The Old Testament opens very impressively. In measured and dignified
language it introduces the story of Israel's origin and settlement
upon the land of Canaan (Gen.--Josh.) by the story of creation,
i.-ii. 4_a_, and thus suggests, at the very beginning, the
far-reaching purpose and the world-wide significance of the people and
religion of Israel. The narrative has not travelled far till it
becomes apparent that its dominant interests are to be religious and
moral; for, after a pictorial sketch of man's place and task in the
world, and of his need of woman's companionship, ii. 4_b_-25,
it plunges at once into an account, wonderful alike in its poetic
power and its psychological insight, of the tragic and costly[1]
disobedience by which the divine purpose for man was at least
temporarily frustrated (iii.). His progress in history is, morally
considered, downward. Disobedience in the first generation becomes
murder in the next, and it is to the offspring of the violent Cain
that the arts and amenities of civilization are traced, iv. 1-22.
Thus the first song in the Old Testament is a song of revenge,
iv. 23, 24, though this dark background of cruelty is not unlit by a
gleam of religion, iv. 26. After the lapse of ten generations (v.)
the world had grown so corrupt that God determined to destroy it by a
flood; but because Noah was a good man, He saved him and his household
and resolved never again to interrupt the course of nature in judgment
(vi.-viii.). In establishing the covenant with Noah, emphasis is laid
on the sacredness of blood, especially of the blood of man, ix. 1-17.
Though grace abounds, however, sin also abounds. Noah fell, and his
fall revealed the character of his children: the ancestor of the
Semites, from whom the Hebrews sprang, is blessed, as is also Japheth,
while the ancestor of the licentious Canaanites is cursed, ix. 18-27.
From these three are descended the great families of mankind (x.)
whose unity was confounded and whose ambitions were destroyed by the
creation of diverse languages, xi. 1-9.
[Footnote 1: Death is the penalty (iii. 22-24). Another explanation of
how death came into the world is given in the ancient and interesting
fragment vi. 1-4.]
It is against this universal background that the story of the
Hebrews is thrown; and in the new beginning which history takes with
the call of Abraham, something like the later contrast between the
church and the world is intended to be suggested. Upon the sombreness
of human history as reflected in Gen. i.-xi., a new possibility breaks
in Gen. xii., and the rest of the book is devoted to the fathers of
the Hebrew people (xii.-l.). The most impressive figure from a
religious point of view is Abraham, the oldest of them all, and the
story of his discipline is told with great power, xi. 10-xxv. 10.
He was a Semite, xi. 10-32, and under a divine impulse he migrated
westward to Canaan, xii. 1-9.
There various fortunes befell him--famine which drove him to Egypt,
peril through the beauty of his wife,[1] abounding and conspicuous
prosperity--but through it all Abraham displayed a true magnanimity
and enjoyed the divine favour, xii. 10-xiii., which was manifested
even in a striking military success (xiv.). Despite this favour,
however, he grew despondent, as he had no child. But there came to
him the promise of a son, confirmed by a covenant (xv.), the symbol
of which was to be circumcision (xvii.); and Abraham trusted God,
unlike his wife, whose faith was not equal to the strain, and who
sought the fulfilment of the promise in foolish ways of her own,[2]
xvi., xviii. 1-15. Then follows the story of Abraham's earnest but
ineffectual intercession for the wicked cities of the plain--a story
which further reminds us how powerfully the narrative is controlled
by moral and religious interests, xviii. 16-xix. Faith is rewarded
at last by the birth of a son, xxi. 1-7, and Abraham's prosperity
becomes so conspicuous that a native prince is eager to make a
treaty with him, xxi. 22-34. The supreme test of his faith came to
him in the impulse to offer his son to God in sacrifice; but at the
critical moment a substitute was providentially provided, and
Abraham's faith, which had stood so terrible a test, was rewarded by
another renewal of the divine assurance (xxii.). His wife died, and
for a burial-place he purchased from the natives a field and cave in
Hebron, thus winning in the promised land ground he could legally
call his own (xxiii). Among his eastern kinsfolk a wife is
providentially found for Isaac (xxiv.), who becomes his father's
heir, xxv. 1-6. Then Abraham dies, xxv. 7-11, and the uneventful
career of Isaac is briefly described in tales that partly duplicate[3]
those told of his greater father, xxv. 7-xxvi.
[Footnote 1: This story (xii. 10-20) is duplicated in xx.; also in
xxvi. 1-11 (of Isaac).]
