ever excellent lessons they may teach, are not removed from the sphere of critical enquiry, by possessing any such Divine infallibility, as has been usually ascribed to them, there is a multitude of other difficulties, inconsistencies, and impossibilities, which will be at once apparent, if we examine carefully the Scripture narrative, and no longer suffer our eyes to be blinded, by the mere force of habit, to the actual meaning of the words which we read. Without, at present, stopping to consider those which arise from examining the story of the Creation and the Fall, as given in the first chapters of Genesis, by the light of modern Science, we will here notice the contradictions, which exist between the first account of the Creation in G.i.1-ii.3, and the second account in G.ii.4-25.

204. Upon this latter passage I will quote the words of KALISCH (Genesis, p.83), one of the most able modern commentators on the Hebrew text of Genesis, who does his utmost also to maintain, as far as his knowledge of the truth will allow him to do, the general historical veracity of the Mosaic narrative.

The Creation was finished. We might imagine that we see the blooming meadows, the finny tribes of the sea, and the numberless beasts of the field, and, in the midst of all this beauty and life, man with his helpmate, as princes and sovereigns. But more: the Creation was not only finished; it had been approved of also in all its parts. And, as the symbol of the perfect completion of His task, God was represented to rest, and to bless that day, which marked the conclusion of his labours.

But now the narrative seems not only to pause, but to go backward. The grand and powerful climax seems at once broken off, and a languid repetition appears to follow. Another cosmogony is introduced, which, to complete the perplexity, is, in many important features, in direct contradiction to the former.

It would be dishonesty to conceal these difficulties. It would be weakmindedness and cowardice. It would be flight, instead of combat. It would be an ignoble retreat, instead of victory. We confess there is an apparent dissonance.

205. The following are the most noticeable points of difference between the two cosmogonies.

(i) In the first, the earth emerges from the waters and is, therefore, saturated with moisture, i.9,10.

In the second, the whole face of the ground' requires to be moistened, ii.6.

(ii) In the first, the birds and beasts are created before man, i.20,24,26.

In the second, man is created before the birds and beasts, ii. 7,19.

(iii) In the first, all fowls that fly' are made out of the waters, i.20.*

In the second, the fowls of the air' are made out of the ground, ii.19.

(iv) In the first, man is created in the image of God, i.27.

In the second, man is made of the dust of the ground, and merely animated with the breath of life; and it is only after his eating the forbidden fruit that the LORD God said, Behold, the man has become as one of us, to know good and evil,’ ii.7, iii.22.

(v) In the first, man is made the lord of the whole earth, i.28.

In the second, he is merely placed in the garden of Eden, ‘to dress it and to keep it,' ii.8,15.

(vi) In the first, man and woman are created together, as the closing and completing work of the whole Creation, created also, as is evidently implied, in the same kind of way, to be the complement of one another; and, thus created, they are blessed together, i.28.

In the second, the beasts and birds are created between the man and the woman. First, the man is made, of the dust of the ground; he is placed by himself in the garden, charged with a solemn command, and threatened with a curse if he breaks it; then the beasts and the birds are made, and the man gives names to them; and, lastly, after all this, the woman

* The Hebrew in G.i.20 might be translated 'let fowl fly,' as in the margin of the E.V., instead of 'fowl that may fly,' as in the text. But the LXX, Vulg., Targ. Jon., Targ. Onk., BENISCH, LUTHER, all agree with the text.

is made, out of one of his ribs, but merely as a helpmate for the man. ii.7,8,15,22.

206. The fact is that the second account of the Creation, ii.4-25, together with the story of the Fall, iii, is manifestly composed by a different writer altogether from him who wrote the first, i.1-ii.3.

This is suggested at once by the circumstance that, throughout the first narrative, the Creator is always spoken of by the name, D, ELOHIM, GOD; whereas, throughout the second account, as well as the story of the Fall, He is always called , JEHOVAH ELOHIM, LORD GOD, except in iii.1,3,5, where the writer seems to abstain, for some reason, from placing the name Jehovah' in the mouth of the Serpent.

This accounts naturally for the above contradictions. It would appear that, for some reason, the productions of two pens have been here united, without reference to their inconsistencies.

207. Upon the above point Dr. M'CAUL writes as follows, Aids to Faith, p.197:

Most recent writers admit that, whether there be different sources or not, the author [or compiler] has formed them into one narrative [? book]. There cannot, therefore, be contradiction. [Why not? It is certainly inconceivable that, if the Pentateuch be the production of one and the same hand throughout, it should contain such a number of glaring inconsistencies, as those which we have already observed. No single author could have been guilty of such absurdities. But it is quite possible, and what was almost sure to happen in such a case, that, if the Pentateuch be the work of different authors in different ages, this fact should betray itself by the existence of contradictions in the narrative.] There are differences to be explained by the different objects which the author had in view. In the first, his object was to give an outline of the history of the universe; in the second, to relate the origin and primitive history of man, so far as it was necessary, as a preparation for the history of the Fall. In the former, therefore, all the steps of creation are treated in chronological order. In the latter only so much is alluded to as is necessary for the author's purpose, and in the order which that purpose required.

A reference to the simple text of G.ii is the best reply to such reasoning as the above.

208. A similar contradiction exists also in the account of the Deluge, as it now stands in the Bible.

Thus in G.vi.19,20, we read as follows:

:

'Of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the Ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.'

But in G.vii.2,3, the command is given thus:

'Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female, and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female; of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female, to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.'

It is impossible to reconcile the contradiction here observed, in the numbers of living creatures to be taken into the Ark, especially in the case of the fowls, of which one pair of every kind is to be taken, according to the first direction, and seven pairs, according to the second.

209. But here also the matter explains itself easily, when we observe that the former passage is by the hand of that writer, who uses only ELOHIM, and the latter passage by the other writer, who uses JEHOVAH, as well as ELOHIM, though he does not now use the compound phrase, JEHOVAH ELOHIM. It did not occur to the one, - whether aware, or not, of the distinction between clean and unclean beasts, to make any provision for sacrificing immediately after the Flood. The latter bethinks himself of the necessity of a sacrifice, G.viii.20, when Noah and his family come out of the Ark; and he provides, therefore, the mystical number of seven pairs of clean beasts and fowls for that purpose.

175

CHAPTER II.

THE ELOHISTIC AND JEHOVISTIC WRITERS.

210. It will be seen hereafter, when we proceed to examine critically the whole book of Genesis, that throughout the book the two different hands, which we have already detected, are distinctly visible; and the recognition of this fact will explain at once a number of strange and otherwise unaccountable contradictions. One of these two writers, it will be found, is distinguished by the constant use of the word Elohim, the other by the intermixture with it of the name Jehovah, which two words appear as God and LORD, (not 'Lord,', Adonai,) in our English translation. Sometimes the latter writer uses only Jehovah for considerable intervals, as the other uses only Elohim: thus, in i.1-ii.3 we have only Elohim, 35 times, in xxiv, only Jehovah, 19 times. Can any one believe that these two passages were written by one and the same writer?

211. Hence these two parts of the book are generally known as the Elohistic and Jehovistic portions. The Elohistic passages, taken together, form a tolerably connected whole, only interrupted, here and there, by a break, caused apparently (but this we shall have to consider hereafter) by the Jehovist having removed some part of the Elohist's narrative, replacing it, perhaps, by one of his own. And it should be noted that the Elohistic passages do not generally assume the reader's acquaintance with facts, which are men tioned only in antecedent Jehovistic passages, except in such cases as those above referred to, where the Jehovist has, probably, as will be seen, replaced an Elohistic section by words of his own. On the other hand, the Jehovistic passages, taken