Page:A Jewish Interpretation of the Book of Genesis (Morgenstern, 1919, jewishinterpreta00morg).pdf/36

 18

intended at creation. it

of

Cows is

little

people,

Book

Thi'

Tliis

(lod's

tirst])rn,

The problem of Book

of the entire

of

these

first

eleven chapters, and,

of (lenesis,

is

threefold,

the particular

of

relation

Israel

God, and

to

lem and solution are decidedly universalistic

God

and character.

not

merely

the

conception

in

national

deity

evolution, nor

by and for

Israel a nation living only

is

among

a nation

God

not

is

its

itself.

the other nations of the earth, and

fortunes are inseparably bound up with theirs.

rael's

of

conceived in the earlier period of Israel's religious

Israel, as

is

is

all,

the

(cj

Both prob-

particular relation of Israel to the other nations.

Israel

way,

in a

(a) the relation

the peoples of the earth to (jod, the Creator of

all

(b)

its

as

were, was to be Israel.

God

alone,

but

the

Creator

And

Is-

of

the

and the loving Father of all men. To Him is due. His law^ they should keep, and His way they should walk. All this they must eventually

entire universe

alone their w^orship in

learn through Israel.

A

universalism so all-embracing and positive, can have

developed

in

Israel

and found such systematic and

expression only after Israel had begun to outgrow

definite

its

early,

and nationalistic conception of God and religion, through having come into close and protracted contact with other nations and other religions and cultures. nationalism

restricted

Then only

did

it

commence

to

concern

with the vital

itself

and weak nation, to tlie mighty empires Avhich surrounded it, and the role which it was d:stined to play in the history of mankind ac-

(|uestion

of the relation of

cording to the Biblical

present,

all-W'ise

science

])lan

itself,

connected,

century

little

of the Creator of the universe.

has proved that these literary

form

product of the period beginning seventh

a

B.

first

are, in

in

the

stories

the

first

C, when Judah became

in

their

main,

the

of

the

half

tributary

to

Assyria and was dominated by Assyrian culture and thought,

and continuing for almost two centuries,

into the

Babylonian