Note 31 — Chapter IV · RELATIVE FREETHOUGHT IN ISRAEL

We are forced, then, to regard with distrust all passages in the “early” prophets which express either a disregard of sacrifice and ritual, or a universalism incongruous with all that we know of the native culture of their period. The strongest ground for surmising a really “high” development of monotheism in Judah before the Captivity is the stability of the life there as compared with northern Israel.31 In this respect the conditions might indeed be considered favourable to priestly or other culture; but, on the other hand, the records themselves exhibit a predominant polytheism. The presumption, then, is strong that the “advanced” passages in the prophets concerning sacrifice belong to an age when such ideas had been reached in more civilized nations, with whose thought travelled Jews could come in contact.