May 1, 1886.] 



KNO^A/^LEDGE 



217 



grows from moi'e to more, even while showing us as it grows 

 how little it must ever be compared with the unknown. In 

 this lesson, indeed, we see that wisdom as well as knowledge 

 is ever growing from more to more, foi' in the consciousness 

 of limited knowledge there is wisdom, while in the confidence 

 of ignorance there is childlike folly. 



Man of to-day is leady, being giown, to put away childish 

 ideas. He feels free, being free born, to examine the ways 

 and thoughts of old times ; to see tlie real value of ancient 

 records such as those collected in that Jewish library called 

 the Old Testament. From them we learn how man pro- 

 gressed from semi-savagery towards civilisation, and in par- 

 ticular how those ideas which we call religious had their 

 origin and development. 



It is hardly necessary for us to remark that here the Book 

 of Genesis can be viewed from no theological standpoint. 

 We claim freedom to regai-d it as we would any other 

 ancient work or collection of works. But, apart from all 

 the theological questions which have become associated with 

 the older books of the Hebrew Scriptures, there is a deep, 

 though somewhat quaint, interest in reading these ancient 

 records. They present problems of gi-eat difficulty, because 

 of the strange way in which the editor or editors, who, after 

 the exile, arranged the Pentateuch as we know it, worked 

 into the various books the somewhat incongruous materials 

 in their hands. It requires no close scrutiny to determine 

 generally what is Babylonian, what Egyptian, in the portions 

 of the Book of Clenesis which are really foreign and have 

 manifestly l)een only adapted to Hebrew history and Hebrew 

 ideas. But this is only the beginning of the task of 

 determining the origin of the various parts of that old 

 book ; for we have Hebrew records of matters strictly 

 Hebraistic, wrought into one and the same book, with purely 

 Egyptian and as purely Babylonian conceptions, and also 

 obviously recorded at widely-different times in the develop- 

 ment of the Hebrew race. Then we have passages the 

 origin of which, and the date to which they must be referred, 

 seem altogether to baffle conjecture, at least in the present 

 state of our knowledge. 



It may be said that on the whole the easiest parts of the 

 Book of Genesis to interpret are those which relate to 

 matters absolutely outside the history of the Semitic race. 

 For here the traces of adaptation are obvious, and indeed 

 it here matters little whether they are obvious or not, 

 because we now know that the record has here been derived 

 essentially from without. Moreover, the post-exilian editors 

 have been at very little pains to harmonise the diverse 

 records. They probably knew that the people for whom 

 they collated the work would not be unduly critical ; and 

 they did not know, nor would they perhaps have greatly 

 cared if they had known, that alien races, the Gentiles 

 whom they were taught to hate as a religious duty, woidd 

 one day be reviling, execrating, and persecuting each other 

 over questions arising from the interpretation of the crude 

 and fantastic notions of the Egyptian and Babylonian per- 

 secutors of the Jewish people. 



Among the portions of Genesis which can thus be now 

 referred to their separate origins, the cosmogonies woven 

 into the beginning of Genesis, and the history of the Flood, 

 may be specially cited. 



It is clear that in the first two chapters of Genesis as now 

 arranged we have two entirely distinct conceptions of 

 creation. The one which comes first in Genesis belongs in 

 reality to a far later time than the other. The earlier 

 account is commonly described as the Jehovistic, while the 

 later is called the Elohistic, because in one the creating 

 and arranging power is spoken of as Yahveh-Elohim, while 

 in the other it is called Elohim (a plural form not necessarily 

 involving a plural idea) ; but it should be remembered that 



these names were alike Hebrew in origin (though Yabveh 

 was probably the god of the Hittites). The Egy^jtian and 

 Babylonian traditions were doubtless Hebraised by those 

 who originally transcribed them (the Egyptian traditions 

 long before the Babylonian), and retained their several 

 forms when collated after the exile. 



The older record is obviously Egyptian in origin. It 

 runs, as translated in the book before us, as follows : — 



" In the day that Yahveh Elnliim made earth and heaven, 

 no busli of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the 

 field had yet sprung up : for Yahveh Elohim had not caused 

 it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till 

 the ground : but there went up a mist from the earth, and 

 watered the whole face of the ground. 



" And Yahveh Elohim formed man of the dust of the 

 ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; and 

 man became a living soul. 



" And Yahveh Elohim planted a garden eastward in 

 Eden ; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 



" And out of the ground made Yahveh Elohim to grow 

 every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food ; 

 the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree 

 of the knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out 

 of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was 

 parted and became four heads. 



" And Yahveh Elohim said. It is not good that the man 

 should be alone ; I will make him an help answering to 

 him. 



" And out of the ground Yahveh Elohim formed every 

 beast of the field and every fowl of the air . . . but for 

 man there was not an help meet for him. 



" And Yahveh Elohim caused a deep sleep to fall upon 

 the man, and he slept ; and he took one of his ribs, and 

 closed up the flesh instead thereof, and the rib Avhich 

 Yahveh Elohim had taken from the man made he a woman, 

 and brought her unto the man." 



Such is the Hebrew form of the ancient Egyptian cos- 

 mogony. No one has yet attempted to reconcile this cos. 

 mogony with science. It h;is, of course, been reconciled 

 over and over again with the later cosmogony set Isefore it 

 in Genesis, precisely as all other discrepancies have been 

 reconciled, by the method which Bishop Butler contemp- 

 tuously denounced. But with such reconciliations, purely 

 theological in tone, we have nothing to do. They have no 

 interest whatever for the scientific inquirer. As a mere 

 matter of obvious fact, the two records are ab.solutely irre. 

 coucilable. 



As M. Lenormant says : " No one has ever been able to 

 explain how it is that man and animals are created by 

 Yahveh in chapter ii. after having been created by Elohim 

 in chapter i. ; how it is that the name of Yahveh is said in 

 Genesis iv. 26 to have been known to men ever since a 

 period before the Deluge, when in Exodus vi. 3 it is said to 

 have been unknown to the p.atriarchs; how it is that in 

 Genesis vi. 5 it is Yahveh, and in verse 12 it is Elohim, 

 who sees that the world is corrupt ; and lastly, how it is 

 that, while in Genesis vi. 13 Elohim orders Noah to make 

 the ark, it is Yahveh in chapter vii. 1 who commands him 

 to enter it ; and how it is that in doing so Noah obeys 

 Elohim according to verse .5, and Yahveh according to 

 verse 9." 



Of course all the peculiarities of the Book of Genesis, all 

 the contradictions, and all those ideas which, in the presence 

 of what is now known, appear crude and fantastic, are very 

 easily understood when we recognise the diversity of the 

 materials which Nehemiah and Ezra worked into the Penta- 

 teuch. Though previous high priests and scribes had mani- 

 festly been unwilling to regard as sacred all the documents 

 which had been collected and were under their charge. 



