cheenc03a.pdf

SINAI AND HOREB
Chz~mcenur (see Herychiur. in. Aovoapilr) knows him
nr ' Uionyrus,' that ir, the son of the virgin Semele.
who as sunlmer and winter deity is the Tnmmuz of
the Cnnaccnirrs-i.e.. the Murduk (and Nebo) of the
Babylonians, the Horus of the I3gypti;ms (IMVG, 1901.
p. 278). This is not, as might perhnpn be thought, a
copying of Christian doctrine; on the contrary, both
alike spring from the same root, the primeval oriental
one. So too, we hear in the regions of the Slnai
pe~l~nrula down to the time of hlohamrned, at Elnru (=
H.zl;l)r) of the worship of the nlorre God rho is worshipped
nr dhu-'i~nlarn and whose designation ultimately
nreans, us indicated, the only God.' Here,
also. the assumption of 'Christian influence' is mprrly a
distortion or the question; we are denling with ancient
oriental doctrines and seats ofworship which, with new
a~nsters, changcd only their namer, not their forms or
the fundmmental thoughts underlying them. If, accordingly,
tbat writing and body of doctrine of Judaism
which sets forth monotheism in its strictest and most
abstract prrrentntioo, nannely P, renloved the seat of
Ynhd to the peninshla of Sinai, it may very well have
connected it with actual seats of worship which in their
worship set forth doctrines similar to those of Elusa.
Thui arises, finally, the question as to the value to
be attached to the idcntificntion of the mountair, in the
ls, Serb&l Sinnitic peninmla for which the claim is
made chat it war the lnou~lrain of revela-
J,
- tion. If what has already been raid be
accepted, the only possibl; question is as
to an identification of the doctrine of late exilic Judnirm
with locnlilier that had alreadv. at an earlier date, been
rendered sacred by a worship that war annlogour ro far
us outward form was concerned.
ny tradition two mountains have from the first been
put forward, each us having been the mountain of
revelation, and the rjuestioll between them has continued
under discusion