erning the relations between Religion and Progress.

1. We can roughly divide the Israelitish-Jewish religion into three long
periods; in each the points that specially concern us will greatly vary
in clearness, importance, and richness of content.

The first period, from the time of the founder Moses and the Jewish
exodus out of Egypt to the appearance of the first great prophet Elijah
(say 1300 B.C. to about 860 B.C.) is indeed but little known to us; yet
it gives us the great historical figure of the initial lawgiver, the
recipient and transmitter of deep ethical and religious experiences and
convictions. True, the code of King Hammurabi of Babylon (in 1958 to
1916 B.C.; or, according to others, in about 1650) anticipates many of
the laws of the _Book of the Covenant_ (Exod. xx, 22-xxiii. 33), the
oldest amongst the at all lengthy bodies of laws in the Pentateuch; and,
again, this covenant appears to presuppose the Jewish settlement in
Canaan (say in 1250 B.C.) as an accomplished fact. And, indeed, the Law
and the books of Moses generally have undoubtedly passed through a long,
deep, wide, and elaborate development, of which three chief stages, all
considerably subsequent to the Covenant-Book, have, by now, been
established with substantial certainty and precision. The record of
directly Mosaic sayings and writings is thus certainly very small. Yet
it is assuredly a gross excess to deny the historical reality of Moses,
as even distinguished scholars such as Edward Meyer and Bernhard Stade
have done. Far wiser here is Wellhausen, who finds, in the very
greatness and fixity of orientation of the development in the Law and in
the figure of the Lawgiver, a conclusive proof of the rich reality and
greatness of the Man of God, Moses. Yet it is Hermann Gunkel, I think,
who has reached the best balanced judgement in this matter. With Gunkel
we can securely hold that Moses called God Yahweh, and proclaimed Him as
the national God of Israel; that Moses invoked Him as 'Yahweh is my
banner'--the divine leader of the Israelites in battle (Exod. xvii. 15);
and that Yahweh is for Moses a God of righteousness--of the right and
the law which he, Moses, brought down from Mount Sinai and published at
its foot. Fierce as may now appear to us the figure of Yahweh, thus
proclaimed, yet the soul's attitude towards Him is already here, from
the first, a religion of the will: an absolute trust in God ('Yahweh
shall fight for you, and ye shal