Page:The Polytheism of Genesis Chapter 1.djvu/2

 THE POLYTHEISM OF GEN., CHAP. 1 A. E. WHATHAM

Louisville, Ky.

Describing the character of the record of the Creation contained in the first chapter of Genesis, Professor Bennett tells us that it is "the last of many editions of an ancient Semitic story, its priestly writer having purged it of its polytheistic superstition and made it a noble and simple declaration of the making of all things by God, who is one, holy, and benevolent." In like manner Professor Zimmern refers to "the strictly monotheistic tone .... that pervades the whole chapter"; while Professor Sayce alludes to its "devout" and "uncompromising monotheism." Finally Hommel, referring especially to the first eleven chapters of Genesis, asserts that "the Bible exhibits nothing but the purest monotheism."

That in contrast to "the exuberant and grotesque polytheism" of the Babylonian cosmogony, the Book of Genesis may be said to open with "a sublime and dignified narrative" is undoubtedly true, and from this standpoint we are prepared to accept Professor Bennett's view of Gen., chap, i; but whether we have here a narrative written from the position of an uncompromising monotheism, as all these writers contend, is a doubtful matter, and, as we are about to show, one which is made even more so by the further statements of these same writers.

Professor Sayce thinks that the "us" in Gen. 1:26; 3:22; 11:7, refers to a polytheistic document which lay before the Hebrew writer; while in his earlier work he had referred to this "us" as constituting one of the traces of a persistent polytheism among the bulk of the people which were left upon "the language and