98 DIVERGENCE BETWEEN THE GENESIS ACCOUNTS OF CREATION. account, as treating of the creation, is in ordinary minds so associated with the origin of the universe as to cause a chronological confusion which blindly, but none the less forcibly, identifies the date of the narrative with the date of creation. You may think that, as Moses was the author of the Pentateuch, the narrative in question must have been written before his death. I must disabuse your mind, my dear friend. In all theology there is not a more groundless theory than that the first five books of the Bible came from the pen of that great legislator. The most recent, which is also scientifically the highest, authority declares: "The opinion so generally received, according to which the Pentateuch, as a whole, is the work of Moses, finds no support in the Pentateuch itself. In no part does that collection ascribe a Mosaic origin to the five books taken together. It even seems to affirm the contrary, so far as the first four are concerned, for they tell us either that Moses was commanded to write such and such an event, or that he put into writing certain fragments which we still possess in those books. There would be no sense in these declarations if the author meant to attribute to himself equally all the rest. What is actually recorded is the fact that Moses wrote certain portions, which are of small extent. And this is all we are told and all we know."* I add a few additional words from Dr. Kuenen's valuable production, bearing on what I have said on my own authority. "As to what concerns Genesis, we must specially notice the very remarkable divergence there is between the two accounts of the creation. The second narrative commences by the formation of Adam, then recounts the creation of trees and plants, then that of animals, finally that of the woman. Now, on all these points, it is positively contrary to the first narrative" (p. 25). "As to the second account of the creation, it is certainly not by the same author as the first” (p. 145). *Historisch-Kritisch Onderzoek de Boeken des Ouden Verbonds, &c., by Professor Kuenen, of the Leyden University; the French Translation, I. 13. Paris, 1866. ASTRUC AND COLENSO. 99 In "The contrast between these two writings goes very far. the author of the first account, the Elohist, there is great simplicity, even great uniformity in the particulars of the revelations made by God to Noah and the patriarchs. Rarely is he anthropomorphistic. The Jehovist from whom we have the second account is far from such sobriety. Angels, dreams, heavenly voices, are at his disposal when he represents God as speaking. And he is so little afraid to ascribe to God human emotions, that he makes God repent at having created man. Worse still, God comes down to inspect the city and the tower of Babel" (p. 153, seq.). "That conception of sin, of its origin, of its universality, denotes that the author had reflected much on religious subjects, and compels us to assign to him a date comparatively recent" (p. 157). "These researches have demonstrated that no solid argument attests the existence of the Pentateuch before the exile" (p. 243). There is, however, one peculiarity in the second account by which it is clearly and decisively distinguished from the first. Every time the writer mentions the Creator, he calls him Lord God (Jehovah Elohim), whereas in the former narrative the sole name for the Supreme Being is God (Elohim). Nor is this an accidental difference, for the term Jehovah Elohim occurs eleven times. I may add, that after what I have said of the gradual unfolding of the idea of God in the Hebrew mind, you will see that the difference is one of the highest moment. Moreover, the difference decides that the second account is posterior in date to the first, inasmuch as by the title Jehovah God, or the Self-subsistent and Eternal God, it bespeaks a later, I might say, a much later authorship. As this is a considerable point, I will remark that the view I have just given has in its favour the authority of the first Biblical critics. Originated in 1753, by Astruc, a Belgian physician,* the idea that the different names ascribed to God * 66 Conjectures sur les Memoires Originaux dont il paroit que Moyse s'est servi pour Composer le Livre de la Gènese." 100 THE HEBREW MIND INTUITIVE, THE ARYAN SPECULATIVE. denoted a difference of authorship, was accepted at first slowly by theologians of eminence, but being in the course of inquiry and time more fully developed and thoroughly established, it has since found all but universal acceptance from the days of Dr. Geddes (1792) down to those of Bishop Colenso. The second account of the creation betrays the lateness of its origin by its essential character. While the first account is intuitive, the second is speculative. While the first is a poem, the second is a mythologue. The former implicates the action of man's spiritual nature; the latter, the sway of his imagination in union with his intellect. The first answers the great question, "Whence this universe ?" The second attempts to solve the question, "How ?" The answer to the former comes from God speaking in the universe itself. The attempt involved in the latter is rebuked where Scripture says: "Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection? The speculative character of the document refers us to a speculative source for its origin. The genuine Hebrew mind is intuitive, not speculative. But speculation is the chief characteristic of the Aryan mind. Hence we are directed to Persia or India for the birth-place of the myth. And as to its age, it cannot have been either born or bred in Palestine until the national mind had been debased by tendencies quite alien to its own inherent qualities. And thus we are brought down to the age of Ezekiel, Ezra and Nehemiah. This was the period when the national spirit of Hebrewism was impregnated and lowered by mythologizing currents of thought, coming from Babylon, Ecbatana, and the banks of the Indus. And now you will readily see how it came to pass that a serpent was introduced into the narrative. Our author wanted to say that sin was disobedience to the known will of God, SIN IS DISOBEDIENCE TO THE WILL OF GOD: 101 Only through that avenue arising out of improper desire. These are very abstract things; they are things of the moral and religious order. They have to be declared to human beings in their infancy. How is it to be done? Symbols must be employed. In other words, the eye must be addressed. can man's moral sense be reached. is used. A recognized symbol is employed to denote God. An apple, and consequently an apple-tree, is chosen to denote a pleasant attraction. As yet, however, the picture does not speak. It says nothing. To supply this serious deficiency, the form of a serpent is introduced. This is the recognized symbol of seduction. The serpent, erect on its tail, has its head, with the apple in its mouth, directed to the woman. Another picture places the apple on the ground, lying as visible to both, who now appear as conversing the one with the other, the serpent persuasively, the woman hesitatingly. A third picture shews the woman eating the apple with manifest delight; and a fourth one exhibits the man doing the same. The story is told. The first sin is committed, and by means of another series or two you are taught in full that sin is disobedience to the will of God. The woman's will was clearly moved by an internal desire. That desire may have been the sexual passion, the indulgence of which was in itself, as innocuous, so innocent, if only because that desire she could not have felt had it not been planted in her by the hand of the Creator, and for purposes no less beneficent than wise. Hitherto we have not got to the bitter root of sin. Say the desire was appetite for food, and you are no nearer the guilty cause. You throw the blame on me. Yet I did but shew her the apple and tell her it was good. The occasion of her sin you may call me, but certainly not the cause. The cause is to be found rather in the old Shemitic idea, that God is the author of evil as well as good. He made Eve what she was, and what she was made sin in her case inevitable. There she stood a poor weakling, not knowing good from evil; stimulated by impulse and open to SATAN IN THE BOOK OF JC The Shemitic view of God in its mo now been set before you in its relations ment Scriptures. A qualified conception the book of Job. The degeneracy is bot sured by the appearance in the compositi Satan. This is the central point towar remarks must tend. What is Satan in 1 individual reality? or an offshoot of Orie: The age when the book inscribed with produced is a matter of dispute, after all subject has undergone. With some cri ancient book of the Old Testament; wit place among the most recent. Others, medium date. In their judgment, it w classic period of the Hebrew literature, reign of Solomon. This time is strongly 1 fact that then Hebrew culture and the extended from Jerusalem, its centre, far terminous lands. Idumæa was a minor literary skill and fame. This probably the book of Job. Commonly accounted a totally free from a specially Hebrew cc mention, not even by implication, of the institutions which gathered around it. tions was a complicated system of sacrific derived from ages long anterior to Mos accretions, which, coming from sacerdota fastened themselves on the body of the M system of sacrifices was in operation du at some point of which the book of Job Had it been produced in the land of Can |