THE UNITY OF GENESIS. 



331 



the most are assigned to the so-called Priestly Code, a document 

 which nearly all critics consider as post-exilian ; some of them 

 attribute it to Ezra. Wellhausen gives as its date the year 444 

 The first chapter of Genesis belongs to that document, but not 

 the second, which was written by the Jahvist or Jehovist, an 

 author belonging to the Southern kingdom, and said to have 

 lived in the ninth century. The Jahvist begins at chapter 11, 

 with the narrative of the Fall, which lias been modified by the 

 insertion of words or sentences by the redactor. A hundred 

 years later arose, in the Northern kingdom, the Elohist, who 

 appears first in one sentence of chapter xv, and to whom we 

 owe many portions of the text relating the lives of Abraham 

 and Joseph. To these principal documents must be added 

 another, said to be an older source of the Jahvist. It appears 

 first in the genealogy of the family of Cain, afterwards in the 

 history of the Tower of Babel. Its most important fragment is 

 that relating the blessing of Jacob's sons. Another document is 

 called J.E.. because it is impossible to separate in it the two 

 elements ; its fragments are not very numerous, they are chiefly 

 found in the life of Abraham. Chapter xiv is a document apart , 

 its author's sole contribution, to which the redactor has added a 

 good deal out of his own wisdom. Besides, there are later glosses, 

 some of which are obvious, they are explanations for later readers; 

 others are called glosses merely because they do not agree with 

 the critics' systems. The date of the redactor also is conjectural. 

 It could not have been early, since he made use of the Priestly 

 Code, which we saw Wellhausen assigns to the year 444, and 

 it must be earlier than the Septuagint. Concerning the date of 

 these translators, scholars disagree. It seems probable that the 

 Law must have been the first to be translated into Greek, and 

 that the traditional date, that of the reign of Ptolemy Philadel- 

 phia, 285-247, may be adopted. It is the earliest admitted by 

 the critics. Thus the authors who may be said unconsciously 

 to have contributed to the composition of this little book, 

 Genesis, are scattered over a space of more than 600 years. 



Let us now take a fragment of the book and see how it appears 

 according to this theory. We have seen that chapter xiv is a 

 document by itself ; we shall have to revert, further on, to the 

 circumstances in which it is said to have been written. We go 

 on to chapter xv. It begins with words from J.E. : 



After these things the word of the Lord 

 came unto Abram 



is mine heir. 



J.E., unknown date. 



