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THE 
 
 EARLY NAEEATIVES OF GENESIS 
 
THE 
 
 EAKLY NAEKATIYES 
 OF GENESIS 
 
 A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY 
 OF GENESIS I.-XI. 
 
 BY 
 
 HERBERT EDWARD RYLE, B.D. 
 
 HULSEAN PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY 
 
 PROFESSORIAL FELLOW OF KINO'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND EXAMINING 
 
 CHAPLAIN TO THE LORD BISHOP OF RIPON 
 
 WVBRSITYj 
 
 KLontion 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK 
 1892 
 
 All rlglttn reserved 
 
-35 
 
 l%l'' 
 
 oaa yap trpoeypacp-q, wdvTa ei's Tr]v rj/xeTipav 8L8aaKa\ia^ 
 iypdcpT). — Rom. XV. 4. 
 
 Per fidcm ad intcllectum. 
 

 TO MY WIFE 
 
PEEFAOE 
 
 The doubts and questionings to which the Early 
 Narratives of Genesis have frequently given rise are 
 well known to those who have any acquaintance 
 with the religious difficulties of our own time. 
 They, indeed, have been fortunate in their experience 
 who have not known an instance in which antagonism 
 or indifference to religion has been fostered by the 
 rigid refusal, on the part of well-meaning Christian 
 parents and teachers, to admit the possibility of an 
 alternative to the traditional interpretation of this 
 portion of Scripture. 
 
 Groundless as the supposition was, that a Chris- 
 tian when he reads the Book of Genesis must either 
 renounce his confidence in the achievements of scien- 
 tific research or abandon his faith in Scripture, it 
 was, at one time, as widely prevalent as it was 
 mischievous and false. Happily, in the present day, 
 such a monstrous perversion of Christian freedom 
 has long since disappeared ; and it is generally, at 
 
Vili EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS 
 
 least tacitly, acknowledged, that if Biblical exegesis 
 fails to march with the intellectual progress of the age, 
 the Church of Christ will pay the penalty by forfeit- 
 ing her hold upon the intelligence of those to whom 
 she ministers. 
 
 None, I suppose, who think and read for them- 
 selves, can for one moment doubt, that the triumphs 
 of discovery in the domain of !N"atural Science, 
 during the last half- century, have strongly and 
 deeply, though silently, been influencing the thoughts 
 of thousands of devout Christians in reference to the 
 opening chapters of Genesis. And there are not 
 wanting signs that the interpretation of the Assyro- 
 Babylonian inscriptions and the recognition of the 
 province of Biblical Criticism have, in different ways, 
 contributed to intensify this influence. 
 
 It is most true, and it is good to be reminded, 
 that Science is never stationary. We are far indeed 
 from hearing the last word upon the great problems 
 of Natural Philosophy, Assyriology, and Biblical 
 Criticism. Still, enough has been firmly established 
 for all human purposes, to make it impossible that 
 the exegesis of Genesis, if it is to be a living force, 
 should remain where it was a century ago. What is 
 now known, may not be perfect knowledge. But it 
 were pure madness not to make a reverent use of our 
 partial knowledge. 
 
 The old position is no longer tenable. A new 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 position has to be taken up at once, prayerfully 
 chosen, and hopefully held. The period of transition, 
 the period of anxious suspense of judgment, is draw- 
 ing to a close. It is seen and felt that the interpret- 
 ation of Holy Scripture is not less literal, not less 
 spiritual, not less in conformity with the pattern 
 which the Divine Teacher gave, when it is rendered 
 more true to history by the fiery tests of criticism 
 and literary analysis. 
 
 Some there are who gladly avow their belief that 
 Scripture and Science are not at variance, yet are 
 loth enough to make use of Science as God's gift. 
 But, undoubtedly, it must be the maxim of all 
 reverent exposition to treat Science as the friend and 
 not as the foe of Divine Eevelation. It may be that 
 Science seems to be but a disappointing friend when 
 it shows the path of traditional interpretation to be 
 no longer practicable. But the utterance of truth is 
 the proof of purest friendship; and Science, if it 
 closes one way, guides us to another which hitherto 
 has been hid from view. 
 
 The present volume consists of eight papers based 
 on a course of Lectures delivered at Cambridge in 
 1890-91. They are reproduced with a few slight 
 alterations from the Expository Times, to which 
 Magazine they were contributed at the request of 
 its kind and energetic Editor. 
 
X EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS 
 
 The object with which they were written was to 
 discuss the contents of the opening chapters of 
 Genesis, in a simple and untechnical style, with 
 special reference to the modifications of view which 
 the frank recognition of the claims of Science and 
 Criticism seems to demand. 
 
 The reception which the papers have met with in 
 various quarters has encouraged me to consent to 
 their appearance in a separate volume. I have 
 thought it better to ask the reader kindly to make 
 due allowance for the form in which they originally 
 appeared, than to attempt the task of recasting them 
 in a different mould. 
 
 HEEBEKT E. EYLE. 
 
 Cambridge, Aug. 2, 1892. 
 
 VIA EST DEI LEX ; META GLORIA EST DEL 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAOi: 
 
 The Ceeation ....... 1 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 The Assyro-Babylonian Cosmogony and the Days 
 
 OP Creation 14 
 
 CHAPTEK III 
 The Story op Paradise ...... 32 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 The Story op Paradise — continued . . .47 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 The Story op Cain and Abel . . . .61 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 The Antediluvian Patriarchs . . . .78 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 The Story op the Flood . . . . .96 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The Origin op Nations . . . . . 119 
 
CHAPTEE I 
 
 THE CKEATION 
 
 The national history of Israel may be said to date 
 from the era of the Exodus and the Covenant of 
 Mount Sinai. The beginnings of the Hebrew race 
 are described in the narrative that tells us of the 
 call of Abraham and records the selection of the 
 family with which are identified the names of the 
 three great ancestors of the chosen people. 
 
 But the Hebrew narratives, and the traditions 
 from which our Book of Genesis was compiled, 
 went back into ages infinitely more remote. It 
 was natural for the Hebrew historian to preface 
 his record of the origin of the chosen people with a 
 record of the origin of all nations, the origin of the 
 human race, and the origin of the universe. The 
 materials for such a preface were to hand. He 
 has placed them before us in their simplicity and 
 beauty, making selections from his available re- 
 sources, so as to narrate in succession the Hebrew 
 
 B 
 
2 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS i 
 
 stories of the cosmogony, the primaeval patriarchs, 
 the Deluge, and the formation of the races. 
 
 The fact that we have in these eleven chapters 
 a narrative compiled from two or more different 
 sources is now so generally recognised, that there is 
 no need here for any preliminary discussion upon 
 the subject. It only needs to be stated, that the 
 two principal threads of tradition, incorporated in 
 the opening section of Genesis, are termed by 
 scholars "Jehovistic" and "Priestly," according as 
 they correspond respectively with what may be called 
 the " Prophetic " and " Priestly " treatment of the 
 early religious history of Israel.^ But besides these 
 larger and more easily recognised sources of informa- 
 tion, the compiler obviously makes use of other 
 materials of which the archaic character is evident 
 both from the style and from the subject matter. 
 
 The Creation of The Universe (i. 1-ii. 4'^). — 
 The matchless introduction to the whole history is 
 taken in all probability from the Priestly writings, 
 having been either composed by the Priestly Narrator, 
 
 1 The literary analysis of Gen. i.-xi. according to Canon Driver, 
 is as follows : 
 
 Jehovist, ii. 4* ; iii. 24 ; iv. 1-26 ; v. 29 ; vi. 1-4, 5-8 ; vii. 1-5, 
 
 7-10 (in the main), 12, 16^ 17, 22, 23 ; viii. 2*, 3«, 6-12, 
 
 13^ 20-22 ; ix. 18-27 ; x. 8-19, 21, 24-30 ; xi. 1-9, 28-30. 
 
 Priestly, i. 1 ; ii. 4« ; v. 1-28, 30-32 ; vi. 9-22 ; vii. 6, 7-9 (in 
 
 parts), 11, 13-16«, 18-21, 24 ; viii. 1, 2«, 3^-5, 13« 14-19; 
 
 ix. 1-17, 28, 29 ; x. 1-7, 20, 22, 23, 31, 32 ; xi. 10-27, 31, 32. 
 
 (Driver's Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament : 
 
 Edinburgh, 1891 ; 4th ed. 1892). 
 
I THE CREATION 3 
 
 or extracted by him and edited from the ancient 
 traditions of which the Priestly guild were the 
 recognised keepers. Evidence of this is obtained 
 from characteristic words and phrases, and from the 
 smooth, orderly, and somewhat redundant style. 
 Time was when this opening passage was regarded 
 as the most ancient piece of writing in the Bible. 
 This can no longer be maintained. The smoothness 
 and fulness of its present literary garb show suffi- 
 ciently that, however ancient its narrative may be, 
 the form in which it has come down to us does not 
 belong to the earliest stages of Hebrew literature. 
 
 The recognition of this fact would in itself be 
 fatal to the acceptance of various forms of traditional 
 opinion respecting the origin of Gen. i. 1-ii. 4:^, or, 
 indeed, of the whole section. Gen. i.-xi. We may 
 here notice, in passing, the strange, yet commonly 
 held, view that the story of the creation of the world 
 was supernaturally revealed" to Adam, and that from 
 him it was transmitted word for word through the 
 families of Enosh and Shem, of Abraham, Isaac, and 
 Jacob, until it was finally received and committed to 
 writing by Moses. This is an instance of the extra- 
 ordinary delusions to which popular assent has been 
 given, in cases where direct evidence has not been 
 forthcoming. Ignorance can always call imagination 
 into play, and support its utterances by appeals to 
 the supernatural. But its Nemesis is inevitable. 
 And, in this instance, as soon as philological science 
 
4 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS i 
 
 disposed of the old assumption that Hebrew was the 
 primitive language, the assumption upon which the 
 theory of an infallible^ oral tradition was originally 
 based, and indeed has logically rested, the bubble was 
 pricked. There is no longer now the necessity to 
 expose the futility of a theory, consisting of a series 
 of hypotheses that could never be substantiated. 
 There is no longer the necessity to object that we 
 cannot presuppose an orderly and comprehensive 
 tradition in the earliest ages of humanity. There is 
 no longer the necessity to raise the preliminary 
 question, whether we are entitled to assign to the 
 first forefathers of the human race intellectual gifts 
 capable of comprehending, preserving, and transmit- 
 ting by memory, a description of the origin of the 
 universe, so exquisite in its simplicity, so marvellous 
 in its dignity, so profound in its philosophy. 
 
 The argument from the style of the Hebrew, in 
 the beginning of Genesis, is almost equally opposed 
 to the other common assumption, that it is the 
 record by Moses of a Divine Eevelation to himself 
 respecting the origin of the universe. It cannot 
 be admitted that the style of this passage suggests 
 the beginnings of a Hebrew literature, or that it has 
 any marked resemblance to those portions of the Old 
 Testament which are indubitably archaic. We have 
 no evidence or warrant for the assertion that Moses 
 received Divine Eevelation upon this topic. It is an 
 unfortunate and precarious method of interpretation 
 
I THE CREATION 5 
 
 that endeavours to substitute a theory of direct super- 
 human intervention for the explanation dictated by- 
 literary criticism. The latter, because it follows the 
 guidance of analogy in other literature, is not on that 
 account less loyal to the recognition of the work of 
 the Holy Spirit. 
 
 We are nowhere told that Moses received Divine 
 information respecting the beginnings of the universe. 
 And while there are good reasons for not introducing 
 anywhere a theory of direct supernatural agency, 
 where none is recorded in Scripture, there are, 
 among others, two especially good reasons, in the 
 case of the opening chapters of Genesis, for refusing 
 the application of such a theory. 
 
 1. We do not expect instruction upon matters 
 of physical inquiry from Eevelation in the written 
 Word. God's other gifts to man, of learning, 
 perseverance, calculation and the like, have been, 
 and are, a true source of Eevelation. But Scripture 
 supplies no short cuts for the intellect. Where 
 man's intellectual powers may hope to attain to 
 the truth, be it in the region of historical, scientific, 
 or critical study, we have no warrant to expect an 
 anticipation of results, through the interposition of 
 supernatural instruction, in the letter of Scripture. 
 
 Nor is it any sufficient answer to plead that, 
 whereas we should not look for Divine instruction 
 in matters of physical inquiry or in the ordinary 
 paths of life, we might reasonably look for it in 
 
6 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS i 
 
 matters so transcending our intellectual capacity as 
 those relating to the creation of the universe. For, 
 on the one hand, we have no right to assume from 
 our present stage of ignorance, that the things 
 relating to the formation of the earth and of the 
 planetary system are necessarily beyond the range of 
 human cognisance. The horizon of physical research 
 is constantly widening. We are every year learning 
 more, both of the infinitely remote and of the 
 infinitely vast and minute in time and space. On 
 the other hand, we have no right to assume that, in 
 things distinct from the spiritual and moral life, the 
 letter of Scripture is endowed with omniscience. 
 Scripture is Divinely inspired, not to release men 
 from the toil of mental inquiry, but to lead and 
 instruct their souls in the things of " eternal salva- 
 tion." In regions of thought within the compass of 
 earthly cognition, the books of Scripture reflect the 
 limitations of learning and knowledge, whicli were 
 inseparable from human composition in their own 
 sphere of time and place. 
 
 2. The analogy presented by the literature of 
 other nations would lead us to expect that, in the 
 delineation of the formation of the world and of 
 the beginnings of the human race, the simplicity 
 of the narrative would be no guarantee for the 
 scientific accuracy of the story. We cannot exempt 
 Israelite history from the criticism which we should 
 apply to other literature. The Hebrew cosmogony 
 
I THE CREATION 7 
 
 is, for reasons which we shall have to notice further 
 on, conspicuously free from absurdities which detract 
 from the beauty of similar narratives in other litera- 
 tures. It is not, however, upon any literal interpret- 
 ation, scientifically accurate ; nor, indeed, should we 
 expect it to be, if we were prepared to grant the 
 family likeness of its contents to those of the Assyro- 
 Babylonian cosmogony. It is a mistaken notion of 
 reverence to endeavour to extract accurate science 
 from the Book of Genesis by means of a process of 
 exposition, which we should not think of applying 
 to the primitive traditions of other races, to the text 
 of Egyptian hieroglyphics or of the cuneiform inscrip- 
 tions. 
 
 I am acquainted with numerous, and some of 
 them brilliant, attempts to "reconcile," as it is wrongly 
 termed, " religion and science." But no attempt at 
 reconciling Gen. i. with the exacting requirements 
 of modern sciences has ever been known to succeed, 
 without entailing a degree of special pleading or 
 forced interpretation to which, in such a question, 
 we should be wise to have no recourse. 
 
 In examining the character of this section (Gen. 
 i.-ii. 4^), let us not hesitate to place it upon its proper 
 footing. Its character can only be estimated by 
 comparison with the parallels presented in other 
 literature. Every nation and race has had its 
 cosmogony or legendary account, respecting the 
 
8 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS i 
 
 origin of the world and the early days of the 
 nation's ancestors. Traditions of this kind are 
 found in every variety. Each variety represents 
 tribal intermixture, or the influences of climate and 
 environment. The infancy of races is only capable 
 of understanding abstract ideas by means of simple 
 and pictorial representations. Upon these the genius 
 of each race has left its characteristic impress, some- 
 times poetical, sometimes whimsical, sometimes 
 philosophical, sometimes religious. 
 
 If now we treat the Israelite cosmogony as in- 
 separable in its main features from such represent- 
 ations, what do we find ? Let us search and see. 
 
 We employ in our search the two Divine forces 
 of knowledge — the perfect Eevelation of things 
 spiritual in the person of Jesus Christ, and the 
 progressive Eevelation of things material, through 
 the gifts of the Holy Spirit, to the intellect of 
 mankind. The narrative, upon which our search 
 is employed, relates to three distinct conceptions, 
 upon the determination of which the current of all 
 religious thought and conduct depends. These are 
 the conceptions of (a) the physical universe, (b) 
 mankind, and (c) the Godhead. 
 
 It appears to me that our judgment upon the 
 character of the Israelite cosmogony should be 
 based upon the treatment in Genesis of these three 
 fundamental conceptions. 
 
 (a) The Physical Universe. — It would not be 
 
I THE CREATION 9 
 
 difficult to show that the Hebrew cosmogony is 
 closely allied to other early cosmogonies in its 
 imperfect and, as we should term it, its unscientific 
 conception, both of the formation of the earth and 
 the heavenly bodies, and of the production of the 
 vegetable and animal world. It is, for instance, 
 only a non-natural interpretation, which considers 
 the "days" of Gen. i., in spite of the mention of 
 " evening " and " morning," to be vast periods of 
 time.-^ It is, again, only a non-natural interpretation, 
 which explains the formation of the sun and the 
 moon on the " fourth " day as intelligible to modern 
 science, on the assumption that the nebular hypothesis 
 is anticipated, and that Gen. i. 14-16 describes not 
 \hQ formation of the heavenly bodies (see, however, ver. 
 16), but the first manifestation of their orbs through 
 the mists that had before hidden them from the earth. 
 If, as seems to be the only candid line of 
 exegesis, we adopt a genuinely literal interpreta- 
 tion, and then are constrained to admit the presence 
 of statements incompatible with modern scientific 
 discoveries, we shall, at least, show a resolution 
 to be above all things and at all costs fair. We 
 shall follow with especial interest the points of 
 correspondence in the cosmogony of Genesis with 
 that of the nations closely akin to the Israelites. 
 But we shall also concede that the Hebrew descrip- 
 tion of the physical universe is unscientific as 
 
 1 See Chapter II. 
 
10 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS i 
 
 judged by modern standards, and that it shares the 
 limitations of the imperfect knowledge of the age 
 at which it was committed to writing. 
 
 On the other hand, from the religious point of 
 view, we should not fail to recognise the pure and 
 elevated conception of the Material Universe which 
 is presented to us in this portion of Genesis. Not 
 self- existent nor Divine, as some taught in early 
 days, not inherently evil nor antagonistic to God 
 and man, as others taught, the Universe is pre- 
 sented to us as coming into being at the will of a 
 Divine Creator, its formation following the stages 
 of an ordered development, its essential character 
 being pleasing and good. It is a picture which, if 
 it clashes with exact science, agrees in its highest 
 conceptions with the teaching of the purest philosophy 
 of religion. 
 
 {!)) Mankind. — The description of man's origin 
 and nature, in the cosmogony of Genesis, is of great 
 importance. It is viewed, as it were, from two 
 aspects, the physical and the spiritual, the earthly 
 and the divine. So far as his physical origin is 
 touched upon, the narrative is expressed in the 
 simple terms of prehistoric legend, of unscientific 
 pictorial description. We feel that so far as his 
 physical origin and his material structure are 
 concerned, the advances of modern physiological 
 research are more likely to furnish a key to the 
 great mystery than are the pages of Genesis. But, 
 
I THE CREATION 11 
 
 when we pass from the consideration of man's 
 physical structure to the consideration of him as 
 one endowed with spiritual powers, moral duties, 
 and intellectual gifts, we are lifted at once into an 
 atmosphere, where we find that every item of the 
 description is marvellously and perfectly in harmony 
 with the highest religious conception of man revealed 
 to us in the teaching of the Incarnation. We see 
 him made in the image and likeness of God ; a living 
 soul derived from the Divine Spirit ; gifted with 
 powers of intellect, with freedom of will, with the 
 witness of conscience. It is as if, with the passage 
 from the physical to the spiritual region, we had left 
 the atmosphere of " childish " things, and had been 
 exalted to the contemplation of mature " men " whose 
 " citizenship is in heaven." 
 
 (c) The Godhead. — Even more strikingly does 
 this exaltation of conception appear, when the 
 subject is wholly spiritual, or almost wholly so, as 
 it is in the description of the Godhead. The only 
 exception here arises from the anthropomorphic 
 language incidental to the presentation of the 
 narrative. But the Divine pre-existence, the Divine 
 omnipotence, the paramount purpose of love, the 
 infinite hatred of sin, — these and other attributes 
 of the Divine nature are depicted in the narrative, 
 in a degree that immeasurably elevates the tradi- 
 tions of Israel above all similar records in the 
 known literature of other nations. 
 
12 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS i 
 
 Does not this summary of an investigation, into 
 the details of which we have not space here to enter, 
 assist us towards a conclusion, which will recognise 
 the combination of the two essential elements in the 
 inspiration of all Holy Scripture, the human form 
 and the spiritual teaching ? In these early chapters 
 of Genesis there is present the simple narrative of 
 the cosmogony, current in the Hebrew branch of the 
 Semitic race. But this is not all. There is also 
 present the teaching of the Spirit, for the revelation 
 of which the Israelite people were the appointed 
 channel, that, through them, it might be made known 
 among men. If now the three fundamental concep- 
 tions — the world, human nature, and God — be re- 
 garded as divided into two groups, (1) the physical 
 (i.e. the world and man's physical origin and nature) 
 and (2) the spiritual {i.e. man's spiritual origin and 
 the Being of God), we can discern that the secular, 
 the childlike, the imperfect teaching of Genesis upon 
 the former group is co-existent with, nay, furnishes, 
 as we may almost express it, the literary vehicle for 
 the religious thought, for the inspired and inspiring 
 Eevelation, for the Divine teaching, of Genesis in 
 regard to the latter group. 
 
 We have, then, in the first chapters of Genesis 
 the Hebrew version of a great Semitic epic dealing 
 with the beginning of all things. It has not come 
 down to us in that earliest form in which, we may 
 assume, it was known to the fathers of the Israelite 
 
I THE CREATION 13 
 
 race who " dwelt on the other side of the flood," -^ and 
 " served other gods " (Josh. xxiv. 2). It has not 
 come down to us in that setting of bewildering 
 mythology, in which we find the similar and con- 
 genital Assyro- Babylonian tradition embedded. It 
 has come down to us in the form which it has 
 received from the minds of devout Israelites, moved 
 by the Spirit of God, and penetrated with the pure 
 belief in the spiritual Jehovah. The saints and 
 prophets of Israel stripped the old legend of its pagan 
 deformities. Its shape and outline survived. But 
 its spirit was changed, its religious teaching and 
 significance were transfigured, in the light of the 
 Eevelation of the LOED. The popular tradition 
 was not abolished ; it was preserved, purified, 
 hallowed, that it might subserve the Divine purpose 
 of transmitting, as in a figure, spiritual teaching 
 upon eternal truths. 
 
 1 R. V. Your fathers dwelt of old time beyond the river {i.e. 
 the Euphrates). 
 
CHAPTEK II 
 
 THE ASSYRO-BABYLONIAN COSMOGONY AND THE DAYS 
 OF CEEATION 
 
 The subjects of discussion in the present chapter 
 are the relation of the Hebrew to the Assyro-Baby- 
 lonian cosmogony, and the interpretation of the 
 Days of Creation. It would be impossible to 
 compress an adequate treatment of topics of such 
 magnitude within the narrow limits to which I 
 must confine myself. Completeness is out of the 
 question. My aim is only to present, with as much 
 clearness as possible, the line of interpretation which 
 results from the principles laid down in the previous 
 chapter. 
 
