%HWI8 <5tfEUNlVER%. .^ios TOK ^-UBRAIMK ^UNIVB% % f=T Hfife DS-ANGcufo, AOM fflfl^ i OT-fAl *. MvlVfl «Ut •wijj; |U*II 4 i <*HIBRARY0*. **H]BRARY/v - \WEUN1VEBS/a ^lOSANCflf ro <$H!B ^A!EUE $ * ftftllt ffltAi .tr.tifioji 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 the British Museum. With four hundred and twenty new vignettes. Three vols. Crown 8vo. Price, $3.75 net. History of the People of Israel. By Pro/. C. H. Cornill. 2nd ed. Pp., 325. Cloth, $1.50 (7s. 6d.). The Prophets of Israel. By Prof. C. H. Cornill. 4th edition. Pages, 210. Cloth, $1.00 net (5s.). The Rise of the People of Israel. By Prof. C. H. Cornill. Cloth, 50 cents net (2s. 6d.). The Legends of Genesis. By Dr. Hermann Gunkel. Pages, 165. Cloth, $1.00 net (4s. 6d. net). Ancient India : Its Language and Religion. By Prof H. Oldenberg. Pages, is, no. Cloth, 50c (2s. 6d.). Lao-Tze's Tao-Teh-King. Chinese-English. By Dr. Paul Carus. Pages, 360. Blue and gold binding, $3.00 (15s.). Buddhism and Its Christian Critics. By Dr. Paul Carus. Pages, 311. Cloth, $1.25 (6s. 6d.). The Philosophy of Ancient India. By Prof. Richard Garbe. Second edition. Pages, 89. Cloth, 50c (2s. 7d.). Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China, of the Missionaries M.lf. Hue and Gabet (1844-1846). Two vols. Illustrated. Pp., 688. Cloth, $2.00 (ios.). One volume, cloth, $1.25 net (5s.). History of the Devil. By Dr. Paul Carus. Pages, 500. 311 Illustrations. Cloth, $6.00 (30s.). Solomon and Solomonic Literature. By M. D. Conway. Pages, 44. Cloth, $1.50 (6s.). 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