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 The Legends of Genesis.
 
 HISTORY OF RELIGION. 
 
 Book of the Dead. An English Translation. By E.A. Wallts 
 Budge, Keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in 
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 The Legends of Genesis. By Dr. Hermann Gunkel. Pages, 
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 THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co., Ltd.
 
 The Legends of Genesis 
 
 d^^,", 
 
 By 
 
 HERMANN GUNKEL 
 
 Professor of Old Testament Theology in the University of Berlin 
 
 Translated by 
 
 W. H. CARRUTH 
 
 Professor of German in the University of Kansas 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 LONDON AGENTS 
 Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner <5^ Co., Ltd. 
 
 IQOI
 
 TRANSLATION COPYRIGHTED 
 BV 
 
 The Open Court Publishing Co. 
 1901.
 
 
 PUBLISHER'S NOTE 
 
 The present volume is an authorized translation 
 of the Introduction to Prof. Gunkel's large Com- 
 mentary on Genesis, published during the present 
 year by Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, of Gottingen, 
 under the title of Handcommcntar znm Alten Testa- 
 ment. Erste Abtheilung, erster Band; die Genesis 
 ilbersetzt und erkldrt von H. Gnnkel. The general 
 critical and historical considerations offered to the 
 public in a continuous and compendious form in 
 this Introduction are elaborated and substantiated 
 in the larger work with all the detail that belongs 
 to exhaustive technical exposition; and the reader 
 desirous of further confirmation of the views here 
 presented is referred to the German original. 
 
 The publishers are confident that the concise 
 formulation of the very latest researches on Old 
 Testament history here offered to the English- 
 reading public will find a cordial and extensive 
 welcome. 
 
 The Open Court Publishing Co. 
 Chicago, November, 1901. 
 
 771002
 
 CHAP. 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGES 
 
 I. The Significance and Scope of the Legends . 1-12 
 
 II. The Varieties of the Legends .... 13-36 
 
 III. The Literary Form of the Legends . . . 37-87 
 
 IV. History of the Development of the Legends in 
 
 Oral Tradition 88-122 
 
 V. Jahvist, Elohist, Jehovist, Later Collections . 123-144 
 
 VI. Priestly Codex and Final Redaction . . . 145-160 
 
 Index 161-164
 
 The Legends of Genesis 
 
 i. 
 
 THE SIGNIFICANCE AND SCOPE OF 
 THE LEGENDS. 
 
 ARE the narratives of Genesis history or legend? 
 For the modern historian this is no longer 
 an open question; nevertheless it is important to 
 get a clear notion of the bases of this modern posi- 
 tion. 
 
 The writing of history is not an innate endowment 
 of the human mind; it arose in the course of human 
 history and at a definite stage of development. 
 Uncivilised races do not write history; they are 
 incapable of reproducing their experiences objec- 
 tively, and have no interest in leaving to posterity 
 an authentic account of the events of their times. 
 Experiences fade before they are fairly cold, and 
 fact and fancy mingle; only in poetical form, in 
 song and saga, are unlettered tribes able to report 
 historical occurrences. Only at a certain stage of 
 civilisation has objectivity so grown and the inter- 
 est in transmitting national experiences to posterity 
 so increased that the writing of history becomes 
 possible. Such history has for its subjects great 
 
 i
 
 2 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 public events, the deeds of popular leaders and 
 kings, and especially wars. Accordingly some sort 
 of political organisation is an antecedent presump- 
 tion to the writing of history. 
 
 Only in a later, in the main a much later, time is 
 the art of writing history, learned through the prac- 
 tice of writing national histories, applied to other 
 spheres of human life, whence we have memoirs 
 and the histories of families. But considerable sec- 
 tions of the people have never risen to the apprecia- 
 tion of history proper, and have remained in the 
 stage of the saga, or in what in modern times is 
 analogous to saga. — I 
 
 Thus we find among the civilised peoples of 
 antiquity two distinct kinds of historical records 
 side by side: history proper and popular tradition, 
 the latter treating in naive poetical fashion partly 
 the same subjects as the former, and partly the 
 events of older, prehistoric times. And it is not to 
 be forgotten that historical memories may be pre- 
 served even in such traditions, although clothed in 
 poetic garb. 
 
 Even so did history originate in Israel. In the 
 period from which the Book of Genesis is trans- 
 mitted to us the art of history had been long estab- 
 lished and highly developed according to ancient 
 standards, having for themes, here as everywhere, the 
 deeds of kings and especially wars. A monument 
 of this history is found in the narratives of the 
 Second Book of Samuel. 
 
 But in a people with such a highly developed 
 poetical faculty as Israel there must have been a 
 place for saga too. The senseless confusion of 
 "legend" with "lying" has caused good people to
 
 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LEGENDS. 3 
 
 hesitate to concede that there are legends in the 
 Old Testament. But legends are not lies; on the 
 contrary, they are a particular form of poetry. Why 
 should not the lofty spirit of Old Testament reli- 
 gion, which employed so many varieties of poetry, 
 indulge in this form also? For religion everywhere, 
 the Israelite religion included, has especially cher- 
 ished poetry and poetic narrative, since poetic nar- 
 rative is much better qualified than prose to be the 
 medium of religious thought. Genesis is a more 
 intensely religious book than the Book of Kings. 
 
 There is no denying that there are legends in the 
 Old Testament; consider for instance the stories of 
 Samson and of Jonah. Accordingly it is not a 
 matter of belief or skepticism, but merely a matter 
 of obtaining better knowledge, to examine whether 
 the narratives of Genesis are history or legend. 
 
 The objection is raised that Jesus and the Apostles 
 clearly considered these accounts to be fact and not 
 poetry. Suppose they did; the men of the New 
 Testament are not presumed to have been excep- 
 tional men in such matters, but shared the point of 
 view of their time. Hence we are not warranted in 
 looking to the New Testament for a solution of 
 questions in the literary history of the Old Testa- 
 ment. 
 
 CRITERIA FOR LEGEND AND HISTORY. 
 
 Now, since legend and history are very different in 
 both origin and nature, there are many criteria by 
 which they may be distinguished. One of the chief 
 points of difference is that legend is originally oral 
 tradition, while history is usually found in written 
 form; this is inherent in the nature of the two
 
 
 4 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 species, legend being the tradition of those who are 
 not in the habit of writing, while history, which is a 
 sort of scientific activity, presupposes practice in 
 writing. At the same time the writing down of an 
 historical tradition serves to fix it, whereas oral 
 tradition cannot remain uncorrupted for any length 
 of time and is therefore inadequate to be the vehicle 
 of history. 
 
 Now it is evident that Genesis contains the final 
 sublimation into writing of a body of oral traditions. 
 The tales of the patriarchs do not have the air of 
 having been written down by the patriarchs them- 
 selves; on the contrary many passages reveal clearly 
 the great interval of time that lies between the 
 period of the patriarchs and that of the narrators. 
 We read frequently the expression "even to this 
 day," as in Genesis xix. 38; the kings of Edom are 
 enumerated down to the time of David, xxxvi. 31 
 ff . ; the sentence "in those days the Canaanites 
 dwelt in the land" must have been written at a time 
 when this race had long since passed away. 
 
 But the whole style of the narrative, as is to be 
 shown hereafter, can be understood only on the sup- 
 position of its having been oral tradition; this state 
 of the case can be realised especially through the 
 many variants, to be treated in the following pages. 
 But if the. contents of Genesis is oral tradition, it 
 is, as the preceding considerations show, legend 
 also. 
 
 DIFFERENT SPHERES OF INTEREST. 
 
 Another distinguishing feature of legend and his- 
 tory is their different spheres of interest. History 
 treats great public occurrences, while legend deals
 
 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LEGENDS. 5 
 
 with things that interest the common people, with 
 personal and private matters, and is fond of present- 
 ing even political affairs and personages so that they 
 will attract popular attention. History would be 
 expected to tell how and for what reasons David 
 succeeded in delivering Israel from the Philistines; 
 legend prefers to tell how the boy David once slew 
 a Philistine giant. 
 
 How does the material of Genesis stand in the light 
 of this distinction? With the exception of a single 
 chapter (Chapter xiv), it contains no accounts of 
 great political events, but treats rather the history 
 of a family. We hear a quantity of details, which 
 certainly have for the greater part no value for 
 political history, whether they are attested or not: 
 that Abraham was pious and magnanimous, and that 
 he once put away his concubine to please his wife; 
 that Jacob deceived his brother; that Rachel and 
 Leah were jealous, — "unimportant anecdotes of 
 country life, stories of springs, of watering-troughs, 
 and such as are told in the bed-chamber," attractive 
 enough to read, yet everything but historical occur- 
 rences. Such minor incidents aroused no public 
 interest when they took place; the historian does 
 not report them, but popular tradition and legend 
 delight in such details. 
 
 EYE-WITNESS AND REPORTER. 
 
 In the case of every event that purports to be a 
 credible historical memorandum, it must be possible 
 to explain the connexion between the eye-witness 
 of the event reported and the one who reports it. 
 This is quite different in the case of legend, which 
 depends for its material partly upon tradition and
 
 6 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 partly upon imagination. We need only apply this 
 test to the first narratives of Genesis in order to 
 recognise their character straightway. No man was 
 present at the creation of the universe; no human 
 tradition extends back to the period of the origin of 
 our race, of the first peoples and the primitive lan- 
 guages. 
 
 In former times, before the deciphering of 
 hieroglyphs and cuneiform writing, it was possible 
 for Israelitic tradition to be regarded as so old that 
 it did not seem absurd to look to it for such remi- 
 niscences of prehistoric ages; but now when creation 
 has widened so mightily in our view, when we see 
 that the People of Israel is one of the youngest in 
 the group to which it belongs, there is an end of all 
 such conjectures. Between the origin of the primi- 
 tive races of southwestern Asia and the appearance 
 of the People of Israel upon the stage of life had 
 rolled unnumbered millenniums; hence there is no 
 room for serious discussion over historical traditions 
 said to be possessed by Israel regarding those 
 primitive times. 
 
 The accounts of the patriarchs also give rise to 
 the most serious doubts. According to the tradi- 
 tion the period of the patriarchs is followed by the 
 four hundred years during which Israel lived in 
 Egypt. Nothing is reported from this latter period; 
 historical recollection seems to have been utterly 
 blotted out. And yet we have an abundance of 
 unimportant details regarding the period of the 
 patriarchs. How is it conceivable that a people 
 should preserve a great quantity of the very minut- 
 est details from the history of its primitive ancestors 
 and at the same time forget its own national history
 
 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LEGENDS. 1 
 
 for a long period following? It is not possible for 
 oral tradition to preserve an authentic record of 
 such details so vividly and for so long a time. And 
 then, consider these narratives in detail. The ques- 
 tion how the reporter could know of the things which 
 he relates cannot be raised in most cases without 
 exciting laughter. How does the reporter of the 
 Deluge pretend to know the depth of the water? 
 Are we to suppose that Noah took soundings? How 
 is anyone supposed to know what God said or 
 thought alone or in the councils of Heaven? (Cp. 
 Genesis i. 2, 18, vi. 3-6 ff., xi. 6 ff.) 
 
 THE CRITERION OF INCREDIBILITY. 
 
 The clearest criterion of legend is that it fre- 
 quently reports things which are quite incredible. 
 This poetry has another sort of probability from that 
 which obtains in prosaic life, and ancient Israel con- 
 sidered many things to be possible which to us seem 
 impossible. Thus many things are reported in 
 Genesis which go directly against our better knowl- 
 edge: we know that there are too many species of 
 animals for all to have been assembled in any ark; 
 that Ararat is not the highest mountain on earth; 
 that the "firmament of heaven," of which Genesis 
 i. 6 ff. speaks, is not a reality, but an optical illu- 
 sion; that the stars cannot have come into existence 
 after plants, as Genesis ii. 10-14 reports; that the 
 rivers of the earth do not come chiefly from four 
 principal streams, as Genesis ii. thinks, that the 
 Tigris and the Euphrates have not a common 
 source, that the Dead Sea had been in existence 
 long before human beings came to live in Palestine, 
 instead of originating in historical times, and so on.
 
 8 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 Of the many etymologies in Genesis the majority 
 are to be rejected according to the investigations of 
 modern philology. The theory on which the 
 legends of the patriarchs are based, that the nations 
 of the earth originated from the expansion of a 
 single family, in each case from a single ancestor, 
 is quite infantile. 1 Any other conclusion is impos- 
 sible from the point of view of our modern historical 
 science, which is not a figment of imagination but 
 is based upon the observation of facts. And how- 
 ever cautious the modern historian may be in declar- 
 ing anything impossible, he may declare with all 
 confidence that animals — serpents and she-asses, for 
 instance — do not speak and never have spoken, that 
 there is no tree whose fruit confers immortality or 
 knowledge, that angels and men do not have carnal 
 connexion, and that a world-conquering army can- 
 not be defeated — as Genesis xiv. declares — with 
 three hundred and eighteen men. 
 
 WANING ANTHROPOMORPHISM. 
 
 The narratives of Genesis being mostly of a reli- 
 gious nature are constantly speaking of God. Now 
 the manner in which narratives speak of God is one 
 of the surest means of determining whether they are 
 historical or poetic. Here too the historian cannot 
 avoid having a universal point of view. We believe 
 that God works in the universe in the silent and 
 secret background of all things; sometimes his 
 influence seems almost tangible, as in the case of 
 exceptionally great and impressive events and per- 
 sonalities; we divine his control in the marvellous 
 
 1 Compare my Commentary on Genesis, pp. 78 ff.
 
 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LEGENDS. 9 
 
 interdependence of things; but nowhere does he 
 appear as an operative factor beside others, but 
 always as the last and ultimate cause of everything. 
 Very different is the point of view of many of the 
 narratives in Genesis. W e find God walking a bout 
 L a the Garden of Eden ; with his own hands he fash- 
 ions man and closes the door of the ark; he even 
 breathes his own breath into man's nostrils, and \, 
 makes unsuccessful experiments with animals; he 
 scents the sacrifice of Noah; he appears to Abraham 
 and Lot in the guise of a wayfarer, or, as an angel, 
 calls directly out of Heaven. Once, indeed, God 
 appears to Abraham in his proper form, having the 
 appearance of a burning torch and of a smoking bak- 
 ing-pot (the Revised Version in English has here 
 "furnace"). The speeches of God in Genesis are 
 remarkable for the fact that his words are not heard 
 in the obscure moments of intensest human excite- 
 ment, in the state of ecstasy, as was the case with 
 the prophets when they heard the voice of God, but 
 that G od speaks i n all respects as does one man to 
 another. We are able to comprehend this as the 
 naive conception of the men of old, but we cannot 
 regard belief in the literal truth of such accounts as 
 an essential of religious conviction. 
 
 And these arguments are immensely strengthened 
 when we compare the narratives which on inner evi- 
 dence we regard as poetry with the specimens which 
 we know of strict Israelitish history. For these 
 violations of probability and even of possibility are 
 not found throughout the Old Testament, but only 
 in certain definite portions possessing a uniform 
 tone, whereas they are not to be found in other por- 
 tions which for other reasons we regard as more
 
 10 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 strictly historical. Consider especially the central 
 portion of the Second Book of Samuel, the history 
 of the rebellion of Absalom, the most exquisite 
 piece of early historical writing in Israel. The 
 world that is there portrayed is the world that we 
 know. In this world iron does not float and ser- 
 pents do not speak; no god or angel appears like a 
 person among other persons, but everything hap- 
 pens as we are used to seeing things happen. In a 
 word, the distinction between legend and history is 
 not injected into the Old Testament, but is to be 
 found by any attentive reader already present in the 
 Old Testament. 
 
 Moreover, it should not be forgotten that many 
 of the legends of the Old Testament are not only 
 similar to those of other nations, but are actually 
 related to them by origin and nature. Now we can- 
 not regard the story of the Deluge in Genesis as 
 history and that of the Babylonians as legend; in 
 fact, the account of the Deluge in Genesis is a 
 younger version of the Babylonian legend. Neither 
 can we reject all other cosmogonies as fiction and 
 defend that of Genesis as history; on the contrary 
 the account of Genesis i., greatly as it differs in its 
 religious spirit from other cosmogonies, is by its 
 literary method closely related to them. 
 
 LEGEND IS POETRY. 
 
 But the important point is and will remain the 
 poetic tone of the narratives. History, which 
 claims to inform us of what has actually happened, 
 is in its very nature prose, while legend is by nature 
 poetry, its aim being to please, to elevate, to inspire 
 and to move. He who wishes to do justice to such
 
 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LEGENDS. 11 
 
 narratives must have some aesthetic faculty, to 
 catch in the telling of a story what it is and what it 
 purports to be. And in doing so he is not express- 
 ing a hostile or even skeptical judgment, but simply 
 studying lovingly the nature of his material. Who- 
 ever possesses heart and feeling must perceive, for 
 instance in the case of the sacrifice of Isaac, that the 
 important matter is not to establish certain historical 
 facts, but to impart to the hearer the heartrending 
 grief of the father who is commanded to sacrifice his ^ 
 child with his own hand, and then his boundless 
 gratitude and joy when God's mercy releases him 
 from this grievous trial. And every one who per- 
 ceives the peculiar poetic charm of these old 
 legends must feel irritated by the barbarian — for 
 there are pious barbarians — who thinks he is putting 
 the true value upon these narratives only when he 
 treats them as prose and history. 
 
 The conclusion, then, that one of these narratives 
 is legend is by no means intended to detract from 
 the value of the narrative; it only means that the 
 one who pronounces it has perceived somewhat of 
 the poetic beauty of the narrative and thinks that he 
 has thus arrived at an understanding of the story. 
 Only ignorance can regard such a conclusion as 
 irreverent, for it is the judgment of reverence and 
 love. These poetic narratives are the most beauti- 
 ful possession which a people brings down through 
 the course of its history, and the legends of Israel, 
 especially those of Genesis, are perhaps the most 
 beautiful and most profound ever known on earth. 
 
 A child, indeed, unable to distinguish between 
 reality and poetry, loses something when it is told 
 that its dearest stories are "not true." But the
 
 12 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 modern theologian should be further developed. 
 The evangelical churches and their chosen repre- 
 sentatives would do well not to dispute the fact that 
 Genesis contains legends — as has been done too 
 frequently — but to recognise that the knowledge of 
 this fact is the indispensable condition to an his- 
 torical understanding of Genesis. This knowledge 
 is already too widely diffused among those trained 
 in historical study ever again to be suppressed. It 
 will surely spread among the masses of our people, 
 for the process is irresistible. Shall not we Evan- 
 gelicals take care that it be presented to them in the 
 right spirit?
 
 II. 
 
 THE VARIETIES OF LEGENDS IN 
 GENESIS. 
 
 IN the great mass of our materials two groups are 
 distinctly recognisable: 
 
 i. The legends of the origin of the world and of 
 the progenitors of the human race, the stories down 
 to the tower of Babel, their locality being remote 
 and their sphere of interest the whole world; 
 
 2. The legends of the patriarchs of Israel: Abra- 
 ham, Isaac and Jacob, and the latter's sons, the 
 locality and the sphere of interest being Canaan and 
 adjacent lands. 
 
 Even in their character the two groups are most 
 plainly distinguished: the narratives of the first 
 group speak of God in a way different from that of 
 the legends of the patriarchs. In the latter the 
 divinity appears always enveloped in mystery, 
 unrecognised or speaking out of Heaven, or per- 
 haps only in a dream. In the earlier legends, on 
 the contrary, God walks intimately among men and 
 no one marvels at it: in the legend of Paradise men 
 dwell in God's house; it is assumed that he is in the 
 habit of visiting them every evening; he even closes 
 the ark for Noah, and appears to him in person, 
 attracted by his sacrifice. Furthermore, in the 
 legends of the patriarchs the real actors are always 
 men; if the divinity appears, it is regarded as an 
 
 13
 
 14 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS 
 
 exception. But in the primitive legends the divinity 
 is the leading actor (as in the creation), or at least 
 among those chiefly concerned (as in the story of 
 Paradise, of the union of men and of angels, of the 
 Deluge and the Tower of Babel). This distinction 
 is, to be sure, only relative, for some of the legends 
 of the patriarchs (notably those connected with 
 Hebron and Penuel) represent the divinity as 
 appearing in the same way. On the other hand, the 
 story of Cain and Abel and that of the cursing of 
 Canaan, in which human beings are the chief actors, 
 are among the primitive legends. However, the 
 distinction applies on the whole to the two groups. 
 This prominence of the action of the divinity in the 
 primitive legends indicates that these have a more 
 decidedly "mythical" character: that they are faded 
 myths. 
 
 r-hA^ SOME LEGENDS ARE FADED MYTHS. 
 
 "Myths" — let no one shrink from the word — are 
 stories of the gods, in contradistinction to the 
 legends in which the actors are men. Stories of the 
 gods are in all nations the oldest narratives; the 
 legend as a literary variety has its origin in myths. 
 Accordingly, when we find that these primitive 
 legends are akin to myths, we must infer that they 
 have come down to us in comparatively ancient 
 form. They come from a period of Israel's history 
 when the childlike belief of the people had not yet 
 fully arrived at the conception of a divinity whose 
 operations are shrouded in mystery. On the other 
 hand, these original myths have reached us in com- 
 paratively faded colors. This we can perceive in 
 the narratives themselves, where we are able in
 
 VARIETIES OF THE LEGENDS 15 
 
 some points to reconstruct an older form of the 
 story than the one transmitted to us: notably 
 Genesis vi. 1-4 is nothing but a torso. 
 
 We are led to similar conclusions when we com- 
 pare the primitive legends with the allusions to the 
 myths which we find in the poets and prophets of 
 the Old Testament and the later apocalyptic writ- 
 ers; 1 as, for instance, the myths of Jahveh's combat 
 with Rahab or Leviathan, of the fall of Helal, and 
 so on. The same result very clearly follows a com- 
 parison of the primitive legends of Genesis with the 
 myths of the Orient, especially of the biblical story 
 of the creation and the Deluge with the Babylonian 
 versions of the same subjects. The colossal out- 
 lines, the peculiarly brilliant colors which character- 
 ise these myths in the original form are lost in a 
 measure in the biblical legends of the beginnings of 
 things. The equivalence of the divine beings and 
 the objects or realms of nature, the combat of the 
 gods with one another, the birth of the gods, are 
 some of the features which have disappeared in the 
 version of Genesis. 
 
 MONOTHEISM HOSTILE TO MYTHS. 
 
 In all this we can see the essential character of 
 the religion of Israel. The fundamental trait of the 
 religion of Jahveh is unfavorable to myths. For 
 this religion from it9 very beginning tends toward 
 monotheism. But for a story of the gods at least 
 two gods are essential. Therefore the Israel which 
 we observe in the Old Testament could not tolerate 
 genuine and unmodified myths, at least not in prose. 
 
 1 Compare the material gathered in my work Creation and 
 Chaos, 1895.
 
 r 
 
 16 THE LEGENDS OE GENESIS. 
 
 The poet was excused for occasional allusions to 
 myths. Hence in poetry we find preserved traces 
 of a point of view older than that of the tradition of 
 Genesis, one frankly familiar with myths. But the 
 primitive legends preserved to us are all dominated 
 by this unspoken aversion to mythology. 
 
 The ^monotheism of Israel tolerates only those 
 myths that represent God as acting alone7~as in the 
 story of the creation, and even then there is no real 
 "story," where action and counter-action give rise 
 to a new situation or action. Or at the most, the 
 story deals with action between God and men, 
 where, however, men are too weak in the true 
 Israelitish conception to be worthy rivals of God, to 
 produce in their clash with God a real epic action; 
 as soon as God intervenes all is decided. If in such 
 a case a "story" is to be told, men must perform 
 their part first. This is the method of the legends 
 of Paradise and of the Tower of Babel. With the 
 story of the Deluge it is different, God taking part 
 from the beginning; but as a result of this the con- 
 tinued interest of the hearer is not maintained. 
 Furthermore, it should be noted that the legends 
 preserved to us with mythical elements are much 
 less numerous than the legends of the patriarchs in 
 which this element is absent. This fact also may 
 fairly be regarded as a result of the Israelitish aver- 
 sion to mythology. 
 
 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MYTHS. 
 
 It is not proposed to present here a theory of the 
 origin and primitive significance of myths. Only a 
 few observations may be permitted. A certain 
 series of myths may be interpreted on the assump-
 
 VARIETIES OF THE LEGENDS. 17 
 
 tion that some natural phenomenon that is wont to 
 occur frequently or regularly in the actual world 
 has furnished the colors for the painting of one sim- 
 ilar but gigantic phenomenon in primitive times. 
 Thus the creation of the world is painted as Spring 
 on a grand scale, and the overflows of the rivers of 
 Mesopotamia gave rise to the story of the Deluge. 
 
 Many myths attempt to answer questions, being 
 intended to give instruction. This is the case with 
 the primitive legends of Genesis: the story of crea- 
 tion raises the question, Whence come heaven and 
 earth? and at the same time, Why is the Sabbath 
 sacred? The story of Paradise treats the question, 
 Whence are man's reason and his mortality? and 
 along with this, Whence are man's body and mind? 
 Whence his language? Whence the love of the 
 sexes? Whence does it come that woman brings forth 
 with so much pain, that man must till the stubborn 
 field, that the serpent goes upon its belly, and so 
 on? The legend of Babel asks the question, Whence 
 is the variety of nations in language and location? 
 The answers to these questions constitute the real 
 content of the respective legends. In the case of 
 the legend of the Deluge this is different, but there 
 is an astiological, or explanatory feature at the 
 close: Why is there never such a flood again? And 
 what is the meaning of the rainbow? 
 
 All these questions interest not Israel alone, but 
 the whole world. We know that ancient Israel in 
 general was not inclined to philosophic speculation, 
 but that it always took most interest in immediate 
 and Israelitish affairs. But here is a place in which 
 the ancient race is able to treat universal human 
 problems, the profoundest questions of mankind.
 
 18 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 This they have done in unique fashion in the stories 
 of the creation and of Eden: these are the begin- 
 nings of theology and of philosophy. It is no won- 
 der that especial emphasis has been laid upon these 
 features, and that every generation, since Genesis 
 has been known, has read into it its own deepest 
 thoughts. 
 
 THE LEGENDS OF THE PARTIARCHS. 
 
 The primitive legends are followed in Genesis by 
 the legends of the patriarchs. The distinctive 
 feature of these legends is that they tell of the pro- 
 genitors of races, especially of Israel. At the foun- 
 dation of these legends lies the theory that all 
 races, Israel included, have come in each case from 
 the family of a single ancestor, which gradually 
 expanded. This theory is not supported by 
 observed facts, for no human eye observes the origin 
 of races; on the contrary, it is the remnant of a 
 primitive poetic conception of tribal life. 
 
 In earliest times the individual man counts for 
 little. There is much more interest in the destinies 
 of the race: the tribe, the nation, are regarded as 
 real entities much more than at the present day. 
 Thus it comes that the destinies of the race are 
 regarded as being the destinies of a person: the race 
 sighs, triumphs, is dejected, rebels, dies, comes to 
 life again, etc. Thus too the relations of races are 
 regarded as the relations of individuals: two races 
 it is said, are brothers, i. e., are closely related and 
 equal; if one of them is regarded as richer, stronger, 
 or nobler, it is said to be the firstborn brother, 
 or it comes of a better mother, while the other 
 is younger, or comes of a concubine. Israel being
 
 VARIETIES OF THE LEGENDS. 19 
 
 divided into twelve tribes, we are told that the 
 tribal ancestor of Israel had twelve sons. Some of 
 these tribes having a closer union with one another, 
 they are said to come from one mother. The rela- 
 tion of mother and son exists between Hagar and 
 Ishmael; the more distant relation of uncle and 
 nephew between Abraham and Lot. 
 
 Originally these persons were the tribes them- 
 selves. This method of expression is still entirely 
 current later in the pathetic poetry of the prophets: 
 Edom builds his nest on high, Moab dies to the 
 sound of trumpets, Asshur falls upon Israel like a 
 lion upon his prey, Jerusalem and Samaria are two 
 unchaste sisters, Edom has treated his brother 
 Israel with enmity, etc. Such personifications must 
 have been very familiar to the earliest ages. But 
 as the world became more prosaic and these expres- 
 sions were no longer understood in the simple nar- 
 rative, the question was asked, who these persons, 
 Jacob, Judah, Simeon, really were, and the answer 
 given that they were the patriarchs and the later 
 races and tribes their sons; an answer which seems 
 to be a matter of course, since it was customary to 
 refer to the individual Israelites and Ammonites as 
 "Sons of Israel" and "Sons of Ammon." 
 
 PATRIARCHS REPRESENT TRIBES. 
 
 We are not putting a new meaning into the 
 legends which treat of such race-individuals, when 
 we regard their heroes, Ishmael, Jacob, Esau, and 
 others, as tribes and try to interpret the stories 
 about them as tribal events; we are simply getting 
 at their meaning as it was understood in primitive 
 times in Israel. 
 

 
 20 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 On the other hand, we must go about this attempt 
 with caution, for we must reckon with the possi- 
 bility that some of these figures do not originally 
 represent tribes, but only came to be regarded as 
 patriarchs in a later time, and further, after the fig- 
 ures of the patriarchs had once become established 
 as the heroes of epic legends, that legends of other 
 sorts and wanting the basis of tribal history became 
 attached to these. We may certainly regard as 
 personifications of tribes those figures whose names 
 are known to us in other connexions as names of 
 tribes; such are, notably: Ishmael, Ammon, Moab, 
 the twelve tribes and their divisions. Sometimes it 
 is perfectly evident from the narratives themselves 
 that we have to do with tribes, as in the case of c$ 
 Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Ham and Japhet. 
 Accordingly, many of the narratives treating such p n 
 ancestors are originally the experiences of races or 
 tribes. 
 
 Once in ancient times, so we may assume, there 
 were conflicts over wells between the citizens of 
 Gerar and the neighboring Bedouins, ending in a 
 compromise at Beersheba. The legend depicts these 
 affairs as a war and a treaty between Abimelech, 
 king of Gerar, and the patriarchs called in the 
 legend Abraham or Isaac, (xxi, 22 ff., 26.) 
 
 Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, is seduced by 
 
 v Shechem, and in punishment Shechem is treacher- 
 
 y ously assaulted by Dinah's brothers; Jacob, how- 
 
 /n- ever, abjures the brothers and curses them. The 
 
 <s history at the bottom of this is probably as follows: 
 
 ^ Dinah, an Israelitish family, is overpowered by the 
 
 \J Canaanitish city of Shechem and then treacherously 
 
 avenged by Simeon and Levi, the most closely
 
 VARIETIES OF THE LEGENDS. 21 
 
 related tribes, but the other tribes of Israel renounce 
 
 them and allow the two tribes to be destroyed. 
 
 A The legend of Tamar, also, depicts in part early 
 
 "'relations in the tribe of Judah: Judah allied it- 
 
 self with Canaanites, in the legend Hirah of Adul- 
 
 lam and Judah's wife, Bathshua; a number of 
 
 ^ Judaean-Canaanitish tribes (Er and Onan) perished 
 
 c - early; finally two new tribes arose (Perez and 
 
 ' Zerah). In the Esau-Jacob legend also there are 
 
 quite evidently historical reminiscences: Esau and 
 
 Jacob are brother tribes, Es au a tribe of hunt ers, 
 
 Ja cob a tribe of shepher ds; Esau is the elder, but 
 
 by sale or fraud he loses his birthright, that is, the 
 
 older and better known tribe of Esau was compelled 
 
 to give way to the later and originally weaker tribe 
 
 of Jacob and has now the poorer land. 
 
 A similar rivalry is assumed by the legend 
 between the Judaean tribes of Perez and Zerah and 
 between Ephraim and Manasseh. Reuben, the 
 first-born among the Israelitish tribes, loses his 
 birthright on account of sin: the tribe of Reuben, 
 which was the leading tribe in the earliest times, 
 afterwards forfeited this position. Cain, the hus- 
 bandman, slew his brother Abel, the herdsman, but 
 was compelled to leave the land which they had 
 before occupied in common. Shem, Japhet, and 
 Canaan are originally brothers; but Japhet has now 
 a much more extensive territory than the others, 
 and Canaan is the servant of both. 
 
 We hear of many migrations. From the north 
 Abraham migrates to Canaan, after him Rebeccah, 
 to marry Isaac, and finally comes Jacob; the initial 
 point of the migration is given as Ur-Kasdim and 
 Haran the city of Nahor (xxiv. 10). In the legend 
 
 ?
 
