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III. Bishop BROWNE then gives, p.40

an explanation simple, possible, and probable, of the difference of style and of the difference of language in different parts of the Book of Genesis.

His idea is that Moses may have written the Elohistic narrative soon after the Exodus,' and the Jehovistic 'in the last days of the wanderings.' But these are his own words, p.39:

Suppose that, soon after the Exodus, he was moved to write the history of creation, of the generations of Noah and Abraham, of the wanderings of their forefather Jacob, of the going down of Joseph, and afterwards of his father and brethren, into Egypt. A brief record of this kind would have been a very fitting work to be undertaken by this great lawgiver, and to be borne about with his people in their wanderings through the wilderness. But a fuller history, carried down even to the then present date, may have been reserved for the last days of their wanderings, when Moses himself was allowed to see the Promised Land from the summit of Pisgah. . . .

Now, if this actually took place, it is equally probable that in the earlier history Moses would use the well-known name of God, Elohim, and would defer the constant use of Jehovah till his people had become more thoroughly familiar with it. For, perhaps, thirty years a record of this kind may have been in the ears and in the mouths of all the hosts of Israel. . . . No wonder, then, when the great writer enlarged and interpolated his original MS.,-no wonder, I say, if he retained the well-known, much-read, and much treasured original, in the very words in which he had penned it thirty or even forty years before. . . . In the more recent portions of his books, the portions interpolated in the older parts, and the portions added at the end of them, he might well have introduced the more sacred and now longknown name of the Almighty. But the original passages, especially those most cherished and revered, would doubtless have been left as they had been written, read, and learned.

Bishop BROWNE does not seem to have been aware that one point is fatal at once to his theory, viz. the fact that certain sections, in which the name 'Elohim' is used exclusively, are almost identical in style with the Jehovistic, yet are entirely distinct from the old Elohistic narrative, which forms the basis of the Pentateuch. The proofs of this are given abundantly in this volume; but the fact itself will be admitted by all, who have carefully examined into the question. And, again, these later Elshistic passages, e. g. G.xx.1-17, xxi.8–20,

&c., as well as the Jehovistic, to which they are closely allied, and which carry down the narrative to the very last year of the Exodus, N.xxxvi.13,—are totally distinct in style and tone from the Book of Deuteronomy, supposed to have been written in that same last year.

IV. Bishop BROWNE, however, is not satisfied with having one hypothesis, 'simple, possible, and probable,' to explain these phenomena. 'Let us pass,' he says, 'to the other hypothesis.'

If Moses wrote the whole Pentateuch, not, as I have supposed possible, at two different periods, but at one period, and that near the end of the journeyings in the wilderness, then, what could have hindered but that, in relating the more ancient parts of his history, he should have used ancient documents? . . . Probably, among the people of Israel, during their 200 years of captivity in Egypt, the religious history of their race would have been known, and cherished, and taught to their children. The very syllables would have been guarded with care, in which they had been delivered to them by the lips of Jacob and Joseph. Moses only acted with his wonted wisdom if he took these traditions and embodied them in his history. Of course, I am supposing them to have been true. It is not likely that the faithful fathers of their race would have handed down to them traditions of falsehood. . . .

Now this hypothesis, again, would fully account for the difference between the Elohistic and Jehovistic portions of Genesis. The ancient records, whether written or oral, would pretty certainly have been Elohistic; for otherwise the people could not have been ignorant or forgetful of the great name of their Creator. The portions, written and mingled in with the traditional portions by Moses, would, on the other hand, be most probably Jehovistic,-Moses himself being, as it [? he] has been called, the great Jehovist [? Jehovistic] writer. p.40-42.

No doubt, it is often thought that there were Jehovistic, as well as Elohistic, documents, and that Moses used sometimes the one and sometimes the other. The reasons, which I have given in the text, incline me to think it more probable that, if the documentary theory be true, the documents were Elohistic, Moses himself being the Jehovist, and perhaps even inserting the name Jehovah in some of the Elohistic passages. p.42,note.

Unfortunately, again, there is one point which is at once fatal to this second theory, viz. the fact that this account of the revelation of the Divine Name to Moses in E.vi.2-7,-which certainly was not one of the 'ancient' documents, and which certainly

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also must have been written (one would say) by Moses himself, if any part of the history was, is due undoubtedly to the very same hand which wrote G.i.,&c.xvii,xxiii,&c., — which wrote, in short, the old Elohistic narrative. The proofs of this also are abundantly given in this volume; but the fact itself will be admitted by every critic of note. And the circumstance, that Bishop BROWNE does not seem to have been aware of it, is only another indication of the loose, superficial way, in which these important questions have been studied hitherto even by eminent Scholars and Divines in England.

V. We have seen that Bishop BROWNE has admitted that—

If the history of the Exodus be true, the Israelites either had never known the name of Jehovah, or had forgotten it, until it was revealed by Divine teaching to Moses.

