300 THE EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY vill 



the books of Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, Judges, 

 Samuel, or Kings, in its natural sense (and I am 

 aware of no valid reason which can be given for 

 taking it in any other sense), there cannot, to my 

 mind, be a doubt that Jahveh was conceived by 

 those from whom the substance of these books is 

 mainly derived, to possess the appearance and the 

 intellectual and moral attributes of a man ; and, 

 indeed, of a man of just that type with which the 

 Israelites were familiar in their stronger and 

 intellectually abler rulers and leaders. In a well- 

 known passage in Genesis (i. 27) Elohim is said to 

 have "created man in his own image, in the 

 image of Elohim created he him." It is " man " 

 who is here said to be the image of Elohim not 

 man's soul alone, still less his " reason," but the 

 whole man. It is obvious that for those who call 

 a manlike ghost Elohim, there could be no 

 difficulty in conceiving any other Elohim under 

 the same aspect. And if there could be any 

 doubt on this subject, surely it cannot stand in the 

 face of what we find in the fifth chapter, where, 

 immediately after a repetition of the statement 

 that "Elohim created man, in the likeness of 

 Elohim made he him," it is said that Adam begat 

 Seth " in his own likeness, after his image." 

 Does this mean that Seth resembled Adam only 

 in a spiritual and figurative sense ? And if that 

 interpretation of the third verse of the fifth 

 chapter of Genesis is absurd, why does it be- 



