the departed, that is, ancestor worship, of which there
is no definite indication in the biblical material at our command. But
there is a form of animism of which there are traces in Israel as in
Babylonia, namely, the worship of spirits that were believed to be the
inhabitants and possessors of certain objects and places, like trees,
stones, springs, which thereby assumed a sacred character. To this
form of {171} religion the name "polydemonism," which means the worship
of many demons, is ordinarily given. Demon, however, is to be
understood here, not in the sense of evil spirit, but simply a divine
being of an inferior order. As illustrations of this belief, attention
may be called to the sacred stone, Bethel, which gave the locality its
name, "House of God" (Gen. 28. 19), or to the sacred oracular tree at
Shechem (Gen. 12. 6; Deut. 11. 30), or to the sacred wells at Kadesh
(Gen. 14. 7) and Beersheba (Gen. 21. 28-33). In general, it may be
said that during the pre-Mosaic period the religion of Israel, whatever
may have been true of isolated individuals, w