Page:A Jewish Interpretation of the Book of Genesis (Morgenstern, 1919, jewishinterpreta00morg).pdf/76

 The Book of Genesis

58 Genesis speaks

There God

T.

His

divine

Clearly this conception

is

and

transcendental

is

word and

the

various

the product of

theology, Twhich refused to think of

butes or discharging such peculiarly

He

merely

creation

ensue.

spiritual

of

acts



an age of philosophy and as possessing human attri-

God human

functions as coming in

H

contact with mortals or working with His hands.

In Genesis

HI. on the other hand, God is conceived only way in which the mind of early

human mould,

in purely

Israel

could

picture

and the

Him.

He fashions man from the dust with His hands, and l^reathes of His own breath into the man's nostrils. He is the lord of the garden, and takes His daily walk therein in the cool of the day, and converses familiarly with His creatures. This conception of the Deity is far more crude and primitive, even while more simple and poetic, than that of Genesis I. This is not only because, as has been said, these folk-tales are the product of the earliest period of Israel's cultural and religious evolution, but also because even their present literary form is the work of a period earlier than that of the composition of Genesis I, when the conception of the Deity had not yet been completely spiritualized. This, and much of what follows, is, of course, information only for the teacher, and not intended for direct presentation to the children. However, the teacher must l)e prepared to answer correctly whatever questions the children ma}' ask. With this end in view, everything which contributes to the full and authoritative understanding of the story by the teacher, should be of service. Chietly

upon

original sin.

opposed

to

It

exact location

story

Christianity

has

based

needless to say that this doctrine

its is

doctrine

of

diametrically

fundamental teachings of Judaism.

the

Formerly

this is

the

attempt

was

of the garden of

chieHy upon the accounts of the

made to determine the The arguments were based Of these four rivers in vv. 10-14.

frequently

Eden.

four rivers, only two, the Euphrates and the Tigris, can be positively Various hypotheses have been advanced to identify the

identiified.

In general the garden of Eden has l:een located in the upper Mesopotamian Aalley, or in the highlands of Asia Minor or Armenia, where 1:oth the Euphrates and Tigris have their sources. However, all these attempts are entirely fanciful and valueless. l)il)lical science has established, on the one hand, that vv. 10-14 are not a part of the original story, but were inserted long after the story proper was written, and on the other hand, that the original author or authors had no clearly dehned conception of the location of Eden. Now they seem to put it in the extreme east, and again in

other two.