Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/104



rich variety of life and incident which characterises the Yahwistic sections, viz.: 1. The Creation and Fall of Man (2$4b$-3$24$); 2. Cain and Abel (4$1-16$; 3. The Genealogy of Cain (4$17-24$); 4. A fragmentary Sethite Genealogy (4$25f.$ 5$29$ ); 5. The marriages with divine beings (6$1-4$); 6. An account of the Flood (6$5$-8$22$ *[not FN anchor; see pr. page]); 7. Noah's Curse and Blessing (9$20-27$); 8. A Table of Peoples (10 *); 9. The Tower of Babel (11$1-9$); 10. A fragment of the Genealogy of Terah (11$28-30$). Here we have a whole gallery of varied and graphic pictures, each complete in itself and essentially independent of the rest, arranged in a loosely chronological order, and with perhaps a certain unity of conception, in so far as they illustrate the increasing wickedness that accompanied the progress of mankind in civilisation. Even the genealogies are not (like those of P) bare lists of names and figures, but preserve incidental notices of new social or religious developments associated with particular personages (4$17. 20-22. 26$ 5$29$), besides other allusions to a more ancient mythology from which the names have been drawn (4$19. 22. 23f.$).

Composition of J.—That a narrative composed of so many separate and originally independent legends should present discrepancies and discontinuities is not surprising, and is certainly by itself no proof of literary diversity. At the same time there are many indications that J is a composite work, based on older collections of Hebrew traditions, whose outlines can still be dimly traced. (1) The existence of two parallel genealogies (Cainite and Sethite) at once suggests a conflate tradition. The impression is raised almost to certainty when we find that both are derived from a common original (p. 138 f.). (2) The Cainite genealogy is incompatible with the Deluge tradition. The shepherds, musicians, and smiths, whose origin is traced to the last three members of the genealogy, are obviously not those of a bygone race which perished in the Flood, but those known to the author and his contemporaries (p. 115 f.). (3) Similarly, the Table of Nations and the story of the Confusion of Tongues imply mutually exclusive explanations of the diversities of language and nationality: in one case the division proceeds slowly and naturally on genealogical lines, in the other it takes place by a sudden interposition of almighty power. (4) There is evidence that the story of the Fall was transmitted in two recensions (p. 52 f.). If Gunkel be right, the same is true of J's Table of Peoples, and of the account of the Dispersion; but there the analysis is less convincing. (5) In 4$26$ we read that Enosh introduced the worship of Yahwe. The analogy of Ex. 6$2f.$ (P) affords a certain presumption that the author of such a statement will have avoided the name up to this point; and as a matter of fact occurs immediately before in v.$25$. It is true that the usage is observed in no earlier Yahwistic passage except 3$1-5$, where other explanations might be thought of. But throughout chs. 2 and 3 we find the very unusual compound name, and it is a plausible conjecture that one recension of the Paradise story was distinguished by the use of Elohim, and that Yahwe was inserted by a harmonising Yahwistic editor (so Bu. Gu. al.: see p. 53).

To what precise extent these phenomena are due to documentary differences is a question that requires to be handled with the utmost caution and discrimination. It is conceivable that a single author