THE UNITY OF GENESIS. 



345 



chapter v, which I translate, according to the Septuagint : 

 "This is the book of the generation, not of Adam, but of 

 mankind," avBpwirwv. It ends exactly like the first tablet, by 

 words wrongly attributed to the following chapter. Thus the 

 second tablet, which is long, describes what happened to man 

 when lie was created : it is the development, the crowning act 

 mentioned in the first tablet, the creation of man, who was 

 made in order to have dominion over the earth. There it was 

 said only that God created him male and female ; but all the 

 details about this creation : how God said that it was not good 

 that the man should be alone, how Eve was formed out of 

 Adam's rib, all this would have been out of place in the first 

 tablet, where each work of the six days is summed up in a few 

 words. Its place was in the second tablet, which is that of 

 mankind ; there also is the Fall, the description of their first 

 children. Very soon one of these children, Cain, falls away. 

 Cain and his descendants are mentioned once for all ; we shall 

 never again hear of him and his posterity ; because Moses was 

 not writing a book of history ; he only recorded the events 

 which have a bearing on Israel and his mission. 



The critics are nearly unanimous in stating that chapters ii and 

 iii are not of the same author as chapter i, and also that it is 

 possible to trace two narratives which have been combined. As 

 for the first point, Professor Skinner's chief arguments are the 

 following : " From chapter i it differs fundamentally both in its 

 conception of the primeval condition of the world as an arid 

 waterless waste, and in the order Creation works : viz., man, trees, 

 animals, woman. Alike in this arrangement and in the 

 supplementary features — the garden, the miraculous trees, the 

 appointment regarding man's position in the world, and the 

 remarkable omissions (plants, fishes, etc.)."* 



These arguments are derived from a totally different view of 

 chapters ii and iii. For the learned commentator, these chapters 

 are a mere narrative of Creation, which does not agree with the 

 former, neither in the order of creative works, nor in the 

 description of the earth, therefore this implies the existence of 

 another author. But this seems to me a misconception. We 

 have not here two parallel narratives of Creation, but only one. 

 The first chapter is a short and, I may even say, dry summary 

 of the events, which are divided into six days ; for each day is 

 recorded in a few words what took place, whatever duration 



* Genesis, p. 51. 