 I. — The Assyro-Bahylonian Cosmogony 
 
 We might easily be beguiled into a path that 
 would lead ils far away from our immediate purpose, 
 if we attempted to examine the relationship of the 
 Hebrew narrative of the Creation to the similar 
 
II THE ASSYRO-BABYLONIAN COSMOGONY 15 
 
 narratives preserved in the religious literature of 
 other races. To the student of Comparative Ee- 
 ligion the task involved in such an inquiry is one 
 of peculiar fascination. The field of research is 
 wide and constantly widening. The workers in 
 it are as yet few ; the work itself has only in recent 
 years been set on foot. To the Biblical student 
 such investigations cannot fail to be helpful and 
 suggestive. They serve to gather together into a 
 focus those gleams, whether of the true perception 
 or of the surviving recollection, of The Light, which 
 seem to be the common heritage of all races, and 
 which help to remind us that God left not Him- 
 self without a witness among the nations of the 
 world. In spite of this, however, the results of a 
 comparative study of the cosmogonies of the races 
 would only indirectly assist us in the interpretation 
 of Gen. i.-ii. 4. It wdll, therefore, suffice to be re- 
 minded, at this point, of the endless variety of 
 picture in which the problem of the origin of the 
 universe has received a solution from the religious 
 conceptions and from the poetical imaginations of 
 races so varied as Indians and Etruscans, Germans 
 and Egyptians, Norsemen, Mexicans, and Greeks. 
 
 But in the religious literature of Assyria 
 and Babylonia we find a cosmogony which, in 
 some respects, stands in a different category from 
 those of the races just mentioned. From what- 
 ever point of view it is approached, its direct 
 
16 EAELY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS ii 
 
 bearing upon the narrative of Gen. i. must be 
 admitted, and account taken of it. It offers 
 us another representation of the story of the 
 Creation, preserved in the literature of another 
 branch of the same great Semitic family from 
 which the people of Israel sprang. The points of 
 resemblance between the Assy ro- Babylonian and 
 the Hebrew narratives force themselves upon our 
 notice : and, it must also be allowed, the points of their 
 dissimilarity are not less obvious. Whatever esti- 
 mate be formed of the Assyro-Babylonian tradition 
 as a whole, its Semitic origin, the antiquity of its 
 documentary history, the degree of its approximation 
 to the Genesis narrative in some points, of its 
 divergency from it in others, constitute reasons that 
 cannot be overlooked for including a notice of its 
 chief characteristics in any careful interpretation 
 of this passage of Scripture. 
 
 Until quite recently our knowledge of the 
 Assyro-Babylonian cosmogony was derived from 
 the fragments of Berosus, the Babylonian historian 
 (circ. 250 B.C.), which are preserved in the writings 
 of Josephus, Syncellus, and Eusebius; and from 
 allusions that are made to it in the works of the 
 Neo-Platonist Damascius (circ. 530 A.D.). Into 
 these representations of a Babylonian cosmogony 
 it used to be thought probable that a good deal of 
 a comparatively recent, exotic, and, in particular, 
 Hellenic, growth had been grafted. 
 
II THE ASSYRO-BABYLONIAN COSMOGONY 17 
 
 But the success of the late eminent Assyriologist, 
 George Smith, in deciphering the cuneiform in- 
 scription on the mutilated fragments of what are 
 now sometimes called the Creation Tablets, threw 
 an unexpected light upon the Babylonian legend. 
 These precious fragments had been brought to the 
 British Museum along with other treasures of the 
 famous library of Assurbanipal (668 - 626 B.C.), 
 excavated at Kouyunjik. The date of Assurbanipal 
 is, comparatively speaking, late. But the contents 
 of his library probably reproduced the traditions 
 of a very much earlier time. There is good reason 
 to suppose that, even if the tablets themselves were 
 inscribed so late as in Assurbanipal's reign, the 
 narrative which they contain has been derived, if 
 not actually transcribed, from the Babylonian re- 
 ligious literature of a vastly more ancient period. 
 
 The form in which it was committed to these 
 tablets was that of a great epic poem. Its con- 
 tents are now widely known through the pages 
 of such works as Sayce's Fresh Light from the 
 Ancient Monuments, Schrader's Cuneiform Inscrip- 
 tions and the Old Testament (translated by Prof 
 0. C. Whitehouse), and Records of the Past 
 (edited by Sayce), 2nd series, vol. i. pp. 122-153. 
 About one-third of the poem is still missing, but 
 the general outline of the narrative is unmis- 
 takable. It describes the Creation as taking 
 place in seven creative acts. These are recorded 
 
 c 
 
18 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS ii 
 
 in seven books or tablets, of which the second 
 and sixth are wanting. From the first tablet 
 we learn that in the beginning there existed only 
 "watery chaos" (Tiamat), out of which sprang 
 the primal gods, Lakhmu and Lakhamu, then 
 Ansar and Kisar, the upper and lower firma- 
 ment, and then the Assyrian gods, Anu, god of 
 the sky, Bel, or Illil, god of the spirit- world ; and 
 Ea, god of waters. The third and fourth tablets 
 record the creation of light, which was repre- 
 sented in the victory of Merodach, son of Ea, 
 god of light, over Tiamat, while out of the skin 
 of the slaughtered Tiamat was constructed the 
 wide expanse of the heavens, the dwelling-place of 
 the Assyrian gods. The fifth tablet tells how the 
 sun and moon and stars were implanted in the 
 sky, and received divine command to regulate the 
 succession of times and seasons, of days and years. 
 The sixth tablet, which has not yet been found, 
 must have recorded the formation of the earth 
 and the creation of the vegetable world, of birds 
 and fishes. The seventh and last tablet tells how 
 the cattle and the larger beasts, and all creeping 
 things, were made. Unfortunately the latter part 
 is much mutilated, and the description of the form- 
 ation of man has not survived. 
 
 In spite of the wholly different setting which 
 is here ^given to the story of the Creation, " the 
 Assyrian epic," to quote Professor's Sayce's own 
 
II THE ASSYRO-BABYLONIAN COSMOGONY 19 
 
 words, "bears a striking resemblance to the 
 account of it given in the first chapter of Genesis. 
 In each case the history of the Creation is divided 
 into seven successive acts ; in each case the present 
 world has been preceded by a watery chaos. In 
 fact, the self-same word is used of this chaos in 
 both the biblical and Assyrian accounts — ieliom, 
 Tiamat, — the only difference being that, in the 
 Assyrian story, "the deep" has become a mytho- 
 logical personage, the mother of a chaotic brood. 
 The order of the Creation, moreover, agrees in the 
 two accounts: first the light, then the creation of 
 the firmament of heaven, subsequently the appoint- 
 ment of the celestial bodies "for signs and for 
 seasons, and for days and years," and next the 
 " creation of beasts and creeping things " {Records of 
 the Past, 2nd series, i. 130). 
 
 On the other hand, the points of difference are 
 equally conspicuous. In the Assyro - Babylonian 
 account the creation of light is the result of a 
 conflict between a deity and chaos; in Genesis it 
 is called into being by the word of God. In the 
 Assyro-Babylonian account the heavenly bodies are 
 allotted their place before the formation of the 
 earth ; in Genesis the dry land appears before the 
 sun and moon and stars are set in the sky. In 
 the Assyro-Babylonian account the seventh " tablet " 
 is occupied with a description of creative work ; in 
 Genesis the seventh day is a day of rest. Most 
 
20 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS ii 
 
 striking of all is the contrast between the polytheism 
 of the Assyro-Babylonian account and the majestic 
 simplicity of the monotheism of Genesis. In the 
 Assyro-Babylonian account, gods as well as universe 
 emerge from pre -existent chaos, and the work of 
 creation proceeds by the triumph of divine power 
 over the forces of matter inherently evil. In 
 Genesis, God {Eloliim) creates whatever has come 
 into being by the utterance of His will — all is from 
 the beginning His handiwork, and in its essence is 
 very good. 
 
 Before we endeavour to determine the relation 
 of the Hebrew to the cuneiform narrative, it is 
 important to mention the existence of yet another 
 cosmogony brought to light in the fragments of 
 two tablets which had also belonged to the library 
 of Assurbanipal. These were copied from even 
 older sources obtained from Cutha in Babylonia, 
 which Professor Sayce conjectures can hardly have 
 been later than 2350 B.C. In the Cuthaean legend 
 we have no account of an orderly succession of 
 creative acts. The children of Chaos or Tiamat 
 who dwelt underground are destroyed by Nergal, 
 the god of Cutha, and after their overthrow he 
 creates the children of men. 
 
 Placing the two cuneiform legends of the Creation 
 side by side, we should be inclined to surmise that, 
 in remote times, there existed in Assyria and 
 Babylonia several varying traditions respecting the 
 
II THE ASSYRO-BABYLONIAN COSMOGONY 21 
 
 Creation ; but that, in later times, under the influence 
 of a more systematic theology or a more philosophic 
 religion, the various legends received a final form in 
 the grouping of the seven tablets of the Creation; 
 the number " seven " being probably selected because 
 it was a holy number in Assyria. 
 
 What, then, are we to say as to the relation of the 
 Hebrew to the Assyro-Babylonian cosmogony ? 
 
 In the first place, it did not originate the Assyro- 
 Babylonian narrative : of that we may be confident. 
 For the earlier legend that was current before the 
 days of Abraham bears no resemblance to the 
 Genesis cosmogony, while the later one, which does 
 resemble the Genesis cosmogony, seems to have 
 originated in a period when Hebrew religious 
 thought could not conceivably have influenced 
 Assyrian. 
 
 In the second place, the Assyro-Babylonian may 
 have originated the Hebrew cosmogony ; and, if so, 
 would have given rise to it, either {a) directly and 
 at a recent time, or (h) only indirectly and ultimately. 
 {a) Certain critics have of late advocated the former 
 alternative. They call attention to the fact that, 
 with the exception of Exod. xx. 11, the references 
 to Gen. i.-ii. 4, to be found in passages of un- 
 doubtedly pre-exilic date, are few and disputable; 
 and they conjecture that the Jews brought back 
 from their exile in Babylon this form of the Assyrian 
 cosmogony adapted to their own religious use. The 
 
22 EARLY NARRATIVES ^OF GENESIS ii 
 
 evidence for this supposition appears to me, so far 
 as I have been able to form any judgment upon the 
 matter, to be quite insufficient. Even apart from 
 considerations of literary criticism, the great im- 
 probability that the pious Jews of the exile would 
 ever have adopted the Creation narrative of their 
 hated heathen captors is almost sufficient in itself 
 to condemn the theory. 
 
 (5) On the other hand, the probability that the 
 Genesis cosmogony is ultimately to be traced back 
 to an Assyrian tradition may be reasonably admitted. 
 The ancestors of Abraham were Assyrian ; whether 
 dwellers in Northern Assyria or in Babylonia itself, 
 need not here be discussed. The various Creation 
 legends current in Mesopotamia would presumably 
 have been preserved in the clan of Terah, and have 
 been transmitted from generation to generation. 
 
 If now our supposition is correct that the Assyrian 
 Creation story of the Seven Tablets indicates, by its 
 more orderly grouping, an age more developed in 
 religious thought than the Cuthaean version, it is 
 reasonable to suppose that a similar and almost 
 parallel process may have taken place in a stock 
 which was an offshoot from Mesopotamia, and 
 which was privileged, in things religious, to receive 
 the guidance of the Divine Spirit in so superlative 
 a degree. If so, the cosmogony of Gen. i.-ii. 4" may 
 reflect the process of system atisation, to which the 
 primitive traditions of the Hebrew race were sub- 
 
11 THE DAYS OF CREATION 23 
 
 mitted at a comparatively late period in the history 
 of the nation. Thus the early traditions of the 
 Semitic race were yoked to the service of the 
 spiritual religion of Israel. The essential teaching 
 of Jehovah respecting the Divine nature, the universe, 
 and man's nature, was conveyed in the outline of a 
 cosmogony, which, if it had its roots in the early 
 Assyrian traditions, was finally expressed in all the 
 dignified simplicity of Hebrew monotheism. 
 
 11. — The Days of Creation 
 
 According to this explanation, the Days of Crea- 
 tion in the Genesis cosmogony are to be understood 
 as literal days ; for as such they seem to be in- 
 tended in the simple Hebrew narrative. At the 
 same time, the spiritual teaching is obvious. The 
 lesson underlying the mention of those seven 
 days is that of the law of ordered progress which 
 characterises the dealings of the Divine Creator 
 with created matter. The literal interpretation of 
 the Days of Creation is thus compatible with the 
 spiritual, their origin in popular tradition with their 
 consecration for emblematical instruction. The 
 simple narrative is made the vehicle of Eevelation 
 respecting the things of the Spirit. But the seal of 
 inspiration affixed to it does not alter the original 
 character of the narrative, nor transform the imagery 
 
24 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS ii 
 
 of tlie Israelite cosmogony into absolute canons of 
 physical science. 
 
 I am well aware that those who have looked for 
 scientific teaching in Gen. i. have not failed to find 
 it. They may be divided into two main groups 
 according as they apply to the " Days " of Creation 
 a literal or a metaphorical interpretation. 
 
 There are not probably many nowadays who 
 would maintain, as once it would have been re- 
 garded as profane not to maintain, that this passage 
 of Scripture, literally understood, contains a scientific 
 account of the processes of Creation, which occupied 
 six literal days. Since the time when this view 
 prevailed, the Book of Divine Eevelation in Nature 
 has been opened more widely and studied more 
 deeply. The writing in that volume has been 
 readily and reverently received by Christendom. 
 Christian thought now gladly welcomes the teach- 
 ing of the geologist and the astronomer. It recog- 
 nises as the truth, that, according to the working 
 of the Omnipotent Creator's will, gradual change 
 throughout infinite ages must have been the process 
 which governed alike the evolution of sidereal 
 systems, the moulding of the earth's crust, and the 
 appearance of the animal and vegetable kingdoms 
 upon its surface. 
 
 If, then, it was still to be supposed that Gen. i. 
 definitely instructed us in science, some other inter- 
 pretation of " the days " than the old literal one had 
 
II THE DAYS OF CREATION 25 
 
 to be found. The very discoveries of physical science 
 suggested a solution. If "the days" were under- 
 stood not as literal days but as infinite ages, or 
 as vast periods in the development of the earth's 
 formation, then it seemed as if the threatened con- 
 tradiction of Scripture and science might be averted, 
 and as if the words of Genesis might receive unex- 
 pected confirmation from the testimony of science. 
 Accordingly, the metaphorical interpretation of " the 
 days" found very general favour. Scholars and 
 men of science have sought to show, how, with 
 allowance for the exigencies of poetic language, the 
 statements of the opening chapter of Genesis may 
 be brought into comparatively close agreement with 
 even the most recent results of scientific inquiry. 
 
 But just as, in the earlier phase of interpretation, 
 it was found that, by starting from a literal inter- 
 pretation, a collision with scientific facts could not 
 be avoided, so now, in the later phase, it is an 
 objection that, starting from the facts of science, 
 it has been necessary to have recourse to a forced 
 or, at any rate, a non- literal interpretation. In a 
 passage of striking simplicity of language, it is 
 impossible not to feel an uncomfortable suspicion 
 that it cannot be right to attach a non - literal 
 explanation to just that one single word, the literal 
 meaning of which happens to be a stumbling-block 
 in the way of the desired method of exegesis. And, 
 surely, the doubt, whether this non-literal explana- 
 
 TJ2TIVBES 
 
26 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS ii 
 
 tion of " the days " can be correct, will be intensified 
 in the mind of any one who also considers, that the 
 proposed explanation could never have suggested 
 itself to the ancient Israelite, and would never 
 to-day have been mooted, but for the discoveries of 
 modern science. 
 
 But even the acceptance of this interpretation 
 fails to satisfy fully the demands of scientific facts. 
 To mention but one single instance, the formation 
 of the heavenly bodies on the fourth day is utterly 
 unscientific : it is at variance with what we, through 
 science, know to have been the actual order of 
 creation. The assertion, that not the formation but 
 the first manifestation of the heavenly bodies, through 
 the mists that encompassed the earth, is indicated in 
 Gen. i. 14, is an explanation of the difficulty too 
 unnatural and forced to merit serious attention. 
 
 The endeavour to maintain the scientific accuracy 
 of Gen. i. entails a choice between a natural literal 
 exegesis which defies modern discoveries, and a non- 
 natural metaphorical exegesis which is introduced 
 just on account of these modern discoveries, and in 
 order to meet the apparent necessity of their claims. 
 
 The alternative principle of interpretation which 
 is here preferred is free from both these disadvan- 
 tages. It is embarrassed by no such dilemma. It 
 starts with the assumption that the Divine Eevela- 
 tion gives us instruction on things spiritual, not on 
 things of natural science. We are then ready, indeed 
 
II THE DAYS OF CREATION 27 
 
 we expect, to find in this fragment of ancient Israelite 
 literature instances of collision with the results of 
 modern science. They mark the interval between 
 the intellectual attainment of the Israelite and the 
 degree of precision obtained in our European learning. 
 The whole passage must be understood as the writer 
 presumably wrote it and his countrymen presumably 
 understood it. To him, as to his countrymen gener- 
 ally, " the days " were literal days as much as " the 
 heavens " were literal heavens and " the light " literal 
 light. 
 
 If, then, we are asked what the scientific value of 
 the chapter is, our reply must be, "As much or as 
 little as impartial men of science recognise in it ; " 
 certainly, we should say, less than what it was once 
 reputed to contain, but very possibly more than is 
 now 'commonly attributed to it. In fairness, too, 
 we should grant that, whatever scientific value it 
 possesses, it shares in some measure with the 
 congenital Assyrian tradition, and indeed, though 
 in a less degree, with any analogous cosmogonies, 
 which agree with the Genesis account so far as to 
 assert, that the world was made by the exercise of 
 a Supreme Power, that the process of Creation 
 followed an ordered sequence, and that the creation 
 of man marked the highest point in the scale of 
 created being. 
 
 We may gladly acknowledge what has often been 
 claimed for this portion of Scripture, that no other 
 
28 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS ii 
 
 known cosmogony approaches it in its capacity of 
 adaptation to, and even of actual correspondence 
 with, the discoveries of modern science. But were 
 it possible that the well-known difficulties of " the 
 days," the formation of the heavenly bodies, the 
 priority in Creation of vegetable to animal life, and 
 of birds and fishes to reptiles, could be successfully 
 met ; were agreement with science a thousand times 
 closer than it is asserted to be, — it would fall far short 
 of reconciling us to the thought of the inspiration of 
 Scripture being made the medium of scientific instruc- 
 tion. Paradoxical as it may sound, faith would, I 
 believe, be more genuinely staggered by any perfectly 
 exact agreement in Genesis with the wonderful 
 discoveries of modern science than it ever has been, 
 or is ever likely to be, by the familiar contradictions 
 with science that are to be expected in a literature so 
 ancient, and are to be found in this chapter, according 
 to any literal interpretation. 
 
 As a matter of fact, however strongly apologists 
 have pleaded for the "scientific" interpretation of 
 Gen. i., their faith in Christianity has not been 
 affected by the question. People have not lived 
 in any real dread, lest fresh discoveries in science 
 should upset their belief in the reality of Divine 
 Eevelation. It has been instinctively felt that the 
 true conception of inspiration was not affected by 
 the advance of material knowledge. The intuitive 
 recognition of the human element in Scripture 
 
II THE DAYS OF CREATION 29 
 
 enabled men to perceive that progress in the know- 
 ledge of physical laws constituted no encroachment 
 upon the domain of the spiritual. The readjustment 
 of interpretation satisfies the claims of reason and 
 belief The primitive Hebrew tradition is made, 
 through the Divine Spirit, the first step in the stair- 
 way of Divine Eevelation. 
 
 The chief apprehension that has been felt has 
 rightly related to the belief in inspiration. And I 
 venture to plead that the line of interpretation 
 suggested in this and the previous chapter, instead 
 of degrading the doctrine, safeguards it from an 
 unworthy and mechanical conception. Popular 
 opinion is tempted to confuse inspiration with the 
 passive receptiveness of religious ecstasy. From 
 the introduction to St. Luke's Gospel, and indeed 
 from the character of both historical and prophetical 
 books of Scripture, we infer that the contents of 
 books of Scripture are the result of patient labour 
 and arduous research, overruled for the Divine purpose 
 and guided by the Holy Spirit. The inspiration 
 which, we believe, breathes through the varied and 
 often secular material of Scripture, selected and 
 collected, e.g., in the chronicles of old times, in bare 
 genealogies, in laws of ritual, in popular sayings, 
 breathes too in those early narratives which in 
 Hebrew, as in other literature, lie at the back of the 
 more strictly historical records. 
 
 The common type which the Hebrew shares with 
 
30 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS ii 
 
 the Assyrian cosmogony is patent. But, differing 
 from the Assyrian in this respect, the Hebrew 
 narrative has descended to us distinguished by a 
 sobriety, dignity, and elevation communicated to it 
 by those whose spirit had been schooled by the 
 Divine Teacher. Its simple story was dignified to 
 be the messenger of profoundest truths. 
 
 On every side from which ideas respecting God 
 and the universe were capable, in those early days, 
 of mean or idolatrous degradation, the Israelite 
 version of the Creation epic is fenced about. Did 
 other nations believe in the pre-existence of matter ? 
 Israel received the doctrine of the pre-existence of 
 God. Did they regard matter as essentially evil, or 
 as needing to be vanquished by the Deity ? Israel 
 learned that there was nothing created which God 
 had not created in its essence good. Had the 
 worship of the heavenly bodies become a common 
 form of misleading idolatry ? Israel learned that 
 they were themselves the handiwork of God, and 
 served the supreme purpose in the ordered succes- 
 sion of His creative work. Did some regard man's 
 nature as the offspring of a lower emanation or of 
 some subordinate divinity? Israel learned that 
 man was made by the Most High in His own image 
 and in His own likeness. 
 
 However much the Hebrew narrative may tran- 
 scend in verisimilitude the teaching of other cosmo- 
 gonies in matters of human cognisance, its form is 
 
II THE DAYS OF CREATION 31 
 
 but the shell and husk of the Divine Message. The 
 eternal truths, conveyed in the spiritual teaching of 
 the chapter, are infinitely more precious than any 
 possible items of agreement with the present aspects 
 of so changeful and progressive a study as that of 
 the physical laws which interpret the Creator's 
 Will. 
 
CHAPTEK III 
 
 THE STORY OF PARADISE 
 
 We come now to the consideration of the second 
 section in the Early Narratives of Genesis which 
 seems to offer itself for separate treatment. In 
 these two chapters (ii. 4^-iii. 24) the narrative falls 
 naturally into two divisions, of which the first 
 (chap. ii. 4^-25) is occupied with a description of 
 the creation of man, his first dwelling-place, and 
 the formation of the vegetable and animal world; 
 the second (chap, iii.) narrates the account of the 
 Temptation, the FaU, and the Judgment consequent 
 upon it. 
 
 I shall do little more than touch upon some of 
 the more important points to be noticed in the 
 literary structure, origin, and religious teaching of 
 this important narrative. 
 
