THE UNITY OF GENESIS. 



343 



the circumstances and the customs of Oriental people. It is 

 possible that there were more, and that Moses made a choice 

 among them, and only took those which had a direct bearing 

 on his plan, and which were necessary. He had to rewrite 

 them, for there are in these chapters distinct traces of the hand 

 of Moses which we shall notice. These traces are chiefly some 

 Egyptian features, showing the man who had lived in Egypt 

 and who knew it well. 



The first tablet is the creation of the world. It is a short 

 account of how the earth first appeared, and afterwards was 

 fitted up with everything which gives it its present appearance ; 

 man comes last as the crowning work of the Creator, but his 

 formation is not described at great length : his nature is given, 

 and the reason for which he was created last. He was to have 

 dominion over the whole earth. Here already we have some- 

 thing which points to Egypt : the six days of Creation. We 

 must always remember wdien we interpret texts of a very early 

 date that for those ancient people abstract ideas did not exist. 

 They must always use a metaphor, have recourse to something 

 falling under their senses. Take, for instance, the idea expressed 

 by the word " period " ; such a word does not exist for an 

 ancient Egyptian, a space of time independent of something 

 which touches his body or his life is a notion strange to him. 

 He will understand the day, the month, the year and other 

 measurements of time of the same kind. Therefore, if he 

 wishes to speak of a certain duration of time, having a definite 

 beginning and end, the most obvious metaphor at his disposal 

 will be to call it a day. I cannot bring here the Egyptian 

 proofs of this assertion, but they seem to me to show that the 

 sense to be given here to the word "day" is a period with 

 beginning and end. 



The tablet ends with these words, which are erroneously put 

 in the second chapter : " these are the generations of the 

 heavens and of the earth when they were created." 



The following words are part of the second tablet : " In the 

 day that the Lord made heaven and earth." Here the author 

 reverts to something which has been said in the first, as a 

 lecturer quotes again what he has said before, in order to unfold 

 all its consequences. He goes back to the very beginning, " in 

 the day when heaven and earth had been made," and he sums 

 up briefly what came after. " There was yet no plant and no 

 herb, for no rain watered the land and no men tilled the 

 ground." He contrasts the primitive state of the earth when 

 it was first created and before the existence of man, with the 



