Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/227

 contained the three names (Seth, Enos, Noah) peculiar to the genealogy of P, it may be assumed that the two lists were in substantial agreement, each consisting of ten generations. That that of J was not a dry list of names and numbers appears, however, from every item of it that has survived. The preservation of 4$25f.$ is no doubt due to the important notice of the introduction of Yahwe-worship ($26b$), the redactor having judged it more expedient in this instance to retain J's statement intact. The circumstance shows on how slight a matter far-reaching critical speculations may hang. But for this apparently arbitrary decision of the redactor, the existence of a Sethite genealogy in J would hardly have been suspected; and the whole analysis of the J document into its component strata might have run a different course.

25. And Adam knew, etc.] see on v.$1$ That denotes properly the initiation of the conjugal relation (Bu.) is very doubtful: see 38$26$, 1 Sa. 1$19$.—And she called] see again on v.$1$.—God has appointed me seed] (the remainder of the v. is probably an interpolation). Cf. 3$15$. Eve's use of is not 'surprising' (Di.); it only proves that the section is not from the same source as v.$1$. On the other hand, it harmonises with the fact that in 3$1ff.$ is used in dialogue. It is at least a plausible inference that both passages come from one narrator, who systematically avoided the name up to 4$26$ (see p. 100).

The v. in its present form undoubtedly presupposes a knowledge of the Cain and Abel narrative of 4$1-16$; but it is doubtful if the allusions to the two older brothers can be accepted as original (see Bu. 154-159). Some of Bu.'s arguments are strained; but it is important to observe that the word is wanting in G, and that the addition of destroys the sense of the preceding utterance, the idea of substitution being quite foreign to the connotation of the vb. . The following clause reads awkwardly in the mouth of Eve (who would naturally have said ), and is entirely superfluous on the part of

25. ] here for the first time unambiguously a prop. name. There is no reason to suspect the text: the transition from the generic to the individual sense is made by P only in 5$1-3$, and is just as likely to have been made by J.—G reads in place of ; S has both words.—Before GS insert .—] [E] .—] G ; so V and