Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/93



note at the same time how utterly meaningless in its present position that verse is, considered as a supplement to 19$1-28$.—In the sections on Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, there are undoubtedly omissions which we can only supply from JE; and if we were to judge from these parts alone, the supplementary theory would be more plausible than it is. We miss, e.g., accounts of the birth of Jacob and Esau, of Jacob's arrival in Paddan Aram, of his marriage to Leah and Rachel, of the birth of Joseph, of his slavery and elevation in Egypt, his reconciliation with his brethren, and perhaps some other particulars. Even here, however, the theory is absolutely negatived by the contradictions to JE which will be specified immediately. Dr. Orr's argument on this point (POT, 343 ff.) really assumes that the account of JE is the only way in which the gaps of P could be filled up; but the examination of the story of Abraham has shown that that is not the case. The facts are fully explained by the supposition that a short epitome of the history, similar to that of the history of Abraham, has been abridged in the redaction, by the excision of a very few sentences, in favour of the fuller narrative of JE.—(2) The second fact which makes Dr. Orr's hypothesis untenable is this, that in almost every instance where P expands into circumstantial narration it gives a representation of the events which is distinctly at variance with the older documents. The difference between P's cosmogony and J's account of the Creation is such that it is ludicrous to speak of the one as a supplement or a 'framework' to the other; and the two Flood stories are hardly less irreconcilable (see p. 148). In the life of Abraham, we have two parallel accounts of the covenant with Abraham in ch. 15 (JE) and 17 (P); and it is evident that the one supersedes and excludes the other. Again, P's reason for Jacob's journey to Mesopotamia (28$1-9$) is quite inconsistent with that given by JE in ch. 27 (p. 374 f.); and his conception of Isaac's blessing as a transmission of the blessing originally bestowed on Abraham (28$4$) is far removed from the idea which forms the motive of ch. 27. In JE, Esau takes up his abode in Seir before Jacob's return from Mesopotamia (32$3$); in P he does not leave Canaan till after the burial of Isaac (35$6$). P's account of the enmity between Joseph and his brethren is unfortunately truncated, but enough is preserved to show that it differed essentially from that of JE (see p. 444). It is difficult to make out where Jacob was buried according to J and E, but it certainly was not at Machpelah, as in P (see p. 538 f.). And so on. Everywhere we see a tendency in P to suppress or minimise discords in the patriarchal households. It is inconceivable that a supplementer should thus contradict his original at every turn, and at the same time leave it to tell its own story. When we find that the passages of an opposite tenor to JE form parts of a practically complete narrative, we cannot avoid the conclusion that P$g$ is an independent document, which has been preserved almost entire in our present Book of Genesis. The question then arises whether these discrepancies spring from a divergent tradition followed by P$g$ or from a deliberate re-writing of the history as told by JE, under the influence of certain theological ideals and principles, which we now proceed to consider.