[Footnote 2: The story of the expulsion of Hagar in xvi. is
duplicated in xxi. 8-21.]
[Footnote 3: xxvi. 1-11=xii. 10-20 (xx.); xxvi. 26-33=xxi. 22-34.]
The story of Isaac's son Jacob is as varied and romantic as his own
was uneventful. He begins by fraudulently winning a blessing from
his father, and has in consequence to flee the promised land,
xxvii.-xxviii. 9. On the threshold of his new experiences he was
taught in a dream the nearness of heaven to earth, and received
the assurance that the God who had visited him at Bethel would
be with him in the strange land and bring him back to his own,
xxviii. 10-22. In the land of his exile, his fortunes ran a very
checkered course (xxix.-xxxi.). In Laban, his Aramean kinsman, he
met his match, and almost his master, in craft; and the initial
fraud of his life was more than once punished in kind. In due time,
however, he left the land of his sojourn, a rich and prosperous man.
But his discipline is not over when he reaches the homeland. The past
rises up before him in the person of the brother whom he had wronged;
and besides reckoning with Esau, he has also to wrestle with God. He
is embroiled in strife with the natives of the land, and he loses his
beloved Rachel (xxxii.-xxxv.).
Into the later years of Jacob is woven the most romantic story of
all--that of his son Joseph (xxxvii.-l.)[1] the dreamer, who rose
through persecution and prison, slander and sorrow (xxxvii.-xl.) to
a seat beside the throne of Pharaoh (xli.). Nowhere is the providence
that governs life and the Nemesis that waits upon sin more dramatically
illustrated than in the story of Joseph. Again and again his guilty
brothers are compelled to confront the past which they imagined they
had buried out of sight for ever (xlii.-xliv.). But at last comes the
gracious reconciliation between Joseph and them (xlv.), the tender
meeting between Jacob and Joseph (xlvi.), the ultimate settlement of
the family of Jacob in Egypt,[2] and the consequent transference of
interest to that country for several generations. The book closes
with scenes illustrating the wisdom and authority of Joseph in the
time of famine (xlvii.), the dying Jacob blessing Joseph's sons
(xlviii.), his parting words (in verse) to all his sons (xlix.), his
death and funeral honours, l. 1-14, Joseph's magnanimous forgiveness
of his brothers, and his death, in the sure hope that God would one
day bring the Israelites back again to the land of Canaan, l. 15-26.
[Footnote 1: xxxvi. deals with the Edomite clans, and xxxviii. with
the clans of Judah.]
[Footnote 2: In one version they are not exactly in Egypt, but near
it, in Goshen (xlvii. 6).]
The unity of the book of Genesis is unmistakable; yet a close
inspection reveals it to be rather a unity of idea than of execution.
While in general it exhibits the gradual progress of the divine
purpose on its way through primeval and patriarchal history, in
detail it presents a number of phenomena incompatible with unity of
authorship. The theological presuppositions of different parts of
the book vary widely; centuries of religious thought, for example,
must lie between the God who partakes of the hospitality of Abraham
under a tree (xviii.) and the majestic, transcendent, invisible
Being at whose word the worlds are born (i.). The style, too,
differs as the theological conceptions do: it is impossible not to
feel the difference between the diffuse, precise, and formal style
of ix. 1-17, and the terse, pictorial and poetic manner of the
immediately succeeding section, ix. 18-27. Further, different
accounts are given of the origin of particular names or facts:
Beersheba is connected, e.g. with a treaty made, in one case,
between Abraham and Abimelech, xxi. 31, in another, between Isaac
and Abimelech, xxvi. 33. But perhaps the most convincing proof that
the book is not an original literary unit is the lack of inherent
continuity in the narrative of special incidents, and the occasional
inconsistencies, sometimes between different parts of the book,
sometimes even within the same section.
This can be most simply illustrated from the story of the Flood
(vi. 5ff.), through which the beginner should work for himself-at
first without suggestions from critical commentaries or introductions--as
here the analysis is easy and singularly free from complications;
the results reached upon this area can be applied and extended to
the rest of the book. The problem might be attacked in some such way
as follows. Ch. vi. 5-8 announces the wickedness of man and the
purpose of God to destroy him; throughout these verses the divine
Being is called Jehovah.[1] In the next section, _vv_. 9-13, He
is called by a different name--God (Hebrew, _Elohim_)--and we
cannot but notice that this section adds nothing to the last;
_vv_. 9, 10 are an interruption, and _vv_. 11-13 but a
repetition of _vv_. 5-8. Corresponding to the change in the
divine name is a further change in the vocabulary, the word for
_destroy_ being different in _vv_. 7 and 13. Verses 14-22
continue the previous section with precise and minute instructions
for the building of the ark, and in the later verses (cf. 18, 20)
the precision tends to become diffuseness. The last verse speaks of
the divine Being as God (Elohim), so that both the language and
contents of _vv_. 9-22 show it to be a homogeneous section.