 22 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 of Joseph there is described a migration of Israel- 
 itish tribes to Egypt; the account of the trip of 
 Abraham to Egypt has a similar basis. 
 
 Now it is in the nature of legend that we do not 
 catch sight of these old occurrences clearly by its 
 means, but only as through a mist. Legend has 
 woven a poetic veil about the historical memories 
 and hidden their outlines. In most cases the time 
 of the event is not to be derived from the legend 
 itself; often even the place is not to be distin- 
 guished, and sometimes not even the personality of 
 the actor. Who can tell what race it was that came 
 to Canaan from Aram-Naharajim? Where the real 
 home of Jacob and Esau was, of Cain and Abel, of 
 Shem and Japhet, the legend has forgotten. What 
 tribes parted at Bethel, in case there is any histor- 
 ical basis to the legend of the separation of Lot and 
 Abraham? And so, although the things of the past 
 are hidden rather than revealed in these legends, 
 he would be a barbarian who would despise them on 
 this account, for often they are more valuable than 
 would be prosaic reports of actual occurrences. 
 For instance, if we had good historical data regard- 
 ing Ishmael we should not value them highly, for 
 this "wild ass" rendered little service to mankind; 
 y^but as it is, touched by the hand of poetry, he is 
 immortal. 
 
 In these legends the clearest- matter is the char- 
 acter of races: here is Esau, the huntsman of the 
 steppes, living with little reflexion from hand to 
 mouth, forgetful, magnanimous, brave, and hairy as 
 a goat; and there is Jacob the herdsman, a smooth 
 man, more cunning and accustomed to look into the 
 future. His uncle Laban is the type of the
 
 VARIETIES OF THE LEGENDS. 23 
 
 Aramaean, avaricious and deceitful, but to outward 
 appearances an excellent and upright man, never at 
 loss for an excuse. A more noble figure is 
 Abraham, hospitable, peaceful, a model of piety. 
 
 Moreover it is clear to us in many cases in what 
 spirit the incidents are regarded: we perceive most 
 easily how the legend despises the unchastity of 
 Canaan, how it mocks at Esau and Laban, how it 
 rejoices that Lot, with all his avarice, obtained 
 after all the worse land, etc. 
 
 ANTIQUITY OF THE LEGENDS. 
 
 These legends have not hitherto received full jus- 
 tice, even when it has been recognised that they are 
 legends. Even the most superficial reader can dis- 
 tinguish for himself the chief original sources in 
 Genesis from which the present redaction was con- 
 structed, now commonly called the writings of the 
 Elohist, of the Jahvist, and of the Priestly Code. 
 Since the sources of the Elohist and the Jahvist 
 were written down in the ninth or eight century B. 
 C, some commentators have been disposed to think 
 that the legends themselves originated in the main 
 in the age of the Israelitish kingdom and furnished 
 therefore no revelations of primitive history. But 
 in reality these legends are much older. The 
 tribal and race names which they preserve are 
 almost all forgotten in other records: we know 
 nothing of Shem, Ham, and Japhet, of Abel and 
 Cain, of Esau and Jacob, nothing of Hagar and 
 scarcely anything of Ishmael, from the historical 
 records of Israel. Hence we must conclude that 
 these races all belong to prehistoric times. This is 
 particularly evident in the case of Jacob and Esau, 
 
 \
 
 24 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 who were, to be sure, identified later with Israel 
 and Edom. But this very lapping of names, as 
 well as many features of the legend which are not 
 applicable to Israel and Edom, as, for instance, the 
 treaties between the city of Gerar and the sons of 
 Abraham (or Isaac) concerning the possession of 
 certain wells, especially that of Beersheba, show us 
 that the old narrative originally had in mind 
 entirely different races; in the legend Jacob is not 
 disposed to war; in history Israel conquered Edom 
 in war; in the legend Esau is stupid, in history he 
 is famous for his wisdom. 
 
 Another proof of the age of these tribal legends 
 may be found in the history of the legend in Israel. 
 The legends in the Book of Judges have ceased to 
 speak of tribes as persons (excepting Judges i.), but 
 they tell of heroes, of individual leaders of the 
 tribes. The latest story that preserves the old 
 style and to which an historical date can be assigned 
 is the legend of the capture of Shechem, the Dinah 
 legend of Genesis. Sometime in the earlier por- 
 tion of the period of Judges, then, this naive style 
 of narrative disappeared so far as we can ascertain; 
 from that time on such narratives are merely trans- 
 mitted, but no longer constructed new. 
 
 CLASSIFICATION OF LEGENDS. 
 
 We call these legends "historical" when they 
 reflect historical occurrences, "ethnographic" when 
 they contain chiefly descriptions of race and tribal 
 relations. Thus we characterise the legend of the 
 treaty of Beersheba and the various legends of 
 migrations as "historical," but those of Jacob and 
 Esau as "ethnographic."
 
 VARIETIES OF THE LEGENDS. 25 
 
 -ETIOLOGICAL LEGENDS. 
 
 Alongside these narratives of Genesis are also 
 "aetiological" legends, that is, those that are writ- 
 ten for a purpose, or to explain something. There 
 is no end of the questions which interest a primi- 
 tive people. The instinct for asking questions is 
 innate in man: he wants to know of the origin of 
 things. The child looks into the world with wide 
 eyes and asks, Why? The answer which the child 
 gives itself and with which it is for the time satis- 
 fied, is perhaps very childish, and hence incorrect, 
 and yet, if it is a bright child the answer is 
 interesting and touching even for the grown man. 
 In the same way a primitive people asks similar 
 questions and answers them as best it can. 
 These questions are usually the same that we our- 
 selves are asking and trying to answer in our scien- 
 tific researches. Hence what we find in these 
 legends are the beginnings of human science; only 
 humble beginnings, of course, and yet venerable to 
 us because they are beginnings, and at the same 
 time peculiarly attractive and touching, for in these 
 answers ancient Israel has uttered its most intimate 
 feelings, clothing them in a bright garb of poetry. 
 Some of these questions are the following: 
 
 ETHNOLOGICAL LEGENDS. 
 
 There is a desire to know the reasons for the rela- 
 tions of tribes. Why is Canaan the servant of his 
 brethren? Why has Japhet such an extended terri- 
 tory? Why do the children of Lot dwell in the 
 inhospitable East? How does it come that Reuben 
 has lost his birthright? Why must Cain wander
 
 26 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 about a restless fugitive? Why is sevenfold venge- 
 ance proclaimed against the slayer of Cain? Why 
 is Gilead the border between Israel and the Ara- 
 maeans? Why does Beersheba belong to us and not 
 to the people of Gerar? Why is Shechem in pos- 
 session of Joseph? Why have we a right to the holy 
 places at Shechem and Machpelah? Why has 
 Ishmael become a Bedouin people with just this ter- 
 ritory and this God? How does it come that the 
 Egyptian peasants have to bear the heavy tax of the 
 fifth, while the fields of the priests are exempt? 
 And with especial frequency the question was asked, 
 How does Israel come to have this glorious land of 
 Canaan? 
 
 The legends tell in many variations how it came 
 about that the patriarchs received this particular 
 land: God gave it to Abraham because of his 
 obedience; when on the occasion of the separation 
 at Bethel Lot chose the East, the West fell to 
 Abraham; Jacob obtained the blessing of the better 
 country from Isaac by a deception; God promised 
 it to Jacob at Bethel, and so on. 
 
 Such ethnological legends, which tell a fictitious 
 story in order to explain tribal relations, are of 
 course very difficult to distinguish from historical 
 legends which contain the remnant of a tradition of 
 some actual event. Very commonly ethnological 
 and ethnographic features are combined in the same 
 legend: the relations underlying the story are his- 
 torical, but the way in which they are explained is 
 poetic. 
 
 The usual nature of the answer given to these 
 questions by our legends is that the present rela- 
 tions are due to some transaction of the patriarchs:
 
 VARIETIES OF THE LEGENDS. 27 
 
 the tribal ancestor bought the holy place, and 
 accordingly it belongs to us, his heirs; the ancestors 
 of Israel and Aram established Gilead as their 
 mutual boundary; Cain's ancestor was condemned 
 to perpetual wandering by the word of God, and so 
 on. A favorite way is to find the explanation in a 
 miraculous utterance of God or some of the patri- 
 archs, and the legend has to tell how this mirac- 
 ulous utterance came to be made in olden times. 
 And this sort of explanation was regarded as com- 
 pletely satisfactory, so that there came to be later 
 a distinct literary variety of "charm" or '"bless- 
 in}. Vi 
 
 Childish as these explanations now seem to us, 
 and impossible as it was for the men of old to find 
 out the true reasons of such things, yet we must not 
 overlook the profundity of many of these poetic 
 legends: they are all based on the assumption that 
 the tribal and national relations of that day were 
 not due to chance, but that they were all the results 
 of events of the primitive world, that they were in a 
 way "predestined." In these legends we have the 
 first rudiments of a philosophy of history. 
 
 ETYMOLOGICAL LEGENDS. 
 
 Along with the above we find etymological 
 legends or features of legends, as it were, begin- 
 nings of the science of language. Ancient Israel 
 spent much thought upon the origin and the real 
 meaning of the names of races, mountains, wells, 
 sanctuaries, and cities. To them names were not 
 so unimportant as to us, for they were convinced 
 that names were somehow closely related to the 
 
 1 Cp. Genesis xlix.
 
 28 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 things. It was quite impossible in many cases for 
 the ancient people to give the correct explanation, 
 for names were, with Israel as with other nations, 
 among the most ancient possessions of the people, 
 coming down from extinct races or from far away 
 stages of the national language. Many of our cur- 
 rent names such as Rhine, Moselle, Neckar, Harz, 
 Berlin, London, Thames, Seine, etc., are equally 
 unintelligible to those not trained in philology. It 
 is probable that the very fact of the oddity and 
 unintelligibility of these names attracted the atten- 
 tion of the ancient race. Early Israel as a matter 
 of course explains such names without any scientific 
 spirit and wholly on the basis of the language as it 
 stood. It identifies the old name with a modern 
 one which sounds more or less like it, and proceeds 
 to tell a little story explaining why this particular 
 word was uttered under these circumstances and was 
 adopted as the name. We too have our popular 
 etymologies. How many there are who believe 
 that the noble river which runs down between New 
 Hampshire and Vermont and across Massachusetts 
 and Connecticut is so named because it "connects" 
 the first two and "cuts" the latter two states! 
 Manhattan Island, it is said, was named from the 
 exclamation of a savage who was struck by the size 
 of a Dutch hat worn by an early burgher, "Man hat 
 on!" Many are the stories told to explain why a 
 famous London highway is called "Rotten Row" 
 {Route en rot). 
 
 The Lombards, we are told by another legend, 
 were originally called Winili. But on an occasion 
 the women of the tribe put on beards as a disguise, 
 and Wodan looking out of his window in the morn-
 
 VARIETIES OF THE LEGENDS. 29 
 
 ing exclaimed, "What are those 'long beards' (Lang- 
 obarden)?" (Grimm, German Legends, No. 390.) 
 
 The famous Thuringian castle, the Wartburg, is 
 said to have derived its name from the fact that the 
 landgrave, having strayed thither during a hunt, 
 exclaimed, "I Vart, Berg, du so list niir erne Burg 
 werdei" (Wait, mountain, thou shalt become ray 
 fortress). 
 
 Similar legends are numerous in Genesis and in 
 later works. The city of Babel is named from the 
 fact that God there confused human tongues {balal, 
 xi. 9); Jacob is interpreted as "heelholder" because 
 at birth he held his brother, whom he robbed of the 
 birthright, by the heel (xxv. 26) ; Zoar means 
 "trifle," because Lot said appealingly, "It is only a 
 trifle' (xix. 20, 22); Beersheba is "the well of 
 seven," because Abraham there gave Abimelech 
 seven lambs (xxi. 28 ff.); Isaac (Jishak) is said to 
 have his name from the fact that his mother laughed 
 (sahak) when his birth was foretold to her (xviii. 12), 
 and so forth. 
 
 In order to realise the utter naivete of most of 
 these interpretations, consider that the Hebrew 
 legend calmly explains the Babylonian name Babel 
 from the Hebrew vocabulary, and that the writers 
 are often satisfied with merely approximate similar- 
 ities of sounds: for instance Cain (more exactly 
 Kajin) from kairiti, "I have murdered" (iv. 1), 
 Reuben from rah beo?iji, "he hath regarded my 
 misery" (xxix. 32), etc. Every student of Hebrew 
 knows that these are not satisfactory etymologies. 
 Investigators have not always fully perceived the 
 naive character of this theory of etymology, but 
 have allowed themselves to be misled into patching
 
 30 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 up some very unsatisfactory etymologies with mod- 
 ern appliances. In one case many theologians even 
 are wont to declare one of these explanations, a 
 very ingenious one indeed (Jahveh = "l am that I 
 am," Ex. iii. 14) as an established etymology. Hut 
 etymologies are not acquired by revelation. The 
 etymological legends are especially valuable to us 
 because they are especially clear illustrations of the 
 serological variety of legend. 
 
 CEREMONIAL LEGENDS. 
 
 More important than these etymological legends 
 are those whose purpose is to explain the regula- 
 tions of religious ceremonials. Such ceremonial 
 regulations play a great part in the life of primitive 
 races, but many of these customs had become in 
 part or altogether unintelligible to the one who 
 observed them in the earliest times of which we have 
 authentic record. For customs are far more persis- 
 tent than opinions, and religious customs are partic- 
 ularly conservative. And even we, whose religious 
 service has undergone a vigorous purging in the 
 Reformation and again at the hands of rationalism, 
 see and hear in our churches many things which we 
 understand only in part or not at all. 
 
 Ancient Israel reflected deeply upon the origin of 
 these religious practices. And if the grown people 
 became too blunted by custom, to be able to per- 
 ceive the strange and unintelligible features of the 
 custom, they were roused from their indifference by 
 the questions of the children. When the children 
 see their father perform all sorts of curious customs 
 during the Feast of the Passover, they will ask — 
 thus it is expressly told, Ex. xii. 26; xiii. 14 — What
 
 VARIETIES OF THE LEGENDS. 31 
 
 does this mean? and then the story of the Passover 
 is to be told them. A similar direction is given 
 with relation to the twelve stones in the Jordan 
 (Josh. iv. 6), which the father is to explain to the 
 children as memorials of the passage of the Jordan. 
 In these examples, then, we see clearly how such a 
 legend is the answer to a question. Similarly, 
 questions are asked with regard to the origin of 
 circumcision, and of the Sabbath. Why do we not 
 eat the muscle of the thigh? Why do they anoint 
 the holy stone of Bethel and deliver the tithes 
 there? Why do we not sacrifice a child at Jeruel as 
 Jahveh commands, but in its stead a ram (Gen. 
 xxii.)? Why do our people "limp," that is, per- 
 form a certain dance, at the festival in Penuel 
 (xxxii. 32)? 
 
 No Israelite could have given the real reason for 
 all these things, for they were too old. But to 
 relieve this embarrassment myth and legend step 
 in. They tell a story and explain the sacred cus- 
 tom: long ago an event occurred from which this 
 ceremony very naturally sprang, and we perform the 
 ceremony representing the event in commemoration 
 of it. But this story that explains the custom is 
 always laid in primitive times. Thus the ancient 
 race gives the entirely correct impression that the 
 customs of their religious service originated in the 
 immemorial past: the trees of Shechem and Hebron 
 are older than Abraham! We perform the rite of 
 circumcision in memory of Moses, whose firstborn 
 was circumcised as a redemption for Moses whose 
 blood God demanded (Ex. iv. 24 ff.). We rest on 
 the seventh day because God at the creation of the 
 world rested on the seventh day (a myth, because
 
 32 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 God himself is the actor in it). The muscle of the 
 thigh is sacred to us because God struck Jacob on 
 this muscle while wrestling with him at Penuel 
 (xxxii. 33). The stone at Bethel was first anointed 
 by Jacob because it was his pillow in the night 
 when God appeared to him (xxviii. 11 ff.). At 
 Jeruel — this is the name of the scene of the sacrifice 
 of Isaac, xxii. 1-19 (cf. the Commentary, p. 218 ff.) 
 — God at first demanded of Abraham his child, but 
 afterward accepted a ram. We "limp" at Penuel 
 in imitation of Jacob, who limped there when his 
 hip was lamed in the wrestling with God (xxxii. 
 32). And so on. 
 
 In all this matter we are constantly hearing of 
 certain definite places, such as Bethel, Penuel, 
 Shechem, Beersheba, Lacha-roi, Jeruel, etc., and of 
 the trees, wells, and stone monuments at these 
 places. These are the primitive sanctuaries of the 
 tribes and families of Israel. Primitive times felt 
 that there was some immediate manifestation of the 
 nature of the divinity in these monuments, but a 
 later time, which no longer regarded the connexion 
 as so clear and so self-evident, raised the question, 
 Why is this particular place and this sacred 
 memorial so especially sacred? The regular answer 
 to this question was, Because in this place the divin- 
 ity appeared to our ancestor. In commemoration of 
 this theophany we worship God in this place. Now 
 in the history of religion it is of great significance 
 that the ceremonial legend comes from a time when 
 religious feeling no longer perceived as self-evident 
 the divinity of the locality and the natural monument 
 and had forgotten the significance of the sacred 
 ceremony. Accordingly the legend has to supply
 
 VARIETIES OF THE LEGENDS. 33 
 
 an explanation of how it came about that the God 
 and the tribal ancestor met in this particular place. 
 
 Abraham happened to be sitting under the tree in 
 the noonday heat just as the men appeared to him, 
 and for this reason the tree is sacred (xix. I ff.). 
 The well in the desert, Lacha-roi, became the sanc- 
 tuary of Ishmael because his mother in her flight 
 into the desert met at this well the God who com- 
 forted her (xvi. 7 ff.). Jacob happened to be pass- 
 ing the night in a certain place and resting his head 
 upon a stone when he saw the heavenly ladder; 
 therefore this stone is our sanctuary (xxviii. 10 ff). 
 Moses chanced to come with his flocks to the holy 
 mountain and the thornbush (Ex. iii. 1 ff.). Prob- 
 ably every one of the greater sanctuaries of Israel 
 had some similar legend of its origin. 
 
 We can easily imagine that any such legend of a 
 sanctuary was originally told on the occasion of the 
 festival concerned and on the original spot, just as the 
 Feast of the Passover and the legend of the exodus, 
 the feast of Purim and the legend of Esther, the Baby- 
 lonian Easter festival and the Babylonian hymn of 
 the creation, belong together, and as with us Christ- 
 mas and Easter are not to be thought of without 
 their stories. These ceremonial legends are so 
 valuable to us because we discover from them what 
 were the sacred places and customs of Israel and at 
 the same time they give us a very vivid realisation 
 of ancient religious feeling: they are our chief 
 sources of information regarding the oldest religion 
 of Israel. Genesis is full of them, and but few are 
 found in the later books. Almost everywhere in 
 Genesis where a certain place is named, and at 
 least wherever God appears at a definite place, it is
 
 34 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 based on such a legend. In these legends we have 
 the beginning of the history of religion. 
 
 GEOLOGICAL AND OTHER LEGENDS. 
 
 Aside from the foregoing we may distinguish a 
 number of other sorts of legends, of which at least 
 the geological deserves mention. Such geological 
 legends undertake to explain the origin of a 
 locality. Whence comes the Dead Sea with its 
 dreadful desert? The region was cursed by God on 
 account of the terrible sin of its inhabitants. 
 Whence comes the pillar of salt yonder with its 
 resemblance to a woman? That is a woman, Lot's 
 wife, turned into a pillar of salt in punishment for 
 attempting to spy out the mystery of God (xix. 26). 
 But whence does it come that the bit of territory 
 about Zoar is an exception to the general desola- 
 tion? Because Jahveh spared it as a refuge for Lot 
 (xix. 17-22). 
 
 All these aetiological legends, then, are remote 
 from the standards of the modern sciences to which 
 they correspond; we regard them with the emotion 
 with which a man looks back upon his childhood. 
 But even for our science they have a great value, for 
 they furnish us in their descriptions or implications 
 of definite conditions the most important material 
 for the knowledge of the ancient world. 
 
 MIXED LEGENDS. 
 
 Very frequently various types of legend are com- 
 bined in one. The flight of Hagar (xvi.) is to be 
 called ethnographic because it depicts the life of 
 Ishmael; ethnologic, because it undertakes to 
 explain these conditions; in one feature it is allied
 
 VARIETIES OF THE LEGENDS. 35 
 
 to the ceremonial legends, its explanation of the 
 sacredness of Lacha-roi; furthermore it has etymo- 
 logical elements in its interpetation of the names 
 Lacha-roi and Ishmael. — The legend of Paradise 
 treats all at once a number of questions. — The 
 legend of Bethel explains at once the worship at 
 Bethel and the name of the place. — The legends of 
 Beersheba (xxi., xxii. ff., xxvi.) contain remnants 
 of history, telling of a tribal treaty established 
 there, and at the same time certain religious 
 features, as the explanation of the sanctity of the 
 place, and finally some etymological elements. — The 
 legend of Penuel explains the sanctity of the place, 
 the ceremony of limping, and the names Penuel and 
 Israel. And so on. Etymological elements, it may 
 be noted, never appear alone in Genesis, but always 
 in connexion with other features. 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE LEGENDS. 
 
 In many cases the origin of the legends will have 
 been revealed with what has already been considered. 
 Thus, in most etymological legends it can be shown 
 quite clearly that those features in the legend which 
 explain the name were invented for this very pur- 
 pose. The incident of Abraham's giving Abimelech 
 seven (sheba) lambs at Beersheba (xxi., 28 ff.) was 
 surely invented to explain this name; also the laugh- 
 ing (sahak) of Isaac's mother (xviii. 12-15), etc - 
 The narrative of Judah, Er, Onan (xxxviii.) and the 
 others is plainly nothing but a history of the Israel- 
 ite families, just as the legend of Dinah (xxxiv.) is 
 merely a reflexion of the attack upon Shechem. 
 But, on the other hand, the investigator is to be 
 warned not to be too quick to jump at the con-
 
 36 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 elusion that he always has the origin of the legend 
 in this oldest interpretation attainable by us. On 
 the contrary, we have to reckon with the possibility 
 that the features of the story which are intelligible 
 to us were injected into it later, and that the legend 
 itself is older than any meaning we can see in it. 
 
 Finally, there are legends which cannot be classi- 
 fied under any of the heads given above. Of such 
 are large portions of the legend of Joseph; also the 
 chief feature of the story of Jacob and Laban; the 
 deceits and tricks cannot be understood from the 
 standpoint of either history or aetiology. 
 
 The preceding classification of legends is based of 
 course upon the chief or dominant features. Along 
 with these go the purely ornamental or aesthetic 
 features, twining about the others like vines over 
 their trellises. The art of these legends is revealed 
 especially in this portrayal of the subject matter 
 given.
 
 III. 
 
 THE LITERARY FORM OF THE 
 LEGENDS. 
 
 THE beauty of the legends of Genesis has 
 always been a source of delight to readers of 
 refined taste and it is not mere chance that painters 
 have been so fond of choosing the subjects of their 
 works from Genesis. Scholars have more rarely 
 expressed appreciation of the beauty of these nar- 
 ratives, often perhaps for personal reasons, and per- 
 haps often because the aesthetic point of view 
 seemed to them incompatible with the dignity of 
 science. However, we do not share this prejudice, 
 but, on the contrary, are of the opinion that one who 
 ignores the artistic form of these legends not only 
 deprives himself of a great pleasure, but is unable 
 properly to satisfy the scientific demands of the 
 understanding of Genesis. Nay, more: it is no 
 insignificant question for science to answer, in what 
 the peculiar beauty of the legends consists, — a prob- 
 lem whose solution requires a thorough investiga- 
 tion of the contents and the religion of Genesis. 
 
 GENESIS IS PROSE. 
 
 The first question is, whether the form of the dic- 
 tion is prose or poetry. Aside from Genesis xlix. 
 which is a poem and not a narrative, and on that 
 
 37
 
 38 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 ground alone is out of place in Genesis, all that the 
 book contains is prose in form. Detailed investi- 
 gations of the nature of this prose have not been 
 carried on. Meanwhile, at least this may be said, 
 that this prose is not the common colloquial lan- 
 guage of every-day life, but is more artistic in its 
 composition and has some sort of rhythmical con- 
 struction. Hebrew prosody is still a sealed book 
 to us, but in reading Genesis aloud one feels an 
 agreeable harmony of rhythmically balanced mem- 
 bers. The translator of Genesis is constrained to 
 imitate this balancing of sentences. 
 
 Since the legends were already very old when 
 they were written down, as will be shown here- 
 after, it is a matter of course that the language of 
 Genesis is somewhat archaic; this too must be 
 reproduced in the translation. In certain passages, 
 the climaxes of the stories, the language rises into 
 poetry, as is the case with the German Marchen 
 where the spells and charms are in poetic form. In 
 the case of some of the legends we know variants 
 both Biblical and extra-Biblical, notably of the 
 stories of creation, of the Garden of Eden and of 
 the Flood, which are in strictly metrical form. 
 Inasmuch as these poetical variants are known to be 
 older than the prose versions transmitted in 
 Genesis, we are warranted in the conjecture that 
 the poetic form of these legends is older than any 
 prose form whatever. The older and strictly 
 rhythmical form, which we must suppose to have 
 been sung, would differ from the later prose form, 
 which was recited, as does the ancient German epic 
 from the later Volksbuch (book of popular legends), 
 or as do the Arthurian poems of Christian of Troyes
 
 LITERARY FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 39 
 
 from the prose versions of Mallory's Morte (V Arthur 
 or the Welsh Mabinogion. 
 
 GENESIS A FOLK-BOOK. 
 
 A second question is, whether these poetic ver- 
 sions are popular traditions or the productions of 
 individual poets. Modern investigators have 
 answered the general principle of the question to 
 the effect that Genesis is popular oral tradition 
 written down. We are able to explain clearly how 
 such popular traditions originate. Of course, in 
 the ultimate beginning it was always an individual 
 who improvised or devised this or that poem. But 
 it is characteristic of such popular traditions that 
 we are never able to observe them in the germ, any 
 more than we can in the case of language, but that 
 they appear, wherever we hear of them, as prim- 
 itive possessions inherited from the patriarchs. 
 Between the poet who first conceived them and the 
 time when they were fixed for transmission to pos- 
 terity a long period elapsed, and in this period the 
 legends were repeated from generation to genera- 
 tion and passed through many hands. Yet however 
 faithfully such legends are transmitted, they are 
 inevitably altered in the course of the centuries. 
 And thus they finally become the common product 
 of the people. This transformation of the legends 
 was unconscious, at least in its earlier stages. Only 
 in the more recent modifications is it reasonable to 
 assume the operation of conscious art. 
 
 Both narrators and auditors regarded the legends 
 as "true" stories. That this is true of the legends 
 of the Old Testament is shown in the historical 
 books of the Bible, where the narrators proceed by
 
 40 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 almost imperceptible degrees from legends to genu- 
 ine historical narratives. It follows also from the 
 legends themselves, which go about in all serious- 
 ness to account for actual conditions: because the 
 woman was made from man's rib, therefore he longs 
 for union with her; here we see that this story was 
 no mere poetical figure to the one who told it, but 
 an event that had actually happened. And further- 
 more, it is to be expected from the nature of the 
 case; legends come from ages and stages of civilisa- 
 tion which have not yet acquired the intellectual 
 power to distinguish between poetry and reality. 
 It is therefore no slight error when modern investi- 
 gators declare the legend of Paradise to be an 
 allegory which was never intended to represent 
 actual occurrences. 
 
 Moreover, for the very reason that the legend is 
 the product of the whole people, it is the expres- 
 sion of the people's mind. And this is a point of 
 greatest importance for our interpretation of the 
 legends of Genesis. We are warranted in regard- 
 ing the judgments and sentiments presented in Gen- 
 esis as the common possession of large numbers of 
 people. 
 
 THE CONTENTS OF GENESIS IN PRIMITIVE FORM. 
 
 Accordingly, we should attempt in considering 
 Genesis to realise first of all the form of its contents 
 when they existed as oral tradition. This point of 
 view has been ignored altogether too much hitherto, 
 and investigators have instead treated the legendary 
 books too much as "books." If we desire to under- 
 stand the legends better we must recall to view the 
 situations in which the legends were recited. We
 
 LITERARY FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 41 
 
 hear of such situations Ex. xii. 26 f., xiii. 14 f., 
 Joshua iv. 6: when the children ask about the reason 
 of the sacred ceremony then the father answers 
 them by telling the story. Similarly we can imagine 
 how the story of Sodom was told with the Dead Sea 
 in view, and the legend of Bethel on the summit of 
 Bethel. But the common situation which we have 
 to suppose is this: In the leisure of a winter even- 
 ing the family sits about the hearth; the grown 
 people, but more especially the children, listen 
 intently to the beautiful old stories of the dawn of 
 the world, which they have heard so often yet never 
 tire of hearing repeated. 
 
 Many of the legends, as will be shown later, have 
 such a marked artistic style that they can scarcely 
 be regarded in this form as products of the collec- 
 tive people. On the contrary, we must assume that 
 there was in Israel, as well as among the Arabs, a 
 class of professional story-tellers. These popular" 
 story-tellers, familiar with old songs and legends, 
 wandered about the country, and were probably to 
 be found regularly at the popular festivals. 
 
 We have already seen (page 38) that the trans- 
 mitted prose narrative was perhaps preceded by a 
 narrative in regular rhythmical form and intended 
 for singing. In the case of these songs the circum- 
 stances of their presentation may have been differ- 
 ent. From the precedent of the Babylonian poem 
 of the creation, which in its form is an Easter hymn 
 in praise of Marduk, we may infer that the legends 
 regarding forms of worship go back to hymns for 
 the sanctuary which were perhaps sung by the priest 
 at the sacred festivals and on the sacred ground (p. 
 33). But however this may be, the legends regard-
 
 42 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 ing sanctuaries as we have them now had certainly 
 ceased to be sung, and, as their peculiarly colorless 
 attitude shows, were not connected with the sacred 
 place in this form, but belong already to popular 
 tradition. 
 
 THE REAL UNIT IN GENESIS. 
 
 A new and fundamental question is: What unit is 
 really the constituent unit in Genesis, the one which 
 we should first apply ourselves to? For there are a 
 number of different units in Genesis. The most 
 comprehensive unit is the whole Pentateuch, then 
 Genesis, and then the single collections of legends 
 that preceded it; then the individual legends of which 
 the book was composed. Among these a distinc- 
 tion has to be made between the independent indi- 
 vidual legends, such, for example, as those of the 
 flight of Hagar and the sacrifice of Isaac, and on the 
 other hand certain groups of several legends con- 
 stituting legend-cycles, such as the cycle which 
 treats the destinies of Abraham and Lot down to 
 the birth of their sons, or the one comprising 
 Jacob's experiences with Esau and with Laban, or 
 the one of which Joseph is the hero. All of these 
 various units must be considered. But the first 
 question is, Which of these units is most important 
 for our purposes, that is, which of them was the 
 original unit in oral tradition? 
 
 This is a question that arises in many similar 
 cases: W 7 hich is the elemental unit: the song-book, 
 the individual group of songs in it, or the individual 
 song? Is it the gospel, the address, or the indi- 
 vidual utterance that is reported of Jesus? The
 
 LITER A R V FORMS OF THE LEGENDS. 43 
 
 whole apocalypse, the separate apocalyptic docu- 
 mentary sources, or the individual vision? For the 
 proper understanding of Genesis, also, it is of critical 
 importance that this question be clearly met and 
 correctly answered. Hitherto investigators have 
 seemed to regard it as a matter of course that the 
 original sources were the constituent units, though 
 the true view has not been without witnesses. 1 
 
 Popular legends in their very nature exist in the 
 form of individual legends; not until later do com- 
 pilers put several such legends together, or poets 
 construct of them greater and artistic compositions. 
 Thus it is also with the Hebrew popular legends. 
 The legends of Genesis even in their present form 
 give clear evidence of this. Every single legend 
 that is preserved in an early form is a complete 
 whole by itself; it begins with a distinct introduc- 
 tion and ends with a very recognisable close. Com- 
 pare certain specific cases: Abraham wishes to sue 
 for a wife for his son; being too old himself he 
 sends out his oldest servant — thus the story opens. 
 Then we are told how the old servant finds the right 
 maiden and brings her home. Meantime the aged 
 master has died. The young master receives the 
 bride, and "he was comforted for the death of his 
 father." Everyone can see that the story ends here. 
 