 {a) Strmture. — Many a reader has been surprised 
 to notice that a description of the Creation occurs in 
 the second chapter, when the successive stages of the 
 Creation have already formed the theme of the 
 
Ill THE STORY OF PARADISE 33 
 
 previous passage. According to the explanation 
 that has generally been given, the double narrative 
 is intended to furnish an account of the same events 
 regarded from different points of y'iqw. And, un- 
 doubtedly, in the first chapter, the Creation is 
 described in its relation to the Physical Universe, 
 the formation of man marking the concluding feature 
 of the whole ; whereas, in the second chapter, it is 
 described in its relation primarily to Man, each 
 portion of the universe being called into existence 
 in order to contribute to the benefit of the human 
 race. No one would contest the existence of this 
 difference of view in the two descriptions, nor the 
 possibility of the same writer describing the same 
 events in different ways. But the divergence of 
 view is not sufficient to account for the absence in> 
 chap. ii. 4^-25 of any reference to the Days of 
 Creation, nor for the statements which differ so 
 widely from the contents of chap, i., as in ii. 5-7, 
 where we read that when man was made neither 
 plant nor herb yet existed ; and in ii. 8, 9, 1 9, where 
 it appears that the vegetable and animal world owed 
 its origin to the purpose of satisfying the needs of 
 man; and in ii. 21-23, where we find that the forma- 
 tion of woman as a helpmeet for man was an act of 
 Divine favour in recognition of his inability to find 
 true companionship in the brute creation. Now, it 
 may fairly be said, we certainly do not expect that 
 a writer, who is going a second time over the same 
 
 D 
 
34 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS m 
 
 facts for the purpose of describing them from a 
 different standpoint, will refrain from any hint of his 
 change of purpose, will give no sign that he is conscious 
 of going over the same ground, and will make no 
 allusion to his first narrative. This, however, is 
 what we find on a comparison of Gen. ii. 4^-25 with 
 Gen. i. 1-ii. 4^^ 
 
 Moreover, as Hebrew scholars have pointed out, 
 the peculiarity of a double narrative, emanating, on 
 the traditional view, from a single writer, strangely 
 coincides with a change in the style and diction. For, 
 although the change in the use of the Divine Name, 
 from " Elohim " to " Jehovah Elohim," has been 
 accounted for (but with insufficient reason) on the 
 ground of a change in the general attitude of thought, 
 the alteration both in the literary style of the 
 narrative and in the choice of words and phrases 
 has been conclusively demonstrated. 
 
 Modern criticism has removed the diflBculty. 
 Scholars have proved — and men of all schools now 
 recognise — that this section (ii. 4^-iii. 24) is not 
 homogeneous with chap, i.-ii. 4^^ The compiler 
 of Genesis has here incorporated material from 
 another source, to which the name of " Jehovist " 
 has been commonly given by critics.^ The first 
 portion of Genesis, as has before been mentioned, 
 belongs to the " Priestly " group of writings ; the 
 second section is derived from the Prophetic group. 
 
 ^ See page 2. 
 
in. THE STORY OF PARADISE 35 
 
 The style of the former is formal and methodical; 
 the style of the latter is varied, full of incident, and 
 replete with descriptive details and personal allusions.^ 
 
 The compiler of Genesis selects from two recog- 
 nised Hebrew traditions parallel extracts descriptive 
 of the work of Creation. He places them side by 
 side, so that we are able to compare their different 
 characteristics. This plan of selecting from different 
 sources he pursues in other portions of the history, 
 and we shall have occasion to observe a noteworthy 
 example in the double account of the Deluge, where 
 he has pieced together extracts from the two main 
 sources of the Israelite narratives. 
 
 The fact that the compiler makes no attempt 
 rigorously to harmonise them illustrates his method 
 of work. He had no desire to obliterate the charac- 
 teristic features of the writings out of which he con- 
 structed his continuous narrative. His sole object 
 was to furnish his countrymen with an authoritative 
 narrative, which should preserve the traditions of his 
 race at the same time that it was the means of embody- 
 ing the essential teaching of the Eeligion of Jehovah. 
 
 (h) Origin. — It is not perhaps to be wondered at, 
 that an inquiry into the origin and growth of the 
 Paradise narrative should be involved in much ob- 
 scurity. It is certainly strange that no reference is 
 made to it in the writings of the earlier Hebrew 
 
 ^ Tlie reader may refer to Driver's Introduction, or to an article 
 by Rev. H. F. Woods in the Expository Times of February 1891. 
 
36 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS iii 
 
 prophets. The garden of Eden is alluded to by the 
 prophets of the Captivity, e.g. Ezek. xxviii. 13, xxxi. 
 9, Isa. li. 3. A mention of it occurs in the Book of 
 Joel (ii. 3), but the age of that work is much dis- 
 puted, and no conclusive evidence as to pre-exilic 
 usage could be drawn from it. The Book of Proverbs, 
 in the occasional mention of the " tree of life," very 
 possibly contains allusions to our narrative. But 
 any other early reference to it is so meagre, and, 
 at the best, so doubtful, that we are compelled to 
 infer, either that the Israelite narrative was hardly 
 known before the Exile, or that the form in which it 
 has come down to us was not generally known, or, 
 at least, was not in early times recognised as a portion 
 of sacred tradition. 
 
 The former of these alternatives has been some- 
 what hastily adopted by some eminent scholars. The 
 narrative of the Fall, they have asserted, received its 
 literary form after the Captivity ; the narrative itself 
 was derived from Babylon. With this conclusion I 
 find myself quite unable to agree. Eor, apart from 
 the consideration mentioned in the previous paper, 
 that the captive Jews were little likely, and the pious 
 members of the community least of all, to enrich the 
 sacred traditions of the chosen people from the 
 legends of their captors, it appears to me to be 
 defective in two other ways. (1) Criticism has 
 fairly established, that this section belongs to the 
 Jehovistic group of writings ; large portions of this 
 
Ill THE STORY OF TARADISE 37 
 
 group incontestably existed at a much earlier date 
 than the Exile ; the general character of the Paradise 
 narrative favours the supposition that it does not 
 belong to the later, but rather to the earlier portions 
 of the Jehovistic narrative. (2) There are details in 
 the descriptive language which forbid us to look for 
 any direct derivation from a Babylonian source. It 
 is not probable that Jews residing in Babylon would 
 have accepted the geographical description in ii. 11- 
 14, which contained such an indefinite allusion to 
 " Assyria," or would have imported a mention of the 
 " fig-tree " (iii. 7), a tree which happens not to be a 
 native of Babylonia. 
 
 It is better to account for the absence of allusion 
 in the earlier prophets to the Paradise narrative, by 
 the supposition that for a long time the narrative 
 was not cleared from the mythological element, 
 and could not therefore find admission among the 
 most sacred traditions of the religion of Israel. Of 
 course, it would be useless to deny, that the Paradise 
 narrative possesses an affinity with the religious 
 traditions and myths of Assyria and Babylonia. But 
 the affinity is not that of direct derivation at the late 
 period of the Babylonian Exile. It is rather an affinity 
 arisi'ng from the ultimate derivation of the narrative 
 from an Assyro- Babylonian source, and from the 
 conservative transmission of it through many genera- 
 tions. Thus, it has been shown, with every appear- 
 ance of probability, that some of the most important 
 
38 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS iii 
 
 names and words in the Hebrew narrative reproduce 
 Assyrian words, and that some of the most distinctive 
 features in the story are best illustrated from Assyrian 
 inscriptions. The Assyrian names Diglat and Bura 
 appear in the Hebrew equivalents, Hiddekel (Tigris) 
 and Pr^th (Euphrates) ; the Hebrew Gihon is possibly 
 the Guhan-di, an artificial branch of the Euphrates. 
 In the name of Eden we have the sound of the 
 Assyrian word " idinu" a " field," or " plain," adapted 
 to the Hebrew root meaning "pleasure"; in the 
 " shoJmm "-stone (bdellium) we find possibly a Hebrew 
 form of the Assyrian " samtu " ; in the name of Abel 
 we should possibly discern the Assyrian root for a 
 "scion" or "shoot," the Hebrew transliteration of 
 which suggested the play on the Hebrew word for 
 " a fleeting breath " ; in the Hebrew word " arom " for 
 " subtle " ^in Gen. iii. 1, Mr. Boscawen suggests 
 there is a recollection of the Assyrian '' Lu Erim" or 
 " magician, the greatest foe of man." {Cf. Schrader, 
 Gundform Inscriptions, vol. i.). 
 
 As regards the main features of the story, it is im- 
 possible not to trace, in the sacred trees of " the know- 
 ledge of good and of evil" and "of life," a resem- 
 blance to the coniferous sacred trees, which are 
 depicted in almost every emblematical Assyrian and 
 Babylonian representation. The appearance of the 
 serpent, as the agent of temptation, suggests the 
 Assyrian Tiamat, the evil serpent overthrown by 
 Merodach ; and the fact that in several inscriptions 
 
Ill THE STORY OF PARADISE 39 
 
 the serpent is called aibu Hani, " the enemy of the 
 gods,"^ illustrates the resemblance of the Genesis 
 narrative to the mythology of Assyro- Babylonia. 
 The cherubim which were stationed to guard the 
 approach to the garden of Eden, have suggested com- 
 parison with the colossal griffins that stood at the 
 entrance of Assyrian temples. 
 
 These points of resemblance, however, only touch 
 the outer framework of our Paradise narrative. So 
 far, the most that could be said would be that the 
 Assyrian dialect was visible through the Hebrew 
 form of certain proper names, and that features in 
 the story were capable of being illustrated in an 
 interesting manner from Assyrian and Babylonian 
 monuments. Until a short time ago it could not be 
 asserted, with any confidence, that the inscriptions 
 showed any trace of an Assyrian or Babylonian 
 counterpart to the Biblical narrative of the Fall. 
 Even the famous representation upon the seal, 
 adduced by George Smith, on which appeared the 
 sacred tree with its clusters of fruit, with the figures 
 of a man and woman on either side of it, and with a 
 serpent in an erect posture standing behind the 
 woman, did not convince scholars that this was 
 an allusion to the narrative of the Eall. "We 
 certainly," says Schrader, " have no right to 
 assert that the Babylonians had no story of a 
 Fall, although no written accounts bearing upon 
 1 Boscawen in The Babylonian and Oriental Record, Oct. 1890. 
 
40 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS iii 
 
 it have hitherto come to hand. We merely 
 contend that it is not presupposed in the above 
 figured representation." ^ 
 
 All doubt, however, on the subject has recently 
 been removed. There can now be no longer any 
 question that a narrative of the Fall was included in 
 the literature of the Assyro - Babylonian religion. 
 The conclusive evidence was brought to light by 
 the eminent English Assyriologist, Mr. W. St. C. 
 Boscawen, who made known his discovery in an 
 article on " The Babylonian Legend of the Serpent 
 Tempter," in the October (1890) number of The 
 Babylonian and Oriental Becord. The important 
 fresh testimony which he adduces is obtained from a 
 passage contained in the much- mutilated Third 
 Creation Tablet, " which describes the various wicked 
 acts of the Serpent Tiamat." 
 
 The fragment, as rendered by Mr. Boscawen, runs 
 as follows : — 
 
 *' The great gods, all of them determiners of fate, 
 They entered, and, death-like, the god Sar filled. 
 In sin one with the other in comj)act joins. 
 The command was established in the garden of the God. 
 The Asnan (fruit) they ate, they broke in two, 
 Its stalk they destroyed ; 
 The sweet juice which injures the body. 
 Great is their sin. Themselves they exalted. 
 To Merodach their Redeemer he appointed their fate." 
 
 ^ Cuneiform Inscriptions (Eng. Tiaiis.) vol. i. p. 38. 
 
Ill THE STORY OF PARADISE 41 
 
 " It is almost impossible," continues the translator, 
 " not to see in this fragment the pith of the story of 
 the Fall, while the last line at once brings Merodach 
 before us as the one who would defeat the tempter 
 and restore the fallen. . . . The more we examine the 
 position of Merodach in the Babylonian mythology," 
 the more we see how closely it approaches the Hebrew 
 conception of the Messiah. He was the son of the 
 great earth-mother Dav-Kina, the wife of Ea, and bore 
 as his own name that of Mar-diigga, * the Holy Son/ 
 He was the mediator between gods and men, healing 
 sickness, forgiving sin, raising the dead, not by his own 
 power, but by that of his father Ea ; and now we find 
 him acting as the redeemer of the fallen pair. We may 
 be sure that the importance of this small fragment to 
 biblical students is very great indeed." 
 
 Mr. Boscawen further points out that the tree is 
 called " the Asnan tree," and that the word " Asnan," 
 being a derivative from the root " to repeat," means 
 "double fruit" or "double tree," and may account 
 for the double form given to the tree in sculptures, 
 and for the mention of the two trees in the garden. 
 Again, he calls attention to the mention of the gods 
 entering "in a death-like manner," which may be 
 understood to illustrate the words of the Hebrew 
 narrative, " In the day that thou eatest thereof thou 
 shalt surely die " (Gen. ii. 17). 
 
 It remains to be seen how far Mr. Boscawen's 
 rendering is confirmed by other scholars. But we 
 
r 
 
 42 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS iii 
 
 may fairly assume that the decipherment of this 
 inscription by so eminent an Assyriologist is likely to 
 prove substantially correct. And without committing 
 ourselves to all the inferences which Mr. Boscawen 
 would be prepared to draw from his translation, we 
 may heartily welcome the discovery. The gap that 
 had seemed so strange is now filled up. The Israelite 
 narrative of the Fall stands in the same relation to 
 Assyro-Baby Ionian legend as the Israelite narratives 
 of the Creation and the Flood. 
 
 As in their case, so also in the case of the Paradise 
 narrative, the resemblance is best explained on the 
 assumption of derivation from an ultinmtely common 
 source in the religious mythology of Mesopotamia. 
 The original tradition, marred with the intricacies of 
 a bewildering polytheism, was received from their 
 Mesopotamian ancestors by the founders of the 
 Israelite branch of the Semitic race. The manifesta- 
 tion of a purer religion made its influence felt upon 
 the heritage of popular tradition. The form in which 
 it was eventually incorporated among the sacred 
 writings of Israel still bore a genuine resemblance to 
 the kindred legend of Babylonia. Its story, which 
 still carried in words and names the impress of its 
 origin, was invested with the simple dignity charac- 
 teristic of pure monotheism, and was inspired to 
 express vividly and pictorially some of the profound- 
 est truths which distinguished the spiritual religion 
 of Israel above all religions of antiquity. Thus did 
 
Ill THE STORY OF PARADISE 43 
 
 the Holy Spjnt overrule the preparation of the 
 volume'^ of " The Word of Life." 
 
 Many are the ingenious, and many the absurd, 
 speculations which have been started for the purpose 
 of identifying the locality of the garden of Eden. 
 The most interesting, and by far the most plausible, 
 contribution to this investigation is the celebrated 
 brocMcre of Prof. Fried. Delitzsch, entitled " Wo lag 
 das Paradies ? " This is an attempt to identify the 
 site of the garden of Eden with a district of Babylonia, 
 between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, and formerly 
 intersected by artificial canals. The ingenuity of the 
 arguments by which this eminent Assyriologist main- 
 tained his view cannot be denied ; but, on the whole, 
 the general impression produced by its elaboration 
 has been that it is a brilliant and ingenious piece of 
 work, yet much more clever than convincing. 
 
 I confess, I am one of those who have no wish 
 that the site of Paradise should ever be identified, 
 and am therefore, perhaps, open to the charge of 
 being prejudiced in my belief that it never will be. 
 In my opinion, the theory of the possibility of identi- 
 fication rests upon the erroneous supposition, that the 
 language used in Gen. ii. 8-14 is capable of conveying 
 an accurate geographical description. The proper 
 names of the original tradition have been trans- 
 literated, in the Hebrew narrative, into forms in 
 common use among the Israelites, and most nearly 
 resembling them in pronunciation. One example 
 
44 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS iii 
 
 will suffice. The word " Cush/' in ver. 13, would 
 inevitably convey to the Hebrew reader the meaning 
 of " Ethiopia " ; but it is evident that no river near 
 the Tigris and the Euphrates could be associated 
 with Ethiopia, and the suggestion is possible that the 
 Hebrew word " Gush " was here used in consequence 
 of a confusion, between Gas, a district . in Babylonia, 
 or the Cossaei, the dwellers of Southern Baby- 
 lonia, and Gush, the well-known name of African 
 Nubia. Thus, even supposing, as I for one should not 
 be prepared to do, that the language of the original 
 tradition indicated a well-known locality in Western 
 Asia, the transmutation of the Assyrian proper names 
 into similarly sounding Hebrew names has made 
 all attempts at recognition doubtful guesswork. But, 
 surely, accurate geographical description is not to be 
 expected from even the original form in which this 
 Semitic tradition was known to the dwellers in 
 Mesopotamia. And are we to expect a greater degree 
 of accuracy from its later forms, whether Assyrian or 
 Hebrew, after they had been altered and modified in 
 order to be brought into harmony with the religious 
 thought of a more advanced period in the history of 
 the race ? 
 
 Is not the real conception of the locality to be 
 inferred from the language in which it is described ? 
 It is a garden in which the Almighty walked, and in 
 which the serpent spoke. It is a place where man, 
 after the Fall, could no longer remain. It is a garden 
 
Ill THE STORY OF PARADISE 45 
 
 at wliose <»ates Cherubim, those winged and. legendary 
 dragons, at once the guardians of the Divine Majesty 
 (Ezek. xxviii. 13-16, of. Ex. xxv. 18) and the personi- 
 fication of the thundercloud that declared the Divine 
 anger (Ps. xviii. 11, 2 Sam. xxii. 11), were stationed 
 to prevent tlie man from attempting to re-enter it. 
 
 (c) Beligious Teadiing. — The description belongs 
 to the poetry of the early Israelite legend. 
 The spiritual teaching which the narrative conveys 
 comprises some of the " deep things " of the Israelite 
 religion. 
 
 It taught how in the ideal state, before sin came 
 into the world, man could dwell in the sunlight of 
 the Divine Presence. The true Paradise was the 
 place where God had put him ; there he enjoyed 
 the ideal existence. He lived in the exercise of 
 his physical powers ; he tended the garden. He 
 enjoyed the command of his intellectual faculties; 
 he named and discriminated the animals. He was 
 a social being, and received, in the institution of 
 marriage, the perfecting of human companionship. 
 
 But the blessing of the Divine Presence was 
 conditional upon obedience to the Divine will. 
 Paradise was forfeited by the preference of selfish 
 appetites over the command of God. The expul- 
 sion from Paradise was the inevitable consequence 
 of sin ; the desire of man for the lower life was 
 granted. He who asserted his own against the 
 Divine will had no place in the Paradise of God. 
 
 t> 
 
46 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS in 
 
 The very powers of tlie sky, which testify to His 
 might, seemed to bar the way to the Most High, and 
 to exclude the fallen ones from all hope of return. 
 
 The very simplicity of the offence, which stands 
 in such startling contrast to the tremendous char- 
 acter of its consequences, is not uninstructive. For 
 it taught how the purpose, even more than the act, 
 is judged in God's sight. It was, not the harmful- 
 ness of the act, but the rebellion and disobedience 
 aijainst God that brouf^ht the condemnation. 
 
 The motive impulse to sin was not inherent in 
 man's nature. The temptation came from without 
 him. He was not doomed by nature to fall, but 
 he was gifted with the Godlike faculty of free-will. 
 The submission of man's will to something lower than 
 the Divine Will led to tlie Fall. 
 
 The Fall brought sin and evil in its train. It 
 was no isolated act of wrong-doing. It was infinite 
 in its results. Its effects were felt in the Universe, 
 shared by the creatures, and transmitted to all 
 generations among men. Thus does the narrative 
 illustrate the solidarity of the human race. Modern 
 investigations into heredity have strangely and un- 
 expectedly confirmed its teaching. The thought of 
 such "original sin" were enough to overwhelm us 
 in despair, were it not that in the Person of the 
 Second Adam we have a far more exceeding hope 
 of glory — not the self-preservation, but the corporate 
 reunion, of our race in Christ Jesus our Lord. 
 
CHAPTEK IV 
 
 THE STORY OF PARADISE — continued 
 
 I DWELT, ill the last chapter, upon the narrative of 
 the Fall, and upon its religious significance. There 
 remain, however, two or three points of great im- 
 portance arising out of the narrative, which I have 
 reserved for a separate consideration. 
 
 In the account of the Fall, we have the picture 
 of man's disobedience, and the penalty in which 
 not only he is involved, but also all his descendants. 
 Sin is represented as the cause of separation from 
 God's presence ; suffering, pain, death, as its penalty. 
 
 The great problem arising from the universality 
 of sufficing is thus presented to us in its simplest 
 light. It is the consequence of sin, it is the chas- 
 tisement for disobedience. In the third chapter of 
 Genesis, suffering and death are very naturally 
 regarded, according to the first and most obvious 
 explanation of the passage, in the light of a punish- 
 ment alone. But it is only a superficial view of the 
 Israelite narrative that can regard the penalty of 
 physical death (Gen. iii. 19), and all the woes 
 
48 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS iv 
 
 attendant upon our earthly frame, in tlie light of 
 the curse. The only "curse" actually uttered in 
 the narrative is pronounced upon the serpent and 
 
 • upon the soil (Gen. iii. 14, 17). The curse under 
 which humanity lies, is the sentence pronounced 
 J'- upon the sinner, that of his exp^sion from the 
 presence of God. Physical death is but its t;j^e, 
 the memorial of the power of sin, the emblem of 
 its influence. In a colloquial sense, "death" may 
 be "tlie curse" of the human race; but it is not 
 truly so, and certainly not according to the teaching 
 of our Genesis narrative. We know now that even 
 the penalty of death was not without its mercies. 
 That could be no curse alone which, not only in 
 the Hebrew race, but in every nation under the 
 sun, has been the supreme witness of love, and the 
 highest possible offering of self-sacrifice. That 
 could be no curse alone which leads us in 
 thought to the foot of the Cross, where the Saviour 
 died. 
 
 No; physical pain, suffering, and death, these 
 
 X are the witnesses in our flesh to disobedience — a 
 physical penalty, indeed, but a penalty incom- 
 mensurable with moral guilt. The curse rests 
 upon the sin of our nature, upon all that prompts 
 to it (iii. 14), and all that shares in it (iii. 17). 
 But man is not without hope. Even in death 
 the penalty is a pledge of victory (iii. 15). And 
 even the sorrow and pain, the outward memorials 
 
IV THE STORY OF PARADISE 49 
 
 of the curse, are limited to "the days of life" 
 (iu.l7). 
 