Note that here, _vv_. 19, 20, two animals of every kind are to
be taken into the ark, no distinction being drawn between the clean
and the unclean. Noah must now be in the ark; for we are told that
he had done all that God commanded him, _vv_. 22, 18.
[Footnote 1: Wrongly represented by _the Lord_ in the English
version; the American Revised Version always correctly renders by
_Jehovah_. _God_ in v. 5 is an unfortunate mistake of A.V.
This ought also to be _the Lord_, or rather _Jehovah_.]
But, to our surprise, ch. vii. starts the whole story afresh with a
divine command to Noah to enter the ark; and this time, significantly
enough, a distinction is made between the clean and the unclean-seven
pairs of the former to enter and one pair of the latter (vii. 2). It
is surely no accident that in this section the name of the divine
Being is Jehovah, _vv_. 1, 5; and its contents follow naturally
on vi. 5-8. In other words we have here, not a continuous account,
but two parallel accounts, one of which uses the name God, the other
Jehovah, for the divine Being. This important conclusion is put
practically beyond all doubt by the similarity between vi. 22 and vii. 5,
which differ only in the use of the divine name. A close study of the
characteristics of these sections whose origin is thus certain will
enable us approximately to relegate to their respective sources other
sections, verses, or fragments of verses in which the important clue,
furnished by the name of the divine Being, is not present. Any verse,
or group of verses, e.g. involving the distinction between the clean
and the unclean, will belong to the _Jehovistic_ source, as it is
called (J). This is the real explanation of the confusion which
every one feels who attempts to understand the story as a unity. It
was always particularly hard to reconcile the apparently conflicting
estimates of the duration of the Flood; but as soon as the sources
are separated, it becomes clear that, according to the Jehovist, it
lasted sixty-eight days, according to the other source over a year
(vii. 11, viii. 14).
Brief as the Flood story is, it furnishes us with material enough to
study the characteristic differences between the sources out of
which it is composed. The Jehovist is terse, graphic, and poetic; it
is this source in which occurs the fine description of the sending
forth of the raven and the dove, viii. 6-12. It knows how to make a
singularly effective use of concrete details: witness Noah putting
out his hand and pulling the dove into the ark, and her final return
with an olive leaf in her mouth. A similarly graphic touch,
interesting also for the sidelight it throws on the Jehovist's
theological conceptions is that, when Noah entered the ark, "Jehovah
closed the door behind him," vii. 16. Altogether different is the
other source. It is all but lacking in poetic touches and concrete
detail of this kind, and such an anthropomorphism as vii. 16 would
be to it impossible. It is pedantically precise, giving the exact
year, month, and even day when the Flood came, vii. 11, and when it
ceased, viii. 13, 14. There is a certain legal precision about it
which issues in diffuseness and repetition; over and over again
occur such phrases as "fowl, cattle, creeping things, each after its
kind," vi. 20, vii. 14, and the dimensions of the ark are accurately
given. Where J had simply said, "Thou and all thy house," vii. 1,
this source says, "Thou and thy sons and thy wife and thy sons'
wives with thee," vi. 18. From the identity of interest and style
between this source and the middle part of the Pentateuch, notably
Leviticus, it is characterized as the priestly document and known to
criticism as P.
Thus, though the mainstay of the analysis, or at least the original
point of departure, is the difference in the names of the divine
Being, many other phenomena, of vocabulary, style, and theology, are
so distinctive that on the basis of them alone we could relegate
many sections of Genesis with considerable confidence to their
respective sources. In particular, P is especially easy to detect.
For example, the use of the term Elohim, the repetitions, the
precise and formal manner, the collocation of such phrases as "fowl,
cattle, creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth," i. 26 (cf.
vii. 21), mark out the first story of creation, i.-ii. 4_a_, as
indubitably belonging to P. Besides the stories of the creation and
the flood, the longest and most important, though not quite the only
passages[1] belonging to P are ix. 1-17 (the covenant with Noah),
xvii. (the covenant with Abraham), and xxiii. (the purchase of a
burial place for Sarah). This is a fact of the greatest significance.
