Note 21 — Chapter XII

Here the sceptical theorists are widely divided among themselves. Kuenen has discussed this whole theory, and rejected it as “irreconcilable with what the Old Testament itself asserts in justification of this sacrifice.” And he is driven to connect it with the notion of atonement. “Jahveh appears as a severe being who must be propitiated with sacrifices.” He has therefore to introduce the notion of human sacrifice, in order to get rid of the connection with the penal death of the Egyptians, and of the miraculous, which this example would establish. (Religion of Israel, Eng. Trans., i., 239, 240.)