 Abraham is directed by God to sacrifice his son; 
 this is the exposition (from xxii. on), which makes 
 an entirely new start. Then we are told how Abra- 
 
 'Reuss, AT III., p. 73: "Originally the legends of the 
 patriarchs arose individually without connexion and independ- 
 ently of one another." — Wellhausen, Composition 2, p. 9: 
 "Tradition in the popular mouth knows only individual 
 legends." 
 
 )
 
 44 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 ham was resolved upon the deed and very nearly 
 accomplished it, but at the last moment the sacrifice 
 was prevented by God himself: Isaac is preserved to 
 Abraham. 'Then they returned together to Beer- 
 sheba." We see that the narrative always opens in 
 such a way that one recognises that something new 
 is about to begin; and it closes at the point where 
 the complication that has arisen is happily resolved: 
 no one can ask, What followed? 
 
 Similarly, the unity of the separate legends is 
 shown in the fact that they are in each case filled 
 with a single harmonious sentiment. Thus, in the 
 story of the sacrifice of Isaac, emotion is predomi- 
 nant; in that of Jacob's deception of Isaac, humor; 
 in the story of Sodom, moral earnestness; in the 
 story of Babel, the fear of Almighty God. 
 
 Many stories are entirely spoiled by following 
 them up immediately with new ones which drive the 
 reader suddenly from one mood to another. Every 
 skilful story-teller, on the contrary, makes a pause 
 after telling one such story, giving the imagination 
 time to recover, allowing the hearer to reflect in 
 quiet on what he has heard while the chords that 
 have been struck are permitted to die away. Any 
 one, for instance, who has followed the story of 
 Isaac sympathetically, feels at the close the need of 
 repose in which to recover from the emotion 
 aroused. Those stories especially which aim to 
 give a reason for some present condition (Cp. pp. 17, 
 and 25-36) require a pause at the close so that 
 the hearer may compare the prophecy and its pres- 
 ent fulfilment; as evidence of this consider the close 
 of the story of Eden, of the Flood, or of the drunk- 
 enness of Noah.
 
 LITERARY FORMS OF THE LEGENDS. 45 
 LEGEND CYCLES. 
 
 In later times there were formed of these indi- 
 vidual legends greater units, called legend cycles, 
 in which the separate legends are more or less 
 artistically combined. But even here it is not at 
 all difficult in most cases to extricate the original 
 constituent elements from one another. Thus the 
 legend cycle which treats Abraham and Lot sep- 
 arates clearly into the following stories: (i) The 
 migration of Abraham and Lot to Canaan; (2) their 
 separation at Bethel; (3) the theophany at Hebron; 
 (4) the destruction of Sodom; (5) the birth of 
 Amnion and Moab; (6) the birth of Isaac. The 
 legend cycle of Jacob-Esau-Laban divised clearly 
 into the legends of Jacob and Esau, of Jacob and 
 Laban, the legends of the origin of the twelve 
 tribes, with various legends interspersed of the 
 origin of ritual observances. In the stories con- 
 nected with Joseph, also, those of Joseph's inter- 
 course with his brothers are clearly distinguished 
 from those of Potiphar's wife, of Pharaoh's dreams, 
 and those of the agricultural conditions of Egypt 
 (Gen. xlvii. 13-26). 
 
 This leads to the practical conclusion for the exe- 
 gete that each individual legend must be interpreted 
 first of all from within. The more independent a 
 story is, the more sure we may be that it is preserved 
 in its original form. And the connexion between 
 individual legends is of later origin in many cases, 
 if it be not simply an hallucination of the exegete. 
 
 As an example of a primitive legend which is 
 almost wholly without antecedent assumptions, take 
 the story of Hagar's flight, Gen. xvi., for which we
 
 46 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 need to know only that there is a man named Abra- 
 ham with a wife named Sarah; everything else is 
 told by the legend itself. An example of a later 
 narrative is that of the suit for the hand of Rebeccah 
 (chap, xxiv.): this legend is based upon a whole 
 series of individual elements which belong to other 
 legends, as the kinship and migration of Abraham, 
 the promise of Jahveh at the migration, the facts 
 that Isaac was his only son and the son of his old age, 
 and so forth. Hence it is the individual legend 
 with which we shall have to deal first in this treatise. 
 
 LENGTH OF LEGENDS. 
 
 What are the limits of such a story? Many of 
 the stories of Genesis extend over scarcely more 
 than ten verses. This is the case with the stories 
 of Noah's drunkenness, of the tower of Babel, of 
 Abraham's journey to Egypt, of Hagar's flight or 
 the exile of Ishmael, of the trial of Abraham, of 
 Jacob at Bethel and at Penuel. After these very 
 brief stories we can group a series of more detailed 
 stories occupying about a chapter, such as the story 
 of Paradise, of Cain's parricide, of the Flood, of 
 the theophany at Hebron, of the betrothal of Rebec- 
 cah, of the fraud perpetrated upon Isaac by Jacob. 
 Finally the legend cycles exceed this limit of space. 
 
 This matter of the compass of the legends consti- 
 tutes a decided distinction between them and our 
 modern productions. Even the most complex 
 legend groups of Genesis, such as that of Joseph, 
 are of very modest extent by modern standards, 
 while the older legends are absolutely abrupt to 
 modern taste. Now, of course, the brief compass 
 of the old legends is at the same time an index of
 
 LITERARY FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 47 
 
 their character. They deal with very simple occur- 
 rences which can be adequately described in a few 
 words. And this compass accords also with the 
 artistic ability of the narrator and the comprehen- 
 sion of the hearer. The earliest story-tellers were 
 not capable of constructing artistic works of any 
 considerable extent; neither could they expect their 
 hearers to follow them with undiminished interest 
 for days and even weeks continuously. On the con- 
 trary, primitive times were satisfied with quite brief 
 productions which required not much over half an 
 hour. Then when the narrative is finished the 
 imagination of the hearer is satisfied and his atten- 
 tion exhausted. 
 
 On the other hand, our narratives show us that 
 later times were no longer satisfied with the very 
 brief stories of primitive construction; a more fully 
 developed aesthetic faculty demands more scope for 
 its expression. Thus greater compositions arose. 
 This growth in the compass of legends was favored 
 by the circumstance of their being written down; 
 written productions are naturally more discursive 
 than oral ones, because the eye in reading can more 
 easily grasp larger conceptions than the ear in hear- 
 ing. Accordingly, this too is a measure of the 
 relative age of legends, though a measure which 
 must be used with caution: the briefer a legend, the 
 greater the probability that we have it in its orig- 
 inal form. 
 
 SIMPLICITY AND CLEARNESS OF PRIMITIVE 
 LITERARY ART. 
 
 The brevity of the legends is, as we have seen, a 
 mark of the poverty of primitive literary art; but at
 
 48 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 the same time this poverty has its peculiar advan- 
 tages. The narrow limits within which the narrator 
 moves compel him to concentrate his entire poetic 
 power into the smallest compass; so that, while 
 these creations are small, they are also condensed 
 and effective. And the moderate grasp which 
 these small works of art have to reckon upon in 
 their hearers results also in making the narratives 
 as clear and synoptic as possible. 
 
 To make this last fact more evident, consider in 
 the first place the balance of parts. Not only the 
 longer of these narratives, but especially the brief- 
 est also are outlined with extraordinary sharpness. 
 Thus, the story of Noah's drunkenness is con- 
 structed as follows: Exposition, Noah's drunken- 
 ness. I. The occurrences: (i) Canaan's shameless- 
 ness; (2) the filial respect of Shem and Japhet; II. 
 The judgments: (1) concerning Canaan; (2) con- 
 cerning Shem and Japhet.— Or take the story of the 
 Garden of Eden, chap, iii.: I. The sin: (1) the 
 serpent tempts Eve; (2) the woman and the man 
 sin; (3) as consequence, the loss of their innocence; 
 II. The examination; III. The punishments: (1) 
 the curse upon the serpent, (2) upon the woman, 
 (3) upon the man; IV. Conclusion: the expulsion 
 from the garden. 
 
 By means of such plain and beautiful analyses the 
 narratives gain in clearness, that is, in the prerequi- 
 site of all aesthetic charm: the whole is analysed 
 into divisions and subdivisions which are themselves 
 easily grasped and the relation of which to one 
 another is perfectly plain. And these outlines are 
 never painfully forced, but seem to have come quite 
 as a matter of course from the nature of the subject.
 
 LITERARY FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 49 
 
 Consider, for instance, in the story of Eden, how 
 perfectly the outline corresponds to the contents: 
 in the fall the order is: Serpent, woman, man; the 
 examination begins with the last result and reverses 
 the process, the order here being: Man, woman, 
 serpent; the punishment falls first upon the chief 
 sinner, and accordingly the original order is here 
 resumed: Serpent, woman, man. Hence the mod- 
 ern reader is advised to heed the systematic arrange- 
 ment of parts, since the analysis will at the same 
 time give him the course of the action. 
 
 Furthermore, the narrator of the legend, unlike 
 the modern novelist, could not expect his hearers to 
 be interested in many persons at once, but on the 
 contrary, he always introduces to us a very small 
 number. Of course the minimum is two, because it 
 takes at least two to make a complication of inter- 
 ests: such are the cases of the separation of Abra- 
 ham and Lot, of Esau's sale of his birthright, and 
 of the story of Penuel; there are three personages 
 in the story of the creation of the woman (God, the 
 man and the woman), in the story of Cain's fratri- 
 cide (God, Cain and Abel), in the story of Lot in 
 the cave, and of the sacrifice of Isaac; there are four 
 in the story of Eden, of Abraham's journey into 
 Egypt, of Hagar's flight, of the deception practised 
 upon Isaac by Jacob. 
 
 There are indeed narratives in which more person- 
 ages take part, as in the case of the detailed story 
 of the suit for the hand of Rebeccah, and especially 
 in the stories of the twelve sons of Jacob. Yet even 
 here the narrators have not been neglectful of clear- 
 ness and distinctness. In very many cases where a 
 number of persons appear, the many are treated as
 
 50 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 one: they think and wish the same things and act 
 all alike: thus in the story of the Flood and of the 
 tower of Babel all mankind are treated as one per- 
 son, so also with the brothers Shem and Japhet, 
 with the three men at Hebron and at Sodom 
 (according to the original version of the story), 
 Lot's son-in-law at Sodom, the courtiers of Pharaoh, 
 the citizens of Shechem (Gen. xxxiv. 24), the 
 brothers of Dinah (xxxiv. 25), the citizens of 
 Temnah (xxxviii. 24), and in many other cases. 
 This is in accord with the conditions of antiquity, 
 in which the individual was much less sharply dis- 
 tinguished from the mass of the people than in 
 modern times. At the same time, however, this 
 condensation of several persons into one is due to 
 the inability of the narrator to catch and depict the 
 actual distinctions among individuals. 
 
 How limited in those days the capacity of even 
 an artistically developed narrator to depict char- 
 acter is shown in the conspicuous instance of the 
 story of Joseph: the narrative presents Joseph and 
 the eleven in conflict; among the others the story 
 distinguishes Joseph's full brother, Benjamin, the 
 youngest; of the remaining ten Reuben (Judah) is 
 recognised separately. But this is the extent of the 
 narrator's power to characterise; the remaining nine 
 lack all individuality; they are simply "the 
 brothers." 
 
 Further simplicity is attained by means of the 
 arrangement of parts, which, as we have noted, 
 resolves the story into a number of little scenes. 
 And in these scenes it is rare that all the persons of 
 the story appear at once, but only a few, usually 
 only two, are shown us at once. Compare the
 
 LITERARY FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 51 
 
 scenes of the story of the suit for Rebeccah; the 
 first scene shows Abraham and his servant, the 
 second shows the servant alone on the journey and 
 at the well, the third the servant and the maiden, 
 the fourth the maiden and her family, the fifth, and 
 principal, scene shows the servant together with 
 the maiden in her home, the sixth the servant 
 returning home with the maiden, the last their 
 arrival at the tent of Isaac. Or, another instance, 
 the story of the exile of Ishmael (xxiv. 4 ff.) shows 
 in succession: Sarah hearing the laughter of 
 Ishmael, and persuading Abraham; Abraham 
 expelling Hagar; then Hagar alone in the wilder- 
 ness with the child, and finally her rescue by the 
 angel. The story of Jacob's deception (xxvii.) 
 treats first of Isaac and Esau, then of Rebeccah and 
 Jacob, next of Jacob before Isaac, and of Esau 
 before Isaac, of Esau's hatred of Jacob, and finally 
 of Rebeccah' s advice to Jacob. 
 
 The narrative takes especial pains to motivate this 
 succession of scenes; and yet it does not hesitate to 
 simply drop a personage on occasion, as in the case 
 of the serpent after the temptation, or of Rebeccah 
 after the death of Isaac. By means of this analysis 
 the narrative gains great clearness; the hearer is not 
 constrained to keep a confusing group of people in 
 view, but he sees them in succession; thus he has 
 time to inspect them at leisure and to familiarise 
 himself with them. Only once, at the climax of 
 the action, do all the persons appear together: thus 
 in the story of Eden, in that of Noah's drunkenness, 
 and in the story of Joseph at the close. But even 
 here the narrators considered grouping necessary. 
 They would not have been able to conduct a con-
 
 52 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 versation between a number of persons at once. 
 Thus at the end of the story of Eden God does not 
 reprove all the participants in one common address; 
 but he turns first to the serpent, then to the woman, 
 then to the man. And elsewhere also it is the 
 nature of the style to divide up the conversation 
 into so many dialogues. 
 
 CHIEF AND SUBORDINATE PERSONAGES. 
 
 The survey of the various personages is further 
 facilitated by a very distinct separation of leading 
 and subordinate parts. The hearer does not have to 
 ask many questions to learn which of the person- 
 ages should receive his especial attention; the nar- 
 rator makes this very plain to him simply by speaking 
 most of the chief personage. Thus in most of the 
 legends of the patriarchs the patriarchs themselves 
 are as a matter of course the chief personages. In 
 the following cases the personages of their respec- 
 tive stories are arranged in the order in which they 
 interest the narrator: Cain, Abel; Abraham, Sarah, 
 Pharaoh (Genesis xii. 10-20); Abraham, Lot; 
 Hagar, Sarah, Abraham (chap, xvi.); the servant 
 and Rebeccah are the chief personages in chap, 
 xxiv., the others being all of second rank; in chap, 
 xxvii. the chief personages are Jacob and Esau, 
 while the parents are secondary; in the story of 
 Jacob and Laban these are the chief personages, the 
 women secondary. In this classification sympathy 
 and veneration are not to be confused with interest; 
 the artistic interest of the narrator is greater in 
 Cain than in Abel, in Hagar than in Sarah; in chap, 
 xxiv, the servant is the chief personage while Abra- 
 ham has only a subordinate part. — In many cases it
 
 LITERARY FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 53 
 
 is the destinies of a single leading personage that 
 we pursue, noticeably in the case of the stories of 
 Joseph. 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF CHARACTERS. 
 
 In attempting to discover the method by which 
 characters are depicted we are first struck by the 
 brevity with which subordinate personages are 
 treated. Modern literary creations have accus- 
 tomed us to expect that every personage introduced 
 be characterised if possible with at least a few 
 touches as an independent individual. The method of 
 the primitive saga-man is entirely different. The 
 personages whom he considers altogether or tem- 
 porarily subordinate receive little or no characteri- 
 sation. In view of the primitive feeling on the 
 subject it is a matter of course that not much atten- 
 tion was paid to slaves. The attendants of Esau 
 (xxxii. ff.) or of Laban (xxxi. 23) are introduced 
 merely to show their masters' importance, and have 
 no further significance. The narrators did not even 
 consider it necessary to mention the sin of the two 
 chamberlains of Pharaoh (xli. 1), or the feelings of 
 Dinah (xxxiv.), or those of Sarah on the journey 
 to Egypt (xii. 10 ff.). Hirah, the friend of Judah 
 (xxxviii. 1, 12, 20), is not characterised; the sin 
 of Er (xxxvii. 7) is not specified; nothing is told of 
 Shuah, the wife of Judah (xxxviii. 2-12), that is 
 really characteristic; the same is true of Joseph's 
 steward (xliii. 16), of Potiphar, and others. 
 
 And even the characterisation of the chief person- 
 ages is remarkably brief according to our notions. 
 Only a few traits are ascribed to them, often but 
 one. Cain is jealous of his brother, Canaan is
 
 64 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 shameless, Shem and Japhet respectful. In the 
 story of the separation of Lot and Abraham, the 
 former is greedy, the latter conciliatory. In the 
 story of Hebron, Abraham is hospitable, and in the 
 migration he is obedient to the will of God. In 
 the story of Penuel, Jacob is strong and brave, in 
 the affair with Esau he is crafty, in the story of 
 Joseph he is fond of the children of Rachel. In 
 the somewhat complex story of the Fall the serpent 
 is crafty and evil, the man and the woman are 
 guileless as children, the woman is fond of dainties 
 and gullible , the man follows his wife. Even in 
 the case of God each individual story as a rule 
 speaks of but one single quality: in most of the 
 legends he is the gracious helper, in others, as the 
 stories of Paradise and Babel, he is the lofty sover- 
 eign whose concern is to keep men within bounds. 
 We are struck by this paucity in the legends, since 
 we are familiar in modern compositions with por- 
 traits made up of many separate traits and painted 
 with artistic detail. The art of the primitive story- 
 tellers is very different. True, it is based upon the 
 actual conditions of primitive ages in one respect: 
 the men of antiquity were in general more simple 
 than the many-sided men of modern times. Yet it 
 would be an error to suppose that men in those 
 earlier days were as simple as they are represented 
 to be in the legends; compare in evidence of this 
 the character sketches of a somewhat maturer art in 
 the Second Book of Samuel.. With this example in 
 mind we shall recognise also that there is some 
 other ground for the brevity of the legends of 
 Genesis than that abbreviation of the real which is 
 inevitable in every artistic reproduction of life.
 
 LITERARY FORM OF THE LEGEND*. 55 
 
 POPULAR LEGENDS TREAT MEN AS TYPES. 
 
 It is, on the contrary, a peculiar popular concep- 
 tion of man that we meet in Genesis. This concep- 
 tion was unable to grasp and represent many sides 
 of man, much less all; it could see but a little. But 
 so much the more need had it to catch the essential 
 traits of the individual, wherefore it constructed 
 types. Thus in the story of the flight of Hagar, 
 Hagar is the type of the slave (xvi.) who is too well 
 treated, Sarah of the jealous wife, Abraham the type 
 of the conciliatory husband. Rachel and Leah are 
 types of the favorite and of the unloved wife; in the 
 story of the migration of Abraham to Egypt, or the 
 story of Joseph, Pharoah acts like the typical Orien- 
 tal king in such cases; his courtiers are courtiers and 
 nothing more; Abraham's servant, chap, xxiv., is an 
 old and tried servant; Isaac, in the story of the decep- 
 tion, is a blind old man, and Rebeccah a cunning, 
 partial mother; Abraham in his migration and in 
 chap. xxii. is the type of the pious and obedient man. 
 A number of figures are the types of the races which 
 are said to be descended from them: the shameless 
 Canaan, the generous but stupid Esau, the crafty 
 Laban, the still more crafty Jacob (cp. p. 23). 
 
 Doubtless it is another sign of the lack of creative 
 grasp when the legends thus present to our eyes 
 species instead of individuals; but the narrators 
 have made a virtue of necessity. Within the lim- 
 ited sphere assigned to them they give us extraor- 
 dinary achievements. The types which they had 
 the opportunity to observe they have depicted with 
 a confidence and a clearness similar to those dis- 
 played in the national types preserved to us by the
 
 56 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 Egyptian painters. And for this very reason many 
 of the old legends still fascinate the modern reader, 
 and even the unlearned reader; they often repro- 
 duce universally human conditions and relations 
 which are intelligible without interpretation unto 
 this day. To the special student, however, they 
 yield much greater pleasure, for to him they furnish 
 the most intimate revelations regarding primitive 
 conditions and sentiments. 
 
 As a natural conclusion from this simplicity of 
 the characters represented we recognise that the art 
 of these popular legends was far from undertaking 
 to show any development in the characters, such as 
 improvement or degeneration. Not that primitive 
 times ignored the possibilities of such changes; the 
 denunciations of the prophets as well as historical 
 evidence prove the contrary. But the art of the 
 story-teller is far from equal to the task of depicting 
 such an inward change. All that modern exegetes 
 claim to have found in Genesis in this line is simply 
 imported into the sources: Jacob's dishonest char- 
 acter did not change at all; and Joseph's brethren 
 are not at all reformed in the course of the story, 
 but simply punished. 
 
 While, therefore, the individual legends recognise 
 in the main only one quality of the personages 
 involved, the legend cycles are able to give more 
 detailed descriptions, although after a peculiar man- 
 ner. The characteristic instance is, of course, the 
 portrayal of the figure of Joseph in the cycle of 
 legends devoted to his history. Here each indi- 
 vidual legend brings out one or two sides of his 
 nature: one legend (xxxvii.) tells us that he was 
 loved bv his father and therefore hated by his
 
 LITERARY FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 57 
 
 brethren, and that he had dreams; another (xxxix.) 
 tells us that everything throve under his hand, and 
 that he was fair and chaste; a third (xl.) that he 
 could interpret dreams; and a fourth (xli.) that he 
 was crafty; and so on. Combining all these indi- 
 vidual traits we get finally a complete portrait. 
 
 Furthermore, the narrators are exceedingly grudg- 
 ing in the outward description of their personages: 
 they reveal nothing regarding hair, complexion, 
 eyes or garb. In all this they seem to take the 
 normal Hebrew type for granted. And wherever 
 they deviate from this rule in their description it is 
 done for specific reasons: Esua is red and hairy 
 (xxv. '25) clearly because he is a type of the 
 Edomite; Joseph wears his long garment with 
 sleeves (xxxvii. 3) as a badge of the love of his 
 father; Leah had "tender eyes" and Rachel is beau- 
 tiful of form (xxix. 17) to explain why Jacob rejects 
 Leah and loves Rachel. 
 
 Now if we ask what principle the story-teller fol- 
 lows when he does emphasise definite characteristics 
 of his personages, we discover that the characterisa- 
 tion is generally subordinated to the action. The 
 particular quality of the person is emphasised that 
 is necessary for the development of the action; all 
 others are ignored. The story of the deception 
 practised by Jacob tells how the latter, following 
 his mother's counsel, induces his father to bless him 
 instead of Esau: here Jacob is crafty, he practises 
 deception; Esau is stupid, he lets himself be 
 cheated; Isaac is easily deceived, is blind; Rebec- 
 cah is cunning, she gives the deceitful advice and 
 is partial to Jacob. This is further portrayed in a 
 more detailed narrative: Jacob is a shepherd who
 
 58 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 dwells at home with his mother, Esau a hunter 
 whose venison the father is fond of. The modern 
 story-teller would add a quantity of further traits to 
 give color and life to the figures, but the primitive 
 story-teller rejected all such details. It is very 
 easy to see what the aesthetic interest of the nar- 
 rator was: he cared above all things for the action; 
 the portrayal of figures, was for him only a second- 
 ary matter. 
 
 METHODS OF THE NARRATORS. 
 
 What means do the narrators use for the rep- 
 resentation of the character of their heroes? 
 The modern artist is very apt to explain in 
 extended descriptions the thoughts and feelings of 
 his personages. When one turns from such a mod- 
 ern story-teller to the study of Genesis, one is aston- 
 ished to find in it so few utterances regarding the 
 inner life of the heroes. Only rarely are the 
 thoughts of even a leading personage expressly 
 told, as in the case of the woman when she was 
 looking desirously at the tree of knowledge, or of 
 Noah, when he sent forth the birds "to see whether 
 the waters were dried up off the earth," or the 
 thoughts of Lot's sons-in-law, who judged that their 
 father-in-law was jesting; the thoughts of Isaac, 
 who feared at Gerar that he might be robbed of his 
 wife (xxvi. 7); or the cunning thoughts with which 
 Jacob proposed to evade the revenge of his brother 
 Esau (xxxii. 9), and so on. But how brief 
 and unsatisfactory even this appears compared 
 with the psychological descriptions of modern 
 writers!
 
 LITERARY FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 59 
 
 And even such examples as these are not the rule 
 in the legends of Genesis. On the contrary, the 
 narrator is usually content with a very brief hint, 
 such as, "He grew wroth" (iv. 5; xxx. 2; xxxi. 36; 
 xxxiv. 7; xxxix. 19; xl. 2), or, "He was afraid" 
 (xxvi. 7; xxviii. 17; xxxii. 8), "He was comforted" 
 (xxiv. 16), "He loved her" (xxiv. 67; xxix. 18; 
 xxx. 3; xxxvii. 3), "She became jealous" (xxx. 1), 
 "He was filled with fear" (xxvii. 33), "He eyed 
 him with hatred" (xxvii. 41; xxxvii. 4), and else- 
 where. But even these brief hints are far from fre- 
 quent; on the contrary, we find very often not the 
 slightest expression regarding the thoughts and 
 feelings of the person concerned, and this in situa- 
 tions where we cannot avoid a certain surprise at 
 the absence of such expressions. The narrator tells 
 us nothing of the reasons why God forbade man to 
 partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, nor of 
 the reasons of the serpent for wishing to seduce 
 mankind. He says nothing of the feelings with 
 which Abraham left his home, or Noah entered the 
 ark. We do not learn that Noah was angry at 
 Canaan's shamelessness, that Jacob was disap- 
 pointed when Laban cheated him with Leah, that 
 Hagar was glad when she received the promise that 
 Ishmael should become a great nation; we are not 
 even told that mothers rejoice when they hold their 
 firstborn son in their arms. Particularly striking is 
 the case of the story of the sacrifice of Isaac: what 
 modern writer would fail under such circumstances 
 to portray the spiritual state of Abraham when his 
 religious devotion wins the hard victory over his 
 parental love, and when his sadness is finally turned 
 into rejoicing!
 
 60 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 4 
 
 THOUGHT EXPRESSED BY ACTIONS. 
 
 Now what is the reason for this strange proceed- 
 ing? We can find it in an instance like that of xix. 
 27 ff. In sight of the city of Sodom Abraham had 
 heard certain remarkable utterances from the three 
 men; they had said that they were going down to 
 Sodom to examine into the guilt of the city. This 
 strange remark he let run in his head; in the morn- 
 ing of the following day he arose and went to the 
 same place to see whether anything had happened 
 in Sodom during the night. And in fact, he sees in 
 the valley below a smoke, whence he must infer 
 that something has taken place; but this smoke 
 hides the region, and he cannot make out what has 
 happened. For the story-teller this little scene is 
 plainly not of interest because of the thing that 
 happens, but because of the thoughts which Abra- 
 ham must have thought, and yet he does not tell us 
 what these thoughts were. He merely reports to us 
 the outward incidents, and we are obliged to supply 
 the really important point ourselves. This story- 
 teller, then, has an eye for the soul-life of his hero, 
 but he cannot conceive these inward processes with 
 sufficient clearness to express them in definite 
 words. 
 
 This is a typical instance for Genesis. In very 
 many situations where the modern writer would 
 expect a psychological analysis, the primitive story- 
 teller simply presents an action. The spiritual 
 state of the man and woman in Paradise and after 
 the Fall is not analysed, but a single objective 
 touch is given by which we may recognise it. The 
 narrator says nothing of the thoughts of Adam when
 
 LITERAR Y FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 61 
 
 the woman handed him the forbidden fruit, but 
 merely, that he ate it; he does not discourse to us 
 on Abraham's hospitable disposition, but he tells us 
 how he entertained the three men. He does not say 
 that Shem and Japhet felt chastely and respectfully, 
 but he has them act chastely and respectfully; not 
 that Joseph had compassi on np on,_hJs bre thren, b ut 
 thai,h^^rn£d_iiwayLandjwept (xlii. 24; xliii. 30); not 
 that Hagarjj when mistre ateoVby^Sarah^ ieit offended 
 in the depth s o f her mater nal pri de, but that she ran 
 away_^rom her mistr ess (xvi. 6) ; not that Laban was 
 dazzled by the gold of the stranger, but that he made 
 haste to invite him (xxiv. 30); not that obedience 
 to God triumphed in Abraham over parental love, 
 but that he arose straightway (xxii. 3); not that 
 Tamar remained faithful to her husband even be- 
 yond the grave, but that she took measures to rear 
 up children from his seed (xxxviii). 
 
 From all this we see on what the story-teller laid 
 the chief emphasis. He does not share the modern 
 point of view that the most interesting and worthy 
 theme for art is the soul-life of man; his childlike 
 taste is fondest of the outward, objective facts. 
 And in this line his achievements are excellent. 
 He has an extraordinary faculty for selecting just 
 the action which is most characteristic for the state 
 of feeling of his hero. How could filial piety be 
 better represented than in the story of Shem and 
 Japhet? Or mother-love better than by the behavior 
 of Hagar? She gave her son to drink — we are not 
 told that she herself drank. How could hospitality 
 be better depicted than in the actions of Abraham 
 at Hebron? And there is nothing less than genius 
 in the simple manner in which the innocence and
 
 62 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 the consciousness of the first men is illustrated by 
 their nakedness and their clothing. 
 
 These simple artists had not learned how to 
 reflect; but they were masters of observation. It is 
 chiefly this admirable art of indirectly depicting 
 men through their actions which makes the legends 
 so vivid. Little as these primitive men could talk 
 about their soul-life, we gain the impression that 
 they are letting us look into the very hearts of their 
 heroes. These figures live before our eyes, and 
 hence the modern reader, charmed by the luminous 
 clearness of these old legends, is quite willing to 
 forget their defects. 
 
 SOUL-LIFE NOT IGNORED. 
 
 But even when the story-teller said nothing of the 
 soul-life of his heroes, his hearer did not entirely 
 fail to catch an impression of it. We must recall 
 at this point that we are dealing with orally recited 
 stories. Between narrator and hearer there is 
 another link than that of words; the tone of the 
 voice talks, the expression of the face or the ges- 
 tures of the narrator. Joy and grief, love, anger, 
 jealousy, hatred, emotion, and all the other moods 
 of his heroes, shared by the narrator, were thus 
 imparted to his hearers without the utterance of a 
 word. 
 
 Modern exegesis is called to the task of reading 
 between the lines the spiritual life which the nar- 
 rator did not expressly utter. This is not always 
 such a simple matter. We have in some cases got- 
 ten out of touch with the emotions of older times 
 and the expressions for them. Why, for instance, 
 did Rebeccah veil herself when she caught sight of
 
 LITERARY FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 63 
 
 Isaac? (xxiv. 25.) Why did the daughters of Lot go 
 in unto him? Why did Tamar desire offspring of 
 Judah? (xxxvii.) What is the connexion of the 
 awakening modesty of the first men and their sin? 
 In such cases exegesis has often gone far astray by 
 taking modern motives and points of view for 
 granted. 
 
 A further medium of expression for the spiritual 
 life of the personages is articulate speech. Words 
 are not, it is true, so vivid as actions, but to make 
 up for this they can the better reveal the inner life 
 of the personages. The early story-tellers were 
 masters in the art of finding words that suit the 
 mood of the speakers: thus the malice of the cun- 
 ning serpent is expressed in words, as well as the 
 guilelessness of the childlike woman, Sarah's jeal- 
 ousy of her slave as well as the conciliatoriness of 
 Abraham (xvi. 6), the righteous wrath of Abimelech 
 (xx. 9), the caution of the shrewd Jacob (xxxii. 9), 
 and the bitter lament of Esau (xxvii. 36) and of 
 Laban (xxxi. 43) when deceived by Jacob. Notable 
 masterpieces of the portrayal of character in words 
 are the temptation of the first couple and the con- 
 versation between Abraham and Isaac on the way to 
 the mount of sacrifice. 
 
 LACONISM OF THE LEGEND WRITERS. 
 