But he clearly inclines to the latter of these two alternatives, viz. that the Israelites had forgotten' the name 'Jehovah.'

May it not be that the name Jehovah was an ancient and primitive name of God, by which He was known more or less to Adam and afterwards to the Patriarchs, but that it had not been the ordinary description by which He was spoken of, that it had never carried to their minds the same deep significance, which it bore afterwards to the covenant-people of Israel? . . . And so, according to the full significance of this peculiar designation, God made Himself known to Moses as He never had been known to his forefathers. And farther, it is probable that, perhaps, even before the going down into Egypt that name had been well-nigh forgotten. p.43.

Yet Jacob is supposed to have heard that wonderful declaration, xxviii.13, 'I am Jehovah, the Elohim of Abraham thy father, and the Elohim of Isaac, &c.'-upon which he exclaimed, v.16, 'Surely Jehovah is in this place, and I knew it not!' And Leah and Rachel used the name familiarly in giving names to their children, xxix.32,33,35,xxx.24, as did also Laban and Jacob in conversation, xxx.27,30,xxxi.49, and Jacob in prayer, xxxii.9, and even in his dying moments, xlix.18. Nay, as we have seen, the name Jehovah appears in the name of the

mother of Moses, and, according to the Chronicler, in those of several of the grandsons and great-grandsons of the sons of Jacob Unless these names, and the other statements, noticed above, are forgeries,' how can it have been forgotten'?

But, once more, a single point-which is disclosed by careful enquiry, as shown in this volume-is fatal to the above view, viz. the fact that the Elohist abstains throughout his narrative from using the name 'Jehovah' at all, until he has recorded its revelation to Moses. Hence it follows that he did mean the

statement in E.vi.3

'I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by El-Shaddai, but by My Name Jehovah was I not known to them,'

to be understood as saying that the Name was actually not known at all to the Patriarchs.

VI. In the second place, let us remember, that when Moses relates the conversations of our first parents, and of the Patriarchs after them, it is not to be imagined that he gives us the very words they spoke! [If the Bishop of Natal had said this, instead of the Bishop of Ely!] We have no authority for saying that Hebrew was the language of Paradise. In all probability it was not. Hence, when Eve is recorded to have said, 'I have gotten a man of Jehovah,' we must read the passage as a Hebrew translation of what she really said. And if so, then the name ‘Jehovah,' introduced into the speech by the sacred historian, is only intended as the rendering of the ancient name of the Almighty by that name. ... The same is probably true even of Abraham; for, though it appears that Jacob spoke Hebrew, it is pretty certain that in his native land Abraham had spoken, not Hebrew, but the Aramæan dialect, which we find to have been afterwards spoken by his kindred in his birthplace. p.44.

To be sure, the Bishop is met with the fact, as he himself admits, that-

Eve is said to have called her first-born Cain, in reference to her speech at his birth, the first word of which was Canithi, 'I have gotten.'

But he gets over this difficulty by supposing, p.45, that—

If she did not speak Hebrew, the real name of her son was probably something to us unknown, to which the Hebrew word 'Cain' corresponded;

and by producing double names, meaning the same in Syriac and Greek, e.g. Thomas-Didymus, Cephas-Peter, Tabitha-Dorcas.

But Bishop BROWNE has lost sight of the fact that there is not the slightest analogy between the case of 'Cain' and that of the other three names. 'Thomas' and 'Didymus' both mean 'twin'; 'Cephas' and Peter' both mean 'rock'; 'Tabitha'

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and 'Dorcas' both mean 'gazelle.' But Eve is said to have called her son Cain' in Hebrew with express reference to the sound of the Hebrew word Canithi. It would be a singular coincidence, certainly, if the sounds of the two words corresponded not only in the Hebrew, but also in the primeval language, of which the words in G.iv.1 are a translation. But the relation between these two languages must in that case have been very singular indeed; since we find another allusion of the very same kind in reference to Eve's third son, Seth: for we read, iv.25— 'She called his name Sheth, for Elohim hath appointed (shath) me another son.' Again, Adam's name is derived from adamah, 'ground,' Eve's (khavvah) from khavah, 'live'; and Adam says, 'She shall be called woman (Ishah), because she was taken out of man (Ish),' ii.23. Nay, Adam gave names to all creatures; and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof,' ii.19-in the primeval or Hebrew tongue ?

So, again, Lamech called his son Noakh, v.29, from nikhem, 'comfort.' And as to Abraham, what is his old name, 'Abram,' which he had in his native land, but good Hebrew, Ab-ram ='high father,' or what 'Sarai,' but Hebrew='my princess?'

Are all these fortuitous coincidences between the primeval language and the Hebrew? And are we really to believe that the Divine creative utterances in G.i, and the Divine conversations in G.ii,iii,iv, were really expressed originally in the primeval tongue, but have been translated into the Hebrew?

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