Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/106

 ment (J$j$). Again, 9$18f.$ form a connecting link between the Flood and the Table of Nations; but Gu. distinguishes two Yahwistic strata in the Table of Nations and assigns one to each of his documents: similarly with the section on the Tower of Babel. The legend of Cain and Abel is regarded (with We. Bu. Sta. al.) as an editorial expansion.

In this commentary the analysis of Gu. is adopted in the main; but with the following reservations: (1) The account of the Flood cannot be naturally assigned to J$j$, because of its admitted incompatibility with the assumption of the Cainite genealogy (see above). Gu., indeed, refuses to take such inconsistencies into account; but in that case there is no reason for giving the Flood to J$j$ rather than to J$e$. There is no presumption whatever that only two documents are in evidence; and the chapters in question show peculiarities of language which justify the assumption of a separate source (Sta.), say J$d$. (2) With the Flood passage goes the Yahwistic Table of Peoples (9$18f.$). The arguments for two Yahwists in ch. 10 are hardly decisive; and J$e$ at all events had no apparent motive for attaching an ethnographic survey to the name of Noah. (3) Gunkel's analysis of 11$1-9$ appears on the whole to be sound; but even so there is no ground for identifying the two components with J$e$ and J$j$ respectively. On the contrary, the tone of both recensions has a striking affinity with that of J$j$: note especially (with We.) the close resemblance in form and substance between 11$6$ and 3$22$. Thus:

J$j$ = 3$20-22. 24$ 4$17-24$ 6$1-4$ 11$1-9$; J$e$ = 2$4b$-3$19*. 23$ 4$25f.$ 5$29$  9$20-27$; J$d$ = 6$5$-8$22$* 9$18f.$ 10*; J$r$ = 4$1-16$*.

Such constructions, it need hardly be added, are in the highest degree precarious and uncertain; and can only be regarded as tentative explanations of problems for which it is probable that no final solution will be found.

I. 1-II. 3.—Creation of the World in Six Days: Institution of the Sabbath.

A short Introduction describing the primæval chaos (1$1. 2$) is followed by an account of the creation of the world in six days, by a series of eight divine fiats, viz.: (1) the creation of light, and the separation of light from darkness, $3-5$; (2) the division of the chaotic waters into two masses, one above and the other below the 'firmament,' $6-8$; (3) the separation of land and sea through the collecting of the lower waters into "one place," $9. 10$; (4) the clothing of the earth with its mantle of vegetation, $11-13$; (5) the formation of the heavenly bodies, $14-19$; (6) the peopling of sea and air with fishes and birds, $20-23$; (7)