 Such seems to be the teaching of our chapter, 
 when viewed in the light of later Eev elation. The 
 theology of the Old Testament follows a line of 
 gradual development, which only recent studies 
 have fully convinced us of. Nowhere, perhaps, is 
 the advance in religious thought so noticeable as in 
 the treatment of the problem of suffering and pain. 
 In the early stages of Israelitish religion, every 
 calamity that overtook individual or nation was 
 apt to be interpreted as a punitive visitation, as a 
 retribution, equivalent, or, at least, corresponding, 
 in degree of misery, to the gravity of the offence. 
 But, in process of time, obvious objections were 
 raised. The cases in which the innocent suffered 
 with the guilty, or in which the innocent suffered 
 and the guilty escaped scot-free, were too numerous 
 to be explained away, either as rare exceptions, or 
 as instances of depravity, where the hypocrisy 
 which eluded human detection was overtaken by 
 the just punishment of God's anger. The sorrows 
 of the innocent are the theme of a large portion of 
 Hebrew poetry; sometimes it is the case of indi- 
 vidual, sometimes of national suffering. The book 
 of Job, many of the Psalms, the books of Lament- 
 ations and Ecclesiastes, and numerous passages 
 among the Prophets, exemplify in different ways 
 the mental disquiet which accompanied the conflict 
 
 E 
 
50 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS iv 
 
 of the earlier traditional teaching with the fresh 
 facts and new thoughts of a later time. The sor- 
 rows of the Exile, and the sufferings of the innocent 
 "servant of the Lord," shed a new light upon the 
 dark mystery, and gave a fresh significance to 
 physical pain and earthly troubles. 
 
 The story of the Fall seems at first sight to 
 belong to the earlier stage of thought, as if the 
 proposition were laid down that man's offence was to 
 be paid for in suffering. It may be so. But the 
 language is certainly so chosen, that it is capable 
 of conveying the teaching of the later and nobler 
 development of religious conceptions. The Para- 
 dise narrative stands midway between superstition 
 and the final Eevelation, having, on the one side, 
 the old and ignorant beliefs which roughly judged 
 all calamity to be a Divine retribution for some 
 known or hidden crime, and, on the other, the Gospel 
 of the Cross of Christ. The Paradise narrative 
 brings a message pregnant with evangelic truth. 
 The punishment which is inflicted as the penalty 
 and as the inevitable consequence of the trans- 
 gression, is seen to be not vindictive but disciplinary. 
 The infliction of earthly suffering is declared to be 
 the constant witness of Divine displeasure towards 
 sin. But, no less, death is God's appointed way for 
 all flesh; it may be one of sorrow and sadness, it 
 cannot be evil in itself. Death may be welcome — 
 welcome as the grateful end to the assaults and the 
 
IV THE STORY OF TARADISE 51 
 
 ravages of sin, which desolate the earthly life of 
 man : so much, at least, the story of Genesis taught. 
 That death might even be the gat^ leading to 
 eternal life, was the final step of the Kevelation 
 made known in the Eesurrection of Jesus Christ 
 from the dead. Towards that teaching the Genesis 
 narrative looks. It points us in the direction; it 
 cannot show us the glory that should follow. 
 
 How deep and spiritual, then, is the beginning of 
 that consoling lesson in our narrative ! death, not 
 the curse itself, but the penalty of it, reminding 
 us of God's "curse" upon sin; death, not evil in 
 itself, but the last page in the book of earthly 
 discipline ; death, if the symbol of wrath against 
 sin, yet the pledge of the conquest over sin itself. 
 Instinctively we turn in thought to One who poured 
 out His soul unto death, who became " sin " for us, 
 who was '' perfected through sufferings," who " was 
 dead and lived again." 
 
 In that bright vision we realise, that the third 
 chapter of Genesis tells no tale of an arbitrary 
 Judge's severity against unoffending generations to 
 come : we see the discipline and the chastisement 
 of man, the result of sin and the warning against it-; 
 we hear, in the curse upon the tempter, the wrath 
 that goes eternally forth upon all sin and disobedi- 
 ence ; but we see too the crown of thorns, the cross 
 of shame, the death of agony. Physical, mental, 
 spiritual, woes are the pledge of perfect love, and 
 
52 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS n^ 
 
 tell forth the overthrow of the enemy, the blotting 
 out of the curse, the forgiveness of sins. The way 
 through the valley of the shadow of death is the 
 way to the Holiest, and has been sanctified for 
 ever by the feet of Him who was made unto us 
 wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctifica- 
 tion and redemption (1 Cor. i. 30). 
 
 The careful reader will hardly fail to notice the 
 difference between the words of the prohibition, 
 "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt 
 surely die" (Gen. ii. 17), and the words of the 
 sentence, "in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days 
 of thy life ... for dust thou art, and unto dust 
 shalt thou return" (Gen. iii. 17-19). Some have 
 fancied that they can discern in the difference the 
 manifestation of the Divine mercy, more long- 
 suffering in the execution than in the utterance of 
 a sentence. Whether this explanation be in accord- 
 ance with true reverence, we need not stop to 
 inquire. But another explanation suggests itself. 
 The Hebrew writer, who clothed this narrative in 
 language agreeing with the teaching of the Spirit of 
 Jehovah, has preserved in the former passage 
 (ii. 17) the more peremptory words of the early 
 version in which the narrative was current, repro- 
 ducing the ancient belief, that the sentence of 
 physical death was pronounced as the immediate 
 retribution for moral disobedience. This note, as 
 it were, of an earlier theology . survives ; but the 
 
IV THE STORY OF PARADISE 53 
 
 words in which the Hebrew writer reproduces the 
 actual judgment reflect a later phase of teaching. 
 Death is merciful when .it releases man from con- 
 ditions inseparably bound up with the sin that is 
 the object of Divine displeasure : God has spared 
 man the penalty of living for ever on earth under 
 the conditions of the curse (iii. 22). Death is the 
 climax of the penalty of suffering and pain, the last 
 discipline of physical existence. The sting of death 
 is not suffering, but sin : and the infliction of the 
 disciplinary penalty is accompanied with the promise 
 of victory over that which had separated man from 
 his Maker (iii. 15). 
 
 My remarks upon this section would be incom- 
 plete, if I did not, briefly at least, call attention to 
 the mention of (1) the serpent, and (2) the promise 
 made to the woman. 
 
 (1) The serpent appears in the narrative as the 
 agent of the temptation, the medium through which 
 is presented to man the consciousness of a choice 
 to be made between good and evil, between obe- 
 dience and disobedience, between the will of God and 
 the desire of the flesh. 
 
 The introduction of the Serpent in Gen. iii. 1 is 
 strangely abrupt, while it is no less strange that 
 after ver. 14 no further allusion is made to it. The 
 language used suggests that the serpent was supposed 
 to have appeared in the garden of Eden in a different 
 
54 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS iv 
 
 form from that which it was condemned to take (Gen. 
 iii. 14). And, as the reader has probably observed, 
 there is no reference to a spirit of evil, no direct 
 identification of the serpent with any unseen malig- 
 nant influence, with any hostile spiritual power. 
 
 An explanation of this is probably forthcoming 
 from the general character of the narrative. The 
 serpent constantly appears in the early legends of 
 primitive races. It is regarded with feelings either 
 of especial alarm or of especial veneration. In 
 Persia, for instance, it was the emblem of the god 
 of evil; while among the Greeks it was associated 
 with the gift of prophecy and with the power of 
 healing. Among the ancient Babylonians, Tiamat 
 or Chaos was represented under the figure of a 
 gigantic serpent or dragon, whose overthrow by 
 Merodach brought deliverance to the universe. We 
 can hardly question that the mention of the serpent, 
 in the original form of tlie Hebrew legend, occupied 
 a more prominent position than it does in Genesis, 
 and that it was enveloped in much that had a close 
 family resemblance to the somewhat grotesque and 
 childish pictures of the legends that have come down 
 to us in the cuneiform inscriptions. But whatsoever 
 was associated with the taint of idolatry, of degrading 
 superstition, of unedifying expansion, the Hebrew 
 writers, who were imbued with the pure faith of 
 Jehovah, have rigorously excluded. In consequence, 
 the serpent is first suddenly brought before us in the 
 
IV THE STORY OF PARADISE 55 
 
 narrative, and then as suddenly withdrawn, without 
 explanation and without identification. 
 
 It plays no part, such as it would have done in a 
 polytheistic version, of powerful antagonism to the 
 God that made and loved man. The enmity of the 
 serpent is implied, not stated. 
 
 The serpent in our narrative supplies the external 
 motive to sin. The suggestion to disobedience, and 
 the doubt of God's goodness and justice, neither 
 emanate from the man himself, nor constitute a form 
 of temptation by which God Himself tried man's 
 heart. God tempted not to sin ; nor was man 
 created sinful. Over the origin of the external 
 motive supplied by the serpent, the narrative in 
 Genesis maintains a silence that stands in marked 
 contrast to the emblematic scenes, in other early 
 religions, accounting for the origin of evil. We here 
 learn only that sin is not of God, and that it is not 
 of man ; that it comes from without man ; that it is 
 permitted of God; and that its purpose is to test 
 man's power of choice, and his willingness to prefer 
 God's will to his own desires. 
 
 It cannot, therefore, be asserted that the Personality 
 of the Spirit of Evil is here directly taught. Our own 
 conception of the scene is inevitably coloured by the 
 recollection of Milton's powerful imaginative descrip- 
 tion, and it is difficult for us to dissociate our thoughts 
 from the influence of Paradise Lost. But, when we 
 do, we see that the narrative emphasises the subtle 
 
55 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS iv 
 
 character, not what we should call the satanic origin, 
 of the Temptation. The suggestion made by the 
 serpent is obviously evil, but how the serpent comes 
 to impersonate evil is not explained. 
 
 In the early days of Israelite theology, the idea 
 of a Personal Spirit of evil was only , dimly, if at 
 all, apprehended. The very name of "Satan" or 
 " opposer " is found, in the Hebrew of Num. xxii. 32, 
 applied to an angel of Jehovah, which is sufficient to 
 show that it had not yet become associated with a 
 spiritual enemy of mankind. The heathen gods, it 
 is true, were wont to be identified with demons 
 (Deut. xxxii. 17). But the temptation, which put to 
 the test the faith of a righteous man, is described, in 
 the history of Abraham, and in the earlier narrative 
 of David's reign, as emanating from Jehovah himself 
 (c/. Gen. xxii., 2 Sam. xxiv. 1). The later concep- 
 tion is found first, perhaps, in the Book of Job, which 
 was composed, probably, in the period of the Exile. 
 " The Adversary " is there represented as attending 
 the court of Jehovah, and as testifying evil of man 
 (Job i.-ii.) ; the same Personal Spirit seems to occupy 
 a similar malignant office in Zechariah (iii. 1); while 
 in the Books of Chronicles the very temptation of 
 David, which in the Books of Samuel was said to 
 have come from Jehovah, is assigned to the sugges- 
 tion of Satan (c/. 1 Chron. xxi. 1). In later literature, 
 the Personality of the Evil One is yet more definitely 
 recognised; and it became generally accepted that 
 
IV THE STORY OF PARADISE 57 
 
 the serpent, which was the medium of the Temptation 
 in the story of the Fall, could have been no other 
 than Satan, by which name the Evil Spirit w^as 
 designated. Proof of this appears in such a passage 
 as Wisdom ii. 24, and in the use of the appellation 
 " the old serpent," Eev. xii. 9, xx. 2. 
 
 It is noticeable, therefore, that when St. Paul 
 refers to the narrative of the Fall, he uses language 
 which is based upon the simplest and most direct 
 interpretation of the passage (1 Cor. xi. 3, "As the 
 serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness"). He lays 
 emphasis there on the subtle character of the tempta- 
 tion ; he does not draw attention to the Personal 
 Spirit of Evil, nor does he directly say it was per- 
 sonified in the serpent. Whether the serpent was 
 the Evil One or only his agent, he does not attempt 
 to discriminate (c/. 1 Tim. ii. 14). The curse pro- 
 nounced upon the serpent implies, without the fact 
 being asserted in so many words, that an evil and 
 hostile Personality was represented by it. To the 
 Israelite the serpent was the witness of God's dis- 
 pleasure against the rebellion of human selfishness ; 
 but it was also the symbol of the Principle of Evil 
 through which man by transgression fell. But, 
 though the serpent thus evidently represents in some 
 way the source of temptation, the narrative itself 
 makes no attempt to penetrate further into the 
 mystery of the origin of evil. In the light of the 
 New Testament, in which w^e are privileged to see 
 
58 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS iv 
 
 things now, we may discern the shadow of "the 
 Prince of this world" as he stands behind the 
 instrument of his evil suggestion. But his presence 
 is not directly affirmed in the letter of our 
 chapter. 
 
 (2) In the words of the curse pronounced upon 
 the serpent there occurs the passage which merits 
 especial attention, Gen. iii. 15 : " And I will put 
 enmity between thee and the woman, and between 
 thy seed and her seed : it shall bruise (marg. Or, 
 lie in ivait foi^ thy head, and thou shalt bruise 
 (marg. Or, lie in wait for) his heel." According to 
 the translation of the. A. V. and E. V., the metaphor 
 is drawn from a man crushing a serpent with his 
 foot, and a serpent fastening its teeth in a man's 
 heel. The other rendering, which introduces the 
 idea of a carefully planned ambush {cf. Gen. xlix. 
 17), is supported by the Septuagint version avTo^ crov 
 Ke^aXrjv TTjp^aec Kal av TTjprjaeL^ avrov Trrepvav. 
 The Vulgate combines the alternative renderings, 
 "ipsa conteret caput tuum, et tu insidiaberis cal- 
 caneo suo." 
 
 The merely literal explanation of the verse clearly 
 does not exhaust its meaning. There is something 
 more in the words than a declaration that the 
 human race will always view the serpent race 
 with feelings of instinctive aversion. There is 
 something more in the words than a prediction 
 that mankind will be able to assert superiority 
 
IV THE STORY OF PARADISE 59 
 
 over this reptile foe among the beasts of the field. 
 We need not doubt that, whichever of the alternative 
 renderings of the verb be preferred, the underlying 
 thought is that of a sinritual conflict between the 
 race of man and the influences of temptation, between 
 humanity with its gift of choice and the Principle of 
 Evil which ever suggests the satisfaction of the lower 
 desires. But, in addition to this main thought, a 
 twofold encouragement is given to nerve man for the 
 fray. He is endowed with capacities enabling him, 
 if he will use them, to inflict a deadly blow upon 
 the adversary. He stands erect, he is made in the 
 image of God. Furthermore, the promise of ultimate 
 victory is assured to him. How it is to be effected 
 is not explained in the context. Both Jewish and 
 Christian interpretation have given to the promise 
 the significance of a Messianic prediction. From 
 the time of Irena^us (170 a.d.), "the seed of the 
 woman" has been understood in the Christian 
 Church as an allusion to a personal Messiah. Calvin, 
 followed by the majority of the Reformers, explained 
 the words in a more general sense, regarding " the 
 seed of the woman " as the descendants of the first 
 woman, but yet as those from among whom, according 
 to the flesh, the Messiah should come. 
 
 The words of the verse, it must be admitted, are 
 quite general. Interpreting them in the light of 
 their immediate context, we cannot say that the 
 Hebrew writer foresaw their fulfilmentjii_anv one 
 
 tJNI7BESITr))'/ 
 
60 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS iv 
 
 individual.^ And yet, quite general as the words 
 seem to be in their application to those who should 
 be descended from the woman, we cannot fail to see, 
 in the light of the New Testament, the appropriateness 
 of the language used to its Messianic verification. 
 "The seed of the woman" has triumphed through 
 Him who is the representative of all mankind (c/. 
 Eom. V. 12-21), through Him who, being born of a 
 pure Virgin, was in a special sense " the seed of the 
 woman." That victory was potential for the whole 
 race. Its full consummation shall be hereafter. 
 "And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under 
 your feet shortly " (Eom. xvi. 20). 
 
 ^ The old Roman explanation, referring the promise of victory 
 to the woman herself, and assuming that the ^^ ipsa conteret," 
 which is the erroneous rendering of the Vulgate, contained an 
 allusion to the Virgin Mary, needs now only to be recorded as a 
 curiosity in the history of Interpretation. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE STOEY OF CAIN AND ABEL 
 
 To the general reader the familiar narrative con- 
 tained in the fourth chapter of Genesis seems to 
 follow easily and naturally upon that of the third. 
 In language and style the story of Cain and Abel 
 greatly resembles the story of Paradise ; and, 
 although in the genealogy of the Cainites (iv. 
 17-24) we are conscious of a change in the style, 
 the change is not so marked as is the case in the 
 following chapter (v.). In chapter iv. the narra- 
 tive is, in the main, taken from the Prophetic, in 
 chapter v. from the Priestly, records employed in 
 the compilation of the Pentateuch. 
 
 It is necessary, however, to look a little more 
 closely into the structure of this chapter. For 
 there are points even here which will have already 
 suggested themselves to many a Bible student as 
 difficulties or peculiarities; and a better under- 
 standing of the structure enables us to obtain a 
 solution of them. 
 
 Chap. iv. 1-16. — To many it has, perhaps, seemed 
 
62 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS v 
 
 strange that we have no account of the life of 
 Adam and Eve after their expulsion from the 
 Garden of Eden. Where they dwelt, how they 
 subsisted, whether Adam tilled the soil or followed 
 a pastoral life, are questions to which no answer is 
 given. The birth of Cain and Abel (iv. 1-2) alone 
 intervenes between the description of the cherubim 
 with the flaming swords, and the narrative of the 
 murder of Abel by his brother Cain, at a time when 
 apparently they had both already reached manhood. 
 The brief reference in chap. v. 3-5 hardly lifts 
 the veil which has hidden from our view the sight 
 of the remainder of Adam's sojourn upon earth. 
 
 But the narrative clearly presupposes much that 
 is not related in the Book of Genesis. Abel is 
 " a keeper of sheep," Cain " a tiller of the ground " 
 (Genesis iv. 2). The process by which the dis- 
 tinction into pastoral and agricultural life had 
 been reached we are not told. The Israelite 
 narrative was composed when that distinction could 
 be assumed to have had a primaeval origin, and to 
 have resulted from the usage of the first family. 
 In the present narrative, we are left in ignorance 
 whether Adam, when he was driven from the 
 garden, followed agricultural or pastoral pursuits, 
 a settled life or a roving one; whether Abel was 
 the founder of pastoral habits, or received them 
 from his father. 
 
 The practice of sacrifice is presupposed (chap. 
 
V THE STORY OF CAIN AND ABEL 63 
 
 iv. 4, 5). An offering to the Lord might consist 
 of " the fruit of the ground," or of " the firstlings of 
 the flock and the fat thereof." But no account is 
 given of the origin of the institution. And while, 
 on the twofold ground that the slaughter of animals 
 was primitively indistinguishable from sacrifice, and 
 that our first ancestors did not eat flesh (Gen. ix. 3), 
 it is often assumed that the Divine appointment of 
 sacrifice is implied in the previous chapter, *'And the 
 Lord God made for Adam and for his wife coats 
 of skins, and clothed them" (iii. 21), it is really 
 impossible to regard those words as capable of 
 literally conveying such a meaning. Candour 
 requires us to acknowledge that the early narra- 
 tives, as they have come down to us, fail to give 
 any account of the institution of sacrifice. The 
 mention of it in this narrative is introduced quite 
 suddenly. 
 
 The custom of blood -revenge is presupposed. 
 Cain's dread of the punishment imposed upon 
 him is due to his fear, lest the dwellers in the 
 land should avenge Abel's blood by putting the 
 murderer to death (ver. 14). Such a custom, and 
 the fears resulting from it, point to a more organised 
 society, and to a larger development of the popu- 
 lation, than the extant narrative gives us any reason 
 to expect. 
 
 Similarly, in the following section (vers. 17-24), 
 Cain marries, and builds a city (ver. 17) ; and this 
 
64 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS v 
 
 presupposes a rapid increase in the numbers of the 
 earth's inhabitants, of which we are told nothing be- 
 yond the fact that "Adam begat sons and daughters" 
 (Gen. V. 4). 
 
 It is true that some have fancied they could 
 find in these passages allusions to families that had 
 sprung from a different stock than that of Adam, 
 from other primaeval pairs of whom no account is 
 preserved. Into the scientific question which this 
 theory involves I pretend no right, and therefore 
 have no wish, to enter. But I do not expect to 
 find, in the early pages of Genesis, scientific hints, 
 of this allusive nature, as to the origin of the 
 peopling of the globe. Without committing our- 
 selves to an opinion whether the population of our 
 planet is to be ultimately traced to one or to many 
 primitive pairs, it will be best for us who are 
 Biblical students to avoid mere a 'priori speculation, 
 and to leave such problems in the hands of com- 
 petent and impartial investigators in the special 
 branches of anthropology and physiology. As for 
 us, we may be content to restrict ourselves to the 
 Scripture narrative. And the inference, which we 
 unhesitatingly draw, is that, according to the general 
 tenor of Israel's theology, "every nation of men 
 was made of one" (c/. Acts xvii. 26), viz. was 
 regarded as descended from Adam. 
 
 It seems, indeed, to be placed beyond all doubt 
 by the very mention of Cain's alarm. The ground 
 
V THE STORY OF CAIN AND ABEL 65 
 
 of his dread is that the avenger of blood will seek 
 to take away his life ; and the avenger of blood, 
 according to the Oriental custom to which the narra- 
 tive seems to point, belonged to the family of the 
 murdered man. Cain's words assume that all the 
 dwellers on the earth are his kinsmen. 
 
 If so, the narrative presupposes the birth of 
 many children to Adam and Eve, who thickly 
 peopled the country at the time of Abel's murder. 
 But all particular mention of them has been sup- 
 pressed in the extant narrative. 
 
 Now, I confess, I am not disposed to share the 
 doubt, which some critics have expressed, as to 
 whether the story of Cain and Abel comes from the 
 same hand that wrote the two previous chapters. 
 There is the same kind of dialogue ; there is the 
 same class of vivid narrative; there are the same 
 marked expressions (" tiller of the ground," c/". ver. 
 2 with ii. 5 ; the unusual word for " desire," c/. ver. 
 7 with iii. 17 ; the "curse," cf. ver. 11 with iii. 14) ; 
 "Eden," too, is referred to in ver. 16; and, in the 
 same verse, another geographical term occurs with 
 apparently a similarly symbolical significance, i.e. 
 "Nod," which, with the sense of "Wandering," 
 seems to denote the primitive condition of Nomad life. 
 
 If, then, this section comes from the same hand, 
 and yet presupposes acquaintance with numerous 
 facts and incidents, the history of which is not 
 recorded, we are forced to the conclusion that the 
 
 F 
 
66 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS v 
 
 narrative does not flow continuously from chap. iii. 
 to chap. iv. ; but that the compiler has extracted 
 only such portions as seemed best to correspond to 
 the purpose which he had in view. 
 
 On this hypothesis, we find an explanation for 
 the absence of any further account of the life of 
 Adam and Eve, or of their children. We may fairly 
 assume that the tradition, in its earliest form, con- 
 tained other narratives, such as illustrated the 
 beginnings of agricultural and pastoral pursuits, 
 and described the institution of sacrifice, and 
 explained the origin of blood-revenge. 
 
 Either the Prophetic narrator, or the compiler, 
 has selected the narrative; he has not attempted 
 to give a complete or a consecutive story. If, as 
 is very possible, the narrative was one that was 
 derived from the traditions of the polytheistic 
 ancestors of the Israelite race before the days of 
 Abraham, he had probably to purify it of all taint 
 of superstition. In the course of that process many 
 details may have been suppressed or modified. 
 
