30 DISCUSSION. 



deities were only the representatives of natural phenomena, con- 

 trolled by law and subject to a single power, so the Egyptians also 

 discovered the "One with many names," as early as 1600 B.C. 

 In Palestine the prophets found themselves surrounded, in the same 

 manner, by an ignorant populace worshipping Baal, Ashtoreth, 

 Tammuz, Ashera, and many other Canaanite idols. Even in our 

 own times the superstitions of remote ages survive among the 

 peasantry, though the religion of the Koran proclaims the unity of 

 God. 



Rev. A. LowY, LL.D. — I am particularly interested in the 

 subject broached by the Icai'ned lecturer, having written some 

 years ago an essay akin to the one that we have heard to-day ; but 

 not being versed in Babylonian inscriptions, I confined myself to 

 Biblical investigations. My article was published by the Society 

 of Biblical Archaeology in 1889. 



Our able author has thrown considerable light upon the 

 historical and religious antiquities of the HebreAV Scriptui^es and 

 especially upon the study of Hebrew proper names, and I should 

 like to advert to a few of the salient points. The poetic language 

 of the Hebrews unquestionably embodied, to a large extent, the 

 religious imagery of cognate nations. While the Babylonians are 

 represented to have allied their gods with the stellar regions, we 

 meet with numerous instances in which the Hebrews likewise 

 described the God of the Universe as "Jehovah Zebaoth ", i.e., the 

 Jehovah of the (Heavenly) Hosts. 



In noticing the names of the unruly Tiauat, or Tiamat, one is 

 tempted to compare these two tei-ms with the apparent Hebrew 

 cognates Tohu (chaos), and Telwm (the bottomless deep). 



The names of the food-giving gods, Lnhuu and Lahamn may be 

 connected with the Aramaic word Lahma, and the Hebrew Lehem 

 (food or bread) ; and since the Babylonian Pantheon extended at 

 an early period to Palestine, we may surmise that Beth-Lehem was 

 originally the temple of a food-god, just as Beth-Sheme.sh desig- 

 nated the temple of the Su.n-god. 



The region of the God Neho on the borders of Palestine is 

 noticed in the Book of Numbei'S, Chapter xxxii, and in connec- 

 tion with the death of Moses. Zi, the god of life, calls to mind 

 the Aryan (especially the Slavonic) term Zhi which is equal to 

 Vi-fa (life). The migration of mythological terms from one 