 But even in this connexion we find many things 
 to surprise us. First of all, that the personages of 
 Genesis often fail to speak where the modern writer 
 would surely have them do so, and where the very 
 nature of the case seems to require it. We may 
 well imagine that Joseph complained aloud when
 
 64 THE LEGENDS OE GENESIS. 
 
 he was cast into the pit and carried away to Egypt 
 (cp. also xlii. 21), that the murder of Abel was pre- 
 ceded by a dispute, that Hagar left Abraham's 
 house weeping and complaining that Abraham had 
 put her away (xxi. 14); but there is nothing of the 
 kind. The first couple do not utter a word of reply 
 when God pronounces his curse upon their future: 
 they do not even indulge in self-accusations; not a 
 word does Rebeccah say in chapter xxvi., nor Noah 
 during the Deluge, nor Abraham in chapter xviii, 
 when a son is promised him or when he is com- 
 manded to sacrifice Isaac; neither does Hagar when 
 she sees her child dying, nor later when God heard 
 the weeping of Ishmael. One who examined these 
 references might easily conclude that the person- 
 ages of Genesis were intended to be portrayed as 
 taciturn and even secretive; he would find the only 
 talkative individual to be — God. 
 
 But if we go more deeply into these legends, we 
 perceive that this extraordinary laconism is part of 
 the style of the narrator. The narrators subordinated 
 everything to the action. They introduced only 
 such speeches as really advanced the action. 
 Hence especially they avoided giving utterance to 
 the feelings of the merely passive personages. 
 Whether Joseph complains or keeps silence, when 
 his brethren sell him, makes no difference with his 
 destiny. What words were spoken by Abraham and 
 Noah when they received the commands of God 
 makes no difference; suffice it, they obeyed. The 
 destiny of the first family is fixed when God has 
 cursed them; no self-reproaches will help the mat- 
 ter. Or, what do we care about the dispute that 
 preceded the murder of Abel, since we know the
 
 LITERARY FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 65 
 
 reason which prompted Cain's deed! And it appears 
 perfectly natural that men should make no reply to 
 the promises of God, as is usually the case; for 
 what can man add when God has spoken? 
 
 The other side of this strangely laconic method is 
 that the remarks which the narrator does introduce 
 are an essential part of the narrative. The conver- 
 sation between the serpent and the woman is to 
 show how it came about that the forbidden fruit was 
 eaten. Cain pours forth his guilt-laden heart before 
 God, and as a result modifies his sentence. Abra- 
 ham begs his wife to declare herself his sister; and 
 thus it comes about that she was taken into the 
 harem of Pharaoh (xii. u ff.). Abraham gave Lot 
 the choice of going to the east or to the west; hence 
 Lot chose the plain of the Jordan. At Sarah's 
 request Abraham takes Hagar as concubine and at 
 her request he gives her up again. In these cases 
 the words are not idle; on the contrary they are 
 necessary to suggest an inner motive for the action 
 to follow. Especially necessary are the words of 
 cursing and of promise; they are the very climax of 
 the story, up to which all the rest leads. This 
 explains why God is so often represented as speak- 
 ing in Genesis; for speech is really the chief 
 medium through which God influences the action in 
 these legends. 
 
 In some places the narrators have introduced mon- 
 ologues, the most unconcrete of all forms of speech, 
 when the situation showed that there was no one pres- 
 ent to whom the person could have spoken. This 
 is quite commonly the case with God; for to whom 
 should God reveal his most hidden decrees? But in 
 a few cases we can infer (i. 26; ii. 6 f.) an elder
 
 66 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 form of the account, in which God addressed him- 
 self to his celestial associates. 
 
 But even in the laconic legends there are 
 speeches which, while they are not exactly neces- 
 sary, either characterise a person or attempt to give 
 the opinion of the narrator, or which aim at some 
 other point which the narrator wants to make. 
 Many of the speeches in Genesis are exceedingly 
 brief. Recall the lament of Hagar: "I am fleeing 
 before the face of my mistress" (xvi. 8), or the words 
 of the daughters of Lot (xix. 31), of Sarah (xxi. 
 10), of Abraham (xxi. 24), "I will swear," of 
 Rebeccah (xxiv. 18 ff.), of Jacob (xxv. 33), "Swear 
 to me this day," of Isaac (xxvi. 7), "She is my 
 sister," of the shepherds of Gerar (xxvi. 20), "The 
 water is ours," of Isaac's slaves (xxvi. 32), "We 
 have found water," of Laban (xxix. 14), "Yea, 
 thou art my flesh and blood," and so on. Of 
 course, the speeches are not always so brief; they 
 are especially apt to grow longer in the solemn and 
 impressive formulae of cursing and blessing. But 
 in general we may see in brevity a characteristic 
 mark of a certain type in Genesis. 
 
 Even such utterances do not always reveal the 
 ultimate purpose of the actors, and reveal their spirit- 
 ual life only in an indirect way. Hence the expres- 
 sions are not always entirely clear for us, and 
 require an especial gift for their interpretation. We 
 are told that God forbade to man the fruit of the 
 tree of life, but his reason for this is not given. 
 What thought was in God's mind when threatening 
 man with immediate death, whereas this result did 
 not actually follow? So, too, we learn that the ser- 
 pent desires to betray the woman, but not his
 
 LITERARY FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 67 
 
 reason. And even such psychological masterpieces 
 as the story of the temptation are only indirect 
 portrayals of soul-life. 
 
 NO NATURE-LOVE IN GENESIS. 
 
 y 
 
 Very many of the legends are no less laconic in 
 their descriptions of incidental circumstances. In 
 this respect also there is a great difference between 
 the primitive literary art and that of modern story- 
 tellers. Of course, the ancients have no touch of 
 the intimate feeling for the landscape; there is no 
 trace of nature-love in Genesis. The facts that the 
 story of Eden is set among green trees, the story 
 of Hagar in the barren desolation of the wilder- 
 ness, the story of Joseph in the land of the Nile, 
 affect the course of the story in certain respects, 
 indeed, since the first pair clothe themselves with 
 leaves and since the desert is a place where one can 
 get lost, and where there is no water. But these 
 facts in no wise affect the mood or sentiment of the 
 action. 
 
 ECONOMY OF DETAILS. 
 
 But aside from this intimate feeling for the life 
 of nature, which was foreign to the primitive man, 
 how easy it would have been to give a description 
 of Paradise! What modern poet would have missed 
 the opportunity! But the early story-tellers were 
 content to say that there were beautiful trees there, 
 and the source of mighty rivers. It is a piece of 
 the same method that the narrator does not tell us 
 with what weapon Cain slew Abel; he tells us 
 merely that Noah planted vines and then that he
 
 68 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 drank of the wine, omitting the intervening steps 
 of picking and pressing the grapes; he no more tells 
 us how the contempt of Hagar was expressed (xvi. 
 4) than how Sarah took her revenge. We are wont 
 to admire the circumstantiality of the narratives, 
 and justly, but this by no means implies that the 
 legends abound in striking and highly concrete 
 touches; on the contrary, they present on the whole 
 not an abundance, but a paucity, of concrete ele- 
 ments. But the little that we have is so judiciously 
 selected that we are warranted in seeking for a pur- 
 pose in almost every minute feature. 
 
 This economy of circumstantial details is the 
 more striking because alongside such lightly 
 sketched features, and especially in the more 
 detailed narratives, there are often very minute 
 descriptions. Thus, for instance, the meal that 
 Abraham serves to the three men is described in 
 detail, while the meal of Lot is but briefly 
 sketched. For the purpose of exegesis it is very 
 suggestive to keep this question constantly in mind, 
 to observe the brief and detailed treatments, and to 
 consider everywhere the interest of the narrator. 
 In general this will warrant the conclusion that the 
 narrator portrays the principal events concretely, 
 while merely hinting at or omitting those which 
 are incidental to the action: thus, for instance, in 
 the story of the sacrifice of Isaac the three days' 
 journey is covered at a bound, while the short pas- 
 sage to the place of sacrifice is described in all 
 detail. The narrator is quite arbitrary in the mat- 
 ter. Similarly the experiences of Abraham's servant 
 on the day when he sued for the hand of Rebeccah 
 are reported very minutely, while all the days con-
 
 LITERARY FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 69 
 
 sumed in the journey to the city of Nahor are dis- 
 posed of in a breath. 
 
 This emphasis laid upon the action is seen also in 
 the manner of the conclusion of the narrative. The 
 legends stop promptly when they have attained the 
 desired object, not with a gradual cadence, but with 
 a sudden jolt. This observation also is important 
 for exegesis. The point just before the close is 
 recognised as the climax by the narrator. Yet 
 there are here two varieties of conclusion: the cus- 
 tomary sort follows the climax with a short sentence 
 (the type is the sacrifice of Isaac) ; the less common, 
 and plainly more impressive, closes with a pathetic 
 address (the curse of Noah is here the type). 
 
 UNITY AND COHERENCE OF PARTS. 
 
 From the above observations we conclude that 
 in the primitive legends everything is subordinated 
 to the action. In other literatures there are nar- 
 ratives in which the action is merely a garb or a 
 thread, while the chief concern is the psychologic 
 study, the brilliant conversation, or the idea; but 
 not so with the primitive Hebrew legend. The 
 primitive man demanded from his story-teller first 
 of all action; he demands that something shall hap- 
 pen in the story to please his eye. But the first 
 essential in such a story is to him its inner unity; 
 the narrator must furnish him a connected series of 
 events each necessarily dependent on the preceding. 
 
 One of the chief charms of the early legend is just 
 this: to show how one thing resulted from another. 
 The more plausible and necessary this connexion 
 appears, the more attractive seems the whole story. 
 A famine forces Abraham to go to Egypt; but he is
 
 70 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 afraid of being killed there on account of his beau- 
 tiful wife. Therefore he reports his wife to be his 
 sister. Deceived by this Pharaoh takes Sarah and 
 makes presents to Abraham. Therefore God pun- 
 ishes Pharaoh. In eonseqtcence of this Pharaoh 
 releases Sarah but permits Abraham to retain the 
 presents. — Sarah has no children, but desires them. 
 Therefore she gives her maid to Abraham as con- 
 cubine. Thus Hagar conceives by Abraham. 
 Hc?iee Hagar despises her mistress. This offends 
 the proud Sarah most deeply. Therefore she causes 
 Abraham to restore Hagar to her, and mistreats her. 
 As a result Hagar flees into the desert. Here God 
 has compassion on her and promises her a son. 
 
 Observe how in such cases each successive mem- 
 ber is linked to the preceding one; how each pre- 
 ceding member appears as the natural cause or at 
 least the antecedent of the succeeding one. We are 
 in the habit, following a sort of tradition, of calling 
 this kind of narrative childish; but in so doing we 
 are only partially right. 
 
 These narratives, then, are exceedingly tense in 
 their connexion. The narrators do not like digres- 
 sions, but press with all their energy toward the 
 mark. Hence they avoid, if possible, the introduc- 
 tion cf new features in a given story, but seek an 
 uninterrupted connexion. Rarely indeed are new 
 assumptions introduced, but go6d style demands the 
 announcement of all assumptions as near the begin- 
 ning as possible. In pursuit of this method it is 
 considered permissible to skip over the necessary 
 consequences of what has been told, provided only 
 that those features stand forth which are essential to 
 the continuation of the action. There must be
 
 LITERARY FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 71 
 
 nothing too much, and nothing too little. The nar- 
 rator does not spring aside; but the hearer also 
 must not be allowed to spring aside: the narrator 
 holds fast to him so that he can think only what the 
 narrator wants to have him think. 
 
 VARIATIONS ON A GIVEN THEME. 
 
 Many of the legends are fond of varying a given 
 motive. Consider how the story of Eden makes 
 everything dependent on the nakedness and the 
 clothing of man, and how the relation of "field" 
 and "field-tiller" (this is the etymology of the 
 Hebrew word here used for "man") pervades this 
 whole legend; how the story of Joseph's sale into 
 Egypt treats the coat-sleeve (coat of many colors) 
 and the dreams; how the story of Jacob's last testa- 
 ment (xlvii. 29 ff.) constantly connects his actions 
 with his bed: in praying he bows at the head of the 
 bed, xlvii. 31; in blessing he rises up in bed, 
 xlviii. 2; in dying he stretches himself out upon his 
 bed, xlix. 33 (English version: "gathered up his 
 feet in his bed"), and so on. In this the rule is, 
 quite in opposition to our sense of style, to repeat 
 the expression every time the thing is referred to, 
 so that one and the same word often runs through 
 the story like a red thread. Undoubtedly this cus- 
 tom originated in the poverty of the language; but 
 the narrators of our legends follow it in order to 
 produce an impression of unity and simplicity. 
 
 Precisely because of this inward connexion in the 
 story it is possible in many places where our 
 received text shows gaps or distortions to recognise 
 the original form of the legend: the text-criticism 
 is in this point very much more positive than in the
 
 72 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 case of the prophets, the laws and the songs, which 
 lacked this connected condensation. 
 
 PLAUSIBILITY DEMANDED. 
 
 Furthermore, the course of the action must be 
 probable, highly credible, even unavoidable. 
 Nowhere must the hearer be able to make the objec- 
 tion that what is being told is inconsistent with 
 what has preceded or with itself. Hagar, when 
 elevated to too high station, could not fail to grow 
 haughty; and Sarah could not help feeling offended. 
 True, the probability aimed at by these old story- 
 tellers was different from that of which we speak. 
 Their understanding of nature was different from 
 ours; for instance, they regarded it as entirely 
 credible that all the kinds of animals could get into 
 the ark; furthermore, the way in which they speak 
 of God and his participation in the affairs of the 
 world was naiver than is possible for us of modern 
 times; they regarded it as quite plausible that the 
 serpent should have spoken in primitive times; that 
 Joseph, the grand vizier, should look after the sale 
 of the corn in person. 
 
 Hence it would be quite unwarranted to speak of 
 the "arbitrariness" and "childish recklessness" of 
 the legends simply because the assumptions of the 
 narrators are impossible to us in modern times. 
 Only in a very few places can the eye of the modern 
 reader, even though trained for criticism, detect 
 improbabilities. In this line we may ask why 
 Joseph, who was so much attached to his father, 
 failed to communicate with him all the long years. 
 Even after Hagar and her son were once rescued, 
 were not the dangers of the desert sure to recur
 
 LITERARY FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 73 
 
 every day? But the auditor of ancient times 
 doubtless did not ask such questions; he was more 
 willing to surrender to the narrator, and was more 
 easily charmed; he was also more credulous than we 
 are; compare for instance, xliii. 23. 
 
 SUSTAINED INTEREST. 
 
 On the other hand, in a well-told legend the inci- 
 dents are not so simple that one can guess the whole 
 course of events from the first few words; if it were 
 so, the legend would lose its interest. No one 
 cares to hear of things that are self-evident. On 
 the contrary, our story-tellers are dealing with what 
 they regard as a complicated situation, whose final 
 outcome cannot be surveyed in advance by the 
 hearer. This leads him to listen the more intently. 
 Jacob wrestles with a supernatural being; which of 
 the two will conquer? Jacob and Laban are equally 
 gifted in cunning; which will succeed in deceiving 
 the other? The shrewd but unwarlike Jacob has to 
 meet the dull but physically superior Esau; how 
 will he manage him? Abraham has to go down 
 into Egypt, and how will he fare there? Thus all 
 these stories are more or less exciting. The child- 
 like listener holds his breath, and rejoices when the 
 hero finally escapes all the threatening dangers. 
 
 The narrators are very fond of contrasts: the 
 child cast out into the desert becomes a mighty 
 people; a poor slave, languishing in prison, 
 becomes the ruler of Egypt with all her abundance. 
 They try if possible to focus these contrasts into a 
 single point: at the moment when Hagar is in utter 
 despair, God takes compassion on her; the very 
 instant when Abraham raises his arm to slay Isaac,
 
 74 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 he is checked by God. Lot lingers, and Jacob holds 
 the divinity fast until the dawn is at hand: the next 
 moment will surely bring the decision. 
 
 And where this intense interest is wholly lacking, 
 where there is no complication of interests, there 
 we have no real legend. Thus the account of crea- 
 tion in Genesis i. is scarcely to be called a story; 
 and yet, from v. 2 and 26, as well as from the poetic 
 versions referred to on pp. 10-12 and 25-26, we can 
 conjecture a form of the account in which more per- 
 sonages appear and in which the world is created 
 after a conflict of God with Chaos. In like manner, 
 the accounts of Abraham's migration and of his 
 league with Abimelech are not real legends, but 
 only legendary traditions which have originated 
 probably from the decay of earlier and fuller 
 legends. 
 
 LEGENDS NOT PURE INVENTION. 
 
 As we have seen in the second division of this 
 treatise, the legends are not free inventions of the 
 imagination. On the contrary, a legend adopts and 
 works over certain data which come from reflexion, 
 tradition or observation. These fundamental data 
 have been treated in the preceding pages; our pres- 
 ent task is to consider the part taken by the imagin- 
 ation in the development of the legends. With this 
 subject we have reached the very heart of our 
 investigations. 
 
 As has been shown above, many of the legends 
 seem intended to answer definite questions. That 
 is, these legends are not the thoughtless play of an 
 imagination acting without other purpose than the 
 search for the beautiful, but they have a specific
 
 LITER A R Y FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 75 
 
 purpose, a point, which is to instruct. Accord- 
 ingly, if these narratives are to attain their object 
 they must make this point very clear. They do this 
 in a decided way, so decidedly that even we late- 
 born moderns can see the point clearly, and can 
 infer from it the question answered. The sympa- 
 thetic reader who has followed the unhappy-happy 
 Hagar on her way through the desert will find no 
 word in the whole story more touching that the one 
 which puts an end to all her distress: God hears. 
 But this word contains at the same time the point 
 aimed at, for upon this the narrator wished to build 
 the interpretation of the name Ishmael ("God 
 hears"). — Or what word in the legend of the sacri- 
 fice of Isaac stamps itself so deeply upon the 
 memory as the affecting word with which Abraham 
 from the depths of his breaking heart quiets the 
 questioning of his unsuspecting child: God will pro- 
 vide! This word, which made God himself a 
 reality, is so emphasised because it answers the 
 question after the etymology of the place (Jeruel). 
 
 Other legends reflect historic events or situations, 
 and in such cases it was the duty of the narrator to 
 bring out these references clearly enough to satisfy 
 his well-informed hearer. Thus in the legend of 
 the flight of Hagar the actors are at first mere indi- 
 viduals whose destinies are interesting enough, to 
 be sure, but at the climax, with the words of God 
 regarding Ishmael the narrator shows that in 
 Ishmael he is treating of a race and its destinies. 
 
 Hebrew taste is especially fond of playing about 
 the names of leading heroes and places, even when 
 no etymology is involved Many of the legends 
 are quite filled with such references to names. Thus
 
 76 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 the legend of the Deluge plays with the name of 
 Noah (cp. viii. 4, 9, 21), the story of the sacrifice of 
 Isaac with Jeruel (xxii. 8, 12, 13), the story of the 
 meeting of Jacob and Esau with Mahanaim and 
 Penuel (cp. p. 321 in my Commentary), and so on. 
 
 Thus these legends are rich in points and allu- 
 sions; they are so to speak transparent: even the one 
 who reads them naively and simply as beautiful 
 stories finds pleasure in them, but only the one who 
 holds them up against the light of the primitive 
 understanding can catch all their beautiful colors; 
 to him they appear as small but flashing and bril- 
 liant works of art. The characteristic feature of the 
 Hebrew popular legends as contrasted with other 
 legends, if we understand the matter, consists in the 
 flashing of these points. 
 
 The art of the story-tellers consists in avoiding 
 every suspicion of deliberate purpose at the same 
 time that they give great prominence to their point. 
 With marvellous elegance, with fascinating grace, 
 they manage to reach the goal they have set. They 
 tell a little story so charmingly and with such 
 fidelity to nature that we listen to them all unsus- 
 pecting; and all at once, before we expect it, they 
 are at their goal. For instance, the story of Hagar's 
 flight (xvi.) wishes to explain how Ishmael, although 
 the child of our Abraham, was born in the wilder- 
 ness; to this end it draws a picture of Abraham's 
 household: it shows how, by an entirely credible 
 series of events, Ishmael's mother while with child 
 was brought to desperation and fled into the wilder- 
 ness; thence it came that Ishmael is a child of the 
 desert. 
 
 In many cases the task of the narrator was very
 
 LITER A R Y FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 77 
 
 complex: he had to answer a whole series of differ- 
 ent questions, or to assimilate a quantity of antece- 
 dent presumptions. Thus, one variant of the legend 
 of Babel asks the origin of the difference of lan- 
 guages and of the city of Babel, the other wants to 
 know the source of the distribution of races and 
 also of a certain ancient structure. Or again, the 
 story of Abraham at Hebron undertakes to tell not 
 only the origin of the worship at Hebron, but also 
 to explain the birth of Isaac and the choice of his 
 name. Here then the task was, to unite the differ- 
 ing elements into unity. And it is just here that 
 the story-tellers show their art. The prime motive 
 furnishes the leading thread of the story; the subor- 
 dinate motives they spin into a single scene which 
 they introduce into the body of the story with easy 
 grace. 
 
 ETYMOLOGIES SUBORDINATE FEATURES. 
 
 The etymologies usually constitute such subordi- 
 nate motives. Thus in the story of the worship at 
 Jeruel a scene is interjected which is to explain the 
 name of the place, "God sees"; but this little 
 scene, the dialogue between Abraham and Isaac, 
 xxii. 7 f., expresses so completely the tone and 
 sentiment of the whole story that we should not be 
 willing to dispense with it even if it had no partic- 
 ular point of its own. In other cases the artists 
 have joined together two leading motives; then 
 they invented a very simple and plausible transi- 
 tion from one to the other: thus the first part of the 
 legend of Hebron presents the establishment of 
 worship there under the guise of the story that
 
 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 Abraham entertained the three divine visitors there; 
 the second portion, which is to account for the birth 
 of Isaac, simply proceeds with the given situation, 
 having the three guests enter into a conversation at 
 table and therein promise Isaac to Abraham. It is 
 the most charming portion of the task of the inter- 
 preter of Genesis to search for these matters, and 
 not only, so far as this is possible, to discover what 
 is for us the oldest meaning of the legends, but also 
 to observe the refinements of artistic composition 
 in the stories. 
 
 SUMMARY. 
 
 We have to do, then, even in the oldest legends 
 of Genesis, not with aimless, rude stories, tossed off 
 without reflexion, but on the contrary, there is 
 revealed in them a mature, perfected, and very 
 forcible art. The narratives have a very decided 
 style. 
 
 Finally, attention should be called to the fact that 
 the narrators scarcely ever express a distinct opin- 
 ion about persons or facts. This constitutes a clear 
 distinction between them and the later legends and 
 histories worked over under the influence of the 
 prophets. Of course, the narrators of the early 
 legends had their opinions; they are by no means 
 objective, but rather intensely subjective; and often 
 the real comprehension of the legend lies in our 
 obtaining an impression of this opinion of the nar- 
 rator. But they almost never gave expression to 
 this opinion: they were not able to reflect clearly 
 on psychological processes. Wherever we do get 
 a more distinct view of such an opinion it is by
 
 LITERARY FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 79 
 
 means of the speeches of the actors which throw 
 some light on what has happened; consider partic- 
 ularly the utterances of Abraham and Abimelech, 
 chapter xx., or the final scene of the story of Laban 
 and Jacob, xxxi. 26 ff. At the same time this sup- 
 pression of opinions shows most clearly that the 
 narrators, especially the earlier ones, did not care 
 to proclaim general truths. 
 
 It is true, there are at the basis of many of the 
 legends and more or less distinctly recognisable, 
 certain general truths, as, in the case of the story 
 of the migration of Abraham, a thought of the value 
 of faith, and in the story of Hebron, the thought of 
 the reward of hospitality. But we must not imag" 
 ine that these narratives aimed primarily at these 
 truths; they do not aim to teach moral truths. 
 With myths, as has been shown on pages 15-17, this 
 is different, for they aim to answer questions of a 
 general nature. 
 
 AN EARLY ISRAELITISH ROMANCE 
 
 Out of the type of legend which has been 
 sketched in essentials in the preceding pages 
 there was evolved, as we may discover even in 
 Genesis itself, another type relatively much nearer 
 to modern fiction. While the story of Hagar's 
 flight is a classic instance of the former sort, the 
 most conspicuous example of the second is the story 
 of Joseph. It is necessary only to compare the two 
 narratives in order to see the great differences in 
 the two kinds: there, everything characteristically 
 brief and condensed, here, just as characteristically, 
 everything long spun out.
 
 80 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 The first striking difference is the extent of the 
 stories. Since the earlier form was in vogue we see 
 that men have learned to construct more consider- 
 able works of art and are fond of doing so. The 
 second is, that people are no longer satisfied to tell 
 a single legend by itself, but have the gift of com- 
 bining several legends into a whole. Thus it is in 
 the story of Joseph, so also in the Jacob-Esau-Laban 
 story and in the legends of Abraham and Lot. 
 
 Let us inquire how these combinations came 
 about. In the first place, related legends attracted 
 one another. For instance, it was to be expected 
 that legends treating the same individual would 
 constitute themselves into a small epic, as in the 
 stories of Joseph and of Jacob; or the similar, and 
 yet characteristically different, legends of Abraham 
 at Hebron and Lot at Sodom have become united. 
 Similarly in J, a story of the creation and a story of 
 Paradise are interwoven; both of them treat the 
 beginnings of the race. In P the primitive legends 
 of the creation and of the deluge originally consti- 
 tuted a connected whole. In many cases that we 
 can observe the nature of the union is identical: the 
 more important legend is split in two and the less 
 important one put into the gap. We call this 
 device in composition, which is very common in 
 the history of literature — instance The Arabian 
 Nights, the Decameron, Gil Bias, and Hauff's Tales — 
 "enframed stories." Thus, the story of Esau and 
 Jacob is the frame for the story of Jacob and Laban; 
 the experiences of Joseph in Egypt are fitted into 
 the story of Joseph and his brethren; similarly 
 the story of Abraham at Hebron is united with that 
 of Lot at Sodom.
 
 LITERARY FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 81 
 
 DEVICES FOR UNITING SEVERAL STORIES. 
 
 In order to judge of the artistic quality of these 
 compositions we must first of all examine the joints 
 or edges of the elder stories. Usually the nar- 
 rators make the transition by means of very simple 
 devices from one of the stories to the other. The 
 transition par excellence is the journey. When the 
 first portion of the Jacob-Esau legend is finished 
 Jacob sets out for Aram; there he has his experi- 
 ences with Laban, and then returns to Esau. In 
 the story of Joseph the carrying off of Joseph to 
 Egypt, and later the journey of his brethren thither, 
 are the connecting links of the separate stories. 
 Similarly in the story of Abraham and Lot, we are 
 first told that the three men visited Abraham and 
 went afterwards to Sodom. 
 
 Now we must examine how these various journeys 
 are motivated. The sale of Joseph into Egypt is 
 the goal at which everything that precedes has 
 aimed. The journey of his brethren to Egypt is 
 prompted by the same great famine which had 
 already been the decisive factor in bringing Joseph 
 to honor in Egypt. And the experiences of the 
 brethren in Egypt are based upon Joseph's 
 advancement. Thus we see that the story of Joseph 
 is very cunningly blended into a whole. 
 
 There is less of unity in the story of Jacob; but 
 even here there is a plausible motive why Jacob 
 goes to Laban: he is fleeing from Esau. In other 
 respects we find here the original legends side by 
 side unblended. On the contrary, in the story of 
 Abraham and Lot no reason is alleged why the three 
 men go directly from Abraham to Sodom; that is to
 
 82 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 say, there is here no attempt at an inner harmonis- 
 ing of the different legends, but the narrator has 
 exerted himself all the more to devise artificial links 
 of connexion; this is why he tells that Abraham 
 accompanied the men to the gates of Sodom, and 
 even returned to the same place on the following 
 morning. In this we receive most clearly the 
 impression of conscious art, which is trying to make 
 from originally disconnected elements a more plau- 
 sible unity. In the Joseph legend we have an 
 instance of a much more intimate blending of parts 
 than the "frames" of these other stories, a whole 
 series of different adventures harmonised and inter- 
 woven. 
 
 EPIC DISCURSIVENESS. 
 
 Another characteristic feature of the Joseph story 
 is its discursiveness, which stands in notable con- 
 trast with the brevity of the older narratives. We 
 find in it an abundance of long speeches, of solilo- 
 quies, of detailed descriptions of situations, of 
 expositions of the thoughts of the personages. The 
 narrator is fond of repeating in the form of a speech 
 what he has already told. What are we to think of 
 this "epic discursiveness"? Not as an especial char- 
 acteristic of this particular narrative alone, for we 
 find the same qualities, though less pronounced, in 
 the stories of the wooing of Rebeccah, of Abraham 
 at the court of Abimelech (Genesis xx.), in some 
 features of the story of Jacob (notably the meeting 
 of Jacob and Esau) ; and the stories of the sacrifice 
 of Isaac and various features of the story of Abra- 
 ham and Lot also furnish parallels. 
 
 Very evidently we have to do here with a distinct
 
 LITERARY FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 83 
 
 art of story-telling, the development of a new taste. 
 This new art is not satisfied, like its predecessor, 
 with telling the legend in the briefest possible way 
 and with suppressing so far as possible all incidental 
 details; but it aims to make the legend richer and to 
 develop its beauties even when they are quite inci- 
 dental. It endeavors to keep situations that are 
 felt to be attractive and interesting before the eye 
 of the hearers as long as possible. Thus, for 
 instance, the distress of Joseph's brethren as they 
 stand before their brother is portrayed at length; 
 there is evident intent to delay the narrative, so that 
 the hearer may have time to get the full flavor of 
 the charm of the situation. Thus Joseph is not per- 
 mitted to discover himself at the very first meeting, 
 in order that this scene may be repeated; he is made 
 to demand that Benjamin be brought before him, 
 because the aged Jacob hesitates a long time to obey 
 this demand, and thus the action is retarded. Sim- 
 ilarly in the story of the sacrifice of Isaac, the nar- 
 rative is spun out just before the appearance of God 
 upon the scene, in order to postpone the catastrophe 
 and intensify the interest. 
 
 The means that is applied over and over again to 
 prolong the account is to report the same scene 
 twice, though of course with variations. Joseph 
 interprets dreams for Egyptian officials twice; 
 Joseph's brethren must meet him in Egypt twice; 
 twice he hides valuables in their grain sacks in 
 order to embarrass them (xlii. 25 ff., xliv. 2 ff.); 
 twice they bargain over Joseph's cup with the 
 steward and with Joseph himself (xliii. 13 ff., 25 ff.), 
 and so on. Sometimes, though surely less frequently, 
 it is possible that the narrators have invented new
 
 'J 
 
 84 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 scenes on the basis of the earlier motives, as with 
 the last scene between Joseph and his brethren, 
 chapter 1. 
 
 Quite unique is the intercalated episode, the 
 negotiations of Abraham with God regarding 
 Sodom, which may almost be called a didactic com- 
 position. It is written to treat a religious problem 
 which agitated the time of the author, and which 
 occurred to him in connexion with the story of 
 Sodom. These narrators have a quite remarkable 
 fondness for long speeches, so great as to lead them 
 to subordinate the action to the speeches. The 
 most marked instance is the meeting of Abraham 
 with Abimelech, chapter xx. Here, quite in oppo- 
 sition to the regular rule of ancient style, the events 
 are not told in the order in which they occurred, but 
 a series of occurrences are suppressed at the begin- 
 ning in order to bring them in later in the succeed- 
 ing speeches. Thus the narrator has attempted to 
 make the speeches more interesting even at the 
 expense of the incidents to be narrated. 
 
 It is also a favorite device to put substance into 
 the speeches by having what has already been 
 reported repeated by one of the personages of the 
 story (xliii. 13, 21, 30 ff . ; xliii. 3, 7, 20 f. ; xliv. 19 
 ff). The rule of style in such repetition of speech 
 is, contrary to the method of Homer, to vary them 
 somewhat the second time. This preference for 
 longer speeches is, as we clearly perceive, a second- 
 ary phenomenon in Hebrew style, the mark of a 
 later period. We observe this in the fact that the 
 very pieces which we recognise from other consider- 
 ations as the latest developments of the legend 
 or as intercalations (xiii. 14-17; xvi. 9 f . ; xviii.
 
 LITERARY FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 85 
 
 17-19, 23-33) are the ones which contain these 
 speeches. 
 
 We may find this delight in discursiveness in 
 other species of Hebrew literature also. The brief, 
 condensed style of Amos is followed by the dis- 
 cursive style of a Jeremiah, and the same relation 
 exists between the laconic sentences of the Book of 
 the Covenant and the long-winded expositions of 
 Deuteronomy, between the brief apothegms which 
 constitute the heart of the Book of Proverbs and the 
 extended speeches which were afterwards added by 
 way of introduction, between the oldest folk-songs, 
 which often contain but a single line each, and the 
 long poems of art poetry. 
 