 If the earliest Hebrew traditions ever regarded 
 the offspring and descendants of the first man as 
 semi-divine heroes, it would only have been analo- 
 gous to what we find in the mythologies of other 
 races. But the existing Hebrew narrative is in this 
 respect very different. The earliest patriarchs of 
 the human race appear as simple men. They are 
 endowed with no Divine qualities. Between the 
 
V THE STORY OF CAIN AND ABEL 67 
 
 God of Israel and the founders of human society 
 the division, according to the Hebrew narrative, is 
 complete. This, of course, may have been the char- 
 acteristic of the Hebrew tradition from the first. 
 But it appears more reasonable to ascribe the 
 exceeding purity and simplicity of the narrative to 
 the Prophetic writer, who, writing in the spirit and 
 power of Jehovah, has moulded the traditions of his 
 race into perfect harmony with the religious truths 
 of which he was the inspired exponent, and admitted 
 nothing which compromised the fundamental doc- 
 trines of the Unity and the Love and the All- 
 sufficiency of Jehovah. 
 
 To this method of making extracts from the 
 existing tradition, we may attribute the abruptness 
 with which the narrative of Cain and Abel is 
 introduced at ver. 2 and dismissed at ver. 16. 
 Possibly to the necessity of abbreviating the story, 
 or to that of excluding some remnant of supersti- 
 tion, we may also ascribe the peculiarity of the 
 words in ver. 8, ''And Cain told Abel his 
 brother," which, more literally rendered, would 
 be, " And Cain said unto Abel his brother." 
 What Cain actually said, the Hebrew narrative 
 has not recorded. It is hardly likely that the 
 attempt of the Septuagint Version to supply the 
 gap with the somewhat vapid sentence, "Let us 
 go unto the field," ^ has preserved the original text. 
 
 ^ Ai^\dw/J.€P eis TO irebiov. 
 
68 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS v 
 
 For, assuming it to have been in the original text, 
 we can see no sufficient reason to account for its 
 disappearance from the Hebrew copies. On the 
 other liand, if the Hebrew text is correct, the 
 words of the Septuagint addition have all the 
 appearance of an explanatory gloss. 
 
 Whatever the words of Cain were in the original 
 narrative, they have been for ever lost. But the 
 reason of their disappearance is possibly to be 
 found in the practice of the compiler or narrator, 
 who, while extracting or condensing from the tradi- 
 tional narrative, would qualify, abbreviate, or omit, 
 that which did not seem suitable to, or was in actual 
 disagreement with, the revealed religion of Israel. 
 Some such explanation would account for the 
 abruptness of ver. 8. It resembles, as it were, a piece 
 of the rough edging which shows where a fragment 
 has been torn off. 
 
 Some such explanation, again, will account for 
 the other difficulties that the narrative presents — 
 for the most part, arising from the condensation 
 employed by the Israelite narrator. 
 
 Thus, we are not told the reason why Divine 
 preference was accorded to the sacrifice of Abel, 
 nor how that preference was made known. The 
 ancient views that an offering of animals was 
 preferred above an offering of fruits of the earth, 
 or that Abel had more correctly performed the 
 ritual of the offering, are mere guess-work ; and, 
 
V THE STORY OF CAIN AND ABEL 69 
 
 even if correct, only touch the outer framework of 
 the story. As the narrator has given us the story, 
 omitting the grounds of preference (which, in the 
 earliest tradition, may have been of the superficial 
 character indicated by the above suggestions, or of a 
 superstitious origin, due to the polytheism of the 
 primitive Hebrews), it is clear he himself wishes to 
 draw attention to the inner motives, and to the 
 moral characters, of the offerers, by which alone the 
 value of their respective offerings could be really 
 distinguished. In the true spirit of Israelite prophecy, 
 he may have wished to emphasise the teaching that 
 it was the spirit of the offerer, and not the mode of 
 the offering, which from the first determined the 
 acceptability of every sacrifice in the sight of God 
 {cf. Ps. 1. 8-15 ; Isa. i. 11-17 ; 1 Sam. xv. 22). This 
 thought quite escaped the Septuagint translators, who 
 seemed to suppose that the rebuke contained in ver. 
 7 turned upon Cain's neglect to prepare his offering 
 according to strict ceremonial requirements.-^ The 
 true insight into the matter is found in the words 
 of the Epistle to the Hebrews, "By faith Abel 
 offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than 
 Cain"(xi. 4).2 
 
 Again, the mode by which the Divine preference 
 for Abel's sacrifice was indicated is not recorded. 
 Early Jewish interpretation (e.g. Theodotion, iveirv- 
 
 ^ OvK iau dpOQs irpoceviyKris, dpdm bk fj.7] 8i^\rjs, TJ/xapres ; 
 2 See page 74. 
 
70 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS v 
 
 pia-ev), followed by Christian Fathers and Mediaeval 
 Jewish Commentators {e.g. Eashi), fancifully supplied 
 the omission by maintaining that fire from heaven 
 came down and devoured the offering of Abel. 
 This theory was based on the supposition that 
 the acceptability of sacrifice would be signified in 
 the same way as in Judges vi. 21, 1 Kings xviii. 38, 
 2 Chron. vii. 1. Here, too, very possibly, the form 
 of the original tradition possessed features which 
 were out of harmony with the simple story the 
 narrator has presQrved. 
 
 Possibly for some similar reason, he has not told 
 us what the sign was which God appointed for Cain. 
 The old difficulty which was connected with the 
 words, " The Lord set a mark upon Cain," disappears 
 in the rendering of the Eevised Version, "The 
 Lord appointed a sign for Cain" (ver. 15). A mark 
 set upon Cain would have distinguished him, so that 
 all who met him might know him. This would be 
 no pledge of security, no consolation to the guilty 
 man. But, when we read that the Lord appointed a 
 sign for Cain, so that, looking upon it, he might be 
 reminded of the Divine protection, the words of the 
 passage become easy to understand. The rainbow 
 (see Gen. ix. 13) was thus " set " for " a token " to 
 Noah and his descendants. What the token was 
 that Cain received, we are not told. In this parti- 
 cular, once more, the narrator has withheld informa- 
 tion, either for the purpose of condensing his narrative, 
 
V THE STORY OF CAIN AND ABEL 71 
 
 or for the purpose of suppressing some unsuitable 
 element in the more ancient tradition. 
 
 Whether, then, the narrative presupposes acquaint- 
 ance with facts which have not been, narrated, or 
 omits to give particulars of seemingly important 
 elements in the story, the conclusion which we draw 
 from the structure of the narrative is the same. 
 
 The peculiarities of the structure are due to the 
 purpose which the narrator had in view. That 
 purpose is not to reproduce in full the whole sub- 
 stance of the early Hebrew traditions respecting the 
 history of primaeval man. His purpose is rather to 
 select from them just such incidents as will most 
 simply and effectively illustrate the teaching of the 
 Israelite religion respecting the attributes of God and 
 the nature of man; such, too, as would exemplify 
 the steps by which primitive man declined from his 
 true calling " unto righteousness," and by which the 
 selection of the chosen family and nation came to be 
 ordained as the only means of the ultimate restora- 
 tion of the human race. 
 
 The narrator's purpose, both in selecting the story 
 and in condensing or in embellishing it, is a truly 
 prophetic one ; he makes known the " Torah," or 
 teaching, of the Lord, " being moved by the Holy 
 Ghost " (2 Pet. i. 21). 
 
 For this reason, the story is not to be regarded 
 as having been preserved to us, either in its original 
 fulness, or in exact continuity with that which pre- 
 
72 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS v 
 
 cedes and follows. Between the origin of the tradition 
 itself and the determining cause which led to its 
 selection by the " Prophetic " narrator, a very clear 
 line of distinction needs to be drawn. If the claim 
 be made that the actual origin of the story is to be 
 traced back to the recollection, in the people's con- 
 sciousness, of the unceasing collision between the agri- 
 cultural and the pastoral elements in prehistoric man, 
 and of the dominance asserted by the former, there is 
 doubtless something to be said in favour of the theory. 
 But it does not fall within my province here to in- 
 vestigate the merits of such a speculation. Neither 
 that, nor any archaeological clue, however interesting 
 to modern ethnological research, was present to the 
 mind of the Israelite narrator, to whom we owe the 
 preservation of the story .^ 
 
 What his purpose was in selecting it and assimi- 
 lating it to the requirements of his people's religion, 
 appears more or less clearly from the truths which 
 the narrator so clearly brings to light. So clearly, 
 indeed, do they stand out that they will naturally 
 have suggested themselves to the minds of most 
 readers. Perhaps, however, it may not be altogether 
 superfluous to summarise them here very briefly. 
 
 The religious teaching conveyed by the story of 
 Cain and Abel relates to the subjects of sin, man's 
 
 ^ No certain points of contact with the story of Cain and Abel 
 have yet been discovered in Babylonian literature. 
 
V THE STORY OF CAIN AND ABEL 73 
 
 fallen nature, and the attitude of the Almighty 
 towards the sinner. 
 
 1. As to sin, it teaclies that propensity to it is 
 transmitted from one generation to another. The 
 sin of Adam and Eve is followed by that of Cain. 
 The sin of disobedience to God is follow^ed by the 
 violation of human brotherhood. The first sign of 
 sin's prevalence in the family of Adam is the murder 
 of Cain. The rejection of God's love leads at once to 
 the renunciation of human affection. There was no 
 love to God, no willingness to listen to the Divine 
 voice, in Cain. The occasion of the sacrifice is the 
 temptation by which his character is put to the test. 
 Self-will, pride, jealousy, these are the steps by which 
 the thought of deliberate murder is reached. Cain 
 becomes the archetype of sin and the antithesis of 
 the character of Christ. " Whoso hateth his brother 
 is a murderer ; and ye know that no murderer hath 
 eternal life abiding in him. Hereby know we love, 
 because He laid down His life for us ; and we ought 
 to lay down our lives for the brethren " (1 John iii. 
 15, 16). Cain, according to the teaching of Israelite 
 theology, personified the action of sin in human 
 society. Hatred against fellowmen is the fruit of 
 rebellion against God. "For this is the message 
 which ye heard from the beginning, that we should 
 love one another : not as Cain was of the evil, and 
 slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? 
 Because his works were evil, and his brother's 
 
74 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS v 
 
 righteous" (1 John iii. 11, 12). Worship offers no 
 safeguard against temptation. An act of sacrifice 
 had no restraining influence over the murderous 
 intention. Thus, in this early page of Genesis, we 
 find an anticipation of the condemnation, pronounced 
 on those that sought to honour God with the lip 
 though the heart was far from him (c/. Isa. xxix. 13, 
 Mark vii. 6). 
 
 2. As regards human nature, the picture of Cain 
 and Abel portrayed how, from the first, opposition 
 has subsisted between good and evil, between faith 
 and self-will, between obedience and lawlessness. 
 The two brothers, brought up in the same family, 
 engaged in the same act of worship, became the types, 
 the one of sin, the other of righteousness. "By 
 faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacri- 
 fice than Cain, through which he had witness borne 
 to him that he w^as righteous, God bearing witness 
 in respect of his gifts " (Heb. xi. 4). The approach 
 to God, in the rite of sacrifice, was in Abel's case no 
 mere outward form, but the true expression of his 
 heart's desire to draw near to God. This was true 
 " righteousness " ; and it is thus that " the blood of 
 righteous Abel " (Matt, xxiii. 35) stands at the head 
 of the roll of martyrs, who paid with their lives 
 for the inward yearning of their hearts towards God. 
 
 It was thus that " righteous Abel " became a type 
 of the true Israel, of the prophets who witnessed for 
 Jehovah against their countrymen, and, in the highest 
 
V THE STORY OF CAIN AND ABEL 75 
 
 sense, of the suffering Servant/ who was himself a 
 sacrifice for sin. For, as the preference shown to 
 Abel's sacrifice evoked Cain's murderous resolve, so 
 the manifestation, of perfect purity and innocence 
 " convicted the world in respect of sin " (John xvi. 
 8). The death of Abel strikes a prophetic note of 
 warning. It proclaims the great opposition, of which 
 we find the climax in John i. 11, "He came unto 
 His own, and they that were His own received Him 
 not." And we turn instinctively to another message 
 of encouragement amid conflict, " If ye were of the 
 world, the world would love its own ; but because ye 
 are not of the world, but I chose you out of the 
 world, therefore the world hateth you " (c/. the whole 
 passage, John xv. 18-24). 
 
 Once more, the narrative teaches that God left 
 not Himself without witness, even with those who 
 had estranged themselves from Him. The words 
 spoken to Cain (vers. 6, 7) were the Divine witness, 
 reminding us of the spiritual office of conscience, to 
 the heart that had given itself up to the service of 
 sin. If Cain hears rebuke, he receives also both 
 exhortation and promise. But Cain is a free agent. 
 He is under no compulsion to obey God. He is at 
 liberty to hearken to or to reject the voice that comes 
 to him. His sin is the outcome of the abuse of his 
 free-will, that Divine gift, which he has received by 
 inheritance from the first parents. 
 
 1 Cf. Isaiah liii. 
 
76 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS v 
 
 Not least, the narrative teaches the interdepend- 
 ence of the human race, the obligations which we are 
 under, the one to the other. The lesson that we 
 are our " brothers' keepers " has been little learned. 
 And yet, how much has the thought of it been 
 drawn from the scene so simply and so vividly 
 represented, in which Cain, confronted with his 
 crime, and reminded of his duty of love to his 
 brother, endeavours to repudiate his responsibility ! 
 (ver. 9). 
 
 3. In respect of its teaching about God, the nar- 
 rative presents Him to us as long-suffering towards 
 the sinner, as well as compassionate towards the 
 innocent sufferer. He who arraigns Cain for the 
 crime had, before its commission, warned him of his 
 fault, and urged him to well-doing. ISTothing escapes 
 His eye, nothing is hid from His knowledge. It is 
 not for the faithlessly offered sacrifice, but for the 
 unseen passion of Cain's heart, that the Lord calls 
 him to reason. 
 
 The sin is no sooner committed than it comes 
 under judgment. The punishment is heavier than 
 it had been in the case of Adam and Eve. They 
 were driven from Eden, out of the Divine presence. 
 Cain is driven from the neighbourhood of Eden. The 
 earth shall refuse to give him continued sustenance ; 
 he shall roam from spot to spot ; he is to be for ever 
 homeless, unloved, a vagabond. But, though banished 
 from the sight, he is not shut out from the mercy, of 
 
V THE STORY OF CAIN AND ABEL 77 
 
 God. Tlie judgment is tempered with compassion. 
 Cain, though more terrified than penitent, receives 
 the assurance of protection from blood-revenge. The 
 favour of a token for good is granted to the first 
 murderer ; and symbolism is consecrated, in its earliest 
 use, to hold a pledge of Divine love before the sinner's 
 eyes. 
 
CHAPTEE YI 
 
 THE ANTEDILUVIAN PATEIARCHS 
 
 The Genealogy of the Cainites 
 (Chap. iv. 17-24) 
 
 In passing to the next section in the narrative, we 
 are conscious of a change in the general tone and 
 style. If the story of Cain and Abel (vers. 2-16) has 
 been taken from the same source as the story of 
 Paradise, it is possible that vers. 17-24 have been 
 derived from a separate stream of tradition, marked 
 by a more curt and archaic, a less fluent and poetic, 
 style. Its separate origin is shown by the general 
 difference of treatment ; and, in favour of its probably 
 greater antiquity, it should be observed that the con- 
 tents of Lamech's Song (ver. 24), being very possibly 
 alluded to by anticipation, have influenced the language 
 in ver. 15. Further evidence of its separate origin is 
 forthcoming from the picture given of Cain. No 
 restless fugitive or homeless nomad, he marries, he 
 settles down, and builds a city (ver. 17). No further 
 reference is made to the crime he has committed, 
 
VI THE GENEALOGY OF THE CAINITES 79 
 
 none to any sentence of dishonour that has been pro- 
 nounced upon him. He stands at the head of a list 
 of names ; he is followed by Enoch, Irad, Mehujael, 
 Methusael, and Lamech with his sons Jabal, Jubal, 
 and Tubal- Cain. The whole passage is clearly in- 
 tended to describe the beginnings of primitive eastern 
 civilisation. Cain and Enoch are the founders of 
 town communities (ver. 17) ; Lamech is the first 
 polygamist (ver. 19) ; Jabal (not Abel, ver. 2) is the 
 originator of pastoral life, Jubal of musical arts, 
 Tubal of working in metals (ver. 22). The civilisa- 
 tion thus alluded to is regarded as having continued 
 without interruption since the days of these patriarchs. 
 When it is said that " Jabal " was " the father of 
 such as dwell in tents and have cattle," there is 
 clearly no thought of a flood having destroyed all 
 the descendants of Jabal ; nor is such a catastrophe 
 supposed as having overtaken the descendants of 
 Jubal, " such as handle the harp and pipe " (ver. 21). 
 
 The structure and contents of these verses 
 (17-24) suggest that they are derived from an 
 early tradition in which the story of the Flood did 
 not appear. If so, they may probably be derived 
 from the same source as chap. vi. 1-4 and, possibly, 
 xi. 1-9. 
 
 This hypothesis will account for the difficulties, 
 unimportant in themselves, that arise on the surface 
 of the narrative. The Prophetic narrator selected 
 his material from different sources. He did not 
 
80 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS vi 
 
 concern himself with reconciling, in every i^ar- 
 ticular, divergences that presented themselves in 
 the different narratives. The genealogy which he 
 has here preserved is that of Gain. But it does not 
 appear from the contents of vers. 17-24, that, in the 
 tradition from which he has derived this section, 
 any evil taint was associated with the family of 
 Cain in consequence of Cain's crime. The popular 
 assumption that Cain's descendants were pre- 
 eminently wicked has no foundation in this chapter, 
 nor in chapter vi. 
 
 The object of the genealogy in chap. iv. is to 
 trace the origin of primitive institutions ; the object 
 of the genealogy in chap. v. is to trace the ancestors 
 of Noah. The resemblance in the names of the 
 two lists is remarkable ; and can hardly be accidental. 
 In chap. iv. we have Cain, Enoch, Irad, Mehujael, 
 Methusael, Lamech, and Lamech's three sons; in 
 chap. V. we have Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, 
 Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, and Noah's 
 three sons. The six Sethite names here italicised 
 are those which are similar in sound and form to 
 the names of the Cainite group. Eeckoning Adam 
 with these names, we have in the one case a list of 
 seven, in the other a list of ten, names ; in each case, 
 the last name splits up into three branches. 
 
 The numbers seven and ten were doubtless chosen 
 to render the lists easier of remembrance. Such 
 artificial aids to the recollection of genealogies were 
 
VI THE GENEALOGY OF THE CAINITES 81 
 
 commonly employed. Thus the number "ten" is 
 the number employed in the genealogies of Genesis 
 xi. and Euth iv. 10 ; the number " seven " is the unit 
 in the genealogy of Matthew i. 
 
 What the names of the antediluvian patriarchs 
 signified, we can hardly guess. The conjecture that 
 the Cainite genealogy gives the races of Western, 
 the Sethite genealogy those of Eastern Asia, has 
 nothing to recommend it. 
 
 The formation of some of the names is a puzzle 
 to scholars ; and philologists have even doubted 
 whether they are all of Semitic origin. 
 
 The similarity of the two lists makes it possible 
 that we have in them two divergent versions of 
 the same original prehistoric tradition. In such a 
 tradition, proper names, especially those of unusual 
 sound or foreign origin, were apt to be confused 
 and altered. 
 
 Perhaps we should not be far wrong in regarding 
 them as constituting a group of demigods or heroes, 
 whose names, in the earliest days of Hebrew 
 tradition, filled up the blank between the creation 
 of man and the age of the Israelite patriarchs. Such 
 a group would be in accordance with the analogy of 
 the primitive legends of other races. The removal 
 of every taint of polytheistic superstition, the pre- 
 sentation of these names as the names of ordinary 
 human beings, would be the work of the Israelite 
 narrator. 
 
82 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS vi 
 
 The compiler of Genesis, finding the two versions 
 of the Patriarchal list, the one in the Prophetic, the 
 other in the Priestly narrative, assigned to the 
 Cainites the sources of secular supremacy, to the 
 Sethites the direct ancestry of the chosen race. He 
 explains his treatment of the two genealogies by the 
 verses, iv. 25, 26, which form the transition from 
 the Prophetic to the Priestly writing. 
 
 As has often been pointed out, the different 
 materials out of which the narratives have been con- 
 structed are nowhere more plainly to be recognised 
 than here. The same writer, who records the birth 
 of Seth and Enosh in chap. v. 3-8, is not likely 
 to have recorded them in the section immediately 
 preceding (iv. 25, 26). Again, whereas in iv. 26 
 we are told that "then began men to call upon 
 the name of the Lord," we are surely not reading 
 words from the same hand that describes the 
 ceremonial act of worship performed by Cain and 
 Abel (iv. 3, 4). 
 
 By thus distinguishing the different strata of 
 Israelite tradition, represented in vers. 1-16, 17-24, 
 25-26, we shall be in a position to realise the 
 method by which the narratives were actually com- 
 piled. The fact that the narratives are neither 
 complete nor continuous, but fragmentary and dis- 
 jointed, receives from criticism an intelligible expla- 
 nation. But criticism does not only explain the 
 details of the structure; it throws light upon the 
 
VI THE GENEALOGY OF THE SETHITES 83 
 
 work as a whole, in the shape in which it has 
 come down to ns. It enables us to perceive that 
 the object of the narrator was not to give the most 
 full narrative, but that which best served his purpose 
 of conveying to his countrymen spiritual instruction. 
 Through him there descends upon the Hebrew tradi- 
 tions respecting prehistoric ages the same illumi- 
 nation which the Spirit of Jehovah, by other hands, 
 shed upon the more recent history of the chosen 
 people. 
 
 The Genealogy of the Sethites. 
 
 The Genealogy of the Sethites is contained in 
 chapter v. The reader will observe at a glance 
 how widely this genealogy differs from that of the 
 Cainites (iv. 16-24), both in the general treatment 
 and in the style and language. The compiler of 
 the book here returns to the Priestly narrative, the 
 same literary source from which he drew the open- 
 ing section of the Book of Genesis (i. 1-ii. 4"). 
 
 We notice the same orderly grouping of the 
 subject-matter that we remarked upon in that 
 section. We find a return to the use of the Divine 
 Name "Elohim." We find that in vers. 1-3 the 
 language is based upon chap. i. 27. We find the 
 Hebrew words for "generations" (ver. 1), "male 
 and female" (ver. 2), "beget" (ver. 3), which are 
 
84 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS vi 
 
 characteristic of this source of the narrative in other 
 portions of Genesis. Elsewhere in the Pentateuch 
 it is the same hand that introduces bare and formal 
 lists in the intervals of the history {e.g. xi. 10-26, 
 xxxvi., xlvi. 8-27). Thus, the change in the style 
 and treatment, which a thoughtful reader is at first 
 inclined to consider strange and abrupt, receives a 
 natural explanation in the compilatory structure 
 of the Book of Genesis. 
 
