Publisher's Synopsis
By the Religion of Ancient Palestine is meant that of the Semitic land upon which was planted the ethical monotheism of Judaism. The subject is neither the growth of Old Testament theology, nor the religious environment of the Israelite teachers: it anticipates by several centuries the first of the great prophets whose writings have survived, and it takes its stand in the second millennium B.C., and more especially in its latter half. It deals with the internal and external religious features which were capable of being shaped into the forms with which every one is familiar, and our Palestine is that of the Patriarchs, of Moses, Joshua, and the Judges, an old land which modern research has placed in a new light. Successive discoveries of contemporary historical and archaeological material have made it impossible to ignore either the geographical position of Palestine, which exposes it to the influence of the surrounding seats of culture, or its political history, which has constantly been controlled by external circumstances. Although Palestine reappears as only a small fraction of the area dominated by the ancient empires of Egypt and Western Asia, the uniqueness of its experiences can be more vividly realised. If it is found to share many forms of religious belief and custom with its neighbours, one is better able to sever the features which were by no means the exclusive possession of Israel from those which were due to specific influences shaping them to definite ends, and the importance of the little land in the history of humanity can thereby be more truly and permanently estimated."