For P, the story of creation culminates in the institution of the
Sabbath, the story of the flood in the covenant with Noah, with the law
concerning the sacredness of blood, the covenant with Abraham is sealed
by circumcision, and the purchase of Machpelah gives Abraham legal
right to a footing in the promised land. In other words the interests
of this source are legal and ritual. This becomes abundantly plain in
the next three books of the Pentateuch, but even in Genesis it may be
justly inferred from the unusual fulness of the narrative at these
four points.
[Footnote 1: The curious ch. xiv. is written under the influence of
P. Here also ritual interests play a part in the tithes paid to the
priest of Salem, v. 20 (i.e. Jerusalem). In spite of its array of
ancient names, xiv. 1, 2, which have been partially corroborated by
recent discoveries, this chapter is, for several reasons, believed
to be one of the latest in the Pentateuch.]
When we examine what is left in Genesis, after deducting the
sections that belong to P, we find that the word God (Elohim),
characteristic of P, is still very frequently and in some sections
exclusively used. The explanation will appear when we come to deal
with Exodus: meantime the fact must be carefully noted. Ch. xx.,
e.g., uses the word Elohim, but it has no other mark characteristic
of P. It is neither formal nor diffuse in style nor legal in spirit;
it is as concrete and almost as graphic as anything in J. Indeed the
story related--Abraham's denial of his wife--is actually told in
that document, xii. 10-20 (also of Isaac, xxvi. 1-11); and in
general the history is covered by this document, which is called the
Elohist[1] and known to criticism as E, in much the same spirit, and
with an emphasis upon much the same details, as by J. In opposition
to P, these are known as the prophetic documents, because they were
written or at least put together under the influence of prophetic
ideas. The close affinity of these two documents renders it much
more difficult to distinguish them from each other than to
distinguish either of them from P, but within certain limits the
attempt may be successfully made. The basis of it must, of course,
be a study of the duplicate versions of the same incidents; that is,
such a narrative as ch. xx., which uses the word God (Elohim) is
compared with its parallel in xii. 10-20, which uses the word
Jehovah, and in this way the distinctive features and interests of
each document will most readily be found. The parallel suggested is
easy and instructive, and it reveals the relative ethical and
theological superiority of E to J. J tells the story of Abraham's
falsehood with a quaint naïveté (xii.); E is offended by it and
excuses it (xx.). The theological refinement of E is suggested not
only here, xx. 3, 6, but elsewhere, by the frequency with which God
appears in dreams and not in bodily presence as in J (cf. iii. 8).
Similarly the expulsion of Hagar, which in J is due to Sarah's
jealousy (xvi.), in E is attributed to a command of God, xxi. 8-21;
and the success of Jacob with the sheep, which in J is due to his
skill and cunning, xxx. 29-43, is referred in E to the intervention
of God, xxxi. 5-12. In general it may be said that J, while
religious, is also natural, whereas E tends to emphasize the
supernatural, and thus takes the first step towards the austere
theology of P.[2]
[Footnote 1: In this way it is distinguished from P, which, as we
have seen, is also Elohistic, but is not now so called.]
[Footnote 2: A detailed justification of the grounds of the critical
analysis will be found in Professor Driver's elaborate and admirable
_Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament_, where
every section throughout the Hexateuch is referred to its special
documentary source. To readers who desire to master the detail, that
work or one of the following will be indispensable: _The Hexateuch_,
edited by Carpenter and Battersby, Addis's _Documents of the Hexateuch_,
Bacon's _Genesis of Genesis_ and _Triple Tradition of the Exodus_,
or Kent's _Student's Old Testament_ (vol. i.)]
J is the most picturesque and fascinating of all the sources-attractive
alike for its fine poetic power and its profound religious insight.
This is the source which describes the wooing of Isaac's bride (xxiv.),
and the meeting of Jacob and Rachel at the well, xxix. 2-14; in this
source, too, which appears to be the most primitive of all, there are
speaking animals--the serpent, e.g., in Genesis iii. (and the ass in
Num. xxii. 28). The story of the origin of sin, in every respect a
masterpiece, is told by J; we do not know whether to admire more the
ease with which Jehovah, like a skilful judge, by a few penetrating
questions drives the guilty pair to an involuntary confession, or
the fidelity with which the whole immortal scene reflects the eternal
facts of human nature. The religious teaching of J is extraordinarily
powerful and impressive, all the more that it is never directly
didactic; it shines through the simple and unstudied recital of
concrete incident.