 The only extract from another source to be 
 found in this chapter is, in all probability, ver. 29. 
 In that verse we observe not only the change in 
 the use of the Divine Name, but also a departure 
 from the formal character of the genealogy, and a 
 popular explanation of the name of Noah. Popular, 
 we may call it, for the name is not derived from 
 nakhem, "to comfort," but from nuahli, "to rest." 
 We should, therefore, probably be right in regarding 
 this verse as an insertion by the compiler himself. 
 At any rate, as it stands, it does not wear the look 
 of being homogeneous with the remainder of the 
 chapter. 
 
 The genealogy itself could hardly be simpler. 
 Beside the names of the Patriarchs we are told 
 nothing but their ages, both at the time of the birth 
 of their first-born and at the time of their death, 
 and the fact that each of the Patriarchs begat sons 
 and daughters. Of the Patriarch Enoch alone is 
 any further description given. There is no account 
 
VI THE GENEALOGY OF THE SETHITES 85 
 
 of the rise of arts, or of the progress of civilisation, 
 or even of the state of morality, among the Sethites. 
 The bare category, which records the succession, 
 by the line of the eldest sons, in the family of 
 Seth, implies the spread of a large population 
 over the face of the earth. The faint outline 
 which we thus obtain serves to bridge the interval 
 of 1656 years, which, according to the Hebrew 
 tradition, occurred between the Creation and the 
 riood.i 
 
 The chief difficulty arising from this chapter is 
 presented by the immense prolongation of life. 
 The explanations w^hich have generally been put 
 forward, in order to account for the length of life 
 of the antediluvian Patriarchs, have not, it must be 
 confessed, been very satisfactory. Most commonly 
 it has been assumed that, in the generations of 
 primaeval man, the powers of human nature were 
 fresher and stronger ; that they had not yet been 
 sapped by lust and self-indulgence ; that health was 
 better, and life therefore longer. But I cannot think 
 that such an assumption will be seriously main- 
 tained in the present day. (a) I am not aw^are that 
 physiologists have been able to show that man's 
 physical vitality, in the infancy of the race, was 
 greater than it has been in later times. (&) The 
 analogy of savage tribes, in a stage of primitive 
 
 1 In the Septuagint Version the same period appears as 2242 
 ears, in the Samaritan as 1307. 
 
86 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS vi 
 
 barbarism, does not favour tlie theory of prolonged 
 life in pre-civilised times, (c) There is nothing in 
 the earliest Assyrian or Egyptian inscriptions, from 
 which we should infer that in pre-Abrahamic 
 centuries a longer duration of life was enjoyed. 
 {d) The literal acceptance of this extended span of 
 life confronts us with fresh difficulties in connexion 
 with the age of the Patriarchs at the time when their 
 eldest children were born to them. I^one had 
 children earlier than Mahalalel and Enoch ; and 
 they were already 65 years of age. Noah was 500 
 years old when Shem was born, (e) Assuming that 
 the great event of the Deluge took place in the 
 confines of an historic period (as is implied by the 
 references to it in other literature, as well as by 
 the Genesis narrative), the figures in chap. v. fail 
 altogether to satisfy the interval of time which the 
 researches of Natural Science require us to inter- 
 pose, between the first appearance of man and 
 even the earliest records of Assyrian and Egyptian 
 history, which carry us back at least as far as 
 4000 B.C. 
 
 In order to escape these and similar difficulties, 
 it has been suggested that the names of the ten 
 Patriarchs represent different races or tribes, and 
 that the years recorded in this chapter denote the 
 period of the dynasties which ruled over them. 
 The tendency to represent ethnology and geography 
 by genealogy is exemplified, as we shall see, in 
 
VI THE GENEALOGY OF THE SETHITES 87 
 
 chap. X. ; but, in the present chapter, the allusion to 
 the first-born, and the exceptional mention of Enoch, 
 are rightly deemed fatal to this suggestion. 
 
 Still less probable, and surely less ingenuous, are 
 the explanations which assume that an antediluvian 
 year was of shorter duration than the ordinary 
 year ; or that it consisted of three months until 
 Abraham's time, of eight months until Joseph's 
 death, and of twelve months since his day. By such 
 explanations the interval between the Creation and 
 the Epoch of the Flood is rendered even shorter, and 
 therefore proportionately less credible. 
 
 It seems more candid and natural to admit, that 
 Israelite tradition, like the traditions of other races, 
 in dealing with personages living in prehistoric 
 times, assigned to them an abnormally protracted 
 period of life. Hebrew literature does not, in this 
 respect, differ from other literature. It preserves 
 the prehistoric traditions. The study of science 
 precludes the possibility of such figures being 
 literally correct. The comparative study of litera- 
 ture leads us to expect exaggerated statements in 
 any work incorporating the primitive traditions of 
 a people. 
 
 The genealogy of the patriarchs supplies the 
 literary transition from the Creation to the epoch 
 of the Deluge. It is necessary to the structure of 
 the narrative; and it thus subserves the higher 
 purpose fulfilled by the description of the events 
 
88 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS vi 
 
 that have preceded and of the events that are about 
 to follow — events of such transcendent importance 
 in the spiritual teaching, which they conveyed and 
 interpreted, as in a picture, to Israel. 
 
 It has been before pointed out that the selection 
 of material for the composition of Genesis has 
 preserved to us fragments of early traditions, to 
 which very obvious parallels can be drawn from 
 other literature. Josephus, who seeks to justify the 
 length of life recorded in this chapter, takes care 
 to state that "Hesiod, Hecateeus, Hellanicus, and 
 Acusilaus, and beside them Ephorus and Nicolaus 
 relate that the ancients lived a thousand years " 
 (Jos. Ant i. 3, 9). 
 
 The unhistorical character of this genealogy 
 should be as freely admitted as that of the legends 
 alluded to in the authorities cited by Josephus. 
 We should be prepared to allow the presence of 
 the same type of exaggeration in the Hebrew 
 traditions as in those of other races. We cannot 
 plead any exception in favour of the statements made 
 here respecting the inordinate length of life assigned 
 to the antediluvian Patriarchs. And it is worth 
 while observing that, just as the Israelite and the 
 Greek narratives pass from the stage of prehistoric 
 tradition to that of national memoirs, so the span 
 of life is reduced from that of fabulous length to 
 that of normal duration. The antediluvian Patri- 
 archs are credited with lives from 700 to 969 years ; 
 
VI THE GENEALOGY OF THE SETHITES 89 
 
 the postdiluvians lived from 200 to 600 years (xi. 
 10-32) ; the Israelite Patriarchs lived from 100 to 
 200 years ; in the days of the Israelite monarchy 
 the length of life (Ps. xc. 10) did not differ from 
 that which we now enjoy. 
 
 We cannot here enter into the question as to the 
 meaning of the names of the Sethite Patriarchs, or 
 as to their connexion with the Cainite Patriarchs. 
 But it is interesting to notice that the numbers of 
 the years mentioned in this chapter appear some- 
 what differently in the Samaritan and Septuagint 
 versions. According to the Samaritan version, 
 only 1307 years elapsed between the Creation of 
 Man and the Flood; according to the Septuagint 
 version, 2242 years. According to the Samaritan 
 version, Jared was 62, not 162, when Enoch was 
 born ; Methuselah 67, not 187, when Lamech 
 was born; Lamech 53, not 182, when Noah was 
 born. According to the Septuagint version, Enoch 
 was 190, not 90, when Kenan was born ; Kenan 
 170, not 70, when Mahalalel was born; Mahalalel 
 165, not 65, when Jared was born ; Enoch 165, 
 not 65, when Methuselah was born. 
 
 According to the Samaritan numeration, Jared, 
 Methuselah, and Lamech died in the year of the 
 Flood. According to the Septuagint numeration, 
 Methuselah outlived the flood by fourteen years. 
 
 Although, as has already been pointed out, the 
 genealogy gives us no account of the social or 
 
90 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS vi 
 
 moral condition of the Setliite Patriarchs, we are 
 left to infer from the narrative of the Flood, and 
 from the incidental mention of Enoch, that the 
 human race became rapidly sunk in iniquity. The 
 interest of readers of this chapter is naturally 
 centred upon Enoch. His removal from earth is 
 obviously not to be explained, as some have 
 suggested, upon the theory of an early death. In 
 Israelite literature, premature death was never 
 regarded as a mark of Divine favour ; and, if 
 Enoch had thus died in early life, we should have 
 expected the use of the same phrase, "And he 
 died," which occurs in the mention of the other 
 Patriarchs. The ordinary interpretation of the 
 words, " He was not ; for God took him," is cer- 
 tainly the correct one. " By faith," says the writer 
 of the Epistle to the Hebrews, "Enoch was trans- 
 lated that he should not see death ; and he was not 
 found, because God translated him " (Heb. xi. 5, c/. 
 Eccles. xliv. 16, xlix. 14). 
 
 In this mention of Enoch, we gain an assurance 
 that, in the early traditions of Israel, a belief was 
 current in the possibility of some other issue of 
 life than mere physical dissolution. Such a belief 
 was entertained in other Semitic races. The 
 "apotheosis" of Hasisadra (Xisuthros), the Noah 
 of the Babylonian inscriptions, has some points of 
 correspondence with the translation of Enoch. 
 
 The Israelite narrative, in spite of its brevity. 
 
VI THE GENEALOGY OF THE SETHITES 91 
 
 leaves us in no doubt as to the cause of the 
 especial mark of Divine favour towards Enoch. 
 Not for his greatness, nor for his heroic deeds, nor 
 for his beauty, for which causes the privilege of 
 "apotheosis" was granted in the tales of Greek 
 and other mythologies, but for the simple reason 
 that '' he walked with God," was he " taken." The 
 Patriarch's walk with God passed for a proverb in 
 the religious literature of Israel. 
 
 Only in the case of Enoch and Elijah is " trans- 
 lation" mentioned in Scripture. The walk with 
 God, unto the end, even unto death, is the beaten 
 path of His saints on earth. " To be with Christ " 
 seemed to St. Paul to be far better; but even he 
 was reserved to crown his witness by a martyr's death. 
 
 "The sons of God and the daughters of 
 men" (vi. 1-8). — The narrative of the Deluge is 
 prefaced by a short description of the corruption 
 of the inhabitants of the world. This passage is 
 as remarkable for its general style as for its contents. 
 It is unmistakably extracted from some very ancient 
 source ; and, on that account, has probably been 
 here inserted by the compiler of the book. It gives, 
 in greater detail, the same indictment of wickedness, 
 which is repeated in vers. 11, 12 ; but it is not without 
 difficulty, on account of its startling reference to the 
 marriages of " the sons of God " with the " daughters 
 of men " (vers. 1-4). 
 
92 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS vi 
 
 Many have stumbled at the language here used. 
 Occurring in the midst of a plain, straightforward 
 narrative, no ground is offered for any but a simple 
 and literal interpretation. 
 
 In favour of the explanation, which is sometimes 
 put forward, that the verses only allude to the 
 disastrous results of the intermarriage between the 
 descendants of Seth and the descendants of Cain, 
 nothing can be said to make it at all probable. It 
 is incredible that the two families should suddenly 
 be designated by the writer with these marked titles, 
 without a word of explanation to guide the reader 
 towards their right distinction. Again, we have no 
 reason to suppose that the descendants of Seth were 
 at all distinguished by their piety. Enoch " walked 
 with God," and Noah "was a righteous man"; but, 
 from the very language used in reference to these 
 two Patriarchs, we might rather infer that they were 
 virtuous exceptions. Why, then, should the Sethites 
 be called " the sons of God " ? 
 
 In the context of tliis particular section there is 
 no mention of Sethites and Cainites ; and it is the 
 purest assumption to suppose that any contrast 
 between the members of the two genealogies is 
 here intended, when no hint or clue is given to the 
 reader to assist towards their right identification. 
 
 Equally improbable is the Jewish explanation, 
 which identified " the sons of God " with the nobles 
 and men of the upper classes, and " the daughters of 
 
VI THE GENEALOGY OF THE SETHITES 93 
 
 men " with women of inferior rank and station. It 
 is based on the use of " the sons of men " (adam), 
 and the " sons of noble men " (ish), rightly rendered 
 in the Eevised Version, "Both low and high" (Ps. 
 xlix. 2) ; and it is illustrated by " Sons of the Most 
 High. Nevertheless ye shall die like men (adam) " 
 (Ps. Ixxxvii. 6, 7). But obviously such poetical usage 
 is no safe key to the understanding of simple prose ; 
 and even if it were, while explaining " the daughters 
 of men " (B'noth adam), it fails to give us a suitable 
 parallel for the use of " the sons of God " in the sense 
 of " the nobles." For, beyond all dispute, the 
 occasional usage of such a phrase for the children 
 of Israel, as the adopted family of God, affords no 
 support to its technical application here, in the sense 
 of " the upper classes." 
 
 We must, surely, adopt the simplest and most 
 literal rendering. This is obtained from the usage of 
 the expression '' the sons of God " in other passages 
 (Job i. 6, ii. 1, xxxviii. 7 ; Ps. xxix. 1, Ixxxix. 6 ; 
 Dan. iii. 25) where "angels" are clearly intended. 
 Accepting that explanation for "the sons of God," 
 we follow the analogy of the Hebrew passages where 
 the same words occur, and we obtain the simplest 
 and most natural antithesis to "the daughters of men." 
 
 What interpretation, then, does this solution 
 afford us ? Are we to suppose that angelic beings 
 actually contracted marriage with terrestrial ? That 
 is the opinion of some. 
 
94 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS vi 
 
 It is preferable to regard the whole passage, 
 which, as has been said, is undoubtedly an extract 
 from some very ancient source, as a relic of an early 
 Hebrew legend. In this legend, the marriages of the 
 angels with the daughters of men were considered to 
 account for the generation of giants, and to explain 
 their daring and insolent confidence, as well as their 
 exceeding sinfulness. 
 
 The suggestion has been made that the early 
 legend, from which the contents of these verses were 
 borrowed, had no previous story of the Fall, and, 
 accordingly, that the present narrative, in its full 
 original form, may have been intended to account 
 for the origin of evil, which was deemed to have 
 arisen from the confusion of the angelic and the 
 human races. In any case, it was not unnatural 
 that later tradition derived from these verses the 
 idea of the fall of the angels from their first estate. 
 
 We may observe that the passage opens abruptly, 
 without any direct connexion with what has gone 
 before, and that it is clearly marked off from what 
 follows. The mention of the " Nephilim " ^ contains 
 a reference to a race not elsewhere so designated. 
 But, presumably, the name had previously been 
 mentioned in the narrative from which the section 
 was derived. Otherwise it is difficult to account for 
 its occurrence here without any word of explanation. 
 
 While, of course, it is impossible to speak with 
 
 1 Ver. 4. See R.V. marg. 
 
VI THE GENEALOGY OF THE SETHITES 95 
 
 any degree of certainty, there is some probability in 
 the view, that vers. 1-3 epitomise a parallel, or alter- 
 native, version of the Fall. The temptation here 
 comes from beings of a higher race ; the entrance of 
 sin and death is ascribed to the abandonment by 
 " the daughters of men " of the position which God 
 had allotted to them. Here, as in chap, iii., the 
 woman as the weaker vessel yields to the temptation, 
 and is the cause of sin and death prevailing among 
 mankind. 
 
 The purpose of the insertion of the passage is 
 obvious. It is to illustrate, from the earliest tradi- 
 tions, the current belief as to the enormity of the 
 wickedness that prevailed in the prehistoric centuries. 
 It is, indeed, coloured by primitive mythology : nor 
 is this any loss. We are enabled thereby to see the 
 method of the compiler. For while, as a rule, in 
 the early chapters of Genesis, the more distinctly 
 mythological elements are removed from the narra- 
 tives by the scrupulous care of the Israelite writers, 
 traces of their original shape and colouring are 
 occasionally to be seen. But, perhaps, nowhere else 
 does this appear so distinctly as in this short section. 
 
CHAPTEE VII 
 
 THE STORY OF THE FLOOD 
 (vi. 9-ix. 17). 
 
 This narrative naturally excites more interest than 
 any other of the early narratives in Genesis. The 
 vividness of the description, the wonderful character 
 of the overthrow, the touches of detail in the story, 
 the similarity to other accounts of a cosmical Deluge 
 preserved in the records of other nations, combine to 
 attract to it universal attention. 
 
 On this account, probably, more has been said 
 upon these chapters than upon any . other section 
 of the same length in the whole of Genesis. There 
 is, therefore, the less need here to enter with 
 minuteness into the account of the Flood. In the 
 present chapter it will only be necessary to touch 
 upon (1) the structure of the Biblical narrative, 
 (2) the parallel to it presented in Assyro-Babylonian 
 literature, (3) the historic character of the story ; 
 and then to supplement this treatment with a brief 
 notice of the place occupied by the Flood in the 
 religious teaching of Israel. 
 
 
VII . THE STORY OF THE FLOOD 97 
 
 1. It is a fact now generally known, and universally 
 recognised by all scholars, that the account of the 
 Flood, preserved in the Book of Genesis, results 
 from the combination of two slightly differing versions 
 of the same story. The greater portion of the narra- 
 tive has come down to us in the form in which it 
 was preserved in the Priestly narrative. But large 
 extracts from the Prophetic narrative, by the hand 
 of the Jehovist, have also been retained, and their 
 presence can be unmistakably recognised. 
 
 The two accounts are interwoven ; but the 
 distinctive features, both of their style and of their 
 characteristic treatment, have enabled scholars to 
 assign, with some confidence, the greater portion of 
 the section, in its present literary state, to the one 
 or the other document. 
 
 To the Priestly narrative are generally assigned 
 chaps, vi. 9-22 ; vii. 6, 11, 13-16^ 18-21, 24; viii. 1, 
 2^ 3^^-5, 13^ 14-19 ; ix. 1-17. 
 
 Characteristic of its style is the use of the Divine 
 title " Elohim," and of the Hebrew phrases for " after 
 their kind," vi. 20, c/. i. 25; "male and female," vi. 
 19, cf. i. 27; "these are the generations," vi. 9, 
 cf. X. 1 ; "in the selfsame day," vii. 13, cf. xvii. 23, 
 26; "establish . . . covenant," vi. 18, cf. ix. 9, 
 11, 17; "increase and multiply," viii. 17, cf. ix. 1, 7, 
 etc. 
 
 It is in this narrative that we find the precise 
 mention of Noah's age (vii. 5, 11), the exact dimen- 
 
 H 
 
98 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS vii 
 
 sions of the ark (vi. 15, 16), the depth of the Flood 
 (vii. 20), and the covenant with Noah (ix.). 
 
 To the Prophetic narrative is assigned the greater 
 part of vii. 1-5, 7-9, 10, 12, 16^ 17, 22, 23 ; viii. 2^ 3^ 
 6-12, 13^ 20-22. 
 
 Characteristic of its style is the use of the Divine 
 name Jehovah (Jahveh), the use of the phrase " the 
 male and his female " in vii. 2 (literally " the man 
 and his wife " ), quite different from that used in 
 vi, 19, the term "house" applied to the family of 
 Noah in vii. 1, the incident of the raven and the 
 dove, and the most marked anthropomorphisms 
 which occur throughout the story. 
 
 How completely separate the two accounts are 
 will appear to the simplest reader in chapter vii., 
 where we have two successive mentions of Noah 
 entering the ark with his family and the animals, 
 i,e. 7-9, and 13-16. The two documents containing 
 the narrative undoubtedly were in general agreement. 
 But they differed in certain points of detail, which 
 the compiler, faithfully extracting from his authorities, 
 made no attempt at reconciling completely. They 
 are points, however, which have probably caught the 
 attention of many a student, and have seemed hard 
 to understand. It is a matter for real gratitude on 
 the part of Christian readers that criticism has been 
 able so satisfactorily to dispose of many of the little 
 knots that made the thread of our narrative, in some 
 places, difficult to unravel. 
 
VII THE STORY OF THE FLOOD 99 
 
 These points of unimportant divergence fall into 
 three principal groups — (1) the number of the 
 animals preserved, (2) the character and origin of 
 the Flood, (3) its duration. 
 
 (1) As to the animals preserved in the ark, we 
 find an interesting variation. The Prophetic, or 
 Jehovist account, specifies seven of each of the 
 clean, and two of each of the unclean animals (vii. 2). 
 The thought underlying this distinction was that 
 more of the clean animals would be brought into 
 the ark than of the unclean, because Noah and his 
 family might only obtain their food from the former. 
 The distinction is interesting, if only because the 
 division of animals into clean and unclean seems 
 to have been very general among the Semitic races 
 in Western Asia ; and the Prophetic narrative may 
 reflect the primitive tradition that survived from the 
 prehistoric ancestors of Israel. 
 
 According to the Priestly account, on the other 
 hand, the animals went in two by two. The lives 
 of ISToah and his family were not perhaps regarded 
 as being sustained by animal food (ix. 3). For their 
 sustenance special provision was to be made (vi. 21). 
 The pairs of animals were admitted into the ark 
 with the purpose of preserving their species upon 
 the earth. The writer did not recognise the division 
 into "clean" and "unclean" at that early period. 
 The " Priestly " view of the Israelite history regarded 
 such ceremonial distinction as having proceeded first 
 
100 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS vii 
 
 from the Sinaitic legislation. Modern inquiry into 
 Semitic institutions has shown that the Israelites 
 shared with neighbouring races particular rules as 
 to what was permitted to be eaten and what was not. 
 The Priestly narrator, in all probability, records the 
 version of the tradition which had become current 
 among the priests of Israel, one which was most 
 in harmony with the strict ceremonialism that re- 
 garded all religious rules as dating from the period 
 of the wanderings in the Sinaitic wilderness. 
 
 Similarly, the Prophetic narrative contains, while 
 the Priestly omits, the account of Noah's altar and 
 sacrifice in viii. 20-22. To the Priestly narrator it 
 would appear incredible that altars should be built 
 or sacrifices offered before the institution of the 
 Levitical worship and ceremonial. Accordingly in 
 Chapter ix., to quote Canon Driver's words, " Noah 
 receives permission to slaughter animals for food 
 without any reference to sacrifice, notwithstanding 
 the intimate connexion subsisting in early times 
 between slaughtering and sacrifice.*' ^ 
 
 (2) The Flood is attributed in the two accounts 
 to different physical causes. In the Prophetic 
 narrative the Flood arises from the continuous 
 downfall of rain (vii. 12, viii. 2^). In the Priestly 
 narrative we find it is brought about as much by 
 the breaking up of " the fountains of the earth " 
 as by the opening of the windows of heaven (vii. 
 
 ^ Introduction to 0. T. Literature, p. 134. 
 
 I 
 
VII THE STORY OF THE FLOOD 101 
 
 11, viii. 2^^). Some great terrestrial commotion is 
 thus implied. 
 
 (3) The most serious discrepancy of all relates 
 to the duration of the Flood. In the Prophetic 
 narrative, the whole period, occupied by the warning 
 before the Flood, its prevalence, and its subsidence, 
 comprised but sixty-eight days. There were seven 
 days of warning before the rain fell (vii. 10) ; there 
 were forty days and nights during which the tremen- 
 dous rain was incessant (vii. 12, viii. 6) ; there were 
 three periods of seven days each, which marked the 
 gradual absorption and final subsidence of the water 
 (viii. 6-8, 10-12). 
 
