Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/143

 of the creation. But this theory also is open to serious objection. It involves a meaning of which is contrary both to its etymology and the usage of P (see footnote). Whatever latitude of meaning be assigned to the word, it is the fact that in this formula it is always followed by gen. of the progenitor, never of the progeny: hence by analogy the phrase must describe that which is generated by the heavens and the earth, not the process by which they themselves are generated (so Lagarde, Or. ii. 38 ff., and Ho.). And even if that difficulty could be overcome (see Lagarde), generation is a most unsuitable description of the process of creation as conceived by P. In short, neither as superscription nor as subscription can the sentence be accounted for as an integral part of the Priestly Code. There seems no way out of the difficulty but to assume with Ho. that the formula in this place owes its origin to a mechanical imitation of the manner of P by a later hand. The insertion would be suggested by the observation that the formula divides the book of Gen. into definite sections; while the advantage of beginning a new section at this point would naturally occur to an editor who felt the need of sharply separating the two accounts of the creation, and regarded the second as in some way the continuation of the first. If that be so, he probably took in the sense of 'history' and referred  to what follows. The analogy of 5$1$, Nu. 3$1$ would suffice to justify the use of the formula before the of $1$.—It has been thought that G has preserved the original form of the text: viz. (cf. 5$4b$); the redactor having, "before inserting a section from the other document, accidentally copied in the opening words of 5$1$, which were afterwards adapted to their present position" (Ben.). That is improbable. It is more likely that G deliberately altered the text to correspond with 5$1$. See Field, Hex., ad loc.; Nestle, MM, 4. Babylonian and other Cosmogonies.

1. The outlines of Bab. cosmogony have long been known from two brief notices in Greek writers: (1) an extract from Berossus (3rd cent. ) made by Alexander Polyhistor, and preserved by Syncellus from the lost Chronicle of Eusebius (lib. i.); and (2) a passage from the Neo-Platonic writer Damascius (6th cent. ). From these it was apparent that the biblical account of creation is in its main conceptions Babylonian. The interest of the fragments has been partly enhanced, but partly superseded, since the discovery of the closely parallel 'Chaldæan Genesis,' unearthed from the debris of Asshurbanipal's library at Nineveh by George Smith in 1873. It is therefore unnecessary to examine them in detail; but since the originals are not very accessible to English readers, they are here reprinted in full (with emendations after KAT$1$, 488 ff.):

(1) Berossus: 🇬🇷 [em. Richt., cod. 🇬🇷] 🇬🇷