ABSTRACT

Being socially sensitive, the Hebrews were historical-minded, and not in any casual or intermittent way, but steadily. The origin of the biblical Hebrews, who belonged to the peoples speaking Semitic languages, can be traced to the Syro-Arabian desert, in which they wandered for centuries. The biblical Hebrews owed a great deal to their desert-bred forebears, even though their monotheistic faith stood in sharp contrast to their desert heritage of polytheism. That Yahweh was a new name for the Israelites to give to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob seems evident. The oldest elements of this ritual were the annual celebration of the Passover and the weekly observance of the Sabbath. The Canaanites had developed a thoroughgoing nature religion, growing out of their agricultural life. Yet the Babylonian exile was not as disastrous to the Judean captives as the Assyrian deportation had been to the ten lost tribes.