The Religion of the Hebrews

Abstract

rTHE civilizing process may be briefly defined as the human quest for a more satisfactory adjustment to the universe. A civilization, to us, means a definite phase of that quest, the whole distinctive art of living achieved by a certain section of the race in some definitely defined range of time. Religion is habitually described rather as a quest for God than for a manner of living, a habit of thinking or believing rather than an art of conduct. Even to say that religion is a quest for God in human life is not a sufficient approximation to the truth as the records of religion reveal it. Religion is rather a quest for a way of life made with special reference to the possibilities which lie in the mysterious and inexplicable phenomena of environment. It is, broadly speaking, life lived under the stimulus of curiosity about the universe. Religion and the civilizing process are related as the part to the whole. It is entirely unnecessary, for our purposes, to fall into the extravagant error of those who, on the one hand, claim that religion is the civilizing process, or, on the other, that it is merely an excrescence of the civilizing process. We make no claim for the religion of the Hebrews other than the modest contentions that it was, first, an integral part of their evolving civilization; and, second, an influential part of it.