 INTEREST IN SOUL-LIFE. 
 
 We do not always agree with this taste of the later 
 time; for instance, the story of Joseph approaches 
 the danger-line of becoming uninteresting from 
 excessive detail. On the other hand, this discur- 
 siveness is at the same time the evidence of a newly 
 acquired faculty. While the earlier time can- 
 express its inner life only in brief and broken 
 words, the new generation has learned to observe 
 itself more closely and to express itself more com- 
 pletely. With this there has come an increase of 
 interest in the soul-life of the individual. Psycho- 
 logical problems are now treated with fondness and 
 with skill. Thus in the story of the sacrifice of 
 Isaac there was created the perfection of the char- 
 acter study. 
 
 The narrator of the stories of Joseph shows himself 
 a master of the art of painting the portrait of a man 
 by means of many small touches. Especially sue-
 
 86 7 HE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 cessful is the description of Joseph's inner vacilla- 
 tion at the sight of Benjamin (xliii. 30), and the 
 soul painting when Jacob hears that Joseph is still 
 alive (xlv. 26), and elsewhere. But while in these 
 later narratives the incidental features of the old 
 legend are still developed with greater detail, on 
 the other hand this very fact has naturally thrown 
 the chief features somewhat into the background 
 and made the original point of the whole less 
 obvious. This result has been further favored by 
 the circumstance that the original points had in 
 many cases ceased to be altogether clear to those 
 of the later time. Thus in the story of Joseph the 
 historical and aetiological elements have lost impor- 
 tance. 
 
 The difference between the two styles is so great 
 that it seems advisable to distinguish them by 
 different names, and to limit the use of "legend" to 
 the first while we call the second "romance." Of 
 course, the transition between the two is fluctuant; 
 we may call such transition forms as the story of 
 Laban and Jacob, or that of Rebeccah, "legends 
 touched with romance," or "romances based on 
 legendary themes." 
 
 On the relative age of these styles, also, an opin- 
 ion may be ventured, though with great caution. 
 The art of narrative which was acquired in the writ- 
 ing of legends was applied later to the writing of 
 history, where, accordingly, we may make parallel 
 observations. Now we see that the oldest historical 
 writing known to us has already adopted the 
 "detailed" style. Accordingly we may assume that 
 this "detailed" style was cultivated at least as early 
 as the beginning of the time of the kings. And
 
 LITERARY FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 87 
 
 therefore the condensed style must have been culti- 
 vated for many centuries before that time. How- 
 ever, it should be observed, this fixes only the 
 time of the styles of narrative, and not the age of 
 the narratives preserved to us in these styles.
 
 IV. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT 
 
 OF THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS 
 
 IN ORAL TRADITION. 
 
 AT the time when they were written down the 
 legends were already very old and had already 
 a long history behind them. This is in the very 
 nature of legend: the origin of legends always 
 eludes the eye of the investigator, going back into 
 prehistoric times. And so it is in the present case. 
 The great age of the legends is seen, for example, 
 in the fact that they often speak of vanished tribes, 
 such as Abel and Cain, Shem, Ham and Japhet, 
 Jacob and Esau, none of which are known to his- 
 torical times, and further, by the primitive vigor of 
 many touches that reveal to us the religion and the 
 morality of the earliest times, as for instance, the 
 many mythological traces, such as the story of the 
 marriages with angels, of Jacob's wrestling with 
 God, and the many stories of deceit and fraud on 
 the part of the patriarchs, and so on. 
 
 FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 
 
 A portion of these legends, perhaps very many, 
 did not originate in Israel, but were carried into 
 Israel from foreign countries. This too is part of 
 the nature of these stories, this wandering from tribe 
 to tribe, from land to land, and also from religion 
 
 88
 
 THE LEGENDS IN ORAL TRADITION. 89 
 
 to religion. Thus for instance many of our German 
 legends and Mdrchen came to us from foreign lands. 
 And even to this day there is perhaps nothing which 
 modern civilised peoples exchange so easily and so 
 extensively as their stories, as may be seen, for 
 instance, in the enormous circulation of foreign 
 novels in Germany. 
 
 Now if we recall that Israel lived upon a soil 
 enriched by the civilisation of thousands of years, 
 that it lived by no means in a state of isolation but 
 was surrounded on all sides by races with superior 
 culture, and if we consider further the international 
 trade and intercourse of the early ages, which went 
 from Babylonia to Egypt and from Arabia to the 
 Mediterranean by way of Palestine, we are war- 
 ranted in assuming that this position of Israel 
 among the nations will be reflected in its legends as 
 well as in its language, which must be literally full 
 of borrowed words. 
 
 Investigators hitherto, especially Wellhausen and 
 his school, have erred frequently in assuming that 
 the history of Israel could be interpreted almost 
 exclusively from within, and in ignoring altogether 
 too much the lines which connect Israel with the 
 rest of the world. Let us trust that the investi- 
 gators of the future will be more disposed than has 
 hitherto been the case to give the history of Israel 
 its place in the history of the world! Of course, 
 with our slender knowledge of the primitive Orient 
 we are in large measure thrown back upon conjec- 
 tures. Yet this cannot justify us in ignoring alto- 
 gether the surroundings in which Israel lived, and 
 there are after all certain things which we may 
 declare with tolerable certainty.
 
 90 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 BABYLONIAN INFLUENCES. 
 
 Babylonian influence is evident more than any 
 other in the primitive legends. We can demon- 
 strate this in the case of the legend of the Deluge, 
 of which we possess the Babylonian version; and 
 we have strong reasons for accepting it in the case 
 of the story of creation, which agrees with the 
 Babylonian story in the characteristic point of the 
 division of the primeval sea into two portions; also 
 in the legend of Nimrod, and in the traditions of 
 the patriarchs, the ten patriarchs of the race as given 
 by P being ultimately the same as the ten primitive 
 kings of the Babylonians. The legend of the 
 Tower of Babel, too, deals with Babylonia and must 
 have its origin in that region. The Eranian paral- 
 lels to the legend of Paradise show that this, too, 
 came from further East, but whether from Babylonia 
 specifically is an open question, since the Babylo- 
 nians located Paradise not at the source of the 
 streams, so far as we know, but rather at their 
 mouth. We have besides a Buddhistic parallel to 
 the story of Sodom. (Cp. T. Cassel, Mischle Sind- 
 bad.) 
 
 As to the time when these legends entered Israel 
 the opinions of investigators are divided; to us it 
 seems probable from interior evidence that these 
 legends wandering from race to race reached Canaan 
 as early as some time in the second millennium B. C. 
 and were adopted by Israel just as it was assimilat- 
 ing the civilisation of Canaan. We know from the 
 Tell-el-Amarna correspondence that Babylonian 
 influence was working upon Canaan even in this 
 early period; and on the other hand, a later time,
 
 THE LEGENDS IN ORAL TRADITION. 91 
 
 when Israel's self-consciousness had awakened, 
 would scarcely have accepted these foreign myths. 
 
 EGYPTIAN AND PHOENICIAN INFLUENCES. 
 
 Egyptian influence is recognisable in the romance 
 of Joseph, which has its scene partly in Egypt and 
 very likely goes back to Egyptian legends. This is 
 particularly evident in the legend of Joseph's 
 agrarian policy, xlvii. 13 ff. We may well wonder 
 that we find so few Egyptian elements in Genesis, 
 but so far as we can see the same observation is to be 
 made for the civilisation of Israel in general: Egypt 
 was already a decadent nation and had but slight 
 influence upon Canaan. We shall find also Phoeni- 
 cian and Aramaic elements in the legends; the 
 second is proven by the importance of the city of 
 Haran to the patriarchs. 
 
 The probable home of the Ishmael legend is 
 Ishmael, and that of Lot the mountains of Moab, 
 where Lot's cave was shown, xix. 30. The Jacob- 
 Esau stories and the Jacob-Laban stories were orig- 
 inally told in "Jacob"; the Shem -Japhet - Canaan 
 legend in "Shem," as it would seem; the Abel-Cain 
 legend neither in Abel, which perished according to 
 the legend, nor in Cain, which was cursed and 
 exiled; accordingly in some unnamed people. 
 
 RELIGIOUS LEGENDS NOT ISRAELITIC. 
 
 The legends of worship in Genesis we may assume 
 with the greatest certainty to have originated in the 
 places of which they treat. The same may be said 
 of other legends which ascribe names to definite 
 places. Accordingly it is probable that most of the 
 legends of the patriarchs were known before Israel
 
 92 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 came into Canaan. This assumption is supported 
 by the character of many of the legends of Genesis: 
 the complaisance and peacefulness of the figures of 
 the patriarchs are by no means Israelitish charac- 
 teristics. The connexion of man and fruitland 
 (Cp. the Commentary, p. 5) in the story of Paradise 
 is conceivable only among a people of peasants. 
 According to the Cain and Abel legend also, the 
 field is God's property, iv. 14. 
 
 But especially the religion of Genesis hints of a 
 non-lsraelitish origin for most of the legends: two 
 of our sources (E and P) avoid calling the God of 
 the patriarchs "Jahveh," in which we may see a last 
 relic of the feeling that these stories really have 
 nothing to do with "Jahveh" the God of Israel, as 
 furthermore the book of Job, which also treats a 
 foreign theme, does not use the name "Jahveh." 
 But even in the third source (J), which speaks of 
 "Jahveh," the name "Jahveh Zebaoth" is not 
 found. On a few occasions we are able to catch the 
 name of the pre-Jahvistic God of the legend; we 
 hear of "El Lahai Ro'i" at Lahai Ro'i, xvi. 30, of 
 "El 'Olam" at Beersheba, xxi. 33 ff., of "El 
 Bethel" at Bethel, xxxi. 13; El Shaddai and El 
 'Eljon are probably also such primitive names. In 
 the legend of Abraham at Hebron there are assumed 
 at the start three gods; polytheism is also to be 
 traced in the legend of the heavenly ladder at 
 Bethel and in the fragment of the Mahanaim 
 legend, xxxii. 2, where mention is made of many 
 divine beings. 
 
 We recognise Israelitish origin with perfect cer- 
 tainty only in those legends that introduce expressly 
 Israelitish names, that is particularly in the legends
 
 THE LEGENDS IN ORAL TRADITION. 93 
 
 of Dinah (Simeon and Levi) xxxiv, Tamar (Judah) 
 xxxviii, and Reuben xxxv. 22. But we do not 
 mean to declare by this that other narratives may 
 not be of Israelitish origin. In particular the con- 
 siderable number of legends which have their scene 
 in Negeb (southward of Judah) may very likely be 
 of Israelitish origin. But Israelitish tradition flows 
 unmixed, so far as we can see, only from the intro- 
 duction of the story of Moses. 
 
 The general view of the legendary traditions of 
 Israel gives us, then, so far as we are able to make 
 it out, the following main features: The legends of 
 the beginnings in the main are Babylonian, the 
 legends of the patriarchs are essentially Canaanitish, 
 and after these come the specifically Israelitish 
 traditions. This picture corresponds to the history 
 of the development of civilisation: in Canaan the 
 native civilisation grows up on a foundation essen- 
 tially Babylonian, and after this comes the Israel- 
 itish national life. It is a matter of course that the 
 sequence of periods in the themes for story-telling 
 and in the epochs of civilisation should correspond; 
 thus among modern peoples the children make the 
 acquaintance first of the Israelitish stories, next of 
 the Graeco-Roman, and finally the modern subjects, 
 quite in accordance with the influences in the his- 
 tory of our civilisation. 
 
 GREEK PARALLELS. 
 
 A particularly interesting problem is offered by 
 the correspondence of certain legends to Greek sub- 
 jects; for instance the story of the three men who 
 visit Abraham is told among the Greeks by Hyrieus 
 at Tanagra (Ovid, Fast., V., 495 ff.); the story of
 
 94 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 Potiphar's wife contains the same fictional motive 
 as that of Hippolytus and Phaedra and is found in 
 other forms; there are also Greek parallels for the 
 story of the curse upon Reuben (Homer, Iliad, IX., 
 447 ff.) and for the story of the quarrel of the 
 brothers Esau and Jacob (Apollodor., Biblioth., II., 
 2/1); the legend of Lot at Sodom suggests that of 
 Philemon and Baucis. In the legends of the begin- 
 nings also there are related features: the declaration 
 that man and woman were originally one body 
 (Plato, Symp., p. 189 ff.), and the myth of the 
 Elysian happiness of the primeval time are also 
 familiar to the Greeks. The solution of this prob- 
 lem will surely be found in the assumption that both 
 these currents of tradition are branches of one great 
 Oriental stream. 
 
 Accordingly we infer that the legends of Genesis 
 are of very varied origin, which is altogether con- 
 firmed by more careful examination. For the nar- 
 ratives themselves are far from consistent: some 
 conceive of the patriarchs as peasants, others as 
 shepherds, but never as city-dwellers; some have 
 their scene in Babylonia, some in Egypt, some in 
 Aram, and others in North and South Canaan; some 
 assume an original polytheism, others speak of the 
 guardian genius (El) of the place, some think of 
 God as the severe lord of mankind, others praise 
 the mercy of God, and so on. 
 
 THE ADAPTATION OF THE LEGENDS. 
 
 Naturally these foreign themes were vigorously 
 adapted in Israel to the nationality and the religion 
 of the people, a process to be recognised most 
 clearly in the case of the Babylonian-Hebrew legend
 
 THE LEGENDS IN ORAL TRADITION. 95 
 
 of the Deluge. Here the polytheism has disap- 
 peared: the many gods have been dropped in favor 
 of the one (the myth of creation), or have been 
 reduced to servants of the one (the legend of 
 Hebron); the local divinities have been identified 
 with Jahveh and their names regarded as epithets of 
 Jahveh in the particular locality involved (xvi. 13; 
 xxi. 33; xxxi. 13). 
 
 The amalgamation of these legends and their 
 infilling with the spirit of a higher religion is one 
 of the most brilliant achievements of the people of 
 Israel. But quite apart from the religion, in this 
 Israelitising of the legends it is very certain that a 
 quantity of changes took place of which we can 
 survey only a small portion. Foreign personages 
 were displaced by native ones: as for instance the 
 Hebrew Enoch took the place of the Babylonian 
 magician Enmeduranki, while the more familiar 
 Noah took the place of the hero in the Babylonian 
 account of the Deluge. Thus also the Egyptian 
 stories found in the last of Genesis were transferred 
 to the Israelite figure of Joseph. And thus in many 
 cases the stories which are now connected with 
 definite personages may not have belonged to 
 them originally. Or again, native personages 
 were associated with the foreign ones: thus Esau- 
 Se'ir was identified with Edom, and Jacob with 
 Israel, and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob made to be 
 ancestors of the people of Israel. Or foreign 
 legends were localised in the places of Canaan: 
 thus the story of the three visitors of Abraham, 
 which is known also to the Greeks, is localised at 
 Hebron; the legend of the vanished cities, which 
 even in the form preserved knows nothing of the
 
 96 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 salt lake, beside the Dead Sea. And in the process 
 various specifically Israelitish features have been 
 introduced into the legends, for instance, the 
 prophecies that Esau (Edom) would sometime 
 separate from Jacob (Israel), xxvii. 40; that Joseph 
 would receive Shechem, xlviii. 22; that Manasseh 
 would dwindle as compared with Ephraim. In the 
 legend of Jacob and Laban the motive of the bound- 
 ary treaty at Gilead is a later interpolation; a 
 piece about the preservation of Zoar has been added 
 to the legend of Sodom. The legends of worship 
 which were originally intended to explain the sanc- 
 tity of the place, were transferred to Jahveh and to 
 the patriarch Jared and received the new point that 
 they were to explain why Jared had the right to 
 worship Jahveh at this place. 
 
 MODE OF AMALGAMATION. 
 
 Further alterations came about by exchange or 
 combination of local traditions. We can imagine 
 that such things happened very frequently in connex- 
 ion with travel, especially perhaps on the occasion of 
 the great pilgrimages to the tribal sanctuaries, and 
 by means of the class of travelling story-tellers. 
 Thus the legends travelled from place to place and 
 are told in our present form of the tradition regard- 
 ing various places. The story of Sodom and 
 Gomorrah was localised, as it seems, by another 
 tradition at Adma and Sebo'im (cp. my Commen- 
 tary, p. 195). According to another tradition a 
 similar legend was told in connexion with Gibeah 
 in Benjamin (Judges xix). The rescue of Ishmael 
 was localised both in Lahai Roi and in Beersheba 
 (xxi. 14). The meeting of Jacob and Esau on the
 
 THE LEGENDS IN ORAL TRADITION. 97 
 
 former's return was located at Mahanaim and at 
 Penuel on the Jabbok (in Northeastern Canaan), 
 where it seems originally not to belong, since Esau 
 is supposed to be located in Edom, south of Canaan. 
 The names of the patriarchs are given in connexion 
 with the most various places, all claiming to have 
 been founded by them; Abraham particularly in 
 Hebron, but also in Beersheba and elsewhere; Isaac 
 not only in Beersheba, but also in Mizpah (xxxi. 
 53) ; Jacob in Penuel, Bethel and Shechem. In which 
 of the places the figures were originally located we 
 are unable to say, nor whether Abraham or Isaac 
 was the original personage in the legend of Gerar. 
 These transformations are too old to be traced out 
 in detail. Wellhausen's conjecture (Prolegomena, 
 p. 323) that Abraham is probably the latest person- 
 age among the patriarchs, is untenable. 
 
 Then again, various legends have been combined 
 (see pp. 45 and 56), for instance, the stories of Para- 
 dise and of the creation as told by J, and the myth 
 of the creation and of the Elysian period as told 
 by P. 
 
 Or again, various different personages have grown 
 together: thus the figure of Noah in Genesis consists 
 of three originally different personages, the builder 
 of the ark, the vintager, and the father of Shem, 
 Ham and Japhet. In Cain we have combined the 
 different personages: (1) Cain, the son of the first 
 human couple, (2) Cain, the brother of Abel, (3) 
 Cain, the founder of cities. Jacob, according to 
 the legend of Penuel, is a giant who wrestles with 
 God himself; according to the Jacob-Esau stories he 
 is shrewd but cowardly, thus seeming to be an 
 entirely different person; probably the Jacob to
 
 98 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 whom God reveals himself at Bethel is still a differ- 
 ent person. 
 
 Incidentally to the joining together of the legends 
 the pedigrees of the patriarchs were established: 
 thus Abraham became the father of Isaac, and he in 
 turn of Jacob; thus Ishmael was made a son of 
 Abraham and Lot made his nephew, and so on. 
 And the reasons for this are not at all clear. How 
 old this pedigree may be we cannot tell. The 
 amalgamation of the legends is a process which cer- 
 tainly was under way long before Israel was in 
 Canaan; we can imagine that it proceeded with 
 especial rapidity and thoroughness at the time when 
 Israel was again gathering itself together as a nation 
 under the first kings. 
 
 FIDELITY OF TRANSMISSION. 
 
 And not only from place to place, but also from 
 age to age, do our legends wander. In general they 
 are simply repeated, and often with what is to us 
 an incredible fidelity, — perhaps only half understood 
 or grown entirely unintelligible, and yet transmitted 
 further! How faithfully the legends have been told 
 we can learn by comparing the different variants of 
 the same story, which, in spite of more or less 
 deviation, agree nevertheless in the general plan 
 and often even in the very words. Compare, for 
 instance, the two variants of the legend of Rebeccah. 
 
 And yet even these faithfully told legends are 
 subject to the universal law of change. When a 
 new generation has come, when the outward condi- 
 tions have changed or the thoughts of men have 
 altered, whether it be in religion or ethical ideals or 
 aesthetic taste, the popular legend cannot per-
 
 THE LEGENDS IN ORAL TRADITION. 99 
 
 manently remain the same. Slowly and hesitat- 
 ingly, always at a certain distance behind, the 
 legends follow the general changes in conditions, 
 some more, others less. And here, consequently, 
 the legends furnish us a very important basis for 
 judging of changes in the people; a whole history 
 of the religious, ethical and aesthetic ideas of 
 ancient Israel can be derived from Genesis. 
 
 VALUE OF THE VARIANTS. 
 
 If any one proposes to study this history he will 
 do well to begin with the variants. It is the char- 
 acteristic of legend as well as of oral tradition that 
 it exists in the form of variants. Each one, how- 
 ever faithful it may be, and especially every partic- 
 ular group and every new age, tells somewhat 
 differently the story transmitted to it. The most 
 important variants in Genesis are the two stories of 
 Ishmael (xvi. ; xxi. 8 ff.), and next the legend of 
 the danger to the patriarch's wife, which is handed 
 down to us in three versions (xii. 13 ff . ; xx. 26), 
 and then the associated legend of the treaty at 
 Beersheba, likewise in three versions. In the case 
 of these stories the variants are told with almost 
 entire independence of one another. 
 
 To these are to be added the many cases in which 
 the stories are transmitted to us in the variants of J 
 and E (or of the various hands in J) worked over by 
 the hand of an editor; the chief illustrations of this 
 method being the stories of Jacob and of Joseph. 
 Sometimes, furthermore, variants of portions of 
 Genesis are transmitted to us in other Biblical 
 books: thus the idyllic account of the way in which 
 Jacob became acquainted with Rachel at the foun-
 
 100 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 tain is told also of Moses and Zipporah; the renun- 
 ciation of the old gods under the oak at Shechem is 
 told of Jacob and also of Joshua (Joshua xxiv.); the 
 interpretation of the dream of the foreign king is 
 told of both Joseph and Daniel. 
 
 Let the investigator make his first observations 
 on these twice-told tales; when he has thus acquired 
 the keen eye and found certain lines of develop- 
 ment, then let him compare also the legends which 
 are told but once. Then he will begin to see how 
 extraordinarily varied these legends are; among 
 them are the coarsest and the most delicate, the 
 most offensive and the most noble, those showing a 
 naive, polytheistic religion, and others in which is 
 expressed the most ideal form of faith. 
 
 JUDGMENT OF INDIVIDUAL NARRATIVES. 
 
 Moreover, the history of the legends is to be 
 derived from the individual narratives themselves. 
 If we look sharply we shall see revisions in the taste 
 of a later time, slight or extensive additions bring- 
 ing in a thought which was foreign to the old nar- 
 rator; in certain rare cases we may even assume that 
 a whole story has been added to the tradition (chap, 
 xv.); and such additions are recognised by the fact 
 that they are out of place in an otherwise harmo- 
 nious story, and usually also by .the fact that they are 
 relatively unconcrete: the art of story-telling, which 
 in olden times was in such high perfection, degen- 
 erated in later times, and the latest, in particular, 
 care more for the thought than for the narrative. 
 Hence such additions usually contain speeches. 
 Sometimes also short narrative notes are added to 
 the legend cycles, as for instance, we are told briefly
 
 THE LEGENDS IN ORAL TRADITION. 101 
 
 of Jacob that he bought a field in Shechem (xxxiii. 
 18-20), or that Deborah died and was buried at 
 Bethel (xxxv. 8), and so on. 
 
 But with these faithful narrators more significant 
 than the additions are certainly the omissions which 
 are intended to remove features that have become 
 objectionable; for we find gaps in the narratives at 
 every step. Indeed, to those of a later time often 
 so much had become objectionable or had lost its 
 interest that some legends have become mere torsos: 
 such is the case with the marriages with angels, with 
 the story of Reuben (xxxv. 2i-22a), of Mahanaim 
 (xxxiii. 2 ff.). In other cases only the names of the 
 figures of the legend have come down to us without 
 their legends: thus of the patriarchs Nahor, Iscah, 
 Milcah (xi. 29), Phichol, Ahuzzath (xxvi. 26); from 
 the legend of the giant Nimrod we have only the 
 proverbial phrase, "like Nimrod, a mighty hunter 
 before the Lord" (x. 9). By other instances we can 
 see that the stories, or particular portions of them, 
 have lost their connexion and were accordingly no 
 longer rightly understood: the narrators do not 
 know why Noah's dove brought precisely an olive 
 leaf (viii. 11), why Judah was afraid to give to 
 Tamar his youngest son also (xxxviii. 11), why 
 Isaac had but one blessing to give' (xxvii. 36), and 
 why he had to partake of good things before the 
 blessing (xxvii. 4), why it was originally told that 
 Jacob limped at Penuel (xxxii. 32), and so forth. 
 
 Hence there is spread over many legends some- 
 thing like a blue haze which veils the colors of the 
 landscape: we often have a feeling that we indeed 
 are still able to recall the moods of the ancient 
 legends, but that the last narrators had ceased to
 
 102 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 have a true appreciation of those moods. We must 
 pursue all these observations, find the reasons that 
 led to the transformations, and thus describe the 
 inner history of the legends. But here we give only 
 a short sketch. 
 
 CHANGES WROUGHT BY TIME IN THE LEGENDS. 
 
 The most important element in the history of 
 the legends is probably this: in older times as the 
 outward circumstances in which they arose were 
 shifted, the legends also incurred certain alter- 
 ations. Thus it was forgotten who the king of 
 Gerar really was (xx. 26), and the king of Egypt 
 was put in instead (xii. 10 ff.). Incidentally it 
 seems, according to Winckler, that a confusion 
 arose between Mizraim (Egypt) and the North 
 Arabian tribe of the Muzrim, to whom Gerar 
 belonged; and Hagar also has been changed from a 
 Muzritish Arabian woman to a woman of Mizraim, 
 that is, an Egyptian. Or, at a time when the Philis- 
 tines had possession of Gerar this people also was 
 brought into the legend of Gerar, whereas the oldest 
 version of the story (xxi. 22 ff., 26) knows as yet 
 nothing of this fact. The figure of Hagar, once the 
 type of a tempestuous Bedouin woman (xvi.) has 
 lost this characteristic color in the later tradition, 
 which was not familiar with the desert. The stories 
 of Jacob's breeding devices while in Laban's employ, 
 once the delight of the professional hearers and 
 therefore quite detailed, were later much abbreviated 
 for hearers or readers who had no interest in the 
 subject. (See Commentary, p. 307.) Of the theories 
 regarding the gradual origin of human arts and 
 trades (iv. 17 ff.) only fragments have been pre-
 
 THE LEGENDS IN ORAL TRADITION. 103 
 
 served. Very often the characteristic elements of 
 the legend, when far from the places where they 
 were understood, grew colorless or were replaced 
 by others. This is particularly clear in the legends 
 of sanctuaries, of which we shall speak later. Still 
 other legends were probably entirely forgotten 
 because the interest in them had died out. And in 
 addition to this, the imagination, which is mightily 
 stirred by such narratives, develops them almost 
 involuntarily. We can here and there recognise 
 such continuations and developments due to the 
 free play of the imagination. 
 
 LIGHT ON THE HISTORY OF RELIGION. 
 
 The most important feature of this study is the 
 history of religion. In very many legends of Gen- 
 esis a monotheistic tendency is to be observed, 
 an avoidance of mythology to which we have re- 
 ferred (see pp. 15 and 95). This feeling contin- 
 ued to grow in Israel and was the cause for the 
 fading out of a number of legends. In the case 
 of the myth of creation, of which we have older 
 variants of a different attitude, the history of this 
 elimination of the mythological elements is still to 
 be observed. The narrative of the Deluge, too, has 
 lost much of its color in the oldest Hebrew account 
 (that of J), and doubtless from this very reason. 
 Others, like the legend of the marriage with angels 
 (vi. 1-4) and of Mahanaim (xxxv. 2\-22a), which 
 were once in existence in older Israelitish tradition, 
 are in their present form entirely mutilated. Of 
 the Nephilim, the Hebrew "Titans," which are 
 said to have been very famous once (vi. 4), we have 
 nothing but the name.
 
 104 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 MODIFICATION OF THE THEOPHANY. 
 
 Furthermore, we may observe how naively the 
 older legends speak of Jahveh's appearance on 
 earth, but how the later time objected to this and 
 made the revelation of the divinity even more 
 intangible. While according to the oldest belief 
 the divinity himself walked without reserve among 
 men — as in the present form of the legends of 
 Paradise and of the Deluge— the later time decked 
 the theophany in the veil of mystery: God ap- 
 peared only in the darkness of night and vanished 
 with the rising of the sun (xix.); or he appeared to 
 men without their recognising him (xviii.), and in 
 this way the divinity, though revealing himself, 
 nevertheless did not wholly unveil his nature. Still 
 later versions put some subordinate divine being in 
 place of the divinity himself, J calling it "the angel 
 of Jahveh," and E "the angel of God," though this 
 device was not observed consistently; passages 
 enough have been left which presuppose the appear- 
 ance of Jahveh himself, the older version peeping 
 forth from behind the newer one. 
 
 This same point of view has led to the change of 
 God's appearance on earth to the apparition in a 
 dream, or to the declaration that the angel remained 
 in heaven and spoke to the patriarch from there: 
 the mystery of the dream-life left a veil for the 
 divinity who revealed himself, or in the other case 
 he was not seen at all, but only heard. The last 
 stage in this development is represented by those 
 legends in which the divinity no longer appears at 
 a definite point in the story, but dominates the 
 whole from the ultimate hidden background, as in 
 the stories of Rebeccah and of Joseph.
 
 THE LEGENDS IN ORAL TRADITION. 106 
 
 Thus we progress in Genesis by many stages from 
 crass mythology to a belief in providence which 
 seems to us altogether modern. It is a marvel 
 indeed that the legend of Penuel (xxxii. 25 ff.) is 
 transmitted to us in such primitive form; in this 
 the device has been to leave it undefined who the 
 God really was that attacked Jacob. 
 
 THE DIVINITY AND THE SANCTUARY. 
 
 We recognise in this process of refining the 
 nature of the theophany at the same time the dis- 
 sociation of the divinity from the sanctuaries: the 
 oldest belief that the God belonged to this partic- 
 ular place and could operate nowhere else, is not 
 clearly found in a single legend of Genesis. On 
 the contrary, the opinion of the legend is that the 
 places are sacred to the divinity because he had 
 once in primitive time appeared here to some an- 
 cestor. Even the very old legend of Hebron, which 
 actually has God appear and eat, does not allege 
 that the divinity came forth out of the tree. In 
 the story of Hagar's flight, the mother of Ishmael 
 meets the divinity at the well, but no explanation 
 is given as to what connexion he had with the well. 
 The great age of this whole point of view is to be 
 gathered from the story of Bethel: the oldest reli- 
 gion had thought to find the God of the place in the 
 stone itself, as the name of the sacred stone, beth-cl, 
 or "house of God," shows; but those of the later 
 age believed that God dwelt high above Bethel, in 
 heaven, and only a ladder preserved the connexion 
 between the real dwelling of God and its symbol. 
 This belief in the heavenly dwelling of the divinity 
 rested, as the legend shows, upon a polytheistic
 
 106 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 basis: Jacob sees many divine beings going up and 
 down the ladder. 
 
 Many legends of sanctuaries are transmitted to 
 us in very faded form: from the story of Ishmael 
 (in both versions) and likewise from the legends of 
 Hebron (xviii.), Mahanaim (xxxii. 2 f.), Penuel 
 (xxxii. 25 ff.) and others, we no longer gather that 
 the scenes of the stories are places of worship. 
 The legend of the sacrifice of Isaac, originally a 
 legend of worship, has lost all its aetiological pur- 
 pose in the version transmitted to us and remains 
 nothing but a character sketch. In the legend of 
 Penuel, too, the aetiological element is now forgot- 
 ten. The anointing of the stone at Bethel, once a 
 sacrificial ceremony, seems in its transmitted form 
 to be no more than a sort of rite of consecration. 
 The Massebha, once sacred stones, symbols of the 
 divinity, are finally mere memorial or tomb stones. 
 The cave of Machpelah, once a place of worship, is 
 nothing but the burial-place of the patriarchs in our 
 form of the narrative. And so on. 
 
 The fading out of these legends of worship shows 
 plainly that these stories are not preserved for us 
 in the form in which they were probably told orig- 
 inally on the spot for the purpose of establishing 
 its sanctity, but as they circulated among the people 
 in later times and far from the places concerned. 
 At the same time we see from this colorless charac- 
 ter of the legends concerning the popular sanctuaries 
 that the latter had ceased to occupy the foreground 
 of religious interest with the people, or at least with 
 certain groups of the people. The bond between 
 religion and the sanctuaries was already loosened 
 when the passionate polemic of the prophets severed
 
 THE LEGENDS IN ORAL TRADITION. 107 
 
 it. How else could the people of Judah have 
 accepted the "Deuteronomian Reformation," which 
 destroyed these places with the exception of the 
 royal temple at Jerusalem! (2 Kings xxiii.). 
 
 god's relation to man. 
 
