vm THE EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY 309 



for preservation in the permanent records of their 

 people. 



The mysterious objects known as Teraphim, 

 which are occasionally mentioned in Judges, 

 Samuel, and elsewhere, however, can hardly be 

 interpreted otherwise than as indications of the 

 existence both of ancestor- worship and of image - 

 worship in old Israel. The teraphim were 

 certainly images of family gods, and, as such, in 

 all probability represented deceased ancestors. 

 Laban indignantly demands of his son-in-law, 

 " Wherefore hast thou stolen my Elohim ? " which 

 Rachel, who must be assumed to have worshipped 

 Jacob's God, Jahveh, had carried off, obviously 

 because she, like her father, believed in their 

 divinity. It is not suggested that Jacob was in 

 any way scandalised by the idolatrous practices of 

 his favourite wife, whatever he may have thought 

 of her honesty when the truth came to light ; for 

 the teraphim seem to have remained in his camp, 

 at least until he " hid " his strange gods " under 

 the oak that was by Shechem" (Gen. xxxv. 4). 

 And indeed it is open to question if he got rid 

 of them then, for the subsequent history of Israel 

 renders it more than doubtful whether the 

 teraphim were regarded as " strange gods " even 

 as late as the eighth century B.C. 



The writer of the books of Samuel takes it 

 quite as a matter of course that Michal, daughter 

 of one royal Jahveh worshipper and wife of the 