 In the Priestly narrative, on the other hand, the 
 duration of the whole Flood catastrophe exceeded 
 a year. It began on the seventeenth day of the 
 second month, and it was not until the twenty- 
 seventh day of the second month in the following 
 year that the waters had abated from the earth. 
 While we are not told exactly how long a year 
 was, there is no reason to doubt that the writer 
 regarded it as of equal duration with a year in 
 the Israelite calendar. And this natural supposi- 
 tion is confirmed by the statement that for 150 
 days the waters of the Flood continued to rise and 
 increase (vii. 24, viii. 3). 
 
 The difference between the two narratives be- 
 tokens a distinct literary origin ; and, as has been 
 mentioned above, evidence to the same effect is 
 
102 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS vii 
 
 forthcoming from the language in the corresponding 
 portions. 
 
 2. It has been claimed that the tradition of the 
 Deluge is to be met with, in one form or another, 
 in every quarter of the globe. Certainly in Greek, 
 Assyrian, Persian, Indian, and Scandinavian legends 
 we find mention of a Deluge. More than that, if 
 the sources of our information are correct, traditions 
 of a similar event are forthcoming from the primitive 
 religions of Mexico, of South America, and even of 
 Southern Africa. In some of these cases the alleged 
 points of correspondence with the Scriptural account 
 require to be submitted to a more rigorously scientific 
 test than has hitherto been possible. But, even mak- 
 ing allowance for a certain amount of hasty general- 
 isation, we may regard it as an established fact that 
 Deluge traditions are extremely widely diffused, 
 and that, in the comparative study of early religions, 
 their discussion will supply a most interesting and 
 important chapter, in which their relation to the nar- 
 rative in Genesis will have to be duly considered. 
 
 But with that more general inquiry we are not 
 here concerned. That which demands our atten- 
 tion is the Assyro-Babylonian account of the Flood, 
 which in many of its features so closely resembles 
 that of the Bible, 
 
 What was known as the " Chaldee " version of 
 the Flood narrative was preserved, though doubtless 
 in a somewhat fragmentary and imperfect form, by 
 
 I 
 
VII THE STORY OF THE FLOOD 103 
 
 extracts from the history of Berosus extant in the 
 writings of Eiisebius and Syncellus. According to 
 this account, Xisuthros, the " Chaldean " Noah, was 
 warned by Chronos, in a dream, of an approaching 
 Deluge that should destroy all living things ; and he 
 was commanded to do two things. In the first place, 
 he was to record in writing a history of the world, 
 and to deposit it at a place called Sipara, which was 
 sacred to the sun. In the second place, he was to 
 construct a ship, 15 stadia long and 2 broad, into 
 which he was to convey his family and his friends ; 
 he was then to replenish it with provisions, and to 
 collect into it every kind of beast and bird. This 
 was done ; and the Flood came. When it ceased, 
 Xisuthros sent out birds three times to discover 
 whether the water had abated. On the first occasion 
 they returned, having found neither food nor rest 
 for the sole of their foot ; on the second occasion 
 they returned, but there was wet mud upon their 
 feet ; on the last occasion they came not back again. 
 Xisuthros then removed part of the roof, and came 
 forth with his family and the pilot, and offered a 
 sacrifice to the gods. They were at once taken up 
 into heaven. But the voice of Xisuthros was heard 
 informing those who remained in the ship of the 
 happy lot which he had received, and commanding 
 them to leave Armenia, where the ship had landed, 
 and to return to Babylon, and to recover the hidden 
 records of Sipara. 
 
104 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS vn 
 
 Until the year 1872 it was very commonly 
 supposed that the interesting Chaldean account, 
 of which the foregoing gives the rough outline, 
 had come down to us through channels into which 
 had been imported from Jewish sources many charac- 
 teristic features of the Biblical narrative. But this 
 opinion was destined to be falsified by the transla- 
 tion of the cuneiform inscriptions. On the 3rd of 
 December 1872, Mr. George Smith announced his 
 discovery of the brick tablet which contained the 
 Assyro- Babylonian account of the Deluge. This 
 tablet was the eleventh in a series of twelve, which 
 contained the so - called Izdubar legends ; and, 
 according to Sir H. Eawlinson's conjecture, the 
 tablets corresponded to the months in the year, 
 so that the eleventh tablet, containing the legend 
 of the Flood, belonged to the eleventh month, 
 whose patron - deity was the storm god Eamman. 
 The form which this version of the legend takes 
 is that of a narrative spoken by Hasisadra (or 
 Xisuthros) to Izdubar. 
 
 The Flood is described as having been brought 
 about by the gods Anu, Bel, Adar, and En-nugi. 
 The god Ea instructed Hasisadra to prepare a 
 ship in spite of the ridicule he would incur by its 
 construction, and gave directions as to its size. 
 
 Hasisadra built a great ship like a dwelling- 
 house, and covered it with bitumen within and 
 without. He put within it all his treasures of 
 
VII THE STORY OF THE FLOOD 105 
 
 silver and gold and corn, and caused his slaves 
 and concubines, his cattle and beasts of the field, 
 to enter. The command came to enter into the 
 ship and close the door. Hasisadra entered, 
 closed the door, and handed over the care of 
 the " palace " and all its goods to the pilot, Buzur- 
 sadi-rabi. The Flood commenced: "The spirits 
 of earth carried the flood; in their terribleness 
 they sweep through the land ; the deluge of Eim- 
 mon reaches unto heaven," etc. " In heaven the 
 gods feared the flood, and sought a refuge; they 
 ascended to the heaven of Anu. The gods, like a 
 dog in his kennel, crouched down in a heap. 
 Istar cries like a mother." Tor six days the wind, 
 flood, and storm continued ; on the seventh, they 
 abated. Destruction was to be seen everywhere; 
 "like reeds the corpses floated." "I opened the 
 window," says Hasisadra, "and the light smote 
 upon my face ; I stooped and sat down ; I weep ; 
 over my face flow my tears." The ship grounded 
 on Mount Nizir. On the seventh day afterwards, 
 Hasisadra "sent forth a dove, and it left. The 
 dove went and returned, and found no resting- 
 place, and it came back." Again, he sent a swallow 
 forth, and it went ; but after going to and fro, it too 
 returned. Then he sent a raven, and the raven 
 " went and saw the carrion on the water, and it ate, 
 it swam, it wandered away, it did not return." Then 
 Hasisadra describes how he let forth the animals from 
 
 UFI7ERSIT 
 
106 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS vii 
 
 the ship ; how he built an altar and offered sacrifice ; 
 and how the gods smelt the savour, and " gathered 
 like flies over the sacrifices. Thereupon the great 
 goddess, at her approach, lighted up the rainbow, 
 which Anu had created according to his glory." 
 
 The god Bel was wroth at Hasisadra's escape, 
 but was propitiated by Ea, who reasoned with him, 
 saying, among other things, "Let the doer of sin 
 bear his sin, and the doer of wickedness his 
 wickedness. Let not the first prince be cut off, nor 
 the faithful be destroyed. Instead of a flood, 
 let lions increase, that men may be minished, or 
 let a famine break out, or a plague." Then Bel 
 hearkened, and gave his hand to Hasisadra and 
 his wife, and joined himself to them in a covenant, 
 and blessed them, and, raising them to be as gods, 
 caused them to dwell afar off at the mouth of the 
 rivers.^ 
 
 The tablet containing this account belonged to 
 the library of Assurbanipal (668-626), but fragments 
 of other editions of the poem have been found, not 
 only among the ruins of Nineveh, but also in Baby- 
 lonia.^ Accordingly, even if this particular tablet 
 dated only from the seventh century B.C., there is no 
 reason to doubt that the legend which it records is 
 substantially the common form of the legend about 
 
 ^ See especially Schrader's CuncifoTTn Inscriptions and the 
 Old Testatnent, vol. i. (Williams & Norgate), trauslated by 
 Whitehouse. 
 
 2 See Sayee's Fresh Lights from the Ancient Monuments, p. 33. 
 
 ^* 
 
VII THE STORY OF THE FLOOD 107 
 
 the Flood that had been current in Assyria and 
 Babylonia for centuries. 
 
 It has been observed that, if we compare it with 
 the two Deluge narratives of which the Biblical 
 narrative is compounded, it shows a marked re- 
 semblance to the " Priestly " narrative, in its accouut 
 of the preparation and construction of the Ark, and 
 in its mention of the rainbow and the covenant; 
 but to the "Prophetic" or "Jehovistic" narrative, 
 in its mention of the seven days, in the prominence 
 given to the downpour of rain, in the thrice-repeated 
 sending of the birds, and in the offering of the 
 sacrifice. 
 
 But while both versions of the Hebrew narrative 
 are thus in agreement with the Assyro-Babylonian 
 upon certain points, the points of difference are 
 equally striking. According to the Genesis account, 
 the Mood is sent as a Divine punishment for the 
 wickedness of the human race ; it is Divine com- 
 passion which causes it to cease, and establishes the 
 rainbow as the sign of a covenant with man that 
 God will no more again destroy the world with water. 
 According to the Assyro-Babylonian account, the 
 Flood is sent upon the world by the caprice of the 
 gods, especially of the god Bel; and although the 
 idea of it as a punishment for sin is suffered to 
 appear in the colloquy of Ea with Bel, attention is 
 directed primarily to the arbitrary action of the 
 gods ; the Flood, too, is made to cease because 
 
108 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS vii 
 
 of the intercession of Ishtar, and the tears and 
 terror of other deities. The vindictiveness of 
 Bel towards Hasisadra and his wife, on account of 
 their escape, changes rapidly, at the end of the 
 narrative, to the extreme of benevolence towards 
 them ; instead of slaying them, he grants them 
 the privilege of admission within the ranks of the 
 immortals. 
 
 The difference between the Hebrew and the 
 Assyro-Babylonian versions is therefore most clearly 
 marked at the beginning and close of the narrative. 
 It corresponds to the contrast between Hebrew and 
 Assyrian religious thought, the one pure and mono- 
 theistic, the other superstitious and polytheistic. 
 The Bible version may lack some of the poetical 
 touches in the cuneiform. But its immense 
 superiority is shown, not only by its freedom from 
 the mythological element, but by its moral purpose, 
 by its simple dignity, and by the purity of its 
 religious tone. 
 
 To determine the exact relationship between the 
 Hebrew and the Assyro-Babylonian narratives is not 
 such an easy matter as some have supposed. 
 
 When Mr. George Smith's discovery was first 
 announced, many who, in their first excitement, 
 hailed it as a confirmation of the accuracy of the 
 Genesis narrative, evidently hardly realised its exact 
 bearing upon Biblical questions. For, on the one 
 hand, the cuneiform account was thoroughly mytho- 
 
VII THE STORY OF THE FLOOD 109 
 
 logical in character ; on the other hand, it was, in 
 all probability, drawn from legends belonging to 
 an antiquity earlier than the age of Abraham ; and 
 the significance of these facts was hardly appreciated 
 by some. It was clear, of course, that the Assyro- 
 Babylonian account was neither borrowed from 
 nor expanded out of the Hebrew. For while it 
 belongs to a class of legends that were current 
 long before the time of Abraham, no one could 
 suppose that Babylon and Nineveh were ever 
 beholden to the Hebrew race for literary records 
 dealing with primitive ages. 
 
 Again, there are not wanting eminent scholars 
 who claim that the Hebrew version of the story 
 of the Flood is based upon that which is 
 contained in the cuneiform texts, and that the 
 resemblance of our Genesis narrative to the cunei- 
 form shows that the Jews became acquainted with 
 the Assyro-Babylonian account during the exile in 
 Babylon. With this theory, I confess, I find myself 
 in complete disagreement. 
 
 {a) In the first place, the Jehovist narrative was 
 current and well known long before the Captivity, 
 and, in all probability, before the influence of 
 Nineveh and Babylon had made itself felt in the 
 history of Israel. There is no sufficient reason to 
 warrant the view that the Priestly narrative has been 
 derived from any but genuinely Hebrew tradition. 
 
 (h) In the second place, if the Hebrew was 
 
110 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS vii 
 
 derived from the Assyro-Babylonian account at so 
 late a period as the time of the Exile, it is difficult 
 to account for the variations in the narrative which 
 immediately occur to the reader's mind. Thus, why 
 should the Hebrew version omit the mention of the 
 swallow, and all reference to the pilot, while it gives 
 so much more of detail respecting the entrance of the 
 animals into the Ark, and concerning the family of 
 Noah? 
 
 (c) Lastly, the improbability that the Jews would 
 derive from the religion of their captors materials 
 for the purpose of supplementing their own sacred 
 history, although it has been remarked upon in 
 previous chapters,^ may once more be adduced as 
 an argument of importance. The pious Jews of the 
 Exile found little at Babylon to tempt them to 
 syncretism in religion ; nor can it be said that there 
 is any proved case of an instance in which the 
 Jewish scribes amplified their national traditions 
 by borrowing directly from those of Babylon. In 
 regard to the narrative of the Flood, the express 
 allusions to it in Isaiah liv. 9, Ezekiel xiv. 14, 
 sufficiently confirm the general independence of 
 the Israelite version as embodying the traditions 
 of the Hebrew nation, without giving the slightest 
 sign of being affected by Babylonian influence. 
 
 Admitting, therefore, the independence of the 
 two narratives, the Hebrew and the Assyro-Baby- 
 
 ^ See pp. 22, 36. 
 
VII THE STORY OF THE FLOOD 111 
 
 Ionian, in the literary form in which they have 
 come down to us, how do we explain their obvious 
 resemblance ? The explanation is to be found in 
 their common origin. Both the Hebrew and the 
 Assyro- Babylonian traditions are derived from a 
 primitive and prehistoric Semitic original. The 
 Hebrew ancestors of the people of Israel were 
 members of the same stock as the founders of the 
 great empires on the Euphrates, and received from 
 yet earlier ages the traditions of the past. 
 
 The different forms under which the same tradi- 
 tion is presented to us, in the different literatures, 
 reflect the changes which time and religious 
 belief have wrought upon their common inherit- 
 ance. Despite the variations in points of detail, the 
 identity of the two narratives is indisputable. But 
 while the Assyro-Babylonian narrative reproduces 
 the character of the mythology which marked the 
 religious thought of the great world-empires of the 
 Euphrates valley, the Hebrew narrative has come 
 to us stripped of every trace of the old idolatry. 
 The Israelite writers transmit it to us in the form 
 which most perfectly expresses the pure religion of 
 those to whom Jehovah revealed Himself. They 
 do not cut themselves adrift from the past. They 
 preserve the tradition of their fathers, adapting its 
 form, as time goes on, to the needs of that higher 
 religious standpoint which they were privileged to 
 occupy. 
 
112 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS vii 
 
 3. It would argue want of candour not to con- 
 sider frankly at this point the historic character of 
 the narrative which describes so tremendous a 
 calamity. And, on the threshold of such an in- 
 quiry, we have to deal with the fact that science 
 speaks in no hesitating language upon the subject. 
 There is no indication that, since man appeared 
 upon the earth, any universal and simultaneous 
 inundation of so extraordinary a character as to 
 overwhelm the highest mountain peaks has ever 
 occurred. So vast an accumulation of water all 
 over the terrestrial globe would be in itself a 
 physical impossibility. None, at any rate, has 
 taken place in the geological period to which our 
 race belongs. 
 
 The language relating the catastrophe is that of 
 an ancient legend describing a prehistoric event. It 
 must be judged as such. Allowance must be made, 
 both for the exaggeration of poetical description and 
 for the influence of oral tradition during generations, 
 if not centuries, before the beginnings of Hebrew 
 literature. 
 
 Perhaps the best solution of many obvious diffi- 
 culties which the narrative suggests, is supplied by 
 the recollection of the limited horizon which bounded 
 the world of those ancestors of Israel, from whom the 
 primitive tradition was derived. To them the world 
 was the valley of the Euphrates and the Tigris, and 
 the highest hills w^ere the mountains that skirted its 
 
VII THE STORY OF THE FLOOD 113 
 
 north-eastern and eastern sides. The Israelites of a 
 later age had a more extended view ; but even to 
 them the area of the world was, if judged by our 
 notions, strangely limited, since the ethnography of 
 Genesis x. seemed to include all the races of man- 
 kind. 
 
 In the name of Ararat which occurs in the Hebrew 
 narrative, and in that of Nizir which occurs in the 
 Assyro-Babylonian, we have either an attempt to 
 transliterate the names employed in the primitive 
 tradition, or an instance of the tendency to substitute 
 a well-known proper name for one that was unknown. 
 
 According to this line of explanation, the narra- 
 tive of the Flood records to us some terrible but 
 local cataclysm which overtook the original seat of 
 the Semitic race. The Hebrew and Assyro-Baby- 
 lonian accounts are two parallel versions of it, trans- 
 mitted, by the two strangely different branches of 
 that stock, in literature so varied as the clay-tablets 
 of Nineveh and the Scriptures of the Jews. There 
 seems to be no reason whatever to call in question 
 the historic character of the event which the Semitic 
 tradition commemorated. To deny that the Deluge 
 ever occurred, because the traditions which describe 
 it have come down to us with certain variations, is 
 an attitude which, I am aware, has been taken up 
 by some who would desire, above all things, to weigh 
 the evidence candidly ; but it is one which it is very 
 hard to appreciate. The very variety of the tradition 
 
 I 
 
114 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS vii 
 
 seems to increase the probability of its historic 
 character in the main points upon which there is 
 agreement. 
 
 But if the Flood of Genesis were a local cata- 
 strophe and not universal, how are we to account for 
 the ubiquity of the legend ? That, it seems to me, is 
 a question which we had best leave the historians 
 of primitive civilisation to answer. While it is not 
 improbable that the similarity of legends testifies, in 
 a great measure, to the radiation of nations from a 
 common geographical centre, we must remember 
 that to primitive races inundations were the com- 
 monest and most destructive visitation. This would 
 account for a Deluge playing a part in the legends of 
 different parts of the globe, where the influence of 
 Semitic races never penetrated. But there is no 
 reason to doubt that the Semitic tradition became 
 widely known, and is answerable for many points of 
 resemblance in the legends of races quite uncon- 
 nected with the Semitic stock. 
 
 In this, as in the other sections of the early 
 portion of Genesis, we are in constant danger of 
 suffering our interest and attention to be absorbed in 
 the form rather than in the teaching of the narrative. 
 But the purpose for which it is recorded is obviously 
 not merely to preserve the memory of a great event, 
 but rather to employ the record of that great event 
 with the hope of impressing upon the people of 
 
 4 
 
vii THE STORY OF THE FLOOD 115 
 
 Israel the fundamental truths of their religion, which 
 could thus be so signally illustrated. 
 
 Every reader is doubtless conscious, in some degree, 
 of entertaining this thought. But it will probably 
 strike him more forcibly in the light of the compari- 
 son between the Hebrew and Assyro- Babylonian 
 narratives of the Flood. He cannot fail to observe 
 the contrast between the cuneiform picture of the 
 deities, some angry, some interceding, some frightened, 
 some summoning the storm, others fleeing from it ; 
 and the Hebrew picture of the Grod of heaven and 
 earth, who alone inflicts the calamity as a punish- 
 ment, alone abates it, and alone is the deliverer of 
 Noah and his family. He cannot fail to contrast the 
 "apotheosis" of Hasisadrawith the covenant made with 
 all mankind, the whimsicalness of Bel towards indi- 
 viduals with the purpose of love towards the world. 
 
 But over and above the teaching of such an 
 obvious contrast, the Hebrew narrative threw light 
 upon a further group of ideas. It emphasised the 
 fact of the judicial character of the overthrow ; it 
 laid stress upon the departure of the human race 
 from their appointed path ; it sketched, in the 
 tremendous scene of overthrow, the first judgment, 
 the first declaration, so often repeated to Israel, that 
 the history of the race, even in its disasters, fulfils 
 and corresponds to the decrees of the Almighty. It 
 illustrated the principle of salvation, destined to be 
 expanded in the history of the Jews. Noah is the 
 
116 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS vii 
 
 first " righteous " man (Gen. vi. 9) ; his righteousness 
 is evidenced by the faith which trusted in the Divine 
 promise. His faith, avowed in the construction of 
 the Ark, was a condemnation to an unbelieving 
 world; it received its reward in the deliverance 
 which redounded to those of Noah's household (Heb. 
 xi. 7 ; 1 Pet. iii. 20 ; cf. Ezek. xiv. 14, Ecclus. xliv. 
 17). 
 
 ix. 1-17. Tlie sign of tlic rainhoiv. — The story of 
 the Flood closes with the covenant of Noah and the 
 sign of the rainbow. Here, as in the covenants with 
 Abraham and with Moses, the description is drawn 
 from the Priestly writing, whose characteristic style 
 can easily be discerned. 
 
 Noah is the representative of a new epoch. God 
 grants to him a new covenant, while He declares His 
 blessing upon man, and extends man's dominion over 
 the animal world. Hitherto, according to this 
 account, man had been a vegetarian (cf. Gen. i. 30 
 with vii. 19, ix. 3). Now, however, permission is 
 granted him to eat the flesh of animals. And, in 
 connexion with this extension of privilege, two bind- 
 ing enactments are laid down. By the first, man is 
 forbidden to eat of the blood along with the flesh. 
 According to the second, the death of the manslayer 
 is required of his fellow-men. In these rules we 
 recognise the requirements of universal primitive 
 custom in the East. The former was to be repeated 
 
VII THE STORY OF THE FLOOD 117 
 
 in the Mosaic legislation ; the latter, the law of 
 blood-revenge, when re-enacted, was to be restricted 
 within the limits of a more civilised existence.^ 
 
 The covenant relation is established not with the 
 descendants of Shem only, but with all mankind. 
 Its pledge, the sign or symbol of hope, is correspond- 
 ingly universal. 
 
 The rainbow had, of course, been visible upon 
 earth, ever since the sun had shone and the rain had 
 fallen, in remote ages long before man had appeared. 
 Only those who are quite ignorant of the laws of 
 " light " can now suppose that the appearance of the 
 " rainbow " was posterior to the creation of man. 
 Accordingly, the apparent mention of the formation 
 of the rainbow, in ix. 13-17, has sometimes caused 
 perplexity to candid and fair-minded readers. There 
 are, it seems to me, two possible courses of explana- 
 tion open to us. — (1) In the first place, it is possible 
 to say that the passage, which incorporates an ancient 
 tradition, reflects the prevalent ignorance of physical 
 science. The language here used will then express 
 the popular, but erroneous, Hebrew explanation of 
 the phenomena of the rainbow, which supposed it 
 to have been first miraculously created after the 
 catastrophe of the Deluge. But it is noticeable that 
 the word employed is not hara, "create," but stm, 
 " set," or " appoint." (2) In the second place, it is 
 possible to see in the words of verse 13, " I do set " 
 
 ^ Cf. Num. XXXV. 6 ; Deut. xix. ; Jos. xx. 
 
118 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS vii 
 
 or " I have set," not the fiat of creation, but the 
 declaration of Divine appointment. The rainbow 
 had existed before. Henceforward, it was to be 
 endowed with a new significance as the sign or 
 symbol of mercy. God " set " one of the most beauti- 
 ful and yet most frequent phenomena in the natural 
 world to be the sacrament of the new covenant. The 
 same word occurs in Genesis iv. 15 : ''And the Lord 
 appointed a sign for Cain." And very probably the 
 best solution of the difficulty is to be found in this 
 use of the word. 
 