 Genesis furnishes the most varied utterances con- 
 cerning the relation of the divinity to mankind. In 
 the oldest legends we hear how God holds men in 
 check, how he guards and favors certain individuals 
 in accordance with his sovereign pleasure, and how 
 he glorifies and aggrandises his people above all 
 others. In certain of the oldest legends God's 
 action in such cases see ms not to involve at al l any (/ ) 
 thought qf_th e moral or religious attitud e_of men: 
 God reveals himself to Jacob at Bethel simply 
 because Jacob happens to come to Bethel; similarly 
 at Penuel the divinity assails Jacob without any 
 evident reason; God is pleased with Abel's offering 
 simply because he loves Abel the shepherd; he pro- 
 tects Abraham in Egypt and gives a fortunate out- 
 come to the patriarch's deception; in any conflict 
 of the patriarch with third parties God takes the 
 part of his favorite even when the latter is plainly 
 in the wrong as in the case of Abraham in dealing 
 with Abimelech (xx. 7), or when he has indulged 
 in very questionable practises, as in the case of 
 Jacob with Laban, and so on. 
 
 But alongside these there are other legends upon 
 a higher plane, according to which God makes his 
 favo r to de pend uponFITe righteousness of men: he 
 destroys sinful Sodom, but saves Lot because of his 
 hospitableness; he destroys the disobliging Onan, 
 and exiles Cain because of his fratricide; Joseph is 
 
 (J)
 
 108 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 helped by him because he has deserved assistance 
 by his chastity and his magnanimity; to Abraham 
 he gives a son because of his kindness to strangers. 
 These legends all belong, taken absolutely, to a 
 later time which has a finer ethical sense, yet they 
 are all primitive in Israel. The belief that God 
 looks with approval upon the just and rewards the 
 wicked according to his sin is certainly familiar to 
 the religion of Israel from the beginning (cp. I Sam. 
 xxiv. 20; 2 Sam. iii. 39). From a broader point of 
 view we may include here another group of legends 
 which tell how God has compassion on the outcast 
 and despairing; a particularly affecting instance of 
 this is the legend of the exile of Hagar (xxi. 8 ff.). 
 A third variety of legend emphasises strongly 
 
 what it is that wins God's, approval _to_ wit t faith, 
 
 oh pHiVnrp, i nvincible, trusty — these God imputes as 
 righteousness. At God's command Noah built a 
 ship upon dry land; following God's word Abraham 
 left his secure home and migrated to alien lands, 
 trusting in God's promise that he should become a 
 nation despite the fact that he had not even a son 
 as yet. Thus they won the favor of God. The 
 legend of the suit for the hand of Rebeccah also 
 shows how such steadfast trust in God is rewarded. 
 In the legend of the sacrifice of Isaac we have a 
 wonderful character sketch showing how the man of 
 true piety submits to even the hardest and most ter- 
 rible trials if God so commands. The famous prayer 
 of Jacob, xxxii. 10-13, portrays the humble grati- 
 tude of the pious man who confesses himself to be 
 unworthy of the divine favor. The narratives and 
 pieces which speak thus of divine favor mark the 
 climax of high religious feeling in Genesis; it is
 
 THE LEGENDS IN ORAL TRADITION. 109 
 
 these especially which give value to Genesis even 
 for the piety of the present day. We see in them 
 a comparatively late development. This conclusion 
 is supported by other reasons in the case of most of 
 them: the Babylonian legend of the Deluge, for 
 instance, knows nothing of the trial of the hero's 
 faith; Jacob's prayer is quite secondary in its con- 
 nexion, and what a contrast this prayer and its deep 
 feeling makes with the remaining conduct of the 
 eel-like Jacob! What a difference between it and 
 the legend which stands beside it, Jacob's wrestling 
 with the divinity! It is to be noted also how 
 peculiarly inconcrete the story of Abraham's exodus 
 is; while the narrative of the covenant, chapter xv., 
 is perhaps a later composition without any basis 
 of tradition! 
 
 NOT MERELY A TRIBAL GOD. 
 
 Thus we can discern here a series of thoughts 
 about God leading from the crudest up to the high- 
 est. But in any case these legends teach that it is 
 an error to think that ancient Israel conceived only 
 of a relation between God and Israel; on the con- 
 trary, it is everywhere a matter of the relation of 
 God to individual men. It is true that these per- 
 sons are in part race types, but the legend looks 
 upon them as persons and depicts God's relation to 
 them in large measure just in the way in which the 
 people of that time believed that God dealt with 
 individuals. We should deprive many of these 
 narratives of their whole charm if we failed to 
 recognise this fact: the reason the legend of Hebron 
 was heard so gladly by ancient listeners is that it 
 tells how God rewards hospitality (thine and mine
 
 110 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 also!); and the story of how God hears the voice of 
 the weeping boy Ishmael in the wilderness is touch- 
 ing because it shows God having compassion on 
 a child: this God will hear the cry of our children 
 also! 
 
 RELIGIOUS AND PROFANE MOTIVES MINGLED. 
 
 Another line of development is seen in the fact 
 that the elder stories have a naive way of mingling 
 profane and religious motives, and clearly without 
 taking any offence at it: thus the legend of Abra- 
 ham in Egypt celebrates the shrewdness of the 
 patriarch, the beauty of his wife and the steadfast- 
 ness of God. The legend of the Deluge praises not 
 only the piety, but also the shrewdness, of Noah 
 (in the story of his sending out the birds); the 
 legend of the flight of Hagar (xvi.) gives quite a 
 realistic picture of the condition of affairs in Abra- 
 ham's household and then tells of God's assistance. 
 These legends come, therefore, from a time when 
 profane and sacred matters were still frankly united, 
 when the men of Israel fought at the same time for 
 God and the popular hero ("a sword for Jahveh and 
 Gideon!" Judges vii. 20), when lively humor was 
 not inconsistent with piety, as, for instance, the 
 merry butcher Samson who is at the same time 
 God's ?iazir (devotee), or the humor of the legend 
 of Abraham in Egypt. Now we see by the variants 
 especially of this last legend that later times no 
 longer tolerated this mingling of profane and sacred 
 motives, or at least that it offended by the attempt 
 to glorify at the same time God and profane quali- 
 ties of men. Accordingly this later time con- 
 structed stories which are specifically "sacred,"
 
 THE LEGENDS IN ORAL TRADITION. Ill 
 
 that is, which deal only with God and piety, and in 
 which profane interests are relegated to the back- 
 ground. Such legends are those of Abraham's 
 exodus, of the covenant, of the sacrifice of Isaac, 
 and so on. Here the formerly popular saga is on 
 the point of becoming "legend," that is, a char- 
 acteristically "sacred" or "priestly" narrative. 
 Whether this phenomenon was connected with the 
 fact that the legends were at that time making their 
 way into certain definite "sacred" or "priestly" 
 circles, we are unable to say. 
 
 The earlier times knew also legends of the patri- 
 archs which were altogether of profane character, 
 such as the legend of the separation of Abraham 
 and Lot, or that of Jacob and Laban. In later 
 tradition religious elements made their way into 
 even these legends and gave them a religious color- 
 ing. For instance, objection was taken to the 
 notion that Canaan belonged to Abraham simply 
 because Lot did not choose it, and an addition sup- 
 plied to the effect that God himself after Lot's with- 
 drawal personally promised the land to Abraham 
 (xiii. 14-17). Similarly, later narrators hesitated to 
 say that Jacob had run away from Laban and 
 accordingly interpolated the explanation that God 
 had revealed the plan to him (xxxi. 3). 
 
 ETHICAL NOTIONS IN THE LEGENDS. 
 
 Furthermore, a whole history of ethics can be con- 
 structed from these legends. Many of the legends 
 of the patriarchs are filled with the pure enjoyment 
 of the characters of the patriarchs. Consequently 
 many things in these characters which are to us
 
 112 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 offensive caused no hesitation in the time which 
 first told the stories, but were, on the contrary, a 
 source of pleasure or of inspiration. The people of 
 old took pleasure in Benjamin's career of plunder 
 (xlix. 29), in Hagar's defiant spirit (xvi.) and in 
 the courage of Tamar and the daughters of Lot, who 
 took seed of a man where they could find it, and 
 further in the shrewd deceit of Abraham in Egypt, 
 in Joseph's cunning when he introduced his broth- 
 ers to his prince as shepherds (xlvii. 1 f.), in 
 Rachel's trick by which she deceived her father so 
 perfectly (xxxi. 34), and especially in the wiles and 
 schemes of the arch-rogue Jacob. It is impossible 
 to ignore the great role played by deceit and cun- 
 ning in these legends of the patriarchs, and the 
 amusement the people of old got out of it, and the 
 character which they thus reveal to us. Then we 
 see from many examples how the later tradition 
 took offence at these stories, re-interpreted them or 
 remodeled them and tried to eliminate the ques- 
 tionable features as far as this was possible. This 
 is most evident in the variants of the legend of the 
 danger of Sarah: here the later narrators have 
 remodeled the whole story, which plainly appeared 
 highly questionable to them, changing, for instance, 
 Abraham's lie into a mental reservation (xx. 12), 
 the disgraceful presents which the patriarch receives 
 for his wife into a testimonial of good repute (xx. 
 16), and even finally deriving Abraham's wealth 
 from the blessing of God (xxvi. 12); similarly, the 
 deportation of Abraham (xii. 20) has been changed 
 into its opposite (xx. 15), and so on. 
 
 The defiant Hagar of chapter xvi. has been 
 changed into a patient and unfortunate woman, in
 
 THE LEGENDS IN ORAL TRADITION. 113 
 
 order that no offence might be taken with God's 
 compassion upon her (xxi. 8 ff.); the attempt has 
 been made to explain Abraham's treatment of 
 Hagar by adding that God had commanded him to 
 put her away (xxi. 11). Especial pains has been 
 taken to clear Jacob of the charge of dishonesty in 
 his relations with Laban: in several long speeches 
 the narrator undertakes the demonstration that 
 there is no shadow upon Jacob; Jacob's wives and 
 finally Laban himself are obliged to recognise his 
 uprightness (xxxi. 4 ff. ; 36 ff.). Here too the resort 
 is, to ascribe to the authority of God that which 
 seems questionable to men: God always caused the 
 herds to bring forth in Jacob's interest (xxxi. 7), 
 and God himself revealed to Jacob the color of the 
 newborn for the coming year (xxxi. 10 ff.). With 
 somewhat less energy the narrators have taken hold 
 of the story of Tamar; yet here too they have done 
 their best to wash Judah white: Judah, they urge, 
 did not go to Timnath until his wife was dead. 
 And a similar endeavor has been made to give at 
 least for Lot himself a somewhat more decent shape 
 to the story of Lot's daughters, which was very 
 offensive to those of the later age: they say that 
 Lot was deceived by his daughters. 
 
 THE PATRIARCHS NOT SAINTS. 
 
 The olden time undoubtedly took delight in the 
 patriarchs; it did not consider them saints, but told 
 of them quite frankly all sorts of things that were 
 far from ideal. Some of the old stories are in this 
 respect exceedingly true to nature: they portray 
 the fathers as types of the Israelitish nationality
 
 114 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 just such as individual men in Israel are. Thus the 
 story of the flight of Hagar (xvi.) sketches the 
 people in Abraham's household: Sarah as the jeal- 
 ous wife, Hagar as the defiant slave, and Abraham 
 as the peace-loving husband. The later time with 
 its "sacred" or "priestly" feeling could not toler- 
 ate such things. On the contrary, this age always 
 saw in the patriarchs models of piety, and of that 
 intense and tender piety which belonged to this 
 later age. Thus there has entered into the portraits 
 of the patriarchs a peculiar dissonance: the very 
 Abraham who thrust his son Ishmael into the wil- 
 derness (xxi. 14), who does not hesitate to turn 
 Sarah over to the foreign king and even to accept 
 presents for her (xii. 16), we are asked to regard 
 as the same who is the lofty model of faith for all 
 ages! And the cunning Jacob is the same who 
 speaks the wonderful prayer of gratitude! We 
 resolve this dissonance and free these legends from 
 the unpleasant suspicion of untruthfulness by recog- 
 nising that the different tones are the product of 
 different periods. 
 
 The earlier time did not hesitate to recognise 
 here and there the rights of aliens when brought 
 into conflict with the patriarchs: for instance, 
 Pharaoh's right as opposed to Abraham's (xii. 18 
 f.), and Esau's as opposed to Jacob's (xxvii. 36); 
 indeed some of the patriarchs have been simply 
 abandoned: Simeon, Levi and Reuben were cursed 
 by their great-grandfather (xlix. 3-7)! Israelitish 
 patriotism was at that time so sound that it tolerated 
 such views. But the later times, with their one- 
 sided, excessive reverence for "the people of God," 
 could not endure the thought that the patriarchs
 
 THE LEGENDS IN ORAL TRADITION. 115 
 
 had ever been wrong or done wrong. Thus we see 
 how one of the narrators takes pains to show that 
 Abraham was not altogether in the wrong in his 
 relations with Abimelech (in the speech, xxi. 1 1-13). 
 From the same motive, in order to avoid saying 
 anything bad about the patriarchs, only a fragment 
 of the story of the curse of Reuben has been trans- 
 mitted (xxxv. 21-22.2), and the story of Simeon and 
 Levi has been cast into several forms (xxxiv.): first 
 excuses for the brothers were sought — they were 
 defending the honor of their sister(J) — and finally 
 they were even justified and their betrayal of 
 Shechem represented as quite the natural thing. 
 Here, too, God is finally made to take their side 
 (E, cp. xxxv. 5). We do not always relish such 
 modifications, and sometimes it seems to us as if 
 they made the matter worse, rather than better. 
 Thus, the lie of Abraham in introducing his wife as 
 his sister (xii. 13), in which the earlier narrators 
 take evident pleasure, is after all more tolerable 
 than the mental reservation which is put in its place, 
 which seems to us Jesuitical (xx. 12). But despite 
 these instances we must not surrender our gratifica- 
 tion at this gradual improvement in ethical judg- 
 ment which we can see in Genesis. 
 
 On the history of ethical taste which is to be 
 found in these legends we have already treated in 
 the preceding pages (see p. in) and have but a few 
 points to add here. We gain a deep insight into 
 the heart of the primitive people when we collect 
 the chief motives in which the eye of the legends 
 takes pleasure. This is not the place for such a 
 summary; attention may, however, be called to the 
 fact of how little is said of murder and assassina-
 
 116 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 tion, and on the contrary how much is said of peace- 
 ful occupations and household affairs, especially of 
 the begetting of children; eating and drinking, too, 
 play quite a role. These narrators are thoroughly 
 posted in the life of peasants and shepherds and are 
 therefore a prime source for our "archaeology"; 
 but they are not at home in political affairs: in this 
 they are simple and natural. 
 
 The older legends are often quite coarse: for 
 instance, the legend of the defiant Hagar (xvi.), or 
 Jacob's deception of his blind father and the de- 
 light of the listeners (xxvii.), or the exceedingly 
 coarse way in which Laban's quick-witted daughter 
 deceives her father (xxxi. 34 f.): it must have been 
 a strong, coarse race that took pleasure in such 
 stories. How very different are the later stories 
 which overflow with tears, such as the legend of the 
 exile of Hagar (xxi.), of the sacrifice of Isaac, and 
 /especially the legends of Joseph! Here a different 
 generation is expressing itself, one that loves emo- 
 tion and tears. 
 
 Still another distinction between the older and the 
 later time is that the former was interested in the 
 familiar things of its nearest surroundings, while the 
 latter tries to give a piquant charm to its stories by 
 •^locating the legend far away and introducing the 
 description of foreign customs; as in the story of 
 Joseph. 
 
 CRITERIA OF THE AGE OF THE LEGENDS. 
 
 Accordingly we have an abundance of grounds on 
 which we can establish the age or the youth of the 
 narratives. Sometimes we are enabled to outline 
 a very brief preliminary or pre-natal history of the
 
 THE LEGENDS IN ORAL TRADITION. 117 
 
 legend in question, as for instance in the case of the 
 legend of Hagar (xvi.), in which first an "El," then 
 Jahveh himself, and then his messenger, was the 
 divinity that appeared. Often a series of various 
 arguments lead to a given conclusion, that a legend 
 is late or early; thus the legend of Abraham in 
 Egypt is to be regarded for many reasons as very 
 old; it is very brief, has a primitive local coloring, 
 and does not idealise its personages, and so on. 
 On the other hand, many arguments lead to the con- 
 clusion that the legend of Joseph is very late: it has 
 the latest, spun-out style, few aetiological elements, 
 contains the belief in Providence, and so on. But 
 very often the various considerations cross one 
 another: in that case it is evident that the legend 
 contains a confused mixture of early and late ele- 
 ments: thus the narrative in chapter xv., containing 
 no complications, seems to be relatively late, but 
 the theophany in fire and smoke is surely a very 
 primitive conception. The different phases of 
 development have not been distinct and clear cut: 
 early features often continued to hold their own for 
 a long time; hence it will be necessary to conceive 
 of this outline of the history of the legends not as 
 simple and straightforward, but as very confused 
 and full of vicissitudes. 
 
 TRIBAL LEGENDS. 
 
 If we take one more survey of the history of these 
 transformations, we shall surely have to admit that 
 we can get sight of only a small part of the entire 
 process. These transmutations must have begun at 
 a very early period, a period so early that our
 
 118 
 
 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 sources give us no insight into it. This should warn 
 us against supposing that we are able to arrive 
 always at the very primitive significance of the sto- 
 ries from the historical and aetiological allusions 
 which we find in the narratives. In this connexion 
 we may refer to the legends in which there have 
 been no such allusions from the beginning, espe- 
 cially the legend of Jacob and Laban. And a spe- 
 cial warning is needed against rashly interpreting 
 as tribal legends those legends whose heroes are 
 plainly ancestors of tribes, for it may be, as has 
 been shown above, that the story was applied to the 
 tribal hero long after its origin. 
 
 And if it is scarcely possible for us to declare 
 from the sources handed down to us the original 
 significance of the legends, neither may we claim to 
 know in every case who the originals were of the 
 figures in the legends of the patriarchs. Some of 
 them are really names of countries, or races, and of 
 tribes, as for instance, -Israel, IshmaeJL, Ammon, 
 
 JVIoab, Rachel, Leah, Hagar, Kejturah, 
 
 Tn an inscription of Thotmosis 
 
 -9 
 
 11 
 
 ,t£ihe_s _ of Israel . 
 
 Ill (ca. 1500 B. C.) men tion_ Js made of a Canaani- 
 tish tribe or district J' qb'ar^. which would corre- 
 spond to a Hebrew Ja' a qob'el (Hebrew 1 = Egyptian 
 r); and the name Jacob^eJ^would be related to Jacob 
 as Jephthahel and Jabn a el are' related to Jephthah 
 and Jabne: they are all names of tribes or of places, 
 like Israel, Ishmael, and J e rahm e el. Even on this 
 evidence we .should conclude that Jacob was origin- 
 ally the name of a Canaanitish district, which 
 existed in Canaan before the lsraelitish immigra- 
 tion. 1 
 
 !Cp. Ed. Meyer ZAW 1886, p. 1. ff.
 
 THE LEGENDS IN ORAL TRADITION. 119 
 PATRIARCHS DISGUISED DIVINITIES. 
 
 Still another question is, whether these tribal 
 names were not also originally names of divinities, _ 
 as for instance -A s.shur i s at the same time the 
 name of the GocL flf Asshur (A ssyria). This is to be 
 assumed for Gad, which is aTTr7e~"same time the 
 name of the god of^fo rtune , and also fof_ J tdom^- 
 cp. the name Obed-edom, "servant of Edom." x 
 Names of divinities have been suspected further in 
 Selah (cp. the name Methuselah = man of SelajQ,_ 
 R e 'u (cp. the name R e 'u-el), Nahor (cp. the name 
 Ebednahor = servant of Nahor), Terah (perhaps the 
 same as the North-Syrian god Tarhu), Haran (cp. 
 the name Bethharan = temple of Haran). c Saiah____ 
 a nd Milk ah are, as we know, names of the god- 
 desses orHaran, with which the Biblical figures of 
 Sarah and Milkah have perhaps some connexion. 
 This suggests very easily the thought that Abra- 
 ham, the husband of Sarah, has been substituted for 
 the (moon-) god of Haran. The name .LajDan^loo, 
 suggests a god: L e bana means moon; the fact that 
 Laban is represented as being a shepherd would 
 correspond to his character as a moon-god: for the 
 moon-god may be represented as the shepherd of 
 the clouds._ In ancient as well as in modern YimeT 
 the attempt has been repeatedly made to explain 
 the figures of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob also as 
 originally gods. There is no denying that this con- 
 jecture is very pla usible. The whole species of the 
 legend — though not indeed every individual legend 
 — originated in the myth; at least_jnanylegends_ 
 are derived from myths. And such an mterpreta- 
 
 1 Wellhausen Composition 3 , p. 47, 2. ed.
 
 120 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 tion is very natur al for the stories of Jonah in the 
 whale's~rjelly T j3J kstner (Istar). of 5>a mson ( Semes's 
 sun) and others. What is more natural than to 
 attempt this interpretation with the legends of Gen- 
 esis whose origin goes back in part to prehistoric 
 times when myths were the order of nature? But — 
 as we look at it — the attempts in this line hitherto 
 made have not been exactly fortunate and have 
 sometimes failed to demonstrate their theses. Of 
 such pieces as can be interpreted with reasonable 
 certainty as remnants of mythical narratives there 
 are not many among the tales of the patriarchs (we 
 are not now speaking of the legends of the begin- 
 nings) : the note that Abraham with 318 servants slew 
 his enemies (xiv. 14) may, in Winckler's opinion, go 
 back to a moon-myth, the moon being visible 318 
 days in the year; Jacob's wrestling with God suggests 
 that this Jacob was really a Titan, and consequently 
 we can scarcely avoid seeing here a faded out myth; 
 Joseph's dream that the sun, the moon, and eleven 
 stars were compelled to bow down before him must 
 have been originally an oracle referring to the Lord 
 of Heaven before whom the highest powers of 
 heaven bow, although it seems that this dream was 
 introduced very late into the story of Joseph. 
 
 CAUTION NEEDED IN INTERPRETATION. 
 
 But before we are warranted in declaring with 
 regard to a figure in Genesis that it bears the 
 impress of an earlier god, we must demand not 
 merely that certain elements of a story permit a 
 mythical interpretation, but that whole legends 
 shall possess striking resemblances to known myths, 
 or that they can be interpreted as myths in perfectly
 
 THE LEGENDS IN ORAL TRADITION. 121 
 
 clear and unquestioned fashion. Such a demonstra- 
 tion as this has not been given by investigators 
 hitherto. 1 Let us hope that those who attempt it 
 in the future maybe more successful! But let us 
 by no means fail to recognise the fact that Israel in 
 historical times, when these legends were told, saw 
 in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not gods but men, 
 
 its ancestors. And we must further demand that 
 
 
 1 The older theory of Goldziher (Der Mythos bei den Heb- 
 raern, 1876), which depended chiefly on the etymologies of 
 names, is long since discredited. Stucken (Astralmythen, I. 
 Abraham, 1896, II. Lot, 1897) bases his assertions upon indi- 
 vidual elements of the legends, for which he hunts together an 
 amazing abundance of parallels from all over the world ; but 
 these parallels are often only very incidental. As Etana, 
 carried up to heaven by an eagle, according to the Babylonian 
 myth, looks down upon the earth, so Abraham and Lot, accord- 
 ing to Stucken, look upon the land from Bethel, and so Abra- 
 ham looks up to heaven and upon Sodom. But such analogies 
 will not stand attack. Winckler, Geschichte Israels, II., 1900, 
 who continues to build upon this uncertain foundation, depends 
 especially upon the characteristic numbers: the four wives of 
 Jacob are the four phases of the moon, his twelve sons the 
 months ; the seven children of Leah are the gods of the days 
 of the week, the 300 pieces of silver which Benjamin, the 
 youngest, receives are the 30 days of the last month, the 5 state 
 dresses are the 5 intercalary days; Joseph's coat suggests the 
 garments of Tamar and Istar (and every other garment !) ; his 
 being thrown into the cistern denotes the descent of Tammuz 
 into the under world ; the dipping of his coat in blood and his 
 father's belief that he had been eaten by a wild beast suggest 
 the slaying of Adonis by the boar, and so on. After such a 
 review we cannot yet see satisfactory solutions of the problem 
 in either of these works, although we gladly recognize the 
 extensive learning and the keenness of them both. And yet 
 we would emphasize the point, that there is no reason on prin- 
 ciple against a mythical interpretation of the legends of the 
 patriarchs.
 
 122 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 those investigators who propose to find mythologi- 
 cal foundations to our legends must first of all inves- 
 tigate most carefully the history of the legends 
 which lies before us so clearly in the sources. Only 
 for the oldest elements of the legends may a myth- 
 ical origin be ultimately expected. Accordingly we 
 are unable to say what the figures of Abraham, 
 Isaac, and Jacob, which chiefly interest us, may 
 have signified originally. But this is by no means 
 strange. These matters are simply too primitive 
 for us. 
 
 Meditative apologetics is wont to lay great impor- 
 tance upon the historical verity of Abraham; in our 
 opinion there is no longer any room for this 
 assumption, and moreover it is hard to see what 
 significance this position can have for religion and 
 the history of religion. For even if there had 
 once been a leader by the name of Abraham, as is 
 generally believed, and who conducted the migra- 
 tion from Haran to Canaan, this much is beyond 
 question with every one who knows anything of the 
 history of legends, that a legend cannot be expected 
 to preserve throughout so many centuries a picture 
 of the personal piety of Abraham. The religion of 
 Abraham is in reality the religion of the narrators 
 of the legends, ascribed by them to Abraham.
 
 V. 
 
 JAHVIST, ELOHIST, JEHOVIST, THE 
 LATER COLLECTIONS. 
 
 THE collecting of legends began even in the state 
 of oral tradition. In the preceding pages (see 
 p. 79 ff.) we have shown how individual stories first 
 attracted one another and greater complexes of leg- 
 ends were formed. Connecting portions were also 
 composed by these collectors, such, notably, as the 
 story of the birth of the sons of Jacob, which is not at 
 all a popular legend but the invention of older story- 
 tellers, and must have been in existence even before 
 the work of J and E. And there are further addi- 
 tions, such as the note that Jacob bought a field at 
 Shechem, and other similar matters. Those who 
 first wrote down the legends continued this process 
 of collection. The writing down of the popular 
 traditions probably took place at a period which 
 was generally disposed to authorship and when 
 there was a fear that the oral traditions might die 
 out if they were not reduced to writing. We may 
 venture to conjecture that the guild of story-tellers 
 had ceased to exist at that time, for reasons 
 unknown to us. And in its turn the reduction to 
 writing probably contributed to kill out the remain- 
 
 123
 
 124 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 ing remnants of oral tradition, just as the written law 
 destroyed the institution of the priestly Thora, and 
 the New Testament canon the primitive Christian 
 Pneumatics. 
 
 The collection of the legends in writing was not 
 done by one hand or at one period, but in_the 
 course of a very long process by several or many 
 hands.. We distinguish two stages in this process: 
 the older, to which we owe the collections of the 
 Jahvist designated by 'J' and the(Elohist designated 
 by 'E\ and then a later, thorough revision in what 
 is known as the Priestly Codex T\ In the preced- 
 ing pages as a rule only those legends have been 
 used which we attribute to J and E. All these 
 books of legends contain not only the primitive 
 legends, of which we have been speaking, but also 
 tell at the same time their additional stories; we 
 may (with Wildeboer) characterise their theme as 
 "the choice of Israel to be the people of Jahveh" ; 
 in the following remarks, however, they will be 
 treated in general only so far as they have to do 
 with Genesis. 
 
 "jahvist" and "elohist"_coll ectors, no t authors. 
 
 Previous writers have in large measure treatedj" 
 and E as personal authors, assuming as a matter of 
 course that their writings, constitute, at least to some 
 extent, units and originate in all essential features 
 with their respective writers, and attempting to 
 derive from the various data of these writings con- 
 sistent pictures of their authors. But in a final 
 phase criticism has recognised that these two col- 
 lections do not constitute complete unities, and 
 pursuing this line of knowledge still further has dis-
 
 THE LA TER COLLECTIONS. 125 
 
 tinguished within these sources still other subordi- 
 nate sources. 1 
 
 But in doing this there has been a neglect to raise 
 with perfect clearness the primary question, how 
 far these two groups of writings may be understood 
 as literary unities in any sense, or whether, on the 
 contrary, they are not collections, codifications of 
 oral traditions, and whether their composers are 
 not to be called collectors rather than authors. 
 
 That the latter view is the correct one is shown 
 (i) by the fact that they have adopted such hetero- 
 geneous materials. J contains separate legends and 
 legend cycles, condensed and detailed stories, 
 delicate and coarse elements, primitive and modern 
 elements in morals and religion, stories with vivid 
 antique colors along with those quite faded out. 
 It is much the same with E, who has, for instance, 
 the touching story of the sacrifice of Isaac and at 
 the same time a variant of the very ancient legend 
 of Jacob's wrestling with the angel. This variety 
 shows that the legends of E, and still more 
 decidedly those of J, do not bear the stamp of a 
 single definite time and still less of a single person- 
 ality, but that they were adopted by their collectors 
 essentially as they were found. 
 
 Secondly, the same conclusion is suggested by an 
 examination of the variants of J and of E. On the 
 one hand they often agree most characteristically: 
 both, for instance, employ the most condensed style 
 in the story of Penuel, and in the story of Joseph 
 the most detailed. For this very reason, because 
 they are so similar, it was possible for a later hand 
 to combine them in such a way that they are often 
 
 1 Such is the outcome especially in Budde's Urgeschichte,
 
 126 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 merged to a degree such that it is impossible for us 
 to distinguish them. On the other hand, they 
 frequently differ, in which case J very often has the 
 elder version, but often the reverse. 
 
 Thus the robust primitive version of the Hagar 
 story in J (chap, xvi.) is older than the lachrymose 
 version of E (xxi ); the story of Jacob and Laban 
 is told more laconically and more naively by J than 
 by E; in the narrative of the birth of the children 
 of Jacob, J speaks with perfect frankness of the 
 magic effect of the mandrakes (xxx. 14 ff.), instead 
 of which E substitutes the operations of divine 
 favor (xxx. 17); in the story of Dinah, J, who 
 depicts Jacob's horror at the act of his sons, is more 
 just and more vigorous in his judgment than E, 
 where God himself is compelled to protect Jacob's 
 sons (xxxv. 5, see variant reading of RV) ; in the 
 story of Joseph the Ishmaelites of J (xxxvii. 25) are 
 older than the Midianites of E (xxxvii. 28) who 
 afterwards vanish from the account; in the testa- 
 ment of Jacob his wish, according to E (xlviii. 7), 
 to be buried beside his best loved wife is more 
 tender and more sentimental than his request in J 
 (xlvii. 29 ff.) to rest in the tomb with his ancestors; 
 and other similar cases might be cited. 
 
 On the other hand, E does not yet know of the 
 Philistines in Gerar of whom J speaks (xxi. 26); the 
 deception of Jacob by means of the garb of skins in 
 E is more naive than that by means of the scent 
 of the garments in J; the many divine beings whom, 
 according to E, Jacob sees at Bethel are an older 
 conception than that of the one Jahveh in the ver- 
 sion of J; only in J, but not yet in E, do we sud- 
 denly meet a belated Israelitising of the legend of
 
 THE LA TER COLLECTIONS. V21 
 
 the covenant of Gilead (xxxi 52); in the story of 
 Joseph, Reuben, who had disappeared in historical 
 times, occupies the same position as does in J the 
 much better known Judah of later times; the vocab- 
 ulary of E whereby he avoids the name of Jahveh 
 throughout Genesis, is based, as shown above (see 
 page 92) upon an early reminiscence which is 
 lacking in J; on the other hand, one cannot deny 
 that this absolutely consistent avoidance of the 
 name of Jahveh before the appearance of Moses 
 shows the reflexion of theological influence, which 
 is wholly absent in J. 
 
