vi. ANTHROPOLOGY AND THEORY OF THE UNI- VERSE (WELTANSCHAUUNG).— Under this twofold heading we propose to treat of everything which, according to modern views, constitutes the scien- tifie standpoint of a period, but which to ancient, and especially to Israelitish, notions is so closely connected with religion that it cannot be passed over in a history of religion. This means that we are concerned, on the one hand, with the anthropo- logical or psychological notions of this period, in- cluding conceptions of the state after death ; and, on the other hand, with the ideas that were cher- ished as to the origin and purpose of the universe, the relation of man to the brute world, the opening period of the world’s history, and the future goal towards which the present course of things is moving. As elsewhere, the notions about all these things meet us, not in didactic statements but in the guise of narrative (so, especially, in the J portions of Gn 1-11), or in casual notices. The latter almost always take for granted that the notions in question are universally known, and hence refrain from fuller explanation or descrip- tion. Unfortunately, this leads to our being left in the dark on many an important question.
1. The drawing of a distinction between two main constituents of the human personality—one bodily and one spiritual—must have set in as soon as men came to realize the fundamental difference between a living and a dead body. (a) The ccr- poreal being, at least immediately after death, was quite the same as before. What had been the seat of the life which had now taken flight? The readiest reply was: the breath. Observation shows that, when the last breath has been drawn, the life dis- appears; while, conversely, the revivification of one that is dead is accomplished through the breath returning into him (1 K 177*).* Alongside of this we encounter another conception, which is also deeply rooted, namely, that the seat of life is to be found in the blood. It is true that express statements to this effect do not occur till much later (Dt 12%, Lv 174); but the very ancient pro-
* The clearest evidence of the identification of breath and life is found in the circumstance that in Hebrew, as in other lan- guages (cf. Sansk. atman=‘ breath,’ spirit,’ ‘soul’; Gr. rvevje0e, orig. = ‘breath,’ ‘blowing’ ; Lat. anvmvuus and anima, spiritus), the notions of ‘breath,’ ‘wind,’ ‘soul,’ ‘spirit’ are expressed by one and the same word. Thus 77 is at once the name of the wind which dries up the waters of the Flood (Gn 81), and of the Divine breath of life which, at the Oreation, hovers over the waters (12), and of the breath of life within man. In like manner it is true of the Heb. 5} that it may designate at one time the breath, at another the spirit of life within man, the soul and its functions (e.g. longing or eager desire for something); put it may also stand simply for life itself, and, finally, even for the living being or (in the case of men) the person ; nay, by a loose kind of usage, it may mean even ‘ the person of one who is dead,’ or, without the genitive, a ‘ corpse’ (Ly 1928 224 et al.). It is, of course, a glaring error, but a deeply rooted one, to give to nephesh, in all these manifold senses, the one uniform render- ing ‘soul.’
hibition to eat blood (1 S 14”) must have been due in ancient Israel, as elsewhere on heathen Semitic soil, chiefly to the fear of absorbing another life along with the blood. Under special circum- stances, indeed (as, for instance, at the sacrificial meals of brotherhoods in pre-Mosaic times; cf. above, p. 618°), this result might be desired; but in the realm of Jahwism, as far back as we can trace the evidence, such a practice was excluded. It may be added that the conception of the blood as the seat of life must have rested on the observa- tion that, as the blood pours from a wound, the powers of life sensibly diminish, and at last dis- appear entirely—an observation which could always be made afresh when animals were slaughtered. We shall have to speak afterwards of the import- ance for the theory of sacrifice which this view of the blood came to assume in the latest period of Israel’s history.
(0) For the period with which we are dealing, another question seemed more important, namely, that as to the origin of the breath of life, upon whose presence or absence the life or death of the body depends. The answer which the Old Testa- ment gives to this question, and which forms the basis of OT psychology, is connected most inti- mately with the religion of Jahwism, or, to be more precise, with its notion of God. But our discus- sion of this point must be preceded by a remark of a general character. Almost all the accounts of so-called Biblical Psychology * are vitiated by the introduction of dogmatic prejudices, and the attempt to read into Scripture a finished system of one’s own, instead of closely studying the usage of language. Especially unfortunate has been the attempt to discover in both Testaments exactly the same point of view, whereas the psychology of the OT has for its basis a dichotomy, that of the NT for the most part a trichotomy.