THE EVOLUTION OF HEBREW RELIGION. 591 



ance of any particular scheme of Hebrew history teen deemed es- 

 sential to the integrity of religious belief, the Bible, they argued, 

 would certainly not have included discrepant accounts of that history 

 in its pages. In the light of this new insight, it seemed advisable to 

 draw a distinction between the biblical narrative proper and the doc- 

 trines which it was designed to illustrate. The latter belong to the 

 province of faith, and their treatment may be left to the expounders 

 of faith. The former is a department of general history, and in 

 dealing with it we are at liberty to apply the same canons of criti- 

 cism that obtain in every other department, without fearing to tres- 

 pass upon sacred ground. It is our purpose in the following pages to 

 present some of the more interesting results that have been reached 

 in the study of the Pentateuch, so far as they illustrate the evolution 

 of religious ideas among the Hebrews. We shall begin by sum- 

 marizing a few instances of discrepant testimony to introduce our 

 subject, and, in particular, to show how little the ordinary purposes 

 of history have been considered in the composition of the biblical 

 writings ; how little the bare transmission of facts was an object 

 with the sacred authors. 1 



Scripture opens with two divergent accounts of the creation. In 

 Genesis i., the work of creation proceeds in two grand movements, 

 including the formation of inanimte and animate Nature respectively. 2 

 On the first day a diffused light is spread out over chaos. Then are 

 made the firmament, the dry earth, the green herbs, and fruit-bearing 

 trees ; on the fourth day the great luminaries are called into being ; 

 on the fifth, the fishes and birds of the air; on the sixth, the beasts of 

 the field; and, lastly, crowning all, man, his Maker's masterpiece. 

 The human species enters at once upon its existence as a pair. " Male 

 and female did he create them." In the second chapter the same 

 methodical arrangement, the same deliberate progress from the lower 

 to the higher forms of being, is not observed. Man, his interests and 

 responsibilities, stand in the foreground of the picture. The trees of 

 the field are not made until after Adam; and, subsequently to them, 

 the cattle and beasts. Moreover, man is a solitary being. A com- 

 parison between his lonely condition and the dual existence of the re- 

 mainder of the animal world leads the Deity to determine upon the 

 creation of woman. A profound slumber then falls upon Adam, a rib 

 is taken from his side, and from it Eve is fashioned. 3 We may notice 

 that the name Jehovah, as appertaining to the Deity, is employed in 

 the second chapter, while it is scrupulously avoided in the first. The 



1 Many of the following examples are familiarly known. A few, however, are drawn 

 from recent investigations. Compare, especially, Kuenen, "The Religion of Israel." 



* Tuch's "Genesis," p. 3, second edition, Halle, 1871. 



3 For an account of the close analogy between the biblical narration and the Persian 

 story of Meshja and Meshjane, their temptation and fall, vide ibid., p. 40. It is of special 

 importance to note that reference to the account of Genesis ii. is made only in the later 

 literature of the Hebrews, ibid., p. 42. 