It is one of the most delicate and not the least important tasks of
criticism to discover by analysis even the sources which lie so
close to each other as J and E, for the literary efforts represented
by these documents are but the reflection of religious movements.
They testify to the affection which the people cherished for the
story of their past; and when we have arranged them in chronological
order, they enable us further, as we have seen, to trace the
progress of moral and religious ideas. But, for several reasons, it
is not unfair, and, from the beginner's point of view, it is perhaps
even advisable, to treat these documents together as a unity:
_firstly_, because they were actually combined, probably in the
seventh century, into a unity (JE), and sometimes, as in the Joseph
story, so skilfully that it is very difficult to distinguish the
component parts and assign them to their proper documentary source;
_secondly_, because, for a reason to be afterwards stated,
beyond Ex. iii. the analysis is usually supremely difficult; and,
_lastly_, because in language and spirit, the prophetic
documents are very like each other and altogether unlike the
priestly document. For practical purposes, then, the broad
distinction into prophetic and priestly will generally be
sufficient. Wherever the narrative is graphic, powerful, and
interesting, we may be sure that it is prophetic,[1] whereas the
priestly document is easily recognizable by its ritual interests,
and by its formal, diffuse, and legal style.
[Footnote 1: If inconsistencies, contradictions or duplicates appear
in the section which is clearly prophetic, the student may be
practically certain that these are to be referred to the two
prophetic sources. Cf. the two derivations of the name of Joseph in
consecutive verses whose source is at once obvious: "_God_
(Elohim) has taken away my reproach" (E); and "_Jehovah_ adds
to me another son" (J), Gen. xxx. 23, 24. Cf. also the illustrations
adduced on pp. 13, 14.]
The documents already discussed constitute the chief sources of the
book of Genesis; but there are occasional fragments which do not
seem originally to have belonged to any of them. There were also
collections of poetry, such as the Book of Jashar (cf. Josh. x. 13;
2 Sam. i. 18), at the disposal of those who wrote or compiled the
documents, and to such a collection the parting words of Jacob may
have belonged (xlix.). The poem is in reality a characterization of
the various _tribes; v_. 15, and still more plainly _vv_.
23, 24, look back upon historical events. The reference to Levi,
_vv_. 5-7, which takes no account of the priestly prerogatives
of that tribe, shows that the poem is early (cf. xxxiv. 25); but the
description of the prosperity of Joseph (i.e. Ephraim and Manasseh),
_vv_. 22-26, and the pre-eminence of Judah, _vv_. 8-12,
bring it far below patriarchal times--at least into the period of
the Judges. If _vv_. 8-12 is an allusion to the triumphs of
David and _vv_. 22-26 to northern Israel, the poem as a whole,
which can hardly be later than Solomon's time--for it celebrates
Israel and Judah equally--could not be earlier than David's; but
probably the various utterances concerning the different tribes
arose at different times.
The religious interest of Genesis is very high, the more so as
almost every stage of religious reflection is represented in it,
from the most primitive to the most mature. Through the ancient
stories there gleam now and then flashes from a mythological
background, as in the intermarriage of angels with mortal women, vi.
1-4, or in the struggle of the mighty Jacob, who could roll away the
great stone from the mouth of the well, xxix. 2, 10, with his
supernatural visitant, xxxii. 24. It is a long step from the second
creation story in which God, like a potter, fashions men out of
moist earth, ii. 7, and walks in the garden of Paradise in the cool
of the day, iii. 8, to the first, with its sublime silence on the
mysterious processes of creation (i.). But the whole book, and
especially the prophetic section, is dominated by a splendid sense
of the reality of God, His interest in men, His horror of sin, His
purpose to redeem. Broadly speaking, the religion of the book stands
upon a marvellously high moral level. It is touched with humility-its
heroes know that they are "not worth of all the love and the faithfulness"
which God shows them, xxxii. 10; and it is marked by a true inwardness-for
it is not works but implicit trust in God that counts for righteousness,
xv. 16. Yet in practical ways, too, this religion finds expression in
national and individual life; it protests vehemently against human
sacrifice (xxii.), and it strengthens a lonely youth in an hour of
terrible temptation, xxxix.
9.