28. An Inconsistent Theory Made to Fit

An Inconsistent Theory Made to Fit Is it to be supposed that on these festive occasions no music was to be employed and no hymns of praise to God to be sung? Even the most savage tribes have music at their festivals and we know that the ancient Egyptians had numerous hymns to Amon and other gods, and that the Assyrians and Babylonians, and even the Sumerians before them, delighted in singing psalms of praise and penitence as a part of their ritual of worship. These hymns in all cases were accompanied by instrumental music. Some of the Babylonian and Egyptian hymns were current in writing for hundreds, or even thousands, of years before the time of Solomon; and some musical instruments had existed for the same length of time. Are we to suppose that the Hebrews alone among the nations of antiquity had no vocal and instrumental music in their temple services? The critics maintain that poetry is the earliest form of expression of a people’s thoughts and history. Many of them assert that the song of Deborah antedates all other literary productions in the Bible. Most of them will admit that David composed the lament over Saul and Jonathan. But they draw the line at his Psalms of praise and penitence. Why? Because it suits their theory that the Psalms were prepared for use in the second temple. They hold at the same time that certain poems, like the songs of Deborah and Miriam and the blessings of Jacob and Moses, antedate by centuries the historical narratives in which they are found, but that the Psalms were all, or nearly all, composed after the captivity. What grounds have they for holding such seemingly inconsistent theories? Absolutely none that is based on any evidence, unless the wish to have it so, in order to bolster up their conception of the history of Israel’s religion, be called evidence. We all know into what condition the German conception that the “will to power” is the same as the power itself has brought the world to-day. Let us remember that it is the German conception that the will to have the text of the Old Testament what they want to have it is considered by them to be the same as having the text the same as they will it to be. The “willing” the power has destroyed what power there really was; the “willing” the text has destroyed the text itself.