 These observations, which could easily be 
 extended, show also that there is no literary con- 
 nexion between J and E; J has not copied from E, 
 nor E from J. If both sources occasionally agree 
 verbally the fact is to be explained on the basis of 
 a common original source. 
 
 But thirdly, the principal point is that we can see 
 in the manner in which the legends are brought 
 together in these books the evidence that we are 
 dealing with collections which cannot have been 
 completed at one given time, but developed in the 
 course of history. The recognition of this fact can 
 be derived especially from a careful observation of 
 the manner of J, since J furnishes us the greatest 
 amount of material in Genesis. The observation of 
 the younger critics that several sources can be dis- 
 tinguished in J, and especially in the story of the 
 beginnings, approves itself to us also; but we must 
 push these investigations further and deeper by sub- 
 stituting for a predominantly critical examination 
 which deals chiefly with individual books, an his- 
 torical study based upon the examination of the
 
 128 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 literary method of J and aiming to give a history of 
 the entire literary species. 
 
 THE JAHVIST'S SOURCES. 
 
 In J's story of the beginnings we distinguish three 
 sources, two of which present what were originally 
 independent parallel threads. It is particularly 
 clear that J contained originally two parallel pedi- 
 grees of the race: beside the traditional Cainite 
 genealogy, a Sethite line, of which v. 29 is a frag- 
 ment. In combining the two earlier sources a third 
 one was also introduced, from which comes the 
 legend of Cain and Abel, which cannot originally 
 belong to a primitive time. In the story of Abra- 
 ham also we can recognise three hands: into a cycle 
 of legends treating the destinies of Abraham and 
 Lot have been introduced other elements, such as 
 the legend of Abraham in Egypt and the flight of 
 Hagar, probably from another book of legends; still 
 a third hand has added certain details, such as the 
 appeal of Abraham for Sodom. More complicated 
 is the composition of the stories of Jacob: into the 
 cycle of Jacob, Esau and Laban have been injected 
 certain legends of worship; afterwards there were 
 added legends of the various sons of Jacob; we are 
 able to survey this process as a whole very well, but 
 are no longer able to detect the individual hands. 
 
 While the individual stories of the creation 
 merely stand in loose juxtaposition, some of the 
 Abraham stories and especially the Jacob-Esau- 
 Laban legends are woven into a closer unity. This 
 union is still closer in the legend of Joseph. Here 
 the legends of Joseph's experiences in Egypt and 
 with his brothers constitute a well-constructed com-
 
 THE LA TER COLLECTIONS. 129 
 
 position; but here too the passage on Joseph's agra- 
 rian policy (xlvii. 13 ff.), which interrupts the con- 
 nexion, shows that several different hands have been 
 at work. Furthermore, it is quite plain that the 
 legend of Tamar, which has no connexion with 
 Joseph, and the "blessing of Jacob," which is a 
 poem, not a legend, were not introduced until later. 
 
 From this survey we perceive that J is not a 
 primary and definitive collection, but is based upon 
 older collections and is the result of the collabora- 
 tion of several hands. 
 
 The same condition is to be recognised in E, 
 though only by slight evidences so far as Genesis is 
 concerned, as in the present separation by the story 
 of Ishmael (xxi. 8 ff. ) of the two legends of Gerar 
 (xx., xxi., 25 ff. ) which belong together, or in the 
 derivation of Beersheba from Abraham (xxi. 25 ff. ) 
 by the one line of narrative, from Isaac (xlvi. 1-3) 
 by the other. 
 
 THE PROCESS OF COLLECTION. 
 
 The history of the literary collection presents, 
 then, a very complex picture, and we may be sure 
 that we are able to take in but a small portion of it. 
 In olden times there may have been a whole litera- 
 ture of such collections, of which those preserved to 
 us are but the fragments, just as the three synoptic 
 gospels represent the remains of a whole gospel 
 literature. The correctness of this view is supported 
 by a reconstruction of the source of P, which is 
 related to J in many respects (both containing, for 
 instance, a story of the beginnings), but also cor- 
 responds with E at times (as in the name Paddan, 
 attached to the characterisation of Laban as "the
 
 130 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 Aramaean"; cp. the Commentary, p. 349), and also 
 contributes in details entirely new traditions (such 
 as the item that Abraham set out from Ur-Kasdim, 
 the narrative of the purchase of the cave of Mach- 
 pelah, and other matters). 
 
 But for the complete picture of the history of the 
 formation of the collection the most important obser- 
 vation is that with which this section began: the 
 whole process began in the stage of ora l tradition. 
 The first hands which wrote down legends probably 
 recorded such connected stories; others then added 
 new legends, and thus the whole body of material 
 gradually accumulated. And thus, along with 
 others, our collections J and E arose. J. and E, 
 then, are not individual authors, nor are they edi- 
 tors of older and consistent single writings, but 
 rather they are schools of narrators. From this 
 point of view it is a matter of comparative indiffer- 
 ence what the individual hands contributed to the 
 whole, because they have very little distinction 
 and individuality, and we shall probably never 
 ascertain with certainty. Hence we feel constrained 
 to abstain as a matter of principle from construct- 
 ing a hypothesis on the subject. 
 
 RELATION OF THE COLLECTORS TO THEIR SOURCES. 
 
 These collectors, then, are not masters, but rather 
 servants ojjhejr subjects. We may imagine them, 
 filled with reverence for the beautiful ancient stories 
 and endeavoring to reproduce them as well and 
 faithfully as they could. Fidelity was their prime 
 quality. This explains why they accepted so many 
 things which they but half understood and which 
 were alien to their own taste and feeling; and why
 
 THE LA TER COLLECTIONS. 131 
 
 they faithfully preserved many peculiarities of 
 individual narratives, — thus the narrative of the 
 wooing of Rebeccah does not give the name of the 
 city of Haran, while other passages in J are familiar 
 with it (xxvii. 43; xxviii. 10; xxix. 4). On the 
 other hand, we may imagine that they were secretly 
 offended by many things in the tradition, here and 
 there combined different versions {Commentary, p. 
 428), smoothing away the contradictions between 
 them a little {Commentary, p. 332) and leaving out 
 some older feature in order to introduce something 
 new and different, perhaps the piece of a variant 
 familiar to them {Commentary, p. 59); that they 
 developed more clearly this motive and that, which 
 happened to please them particularly, and even 
 occasionally reshaped a sort of history by the com- 
 bination of various traditions {Commentary, p. 343), 
 and furthermore that they were influenced by the 
 religious, ethical, and aesthetic opinions of their 
 time to make changes here and there. 
 
 The process of remodeling the legends, which 
 had been under way for so long, went farther in 
 their hands. As to details, it is difficult, and for 
 the most part impossible, to say what portion of 
 these alterations belongs to the period of oral tra- 
 dition and what portion to the collectors or to a 
 later time. In the preceding pages many altera- 
 tions have been discussed which belong to the 
 period of written tradition. In general we are dis- 
 posed to say that the oral tradition is responsible 
 for a certain artistic inner modification, and the col- 
 lectors for a more superficial alteration consisting 
 merely of omissions and additions. Moreover, the 
 chief point of interest is not found in this question;
 
 132 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 it will always remain the capital matter to under- 
 stand the inner reasons for the modifications. 
 
 It is also probable that some portions of consider- 
 able size were omitted or severely altered under the 
 hands of the collectors; thus the legend of Hebron, 
 as the promise (xviii. 10) clearly shows, presumes 
 a continuation; some portions have been omitted 
 from the tradition as we have it, probably by a 
 collector; other considerable portions have been 
 added after the whole was reduced to writing, for 
 instance, those genealogies which are not remnants 
 of legends, but mere outlines of ethnographic rela- 
 tionships; furthermore a piece such as the conversa- 
 tion of Abraham with God before Sodom, which by 
 its style is of the very latest origin, and other cases 
 of this sort. Moreover a great, primitive poem was 
 added to the legends after they were complete 
 (Genesis xlix). 
 
 We cannot get a complete general view of the 
 changes made by these collections, but despite the 
 fidelity of the collectors in details we may assume 
 that the whole impression made by the legends has 
 been very considerably altered by the collection 
 and redaction they have undergone. Especially 
 probable is it that the brilliant colors of the indi- 
 vidual legends have been dulled in the process: 
 what were originally prominent features of the 
 legends lose their importance in the combination 
 with other stories {Commentary, p. 161); the vary- 
 ing moods of the separate legends are reconciled 
 and harmonised when they come into juxtaposition; 
 jests, perhaps, now filled in with touches of emotion 
 (p. 331), or combined with serious stories (Com- 
 me?itary, p. 158), cease to be recognised as mirthful;
 
 THE LA TER COLLECTIONS. 133 
 
 the ecclesiastical tone of certain legends becomes 
 the all-pervading tone of the whole to the feeling 
 of later times. Thus the legends now make the 
 impression of an old and originally many-colored 
 painting that has been many times re-touched and 
 has grown dark with age. Finally, it must be 
 emphasised that this fidelity of the collectors is 
 especially evident in Genesis; in the later legends, 
 which had not such a firm hold upon the popular 
 taste, the revision may have been more thorough- 
 going. 
 
 RELATION OF JAHVIST TO ELOHIST. 
 
 The two schools of J and E are very closely 
 related; their whole attitude marks them as belong- 
 ing to essentially the same period. From the 
 material which they have transmitted it is natural 
 that the collectors should have treated with especial 
 sympathy the latest elements, that is, particularly 
 those which were nearest to their own time and 
 taste. The difference between them is found first 
 in their use of language, the most significant feature 
 of which is that J says Jahveh before the time of 
 Moses J _^hJ_le_E_says_Elohim. Besides this there 
 are other elements: the tribal patriarch is called 
 "Israel" by J after the episode of Penuel, but 
 "Jacob" by E; J calls the maid-servant "sipha, E 
 calls her " 'ama," J calls the grainsack "saq," E 
 calls it " 'amtahat," and so on. But, as is often 
 the case, such a use of language is not here an evi- 
 dence of a single author, but rather the mark of a 
 district or region. 
 
 In very many cases we are unable to distinguish 
 the two sources by the vocabulary; then the only
 
 
 134 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 guide is, that the variants from the two sources 
 present essentially the same stories, which show 
 individual differences in their contents. Thus in J 
 Isaac is deceived by Jacob by means of the smell of 
 Esau's garments, in E by the skins, a difference 
 which runs through a great portion of both stories. 
 Or, we observe that different stories have certain 
 pervading marks, such as, that Joseph is sold in J 
 by Ishmaelites to an Egyptian householder, but in 
 E is sold by Midianites to the eunuch Potiphar 
 Often evidences of this sort are far from con- 
 clusive; consequently we can give in such cases 
 nothing but conjectures as to the separation of the 
 sources. And where even such indications are 
 lacking there is an end of all safe distinction. 
 
 In the account of the beginnings we cannot recog- 
 nise the hand of E at all; it is probable that he did 
 not undertake to give it, but began his book with 
 the patriarch Abraham. Perhaps there is in this 
 an expression of the opinion of the school that the 
 history of the beginnings was too heathenish to 
 deserve preservation. Often but not always the 
 version of J has an older form than that of E. J 
 has the most lively, objective narratives, while E, 
 on the other hand, has a series of sentimental, tear- 
 ful stories, such as the sacrifice of Isaac, the expul- 
 sion of Ishmael, and Jacob's tenderness for his 
 grandchildren. 
 
 Their difference is especially striking in their 
 conceptions of the theophany: J is characterised by 
 the most primitive theophanies, E, on the other 
 hand, by dreams and the calling of an angel out of 
 heaven, in a word by the least sensual sorts of 
 revelation. The thought of divine Providence,
 
 THE LA TER COLLECTIONS. 135 
 
 which makes even sin contribute to good ends is 
 expressly put forth by E in the story of Joseph, 
 but not by J. Accordingly there is reason for 
 regarding J as older than E, as is now frequently 
 done. Their relation to the Prophetic authors is to 
 be treated in subsequent pages. 
 
 Inasmuch as J in the story of Joseph puts Judah 
 in the place of Reuben, since he gives a specifically 
 Judean version in the case of the legend of Tamar, 
 and because he has so much to say of Abraham, 
 who, it seems, has his real seats in Hebron and in 
 Negeb (southward of Judah), we may agree with 
 many recent critics in placing the home of this col- 
 lection in Judah. It has been conjectured on the 
 contrary that E has its home in Northern Israel; in 
 fact this source speaks a great deal of Northern 
 Israelitic localities, but yet, at the same time, much 
 of Beersheba; furthermore, in the story of Joseph 
 E hints once incidentally at the reign of Joseph 
 (xxxvii. 8), though this too may be derived from 
 the tradition. Certainly it cannot be claimed that 
 the two collections have any strong partizan ten- 
 dency in favor of the north and south kingdoms 
 respectively. 
 
 Other characteristics of the collectors than these 
 can scarcely be derived from Genesis. Of course, 
 it would be easy to paint a concrete picture of 
 J and E, if we venture to attribute to them what- 
 ever is to be found in their books. But this is 
 forbidden by the very character of these men as 
 collectors. 1 
 
 1 If the reader cannot be satisfied with the little that we 
 have given, he must at least be very much more cautious than, 
 for instance, such a writer as Hokinger on the Hexateuch.
 
 136 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 THE AGE OF THE JAHVIST AND ELOHIST SCHOOLS. 
 
 The question of the absolute age of J and E is 
 exceedingly difficult. We, who believe that we 
 have here to deal with a gradual codification of 
 ancient traditions, are constrained to resolve this 
 question into a number of subordinate questions: 
 When did these traditions arise? When did they 
 become known in Israel? When did they receive 
 essentially their present form? When were they 
 written down? That is to say, our task is not to 
 fix a single definite date; but we are to make a 
 chronological scale for a long process. But this is 
 a very difficult problem, for intellectual processes 
 are very difficult in general to fix chronologically; 
 and there is the further difficulty that blocks us in 
 general with all such questions about the Old Tes- 
 tament, that we know too little about ancient Israel 
 in order to warrant positive conclusions in the pres- 
 ent case. Very many of the chronological conjec- 
 tures of literary criticism, in so far as they are based 
 only upon the study of the history of religion, are 
 more or less unsafe. 
 
 The origin of many of the legends lies in what is 
 for Israel a prehistoric age. Even the laconic 
 style of the legends is primitive; the stories of the 
 "Judges" are already in a more detailed style. 
 After the entrance of Israel into Canaan foreign 
 themes come in in streams. Very many of the 
 legends presuppose the possession of the land and 
 a knowledge of its localities. Among the Israelitish 
 subjects, the genealogy of the twelve sons of Jacob 
 does not correspond with the seats of the tribes in 
 Canaan, and must, therefore, represent older rela- 
 tions. The latest of the Israelitish legends of Gen-
 
 THE LA TER COLLECTIONS. 137 
 
 esis that we know treat the retirement of Reuben, 
 the origin of the families of Judah and the assault 
 upon Shechem, that is, events from the earlier por- 
 tion of the period of the "Judges." In the later 
 portion of this period the poetic treatment of races 
 as individuals was no longer current: by this time 
 new legends of the patriarchs had ceased to be 
 formed. 
 
 The period of the formation of legends of the 
 patriarchs is, then, closed with this date (about 
 1200). The correctness of this estimate is confirmed 
 by other considerations: the sanctuary at Jerusalem, 
 so famous in the time of kings, is not referred to in 
 the legends of the patriarchs; on the contrary the 
 establishment of this sanctuary is placed by the 
 legends of worship in the time of David (2 Sam. 
 xxiv.). The reign of Saul, the conflict of Saul 
 with David, the united kingdom under David and 
 Solomon, the separation of the two kingdoms and 
 the war between them, — we hear no echoes of all 
 this in the older legends; a clear proof that no 
 new legends of the patriarchs were being formed at 
 that time. At what time the legends of Moses, 
 Joshua and others originated is a question for dis- 
 cussion elsewhere. 
 
 RE-MODELING OF THE LEGENDS. 
 
 The period of the formation of the legends is fol- 
 lowed by one of re-modeling. This is essentially 
 the age of the earlier kings. That is probably the 
 time when Israel was again gathered together from 
 its separation into different tribes and districts to 
 one united people, the time when the various dis- 
 tinct traditions grew together into a common body
 
 138 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 of national legends. The great growth which Israel 
 experienced under the first kings probably yielded 
 it the moral force to lay claim to the foreign tales 
 and give them a national application. At this time 
 the Jacob-Esau legend received its interpretation 
 referring to Israel and Edom: Israel has in the 
 meantime subjected Edom, the event occurring 
 under David, and Judah retaining her possession 
 until about 840. Meanwhile Ephraim has out- 
 stripped Manasseh, probably in the beginning of 
 the period of the kings. In the legend of Joseph 
 there occurs an allusion to the dominion of Joseph 
 (xxxvii. 8, E), which, however, found its way into 
 the legend at some later time. The dreadful Syrian 
 wars, which begin about the year 900, are not yet 
 mentioned in the Jacob-Laban legend, but only 
 occasional border forays. The city of Asshur, 
 which was the capital until 1300, has passed from the 
 memory of the Hebrew tradition; but Nineveh (x. 
 11), the capital from about 1000 on, seems to be 
 known to it. Accordingly we may at least assume 
 that by 900 B.C. the legends were essentially, so far 
 as the course of the narrative goes, as we now read 
 them. 
 
 As for allusions to political occurrences later than 
 900, we have only a reference to the rebellion of 
 Edom (about 840), which, however, is plainly an 
 addition to the legend (xxvii. 40^). The other 
 cases that are cited are inconclusive: the reference 
 to the Assyrian cities (x. 11 ff. ) does not prove 
 that these passages come from the "Assyrian" 
 period, for Assyria had certainly been known to the 
 Israelites for a long time; just as little does the 
 mention of Kelah warrant a conclusion, for the
 
 THE LA TER COLLECTIONS. 139 
 
 city was restored in 870, though it had been the 
 capital since about 1300 (in both of these points I 
 differ from the conclusions of Cornill, Einleitung 
 in das Alte Testament? p. 46). According to 
 Lagarde, Mitteilungen, III., p. 226 ff., the Egyptian 
 names in Genesis xli. bring us down into the 
 seventh century; but this is by no means positive, 
 for the names which were frequently heard at that 
 time had certainly been known in earlier times. 
 
 But even though no new political references crept 
 into the legends after about 900, and though they 
 have remained unchanged in their essentials from 
 this time on, they may nevertheless have undergone 
 many internal alterations. This suggests a com- 
 parison with a piece like Genesis xlix. : this piece, 
 coming from the time of David, harmonises in tone 
 with the oldest legends. Hence we may assume 
 another considerable period during which the reli- 
 gious and moral changes in the legends above men- 
 tioned were taking place. This period lasts over 
 into that of the collection of the legends and is 
 closed by it. 
 
 RELATION OF THE COLLECTIONS TO THE PROPHETS. 
 
 When did the collection of the legends take 
 place? This question is particularly difficult, for 
 we have only internal data for its solution, and we 
 can establish these in their turn only after estab- 
 lishing the date of the sources. So unfortunately we 
 are moving here in the familiar circle, and with no 
 present prospect of getting out of it. Investigators 
 must consider this before making unqualified 
 declarations on the subject. Furthermore it is to 
 be borne in mind that not even these collections
 
 140 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 were completed all at once, but grew into shape 
 through a process which lasted no one can say how 
 many decades or centuries. The real question in 
 fixing the date of the sources is the relation of the 
 two to the authors of the "Prophets." Now there 
 are, to be sure, many things in Genesis that suggest 
 a relation with these Prophets, but the assumption 
 of many modern critics that this relation must be 
 due to some direct influence of the Prophetic writ- 
 ers is very doubtful in many cases; we do not know 
 the religion of Israel sufficiently well to be able to 
 declare that certain thoughts and sentiments were 
 first brought to light by the very Prophets whose 
 writings we possess (all later than Amos): the 
 earnestness with which the legend of the Deluge 
 speaks of the universal sinfulness of mankind, and 
 the glorification of the faith of Abraham are not 
 specifically "Prophetic." The hostility of the 
 collectors to the images of Jahveh and to the 
 Asherim (sacred poles), of which they never speak, 
 to the Massebah (obelisks), which J passes over but 
 E still mentions, to the "golden calf" which is 
 regarded by the legend according to E (Exodus 
 xxxii.) as sinful, as well as to the teraphim, which 
 the Jacob-Laban legend wittily ridicules (xxxi. 30 
 f. ), — all of this may easily be independent of 
 "Prophetic" influence. Sentiments of this nature 
 may well have existed in Israel long before the 
 "Prophets," indeed we must assume their existence 
 in order to account for the appearance of the 
 "Prophets." 
 
 True, E calls Abraham a nabi (prophet), xx. 7; 
 that is to say, he lived at a time when "Prophet" 
 and "man of God" were identical; but the guild
 
 THE LA TER COLLECTIONS. 141 
 
 of the N e biim was flourishing long before the time 
 of Amos, and in Hosea also, xii. 14, Moses is 
 called a "Prophet." Accordingly there is nothing 
 in the way of regarding E and J both as on the 
 whole "pre-Prophetic." This conclusion is sup- 
 ported by a number of considerations: the Prophetic 
 authors are characterised by their predictions of 
 the destruction of Israel, by their polemic against 
 alien gods and against the high places of Israel, 
 and by their rejection of sacrifices and ceremonials. 
 These very characteristic features of the "Prophets" 
 are absent in J and E in Genesis, J has no notion 
 of other gods at all except Jahveh, and Jacob's 
 abolition of alien gods for the sake of a sacred 
 ceremony in honor of Jahveh, xxxv. 4 in the tra- 
 dition of E, does not sound like a "Prophetic" 
 utterance. Of an opposition to strange gods there 
 is never any talk, at least not in Genesis. 
 
 And while these collections contain nothing that 
 is characteristically Prophetic, they have on the 
 other hand much that must needs have been exceed- 
 ingly offensive to the Prophets: they have, for 
 instance, an especially favorable attitude toward 
 the sacred places which the Prophets assail so bit- 
 terly; they maintain toward the primitive reli- 
 gion and morality a simple leniency which is the 
 very opposite of the fearful accusations of the 
 Prophets. 
 
 We can see from the Prophetic redaction of the 
 historical books what was the attitude of the legiti- 
 mate pupils of the Prophets toward ancient tradi- 
 tion: they would certainly not have cultivated the 
 popular legends, which contained so much that was 
 heathen, but rather have obliterated them.
 
 142 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 In view of these considerations we must conclude 
 that the collections took shape in all essentials 
 before the period of great Prophetic writings, and 
 that the touches of the spirit of this movement in J 
 and E but show that the thoughts of the Prophets 
 were in many a man's mind long before the time of 
 Amos. This conclusion is supported by a num- 
 ber of other considerations: the legend of the 
 exodus of Abraham, which glorifies his faith, pre- 
 sumes on the other hand the most flourishing pros- 
 perity of Israel, and accordingly comes most surely 
 from the time before the great incursion of the 
 Assyrians. And pieces which from the point of 
 view of the history of legends are so late as chapter 
 15, or as the story of the birth of the sons of Jacob, 
 contain, on the other hand, very ancient religious 
 motives. 
 
 But this does not exclude the possibility that cer- 
 tain of the very latest portions of the collections are 
 in the true sense "Prophetic." Thus Abraham's 
 conversation with God before Sodom is in its con- 
 tent the treatment of a religious problem, but in 
 form it is an imitation of the Prophetic "expostula- 
 tion" with God. Joshua's farewell (Joshua xxiv.) 
 with its unconcealed distrust of Israel's fidelity is 
 also in form an imitation of the Prophetic sermon. 
 In the succeeding books, especially the portions due 
 to E, there is probably more of the same character, 
 but in Genesis the instances are rare. 
 
 Accordingly we may locate both collections before 
 the appearance of the great Prophets, J perhaps in 
 the ninth century and E in the first half of the 
 eighth; but it must be emphasized that such dates 
 are after all very uncertain.
 
 THE LA TER COLLECTIONS. U3 
 
 THE JEHOVIST REDACTOR. 
 
 The two collections were united later by an editor 
 designated as R JE , whom, following Wellhausen's 
 example, we shall call the "Jehovist." This union 
 of the two older sources took place before the addi- 
 tion of the later book of legends to be referred to as 
 P. We may place this collector somewhere near 
 the end of the kingdom of Judah. R JE manifests 
 in Genesis the most extraordinary conservatism and 
 reverence; he has expended a great amount of keen- 
 ness in trying to retain both sources so far as pos- 
 sible and to establish the utmost possible harmony 
 between them. In general he probably took the 
 more detailed source for his basis, in the story of 
 Abraham J. He himself appears with his own lan- 
 guage very little in Genesis. We recognise his pen 
 with certainty in a few brief additions which are 
 intended to harmonise the variants of J and E, but 
 of which there are relatively few: xvi. 9 f . ; xxviii. 
 2i b , and further in xxxi. 49 ff . ; xxxix. 1; xli. 50; 
 xlv. 19; xlvi. 1; 1. 11; and several points in xxxiv; 
 but the most of these instances are trifles. 
 
 Furthermore, there are certain, mostly rather 
 brief, additions, which we may locate in this period 
 and probably attribute to this redactor or to his con- 
 temporaries. Some of them merely run over and 
 deepen the delicate lines of the original text: xviii. 
 17-19; xx. 18; xxii. 15-18; some are priestly elabo- 
 rations of profane narratives: xiii. 14-17; xxxii. 
 10-13; the most of them are speeches attributed to 
 God; xiii. 14-17; xvi. 9 and 10; xviii. 17-19; xxii. 
 15-18; xxvi. 31,-5, 24, 25^; xxviii. 14; xlvi. 3./? 
 (xxxii. 10-13; 1. 247); which is characteristic for
 
 144 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 these latest additions, which profess only to give 
 thoughts and not stories, speeches containing espe- 
 cially solemn promises for Israel: that it was to 
 become a mighty nation and take possession of "all 
 these lands." Incidentally all the people are 
 enumerated which Israel is to conquer: xv. 19-21; x. 
 16-18. These additions come from the period 
 when the great world crises were threatening the 
 existence of Israel, and when the faith of the people 
 was clinging to these promises, that is to say, prob- 
 ably from the Chaldsean period. Here and there 
 we meet a trace of "Deuteronomistic" style: xviii. 
 17-19; xxvi. 3„-5.
 
 VI. 
 
 PRIESTLY CODEX AND FINAL 
 REDACTION. 
 
 BESIDES those already treated we find evidence 
 of another separate stream of tradition. This 
 source is so distinct from the other sources both in 
 style and spirit that in the great majority of cases it 
 can be separated from them to the very letter. This 
 collection also is not limited to Genesis; on the con- 
 trary, the legends of the beginnings and of the 
 patriarchs are to it merely a brief preparation for the 
 capital matter, which is the legislation of Moses. 
 The Priestly Codex is of special importance for us 
 because the entire discussion of the Old Testament 
 has hitherto turned essentially upon its data. It is 
 Wellhausen's immortal merit (Prolegomena^ p. 299 
 ff.) to have recognised the true character of this 
 source, which had previously been considered the 
 oldest, to have demonstrated thus the incorrectness 
 of the entire general view of the Old Testament, 
 and thus to have prepared the field for a living and 
 truly historical understanding of the history of the 
 religion of Israel. 
 
 The style of P is extremely peculiar, exceedingly 
 detailed and aiming at legal clearness and minute- 
 ness, having always the same expressions and for- 
 mulae, with precise definitions and monotonous set 
 phrases with consistently employed outlines which 
 
 145
 
 146 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 lack substance, with genealogies and with titles 
 over every chapter. It is the tone of prosaic 
 pedantry, often indeed the very style of the legal 
 document (for instance xi. u; and xxiii. 17, 18); 
 occasionally, however, it is not without a certain 
 solemn dignity (especially in Genesis i. and else- 
 where also, cp. the scene xlvii. 7-1 1). One must 
 really read the whole material of P consecutively in 
 order to appreciate the dryness and monotony of 
 this remarkable book. The author is evidently 
 painfully exact and exemplary in his love of order, 
 but appreciation of poetry was denied him as to 
 many another scholar. 
 
 The selection of material both in large and in 
 small matters is highly characteristic in P. The 
 only stories of any length which he gives us are those 
 of the Creation and the Deluge, of God's appear- 
 ance to Abraham and of the purchase of the cave at 
 Machpelah; all else is details and genealogies. 
 From by far the greatest number of narratives he 
 found use only for separate and disconnected obser- 
 vations. One has only to compare the ancient 
 variegated and poetic legends and the scanty reports 
 which P gives of them, in order to learn where his 
 interests lie: he does not purpose to furnish a poetic 
 narrative, as those of old had done, but only to 
 arrive at the facts. This is why he was unable to 
 use the many individual traits contained in the old 
 legends, but merely took from them a very few 
 facts. He ignored the sentiments of the legends, 
 he did not see the personal life of the patriarchs; 
 their figures, once so concrete, have become mere 
 pale types when seen through his medium. In 
 times of old many of these legends had been located
 
 CODEX AND FINAL REDACTION. 147 
 
 in definite places, thereby gaining life and color; P 
 has forgotten all but two places: the cave of Mach- 
 pelah, where the patriarchs dwelt and lie buried, and 
 Bethel, where God revealed himself to Jacob. „Qn 
 the other hand, he has a great predilection for 
 genealogies, .which, as we have seen, were the latest 
 elements to be contributed to the accumulation of 
 the legend, and which are in their very nature 
 unconcrete and unpoetical. A very large portion 
 of P's share in Genesis is genealogy and nothing 
 more. 
 
 Even those narratives which are told by P at 
 length manifest this same lack of color. They are 
 narratives that are not really stories. The account 
 of the purchase of the cave of Machpelah might 
 have been nothing but an incidental remark in one 
 of the older story-tellers; P has spun it out at length 
 because he wanted to establish as beyond all doubt 
 the fact that the cave really belonged to the patriarchs 
 and was an ancestral sepulcher. But he had not the 
 poetic power necessary to shape the account into a 
 story. In the great affairs of state which P gives 
 instead of the old stories, story-telling has ceased, 
 there is only talking and negotiating (Wellhausen). 
 Even the accounts of the Creation, the Deluge 
 and the Covenant with Abraham manifest a wide 
 contrast with the vivid colors of the older legends; 
 they lack greatly in the concrete elements of a 
 story. Instead of this P gives in them something 
 else, something altogether alien to the spirit of the 
 early legend, to wit, legal ordinances, and these in 
 circumstantial detail. Another characteristic of P 
 is his pronounced liking for outlines; this order-lov- 
 ing man has ensnared the gay legends of the olden
 
 148 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 time in his gray outlines, and there they have lost 
 all their poetic freshness: take as an illustration the 
 genealogy of Adam and Seth. Even the stories of 
 the patriarchs have been caged by P in an outline. 
 
 IMPORTANCE ATTACHED TO CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 Furthermore P attaches to the legends a detailed 
 chronology, which plays a great role in his account, 
 but is absolutely out of keeping with the simplicity 
 of the old legends. Chronology belongs by its very 
 nature to history, not to legend. Where historical 
 narrative and legend exist as living literary species, 
 they are recognised as distinct, even though uncon- 
 sciously. This confusion of the two species in P 
 shows that in his time the natural appreciation for 
 both history and legend had been lost. Accord- 
 ingly it is not strange that the chronology of P dis- 
 plays everywhere the most absurd oddities when 
 injected into the old legends: as a result, Sarah is 
 still at sixty-five a beautiful woman whom the 
 Egyptians seek to capture, and Ishmael is carried 
 on his mother's shoulder after he is a youth of six- 
 teen. 
 
 There has been added a great division of the 
 world's history into periods, which P forces upon 
 the whole matter of his account. He recognises 
 four periods: from the creation to Noah, from 
 Noah to Abraham, from Abraham to Moses, and 
 from Moses on. Each of these periods begins 
 with a theophany, and twice a new name for God 
 is introduced. He who is Elohim at the crea- 
 tion is El Shaddai in connexion with Abraham and 
 Jahveh to Moses. At the establishment of the 
 Covenant certain divine ordinances are proclaimed:
 
 CODEX AND FINAL REDACTION. 149 
 
 first, that men and beasts are to eat only herbs, and 
 then, after the Deluge, that flesh may be eaten but 
 no men be slain, and then, especially for Abraham, 
 that he and his descendants shall circumcise them- 
 selves; finally, the Mosaic law. 
 
 In connexion with these, certain definite divine 
 promises are made and signs of the Covenant given. 
 What we find in this is the product of a great and 
 universal mind, the beginning of a universal history 
 in the grand style, and indeed P shows a genuinely 
 scientific mind in other points: consider, for 
 instance, his precision in the order of creation in 
 Genesis i. and his definitions there. But the 
 material of the legends which this grandiose uni- 
 versal history uses stands in very strong contrast 
 with the history itself: the signs of the Covenant 
 are a rainbow, circumcision and the Sabbath, a very 
 remarkable list! And how remote is this spirit of 
 universal history, which even undertakes to esti- 
 mate the duration of the entire age of the world, 
 from the spirit of the old legend, which originally 
 consists of only a single story that is never able to 
 rise to the height of such general observations: in J, 
 for instance, we hear nothing of the relation of 
 Abraham's religion to that of his fathers and his 
 tribal kinsmen. 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS VIEWS OF THE PRIESTLY CODEX. 
 
 Furthermore, we cannot deny that this reflexion 
 of P's, that Jahveh first revealed himself in quite a 
 general form as "God," and then in a concreter 
 form as El Shaddai, and only at the last under his 
 real name, is, after all, very childish: the real his- 
 tory of religion does not begin with the general and 

 
 150 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 then pass to the concrete, but on the contrary, it 
 begins with the very most concrete conceptions, and 
 only slowly and gradually do men learn to compre- 
 hend what is abstract. 
 
 It is characteristic of the religion of the author 
 P that he says almost nothing about the personal 
 piety of the patriarchs; he regards only the objec- 
 tive as important in religion. For instance, he says 
 nothing about Abraham's obedience on faith; indeed 
 does not hesitate to report that Abraham laughed at 
 God's promise (xvii. 17). The religion that he 
 knows consists in the prescription of ceremonies; 
 he regards it of importance that the Sabbath shall 
 be observed, that circumcision shall be practised, 
 that certain things shall be eaten and others not. 
 In such matters he is very scrupulous. He abstains, 
 evidently with deliberation, from telling that the 
 patriarchs offered sacrifice in any certain place, and 
 this evidently for the reason that these places were 
 regarded as heathenish in his time.. Similarly, in 
 his account of the Deluge, he does not distinguish 
 the clean and the unclean beasts. It is his opinion 
 that established worship and the distinction of clean 
 and unclean were not introduced until the time of 
 Mose,s, 
 
 But in this we hear the voice of a priest of Jeru- 
 salem, whose theory is that the' worship at his sanc- 
 tuary is the only legitimate worship and the 
 continuation of the worship instituted by Moses. 
 The Israelitish theocracy — this, in modern phrase, 
 is the foundation thought of his work — is the pur- 
 pose of the world. God created the world in order 
 that his ordinances and commandments might be 
 observed in the temple at Jerusalem.
 
 CODEX AND FINAL REDACTION. 151 
 
 The theophanies of P are characterised by their 
 inconcreteness; he tells only that God appeared, 
 spoke, and again ascended, and leaves out every- 
 thing else. In this, then, he follows the style of the 
 latest additions to JE, which also contain such 
 speeches attributed to God without any introduc- 
 tion. It is evident that in this there is expressed a 
 religious hesitation on the part of P to involve the 
 supermundane God with the things of this world; 
 it seems as though he suspected the heathen origin 
 of these theophanies. At the same time we per- 
 ceive what his positive interest is: he cares for the 
 content of the divine revelation, but not for its 
 "How." Moreover, it is no accident that he con- 
 ceives of these speeches of God as "covenant-mak- 
 ing": evidently he has in mind this originally legal 
 form. This union of the priest, the scholar, and 
 the distinctive lawyer, which seems to us perhaps 
 remarkable at first, is after all quite natural: among 
 many ancient races the priesthood was the guardian 
 of learning and especially of the law. And thus it 
 surely was in Israel too, where from primitive times 
 the priests were accustomed to settle difficult dis- 
 putes. P developed his style in the writing of con- 
 tracts — this is quite evident in many places. 
 
 But it is especially characteristic of P that he no 
 longer refers to the sacred symbols, which had once 
 possessed such great importance for the ancient 
 religion, as may be seen particularly in the legends 
 of the patriarchs; in him we no longer find a refer- 
 ence to the monuments, the trees and groves, and 
 the springs at which, according to the ancient 
 legends, the divinity appeared. P has expunged 
 all such matter from the legend, evidently because
 
 152 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 he considered it heathenish. Here we see plainly 
 the after-effects of the fearful polemics of the 
 Prophets: it is the same spirit which branded the 
 ancient sacred place of Bethel as heathen (in the 
 "reform" of Josiah) and which here rejects from the 
 ancient legends everything that smacks of heathen- 
 ism to these children of a later time. 
 
 This much, then, is certain, that the conceptions 
 of God in P are loftier and more advanced than 
 those of the old legends; and yet P is far below 
 these older authors, who had not made the acquaint- 
 ance of the sacerdotalism of Jerusalem, but who did 
 know what piety is. Just as P purified the religion 
 of the patriarchs, so did he also purge their 
 morality. Here, too, P adds the last word to a 
 development which we have followed up in J and E. 
 The old legends of the patriarchs, being an expres- 
 sion of the most primitive life of the people, con- 
 tained a great deal that those of a later time could 
 not but regard as wrong and sinful, if they were 
 quite honest about it. 
 
 And yet, the belief of the time was that the 
 patriarchs were models of piety and virtue. What 
 pains had been taken to eliminate at least the most 
 offensive things in this line so far as possible! 
 When it comes to P at last, he makes a clean sweep: 
 he simply omits altogether what is offensive (for 
 instance, the quarrel of the shepherds of Abraham 
 and Lot, Lot's selfishness, the exile of Ishmael, 
 Jacob's deceptions); he even goes to the length of 
 maintaining the precise contrary to the tradition: 
 Ishmael and Isaac together peacefully buried their 
 father (xxv. 9), and so did Jacob and Esau (xxxv. 
 29). Facts which cannot be obliterated receive a
 
 CODEX AND FINAL REDACTION. 153 
 
 different motivation: thus he explains Isaac's bless- 
 ing of Jacob as a result of Esau's sinful mixed mar- 
 riages (xxvi. 34 f. ; xxviii. I ff.), and he lays the 
 crime against Joseph at the door of the sons of 
 Bilhah and Zilpah (xxxvii. 2). 
 
 From all of this it appears clear that P dealt very 
 arbitrarily with the tradition as it came down to him. 
 He dropped old versions or changed them at pleas- 
 ure; mere incidents he spun out to complete 
 stories, and from whole stories he adopted only inci- 
 dents; he mingled the motives of various legends, 
 declaring, for instance, that the blessing received by 
 Jacob from Isaac was the blessing of Abraham, 
 which had been entirely foreign to the thought of 
 the old story-tellers (xxviii. 4; other instances may 
 be found pp. 237, 247, 350 of the Co?nmc?itary) ; 
 from the stories of the old tradition, which stood in 
 loose juxtaposition, he formed a continuous nar- 
 rative with close connexion, — this, too, a mark of 
 the latest period. In place of the legends he placed 
 his chapters with regular headings! 
 
 This narrator, then, has no conception of the 
 fidelity of the older authors; he probably had an 
 impression that it was necessary to lay on vigorously 
 in order to erect a structure worthy of God. The 
 older authors, J and E, were really not authors, but 
 merely collectors, while P is a genuine author; the 
 former merely accumulated the stone left to them 
 in a loose heap; but P erected a symmetrical struc- 
 ture in accordance with his own taste. And yet we 
 should be wrong if we should assume that he 
 deliberately invented his allegations in Genesis; 
 tradition was too strong to permit even him to do 
 this. On the contrary, he simply worked over the
 
 154 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 material, though very vigorously indeed; we can 
 often recognise by details how he followed his 
 source in the general outline of events when no per- 
 sonal interest of his own was involved (see p. 139 of 
 the Commentary). But this source, at least for 
 Genesis, was neither J nor E but one related to 
 them. 
 
 THE AGE OF THE PRIESTLY CODEX. 
 
 After this portrayal of the situation the age of P 
 is evident. It belongs by every evidence at the 
 close of the whole history of the tradition, and cer- 
 tainly separated by a great gap from J and E: the 
 living stream of legend from which J and E, the old 
 collectors, had dipped, must by that time have run 
 dry, if it had become possible for P to abuse it in 
 this fashion for the construction of his history. 
 And in the meanwhile a great intellectual revolution 
 must have taken place, — a revolution which had 
 created something altogether new in the place of 
 the old nationality represented in the legends. 
 
 P is the documentary witness of a time which was 
 consciously moving away from the old traditions, 
 and which believed it necessary to lay the founda- 
 tions of religion in a way differing from that of the 
 fathers. And in P we have revealed the nature of 
 this new element which had then assumed sway, — it 
 is the spirit of the learned priest that we here find 
 expressed. Furthermore, this also is clear to us 
 from the whole manner of P, and particularly from 
 his formal language, that we have not here the work 
 of an individual with a special tendency, but of a 
 whole group whose convictions he expresses. P's 
 work is nothing more nor less than an official 
 utterance.
 
 CODEX AND FINAL REDACTION 155 
 
 It is the priesthood of Jerusalem with which the 
 document P originated. Hence the applicableness 
 of the designation "Priestly Codex." Wellhausen 
 has revealed to us the time to which this spirit 
 belonged. This is the epoch following the great 
 catastrophe to the people and the state of Judah, 
 when the people, overwhelmed by the tremendous 
 impression of their measureless misfortune, recog- 
 nised that their fathers had sinned, and that a great 
 religious reformation was necessary. Only in con- 
 nexion with this period can we comprehend P with 
 his grandiose want of respect for what had been the 
 most sacred traditions of his people. We know also 
 well enough that it was the priesthood alone in that 
 day which held its own and kept the people 
 together after all other authorities had worn them- 
 selves out or perished: after its restoration the con- 
 gregation of Judah was under the dominion of 
 priests. 
 
 In keeping with this period also is the remarkably 
 developed historical scholarship of P. The older 
 epoch had produced excellent story-tellers, but no 
 learned historians; while in this period of exile 
 Judaean historiography had lost its naive innocence. 
 Under the powerful influence of the superior Baby- 
 lonian civilisation Judaism also had acquired a taste 
 for precise records of numbers and measures. It 
 now grew accustomed to employ great care in 
 statistical records: genealogical tables were copied, 
 archives were searched for authentic documents, 
 chronological computations were undertaken, and 
 even universal history was cultivated after the 
 Babylonian model. In Ezra and Nehemiah and 
 Chronicles we see the same historical scholarship as
 
 156 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 in P, and in Ezekiel, Haggai, and Zechariah the same 
 high value placed upon exact chronology. The 
 reckoning of the months also, which is found in P, 
 was learned by the Jews at this time, and probably 
 from Babylonia. The progress represented by this 
 learned spirit as compared with the simplicity of 
 former times is undeniable, even though the prod- 
 ucts of this learning often fail to appeal to us. It is 
 probably characteristic of the beginnings of "uni- 
 versal history" that such first great historical 
 constructions as we have in P deal largely with myth- 
 ical or legendary materials, and are consequently 
 inadequate according to our modern notions. In 
 this respect P may be compared to Berosus. 
 
 The emphasis laid by P upon the Sabbath, the 
 prohibition of bloodshed and circumcision, is also 
 comprehensible to us in the light of this period: the 
 epoch in which everything depended on the willing- 
 ness of the individual emphasised the religious com- 
 mandments which applied to the individual. Indeed 
 it may be said, that the piety of the patriarchs, who 
 are always represented as gerim (strangers), and 
 who have to get along without sacrifices and formal 
 ceremonies, is a reflexion of the piety of the exile, 
 when those who lived in the foreign land had 
 neither temples nor sacrifices. 
 
 P's religious criticism of mixed marriages also, 
 especially those with Canaanitish women, whereby 
 the blessing of Abraham was forfeited (xxviii. 1-9) 
 connect with the same time, when the Jews, living 
 in the Dispersion, had no more zealous desire than 
 to keep their blood and their religion pure. 
 
 Much more characteristic than these evidences 
 taken from Genesis are the others derived from the
 
 CODEX AND FINAL REDACTION. 157 
 
 legal sections of the following books. Finally 
 there is to be added to all these arguments the late 
 origin of the style of P 1 . And in accordance with 
 this the fixing of the date of P as coming from the 
 time of the exile is one of the surest results of 
 criticism. 
 
 We need not attempt to determine here in just 
 what century P wrote; but this much may be said, 
 that the Law-book of Ezra, in the opinion of many 
 scholars, upon which the congregation took the oath 
 in 444, and in the composition of which Ezra was in 
 some way involved, was P. Hence we may place 
 the composition of the book in the period from 500 
 to 444. P, too, was not completed all at once, 
 though this is hardly a matter of importance so far 
 as Genesis goes 
 
 THE FINAL REDACTOR. 
 
 The final redactor, who combined the older work 
 qf_JE and P, and designated as R JEP , probably 
 belongs, therefore, to the time after Ezra, and surely 
 before the time of the separation of the Samaritan 
 congregation, which carried the complete Pentateuch 
 along with it — though we are unable, indeed, to give 
 the exact date of this event. The fact that such a 
 combination of the older and the later collections 
 was necessary shows us that the old legends had 
 been planted too deep in the popular heart to be 
 supplanted by the new spirit. 
 
 Great historical storms had in the meantime 
 desecrated the old sacred places; the whole past 
 
 1 Wellhausen, Prologomena, p. 393, ff. Ryssel, De elohistce 
 pentatcuchici sermone, 1S78. Giesebrecht, ZA IV, 1881, p. 
 177 ff. Driver, Journal of Philology, 1882, p. 201 ff.
 
 158 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 seemed to the men of the new time to be sinful. 
 And yet the old legends which glorified these places 
 and which gave such a naive reflexion of the olden 
 time, could not be destroyed. The attempt of P to 
 supplant the older tradition had proven a failure; 
 accordingly a reverent hand produced a combina- 
 tion of JE and P. 
 
 This last collection was prepared with extraor- 
 dinary fidelity, especially toward P; its author aimed 
 if possible not to lose a single grain of P's work. 
 We shall not blame him for preferring P to JE, for 
 P never ceased to dominate Jewish taste. Espe- 
 cially notable is the fact that the redactor applied 
 the chronology of P as a framework for the narratives 
 of J and E. In Genesis there are a very few features 
 which we can trace with more or less certainty to 
 his hand: such are a few harmonising comments or 
 elaborations like x. 24; xv. 7, 8, 15; xxvii. 46; 
 xxxv. 13, 14; and further some retouching in vi. 7; 
 vii. 7, 22, 23; and also vii. 3 a , 8, 9; and finally the 
 distinction between Abram and Abraham, Sarai and 
 Sarah, which is also found in J and E, and some 
 other matters. 
 
 We have now covered the activities of all the 
 various redactors of Genesis. But in smaller details 
 the work on the text (Diaskeuase) continues for a 
 long time. Smaller alterations are to be found in 
 xxxiv. and in the numbers of the genealogies, in 
 which the Jewish and the Samaritan text, and the 
 Greek translation differ. More considerable altera- 
 tions were made in xxxvi. and xlvi. 8-27; while the 
 last large interpolation is the narrative of Abra- 
 ham's victory over the four kings, a legend from 
 very late times, and of "midrash" character.
 
 CODEX AND FINAL REDACTION. 159 
 
 SUMMARY. 
 
 Thus Genesis has been compounded from very- 
 many sources. And in the last state we have 
 described it has remained. In this form the old 
 legends have exercised an incalculable influence 
 upon all succeeding generations. We may perhaps 
 regret that the last great genius who might have 
 created out of the separate stories a great whole, a 
 real "Israelitic national epic," never came. Israel 
 produced no Homer. But this is fortunate for our 
 investigation; for just because the individual por- 
 tions have been left side by side and in the main 
 unblended it is possible for us to make out the his- 
 tory of the entire process. For this reason students 
 of the legend should apply themselves to the inves- 
 tigation of Genesis, which has not been customary 
 hitherto; while theologians should learn that 
 Genesis is not to be understood without the aid of 
 the proper methods for the study of legends. 
 
 HOW GENESIS CAME TO BE ATTRIBUTED TO MOSES. 
 
 One word more, in closing, as to how Genesis has 
 obtained the undeserved honor of being regarded as 
 a work of Moses. From primitive times there 
 existed a tradition in Israel that the divine ordi- 
 nances regarding worship, law and morality, as 
 proclaimed by the mouth of the priests, were 
 derived from Moses. When, then, these ordi- 
 nances, which had originally circulated orally, were 
 written down in larger or smaller works, it was 
 natural that they passed under the name of Moses 
 Now our Pentateuch consists, in addition to the col- 
 lections of legends, of such books of law from various 
 periods and of very diverse spirit. And because
 
 160 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 the legends also, from the time of the Exodus, have 
 to do chiefly with Moses, it was very easy to com- 
 bine both legends and laws in one single book. 
 Thus it happened that Genesis has become the first 
 part of a work whose following parts tell chiefly of 
 Moses and contain many laws that claim to come 
 from Moses. But in its contents Genesis has no 
 connexion with Moses. These narratives, among 
 them so many of a humorous, an artistic, or a senti- 
 mental character, are very remote from the spirit of 
 such a strenuous and wrathful Titan as Moses, 
 according to the tradition, must have been.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Abel, 49 et seq., 64 et seq., 91, 107. 
 
 Abimelech, 20, 35, 63, 79, 115. 
 
 Abraham, 5, 9, 19 et seq., 33 et seq., 
 42 et seq., 49 et seq., 60 et seq., 69 
 et seq., 95, 107 et seq., 112 et seq., 
 115 et seq., 120, 122, 128, 132, 134 et 
 seq., 140, 142, 147, 152- 
 
 Absalom, 10. 
 
 Actions, thought expressed by, 60. 
 
 Adam 60, 148. 
 
 Adonis, 121. 
 
 Amalgamation, mode of, 96. 
 
 Amnion, 19 et seq., 45. 
 
 Amos, 85. 
 
 Anthropomorphism, 8. 
 
 Aramaic influences, 91 et seq. 
 
 Ararat, 7. 
 
 Arthurian poems, 38. 
 
 Asshur (Assyria), 19, ng, 138. 
 
 Babel, 14, 16, 17, 29, 44 et seq., 50 et 
 
 seq., 77, go. 
 Babylonian influences, 90 et seq., 155. 
 Baucis, 94. 
 Beersheba, 29, 35, 99. 
 Benjamin, 50, 83, 112, 121. 
 Berosus, 156. 
 
 Bethel, 31 et seq., 41, 92, 105. 
 Budde, 125. 
 
 Canaan, 55, 90, 
 
 Cain, 14, 20 et seq., 29, 49 et seq., 65 
 et seq., 91 et seq., 97, 107, 128. 
 
 Caution, needed in interpretation, 
 120. 
 
 Ceremonials, religious, 30. 
 
 Characters in the Legends, descrip- 
 tion of, 53. 
 
 l6l 
 
 Chronological periods, four, 148. 
 
 Chronology, exact, 156; importance 
 attached to, 148. 
 
 Circumcision, 31, 156. 
 
 Codex, Priestly, 124 et seq., 145 et 
 seq., 149 et seq., 154. 
 
 Collection, process of, 129; its rela- 
 tion to the prophets, 139 et seq. 
 
 Collections, the later, 123 et seq. 
 
 Collectors, their relation to their 
 sources, 130. 
 
 Connecticut, 28. 
 
 Cornill, 139. 
 
 Covenant, 85, 147, 148, 149. 
 
 Creation; 17, 49, 74, 97, 146 et seq. 
 
 David, 5, 138. 
 
 Daniel, 100. 
 
 Dead Sea, 7, 34. 
 
 Deborah, 101. 
 
 Deluge, 7, 10, 15, 16, 17, 44, 50 et seq., 
 
 76, 90, 95, i03et seq., no, 146 et seq. 
 Deuteronomian Reformation, 107, 
 
 144. 
 Deuteronomy, 85. 
 Dinah, 20, 35, 50 et seq., 93, 126. 
 Divinity, its action in the primitive 
 
 legends, 14 ; the sanctuary and, 105 
 
 et seq. 
 Driver, 157. 
 
 Economy of details, 67 et seq. 
 Eden, 44, 71, 49 et seq. 
 Edom, ig, 119, 138. 
 Egyptian influences, 91. 
 Egyptian names in Genesis, 139. 
 Elohist and Jahvist, 123 et seq.; col- 
 lectors not authors, 124 et seq.; re-
 
 162 
 
 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 lation of to one another, 133 ; age of 
 
 the schools, 136 et seq. 
 Enoch, 95. 
 Ephraim, 21. 
 Epic discursiveness, 82. 
 Epic, Israelitic national, 159. 
 Esau, 19 et seq., 42 et seq., 49 et seq., 
 
 57 et seq., 63, 80 et seq., 91, 94, 95' 
 
 114. 134. 152- 
 Esther, 120. 
 Etana, 121. 
 Etymologies, in Genesis, 8; popular, 
 
 28; subordinate features, 77. 
 Euphrates, 7. 
 Evangelical churches, 12. 
 Eye-witness and reporter, 5. 
 Ezra, Book of, 157. 
 
 Flood. See Deluge. 
 Foreign influences, 88. 
 
 Gad, 119. 
 
 Genesis, history or legend? I et seq.; 
 not political history, 5 ; many things 
 reported in the book which go di- 
 rectly against our better knowl- 
 edge, 7; its narratives mostly of a 
 religious nature, 8 ; God in, 9, 13 et 
 seq.; closely related to other cos- 
 mogonies, 10; varieties of legends 
 in, 13 et seq.; sources of, 23 ; prose 
 in form, 36; a folk-book, 39; con- 
 tents of, in primitive form, 40; real 
 unit in, 42; no nature-love in, 67; 
 Egyptian names in, 139; genealogy 
 in, 147 ; compounded from very 
 many sources, 159; how it came to 
 be attributed to Moses, 159. 
 
 Gerar, 20, 102, 126. 
 
 Gibeah, 96. 
 
 Gilead, 96, 127. 
 
 Giesebrecht, 157. 
 
 God, 64, 88 ; in Genesis, 9, 13 et seq.; 
 His relation to man, 107 et seq.; not 
 merely a tribal God, 109. 
 
 Goldziher, 121. 
 
 Greek parallels, 93. 
 
 Ham, 20 et seq. 
 
 Hagar, 19, 34, 42 et seq., 49 et seq., 61 
 
 et seq., 70 et seq., 79, 102, 105, 112 et 
 
 seq., 116, 126. 
 Hebron, 45, 79 et seq., 95, 105, 132. 
 Helal, 15. 
 Hippolytus, 94. 
 Hirah, 53. 
 
 Historiography, Judsean; 155. 
 History, the writing of, 1 et seq. 
 History and legend, criteria for, 3 et 
 
 seq. 
 Holzinger, 135. 
 Homer, 84, 159. 
 Hyrieus,93. 
 
 Images, hostility to, 140. 
 
 Incredibility, the criterion of, 7. 
 
 Interest, different spheres of, in leg- 
 end and history, 4. 
 
 Isaac, 11, 42 et seq., 49 et seq., 58 et 
 seq , 73 et seq., 95. Io6 - IIJ > II6 ' x 34. 
 
 153. 
 
 Ishmael, 19 et seq., 33 et seq., 35, 5L 
 75 et seq., 91, 99. I0 5. "°> "4. 12 9- 
 134.' 152- 
 
 Israel, one of the youngest in the 
 group to which it belongs, 6; his- 
 tory of, reflected in its legends, 89; 
 civilisation of Canaan adopted by, 
 
 90, 95- 
 Israelitic national epic, 159. 
 
 Jacob, 5, 19 etseq.. 29, 33. 35. 42 et 
 seq., 49 et seq., 57 et seq., 63, 71 et 
 seq., 73 et seq., 80 et seq., 88, 91,94, 
 95. 97. 99 et seq., 102, 107 et seq, 113, 
 116, 118, 120, 121, 126, 128, 134, 152. 
 Jahveh, 92, 95, 104, 117, 127. 
 Jahvist and Elohist, 123 et seq., 128; 
 collectors not authors, 124 etseq.; 
 relation of, to one another, 133; 
 age of the schools, 136 et seq. 
 
 Japhet, 20 et seq., 50 et seq., 61, 91. 
 
 Jared, 96. 
 
 jehovist, 123 et seq., 143. 
 
 Jeremiah, 85. 
 
 Jeruel, 75 et seq., 31 et seq. 
 
 Jerusalem, 19. 
 
 Jesus, 3. 
 
 Jonah, 3, 119. 
 
 Jordan, twelve stones in the, 31. 
 
 Joseph, 22, 35, 42 et seq., 56 et seq.,
 
 INDEX. 
 
 163 
 
 63 et seq., 71 et seq., 79 et seq., 82 
 et seq. , 95, 99. 107, 112, 117. 120, 134. 
 135. 138. 
 
 Joshua, 142. 
 
 Judah, 19 et seq., 101, 113. 
 
 Judges, Book of, 24, 136. 
 
 Kings, Book of, 3. 
 
 Laban, 22, 35, 42, 52 et seq., 59 et seq., 
 73, 80 et seq., 91, 96, 111 et seq., 116, 
 119, 126, 129. 
 
 Lacha-roi, 32 et seq. 
 
 Lagarde, 139. 
 
 Leah, 55, 57 et seq., 121. 
 
 Legends, significance and scope of, 
 1 et seq.; not lies, 3; criteria for 
 history and, 3 et seq.; varieties of, 
 13 et seq.; character of races in 22 
 et seq.; antiquity of, 23 et seq.; 
 classification of, 24 et seq.; setio- 
 logical,25; ethnological, 25 et seq.; 
 the beginnings of human science, 
 25; etymological, 27 et seq.; the 
 first rudiments of a philosophy of 
 history, 27; ceremonial, 30 et seq.; 
 geological, 34; mixed, 34, 35; ori- 
 gin of the, 35, 88 et seq.; literary 
 form of the, 36 et seq.; tranforma- 
 tion of the, 39 et seq.; cycles, 45; 
 length of, 46 et seq.; treat men as 
 types, 55; laconisrn of the, 63 et 
 seq.; unity and coherence of, 69; 
 not pure inventions, 74 ; two styles 
 of, 86; development of the, 88 et 
 seq.; migration of, 89 et seq.; reli- 
 gious, not Israelistic, 91; of wor- 
 ship, 91; adaptation of, 94: amal- 
 gamation of, 95; history of the oral 
 transmission of, 102 et seq.; mono- 
 theistic tendency in, 103; ethical 
 notions in, in et seq.; criteria of 
 the age of, 116 et seq ; tribal, 117; 
 collecting of, 123 et seq.: remodel- 
 ing of the, 137 et seq.; of the patri- 
 archs, period of the formation of, 
 137; political references in, 138. 
 Levi, 114 et seq. 
 Leviathan, 15. 
 Lombards, 28. 
 Lot, 19, 42 et seq., 49, 58 et seq., 74, 
 
 80 et seq., 91, 107, 152; daughters 
 of; 112 et seq. 
 
 Machpelah, 106, 130, 146 et seq. 
 
 Mahanaim, 101, 103. 
 
 Manasseh, 21. 
 
 Manhattan Island, 28. 
 
 Mdrchen, 38, 89. 
 
 Marduk, 41. 
 
 Marriages, mixed, 156. 
 
 Migrations, 21 et seq. 
 
 Milkah, 119. 
 
 Mizraim, 102. 
 
 Moab, 19 et seq , 20, 45. 
 
 Monotheism hostile to myths, 15 et 
 
 seq. 
 Moses, 31, 33, 93, 100, 141, 159. 
 Myths, some legends faded, 14 et 
 
 seq.; monotheism hostile to, 15 et 
 
 seq.; significance and origin of, 16 
 
 et seq. 
 
 Nabi, 140. 
 
 Names, origin and meaning of, 27 et 
 
 seq. 
 Narratives, individual, 100 et seq. 
 Narrators, methods of the, 58. 
 Nephilim, 103. 
 New Testament, 3. 
 Nimrod, 101 ; legend of, go. 
 Nineveh, 138. 
 Noah, 7, 9, 13, 44, 48, 58 et seq., 76, 95, 
 
 101, 108. 
 
 Onan, 107. 
 
 Oral tradition, 88. 
 
 Oral transmission of the legends, 
 
 history of the, 102 et seq. 
 Origin of the world, legends of the 
 
 13. 
 Ovid, 93. 
 
 Paradise, 14, 16, 17, 90 et seq., 97, 104. 
 
 Passover, 30. 
 
 Patriarchs, tales of the, 4 ; period of 
 the, 6; legends of the, 13, 18 et 
 seq., 100, 152; represent tribes, 19 
 et seq.; pedigrees of the, 98; not 
 saints, 88, 113 et seq. ; disguised 
 divinities, 119; period of formation 
 of legends of, 137.
 
 164 
 
 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. 
 
 Penuel, 31 et seq., 49, 105. 106. 
 
 Perez, 21. 
 
 Personages in the legends, chief and 
 subordinate, 52. 
 
 Phaedra, 94. 
 
 Pharaoh, 45, 52 et seq., 114. 
 
 Philemon, 94. 
 
 Phoenician influences, 91. 
 
 Plato, 94. 
 
 Plausibility demanded, 72. 
 
 Poetry in Genesis, 10 et seq. 
 
 Political history, Genesis not, 5. 
 
 Polytheism, 92. 94. 
 
 Potiphar, 45. 53. 94. 134- 
 
 Primitive literary art, simplicity and 
 clearness of, 47 et seq. 
 
 Prophets, the relation of the collec- 
 tion to the, 139 et seq. 
 
 Prosody, Hebrew, 38. 
 
 Proverbs, Book of, 85. 
 
 Priestly Codex. See Codex. 
 
 Races, progenitors of, 18; character 
 
 of in these legends, 22 et seq. 
 Rachel, 5, 57 et seq., 99, 112. 
 Rebeccah, 21, 46, 49 et seq., 57 et 
 
 seq., 61 et seq., 82, 98, 108, 131 et 
 
 seq. 
 Redaction, Priestly Codex and final, 
 
 145 et seq. 
 Religion, light on the history of, 103; 
 
 profane motive mingled with, no. 
 Reuben, 21, 50, 93 et seq., 101, 114 et 
 
 seq. 
 Romance, an early Israelitish, 79 et 
 
 seq., 86. v 
 
 Ryssel, 157. 
 
 Sabbath, 17, 31, 156. 
 Saga. in. 
 Sage, the, 2 et seq. 
 Salt, pillar of, 34. 
 Samaria, ig. 
 Samson, 3, no, 120. 
 Samuel, Book of, 2, 54. 
 Sanctuaries of Israel, 33; legends of, 
 106. 
 
 Sarah, 51 et seq., 61 et seq., 70 et 
 
 seq., 114, 119. 
 Selah, ng. 
 Seventh day, 31. 
 Shechem, 20, 24, 35. 
 Shem, 50 et seq., 61, 91. 
 Simeon, 19, 114 et seq. 
 Sodom, 41 et seq., 60, 90, 96, 107. 
 Soul-life, not ignored in legends, 61; 
 
 interest in, in legends, 85. 
 Stories, devices for uniting, 81. 
 Story-tellers, professional, 41. 
 Stucken, 121. 
 Style, detailed, 86. 
 Sustained interest, 73. 
 Syrian wars, 138. 
 
 Tamar, 21, 61 et seq., 112 et seq., 121, 
 
 129. 
 Tammuz, 121. 
 Tell-el-Amarna, 90. 
 Temnah, 50. 
 
 Theocracy, Israelitish, 150. 
 Theophany, 104 et seq., 146, 151. 
 Thigh, muscle of the, 32. 
 Thotmosis, in, 118, 
 Thought expressed by actions, 60. 
 Tigris, 7. 
 
 Tradition, historical and oral, 4. 
 Transmission, fidelity of, 98. 
 Tribes, relations of explained, 25 
 
 vanished, 88 ; names of, 118. 
 
 Universal history, beginnings of, 156. 
 
 Variants, value of the, 99 et seq. 
 Variations on a given theme, 71. 
 
 Wartburg, 29. 
 
 Wellhausen, 89, 97, 143. 145. 155. x 57- 
 
 Wife, patriarch's, 99. 
 
 Wildeboer, 124. 
 
 Winckler, 102, 120, 121. 
 
 Woman, 49- 
 
 Zerah, 21. 
 Zipporah, 100. 
 Zoar, 29, 34. 96-
 
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