 At the same time, the two explanations are per- 
 fectly compatible with one another. The fact that 
 the rainbow was appointed as the pledge of the 
 Noachic covenant does not exclude the idea suggested 
 by the whole passage, that, according to an ancient 
 Hebrew tradition, the rainbow was also actually 
 made in the days of Noah. The narrative which 
 possibly embodies this popular but quite unscientific 
 belief, was not incorporated in the Hebrew com- 
 pilation for the purpose of teaching science, but 
 for the purpose of instructing men in the things which 
 concern their spiritual welfare, their hope of salva- 
 tion, and their trust in Divine Mercy. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF NATIONS 
 
 Noah as the Vine- dresser and his three Son^ 
 Genesis ix. 18-29 
 
 In the short section, which follows the narrative of 
 the Flood, is related the prophetic declaration of the 
 Patriarch Noah concerning the future destiny of the 
 races that were to spring from his three sons. 
 
 The description of Noah as the first vine-dresser 
 recalls the style of iv. 17-24 ; and the incident, it 
 will be observed, has no direct connexion with the 
 narrative of the Flood. It is, therefore, not impos- 
 sible that what is here related (vers. 20-27) was 
 drawn by the Jehovist from a distinct source of 
 ancient Israelite tradition, and was connected by him 
 with the Deluge section by means of vers. 18 and 19. 
 The suggestion is worth remembering in view of the 
 well-known difficulty, in the present passage, occa- 
 sioned by the fact that the curse is pronounced, not 
 upon Ham, but upon Canaan. 
 
 The theory has been advanced (1) that, in one 
 
120 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS viii 
 
 Israelite form of the tradition, the three sons of 
 Noah were Shem, Canaan, and Japheth ; (2) that 
 it was Canaan wlio treated his father with contumely, 
 and therefore received his father's curse ; (3) that 
 the compiler of the book, on appending this narrative 
 to the story of the Flood, harmonised it with what 
 had gone before by the insertion of the words " Ham 
 the father of " before " Canaan," in ver. 22, and by 
 the explanatory gloss "and Ham is the father of 
 Canaan," in ver. 18. This explanation, bold as it 
 appears, deserves consideration. It accounts for the 
 sudden mention of Canaan's name in vers. 18 and 
 22 ; it satisfactorily accounts for the curse being 
 pronounced upon Canaan in ver. 25 ; it explains the 
 abruptness which marks the introduction of the 
 whole incident. 
 
 The more usual explanation is that the prophetic 
 glance, which could see in Shem the chosen race of 
 Israel, saw also in Ham the Canaanites that were 
 to be Israel's foes ; and that Ham, who shamed his 
 father, received the curse in the prediction of the 
 shameful destiny of his own youngest son. But we 
 should expect that, if the curse were pronounced upon 
 Canaan as the typical son of wrath, the blessing 
 would also have been prophetically pronounced upon 
 some typical son of grace. The difficulty at once 
 disappears, if vers. 20-27 represent a separate stratum 
 of Israelite tradition in which Canaan was a son of 
 Noah ; and if the parenthetical words in vers. 18 and 
 
VIII NOAH AND HIS THREE SONS 121 
 
 20 reflect an endeavour, on the part of the compiler, 
 to harmonise this tradition with that which has 
 already appeared in the story of the Flood. 
 
 It is a sad reflection, that the words of the curse 
 pronounced upon Canaan (ver. 27) were only a 
 century ago quoted in justification of negro slavery. 
 Literalism must indeed have been tyrannous, when 
 men who recognised that slavery was a curse could 
 justify it on the ground of the Patriarch's prediction, 
 and were even found ready to associate themselves 
 with its actual infliction. Modern interpretation is 
 exposed to perils of quite a different class. 
 
 No candid exegesis of the oracle of Noah would 
 now permit us to harmonise his words with modern 
 scientific conceptions as to the distribution of races. 
 It has now for a long time been well known and 
 generally recognised, that the old and simple plan 
 of assigning the population of Asia to the descendants 
 of Shem, that of Africa to the descendants of Ham, 
 and that of Europe to the descendants of Japheth, 
 is utterly unscientific ; it fails in nearly every respect 
 to satisfy the complex problems presented by the 
 history of language and the descent of nations. 
 
 Even in recent times, scholars have too rashly 
 sought to trace the fulfilment of the curse upon 
 Canaan in events of Greek and Eoman history, 
 which, if disastrous to Hamitic races, were equally 
 so to the kindred of Israel, e.g. the Phoenicians and 
 the Carthaginians, the Syrians and the Assyrians. 
 
122 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS viii 
 
 We should do wisely not to read into this section 
 of Scripture the discoveries of modern ethnological 
 science. Probably, the most reasonable line of inter- 
 pretation is that which will consistently decline to 
 expand, by a process of mere conjecture, the range 
 of this prophetic oracle beyond the circle of those 
 races which were known to the early Israelite people 
 (see chap. x.). 
 
 To their restricted view. Ham (or Canaan) re- 
 presented especially the heathen who dwelt on the 
 borders of the Promised Land, whom Israel had but 
 partially dispossessed ; Japheth represented the 
 nations at a greater distance, of whom but little 
 was known. 
 
 The thought of the mission of Israel to the world 
 supplies the key to the utterance of Noah. The 
 curse of Canaan is the curse pronounced against 
 Israel's greatest foe and constant source of moral 
 temptation; the shamelessness of Ham reflects the 
 impression produced, by the sensuality of the 
 Canaanite, upon the minds of the worshippers of 
 Jehovah. The blessing of Shem is bound up with 
 the family of Israel, who alone worshipped the one 
 true God, Jehovah. The blessing of Japheth is made 
 dependent on the connexion of the northern races 
 with the Hebrews, and on their peaceful relations 
 with Israel : " He shall dwell in the tents of Shem." 
 Israel's blessing granted by Jehovali shall be dis- 
 persed, by the instrumentality of the other nations, 
 
VIII THE TABLE OF THE NATIONS 123 
 
 throughout the world. It is in reality a Messianic 
 forecast. It is a proclamation of the blessing which, 
 through the line of Israel, is assured to them that 
 are " afar off," as well as to them that are nidi. 
 
 The Table of the Nations 
 Chapter x. 
 
 The Israelite compiler follows a clearly indicated 
 plan. His immediate goal is the history of the 
 chosen family. Before he can reach that point, it 
 is needful he should account for the rise of the 
 other nations. After a brief but comprehensive 
 survey, he will notice the line of the descendants 
 of Shem (chap, xi.); then, still more narrowly re- 
 stricting this area, he will devote himself to the 
 traditions of the family of Terah (xi. 27-32, xii.-l.). 
 
 Wearisome as the list of names will seem to 
 many a reader of the chapter, it is the more 
 necessary for us to recognise its place and its true 
 religious significance in the Hebrew Scriptures. 
 It reminded the Israelites that God made of one 
 blood all the nations of the earth, and that the 
 heathen, who knew not Jehovah, were nevertheless 
 brethren of Israel. It reminded him that his own 
 nation was only one among the nations of the earth, 
 by origin and descent in no way separated from them, 
 but, only by the grace of God, selected and chosen 
 to be the bearer of His revelation to the world. Thus 
 
124 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS viii 
 
 the genealogies of Japheth and Ham are duly recorded 
 before the genealogy of Shem ; and the branches of 
 Nahor's family are mentioned before the history of 
 Terah's son, Abraham, begins (xi. 27-32). 
 
 The nations, it will be observed, are presented to 
 us genealogically. But the genealogical relationship 
 of nations is not to be understood literally. The 
 terms of genealogy express, pictorially, the ethnology 
 of prehistoric times. The names are very rarely the 
 names of individuals. In some cases, possibly, the 
 name of a nation or tribe was derived from some 
 famous individual, warrior or chieftain. But these 
 are apparently exceptional. In some cases, the 
 plural termination " — im " shows that not an 
 individual, but a whole community is denoted, 
 e.g. Kittim (ver. 4), Dodanim, Ludim (ver. 14). In 
 others, the name is strictly geographical, thus Mizraim 
 (vers. 6, 13) with its dual termination " — aim," denotes 
 Upper and Lower Mazor or Egypt ; Sidon is " a 
 fishing place " (ver. 16) ; Canaan denotes the 
 "lowlands" or maritime plain of Palestine (vers. 
 6, 15). 
 
 If, then, the genealogical terms are to be treated 
 metaphorically, it will not, perhaps, appear evident, 
 at first sight, upon what principle the various races 
 have been distributed among the three sons of Noah. 
 According to one theory, it is a distribution by colour, 
 Shem answering to the Assyrian samu or ''olive 
 coloured," Ham to hhammu or "burned black," 
 
VIII THE TABLE OF THE NATIONS 125 
 
 Japlieth to ippah or " white." But a glance at the 
 list suffices to show that this hypothesis breaks 
 down. Others have sought for a solution in a 
 division according to three main families of speech ; 
 but it is sufficient condemnation of this view to point 
 out that, while the Hebrews and the Syrians are 
 assigned to Shem, the Phcenicians and the Sidon- 
 ians are assigned to Ham. 
 
 The ethnology of prehistoric times must not be 
 confounded with modern scientific conceptions of 
 ethnology. It preserves the primitive traditions — 
 traditions of immense value and interest to the 
 historian — respecting the origin of races and nations. 
 In a great measure, however, these traditions more 
 accurately represent prevalent opinions as to the 
 geographical distribution of the races than actual 
 facts as to their origin and descent. 
 
 By far the most probable explanation is that the 
 Table of the Nations presents a classification based, 
 not upon any scientific principle, but roughly upon 
 geographical situation. The descendants of Shem 
 occupy a central position, the Hamites lie chiefly 
 on the south, the Japhethites on the north. Slight 
 exceptions are admitted in deference to special 
 traditions. But, generally, the Table represents 
 the geographical knowledge of the Israelite. Into 
 the identification of the various names, we have not 
 space to enter here ; but the reader will do well to 
 refer to Professor Sayce's chapter upon the subject 
 
126 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS viii 
 
 in TJie Baces of the Old Testament (Keligious Tract 
 Society). The Table ranges from Armenia in tlie 
 north to Ethiopia in the south ; it extends from 
 Greece (Elisha) and the mysterious Tarshish (? Tar- 
 tessus) in the west to the country of Elam, beyond 
 Babylonia, in the east. 
 
 It will probably have struck an observant reader 
 that the names of Edom, of Moab, of Ammon, - so 
 closely bound up with the history of Israel, have 
 no place here. In the Hebrew tradition their origin 
 is associated with a later, the patriarchal or nomadic, 
 period of Israelite history. On the other hand, it is 
 worth while noticing that no mention is here made 
 of the aboriginal inhabitants of Palestine, the Ana- 
 kim, Eephaim, Emim, Horim, Zamzummim.-^ They 
 must have disappeared from the land long before the 
 tradition on which this register is based took its 
 shape. Similarly the absence of the names of 
 Persia and Arabia has been claimed by some to 
 indicate a pre-exilic date for the construction of the 
 Table. 
 
 The mention of Nimrod (vers. 8-12) deserves 
 something more than the passing notice, which is 
 all we can here bestow upon it. According to the 
 Hebrew tradition, Nimrod was the founder of the 
 kingdom of Nineveh, and went forth from Babylon 
 to build Nineveh. The Assyrian records, so far as 
 they throw light upon the subject, correspond in an 
 
 J Cf. Deut. ii. 10-12, 20. 
 
VIII THE TOWER OF BABEL 127 
 
 interesting manner with this tradition. That Nineveh 
 was founded from Babylon appears to be a thoroughly 
 established fact. The further discovery that the 
 earliest known rulers of Assyria were sprung from a 
 non- Semitic race is thought to agree with the 
 mention in this passage of Nimrod's Cushite origin. 
 But the meaning of Cush is disputed. According to 
 some, the name denotes Ethiopian influence ; according 
 to others, Arabian. Again, other scholars see in it 
 the Cossaean dynasty of the early Babylonian empire. 
 Nimrod's name has yet to be discovered in the 
 Inscriptions. The identification of Nimrod with 
 Izdubar (Gilgamesh), an old Accadian divinity, 
 rests on too precarious a foundation to warrant us 
 in putting any confidence in it as yet. But the 
 Nimrod section has undoubtedly been derived by 
 the Jehovist narrator from traditions based on the 
 earliest recollections of the Hebrew race.^ 
 
 The Tower of Babel 
 Chapter xi. 1-9 
 
 This strange narrative is probably also derived 
 from the records of the Jehovist. It preserves a 
 tradition which goes back to very early times. 
 The purpose of it was obviously to account for the 
 
 1 Since the above was written, a letter on "Nimrod and the 
 Assyrian Inscriptions" by Professor Sayce has appeared in The 
 Academy, 16th July 1892. 
 
128 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS viii 
 
 two great phenomena of human society — (1) the dis- 
 tinction of races, and (2) the diversity of language. 
 How these originated must have seemed one of the 
 greatest mysteries to the men of the ancient world. 
 It was clear that while variety of speech constituted 
 the greatest bar to free intercourse, it was also the 
 most constant source of conflict. Given the original 
 unity of the human race, the problem was how to 
 account for the differences which had arisen to 
 divide the children of men so completely and so 
 permanently. 
 
 On the other hand, it was easy to perceive that 
 if the original inhabitants of the earth could be 
 supposed to have kept together, there was nothing 
 to account either for the wide spread of the popula- 
 tion or for the origin of different languages. 
 
 The familiar story of the Tower of Babel sup- 
 plied to such primitive questionings an answer 
 suited to the comprehension of a primitive time. 
 But in the language of the popular tradition we 
 must not look for the teaching of modern science. It 
 should be enough for us that the Hebrew version of 
 the narrative emphasises the supremacy of the One 
 God over all the inhabitants of the world, and 
 ascribes to His wisdom that distribution into lan- 
 guages and nations, which secured the dissemination 
 of mankind over the continents, and necessitated 
 the conception of co-operation for the practice of 
 industry and for the protection of life and property. 
 
viTi THE TOWER OF BABEL 129 
 
 The legendary character of the narrative was not 
 altogether removed by the Israelite compiler who 
 gave it its present place in the great historical work. 
 Evidence of this is found in the derivation of the 
 name Babel (the ordinary Hebrew title for Babylon, 
 c/. X. 10), from a Hebrew word employed to denote 
 the confusion of tongues. Now it is well known 
 that the native Babylonian word for Babylon, 
 " Bab-ilu" which Babel transliterates, is compounded 
 of two words, "Bccb" and " Ilu" and means "the 
 Gate of God." The Hebrew legend, seizing upon 
 the similarity in the sound of this word to the 
 Hebrew word " halbel," " to confound, mix together," 
 derived the name of the Babylonian capital from 
 its "punning" resemblance to this latter word. 
 Whether the Babylonian interpretation or pro- 
 nunciation gives the correct derivation, we cannot 
 perhaps say for certain. But that the Hebrew deri- 
 vation given in this narrative is a mere play upon 
 the name is certain ; and that it is accountable for 
 the form of the tradition in the Israelite narrative 
 is exceedingly probable. 
 
 A trace also of the early Hebrew mythology, 
 from which, as a general rule, the Israelite historians 
 so completely purged the primitive traditions of the 
 nation, probably survives in the use of the first 
 person plural in the words "Let us go down," 
 which, in ver. 7, are put in the mouth of Jehovah 
 {cf, i. 26). 
 
 K 
 
130 EARLY NAERATIVES OF GENESIS viii 
 
 As the Tower called by this name was evidently 
 connected in Hebrew tradition with Babylon, we 
 should expect that the origin of the legend is to 
 be traced to some remarkable structure or to the 
 gigantic ruins of an ancient building, either within 
 the walls or in the vicinity of Babylon. Scholars 
 are divided in opinion as to whether the building 
 which gave rise to the story was the celebrated 
 Tower of Birs-Mmrud at Borsippa which stands at 
 a little distance south-west from Babylon, on the 
 west bank of the Euphrates, or the great Temple of 
 Merodach within Babylon itself, which ISTebuchad- 
 nezzar mentions that he found in a dilapidated 
 condition, and restored to great splendour and 
 magnificence. Travellers, struck by the enormous 
 size of the Birs-Nimrud mound, have generally 
 inclined to the former alternative. But the name 
 of the Tower, the Tower of Babylon, favours the 
 view that it was the Temple in Babylon itself. 
 And we know that this Temple was erected in 
 prehistoric times ; its earliest name was Accadian, 
 " Bit-Saggat^b,'' " the house of the lofty summit " ; 
 it was frequently restored by Babylonian kings ; it 
 was the principal shrine in Babylon. Its situation, 
 its size, and its great antiquity favour the supposi- 
 tion that it was the structure around which grew up 
 the story of Babel. No legend answering to that 
 of the Tower of Babel has yet been found in the 
 cuneiform records ; but such a tradition may natur- 
 
VIII THE TOWER OF BABEL 131 
 
 ally have arisen among the dwellers in Babylonia, 
 and have been transported thence by the ancestors 
 of Israel. 
 
 Whichever of the two ruins is to be identified 
 with the Tower of Babel is a matter of compara- 
 tively small moment. But it may be observed that, 
 in both cases, the structures were built of brick, 
 both rose out of the plain of Shinar, both probably 
 were built in seven successive stages or terraces, 
 the pinnacle or highest point being occupied by the 
 sanctuary. 
 
 Just as the Greek fable told of the giants who 
 strove to scale the heights of Olympus, so the 
 Semitic legend told of the impious act by which 
 the sons of men sought to raise themselves to the 
 dwelling-place of God, and erect an enduring 
 symbol of human unity to be seen from every 
 side. 
 
 It should be noticed that, in the words of ver. 2, 
 "they journeyed," the subject of the verb is per- 
 fectly indefinite. It does not appear clear who are 
 referred to. There is no allusion to the sons of 
 l^oah, or to the members of any one family. The 
 abruptness with which the narrative is thus intro- 
 duced, and the absence of any reference to Noah 
 and his sons, lead us to suppose that the tradition 
 was derived from some source independent of the 
 Deluge narrative. Possibly the allusion, both here 
 (ver. 2) and in x. 11, to "the land of Shinar" is an 
 
132 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS viii 
 
 indication that the Jehovist narrator is drawing 
 from a tradition which had been current in the 
 Sumerian (Shinar) district — the southern portion — 
 of Mesopotamia, and which the ancestors of the 
 Hebrew race had brought with them from their 
 sojourn in that region. 
 
 The old belief that Hebrew was the original 
 language, and that the family of Shem alone pre- 
 served it, has long been shattered by the science of 
 Philology. There is no need now to go over such 
 familiar ground as the evidence to show that Hebrew 
 is only one of the branches of the great Semitic 
 family of languages, to be classed with Phoenician, 
 Assyrian, Arabic, and Aramaic. 
 
 The story of the Tower of Babel and the con- 
 fusion of tongues attempts to account in a pictorial 
 manner for the diversity of speech. ISTo one would 
 ever think now of accepting it as a scientific explan- 
 ation. It preserves the Hebrew version of a legend 
 which connected the origin of difference in speech 
 with the mystery that enveloped the history of a 
 marvellous and gigantic sacred tower. If it assumed 
 that Hebrew was the primaeval language, it did but 
 resemble the traditions which, in other races, made 
 for other languages a similar claim. 
 
 But beneath the story lies clearly discernible its 
 religious significance. Once more, the element of 
 evil asserts itself in the self - exaltation of man 
 against his Maker, the seeking of his own glory 
 
 I 
 
VIII THE GENEALOGY OF THE SHEMITES 133 
 
 ("let us make us a name," ver. 4) rather than 
 Jehovah's will. Once more, the Israelite narrative 
 shows that the way of Jehovah's punishment is 
 fraught with mercy. If the sentence on the soil 
 had necessitated the blessings of human industry, 
 so here the decree of the separation into races 
 provided for the dispersion of civilising influences 
 into different quarters of the globe. Above all, it 
 declares that rebellion against God is the true 
 source of discord. The gift of Pentecost, as the 
 Fathers saw, is the true converse to the story of the 
 Tower of Babel. The true unity of the race, made 
 known in Christ,^ is confirmed by the utterance of 
 the Spirit which is heard by all alike. The believer 
 "journeys" not away from God's presence, but 
 draws nigh to Him by faith. 
 
 The Genealogy of the Shemites 
 Chapter xi. 10-26 
 
 We pass again to the writing of the Priestly 
 narrative. The change from the narrative to the 
 genealogy, so strangely abrupt, illustrates once 
 again the structure of a compilatory work. 
 
 The genealogy here is confined to the descendants 
 of Shem. It corresponds to the genealogy in chap. v. 
 For, while that genealogy bridged over the period 
 
 1 Cf. Col. iii. 11. 
 
134 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS viii 
 
 between the Creation and the Flood, this one bridges 
 over the period between the Flood and the calling of 
 Abraham. Its purpose, therefore, is to effect the 
 transition from the history of the world to the 
 history of the chosen people. 
 
 The strictly historical character of this genealogy 
 cannot be maintained. (1) The period of 365 years 
 between the Flood and the calling of Abraham is 
 much too brief to allow for the development of 
 the races, and for the growth of civilisation, which 
 appear in the patriarchal age. Egypt and Babylon, 
 as we know from their inscriptions, had enjoyed a 
 highly- developed civilisation for many centuries 
 before the time of Abraham. (2) The subsequent 
 Patriarchal narrative in no way favours the idea 
 that, at the time of Abraham's calling, the Shemite 
 forefathers, including Shem himself, were most of 
 them alive (xi. 11) ; yet, if the figures given in 
 this chapter were literally correct, this consequence 
 would have to be admitted. 
 
 The duration of life in chap. xi. occupies an 
 intermediate position between the ages of the ante- 
 diluvian Patriarchs and the ages of the Patriarchs, 
 Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Shem lived 600 years, 
 Arpachsad 465, Shela 465, Eber 464, Peleg 239, Eeu 
 239, Serug 230, Nahor 148. In the duration of 
 Nahor's life, we may observe a transition to the more 
 historical period of the nomad Patriarchs. 
 
 The Septuagint, probably recognising the difficulty 
 
 I 
 
VIII THE GENEALOGY OF THE SHEMITES 135 
 
 caused by the short interval between the Flood and 
 the call of Abraham, raises it from 365 to 1245 
 years; the figures in the Samaritan version bring 
 it to 1015. But it cannot be doubted that, in 
 both instances, the variation from the Hebrew text 
 has been made intentionally, with the view of 
 rendering the narrative more probable, and of 
 removing the difficulty mentioned above. 
 
 The genealogy of Shem brings us to the threshold 
 of the Patriarchal period. It introduces us to the 
 history of the Terah family from which the nation 
 sprang. We pass out of the region of those tradi- 
 tions which, presumably, the Israelites shared, in 
 some degree, with other branches of the Semitic 
 stock. 
 
 In bringing to a conclusion these slight and 
 fragmentary contributions to the understanding of 
 a most important section of the Old Testament, I 
 need add but a few words. My endeavour has been 
 to discuss the contents of Gen. i.-xi. in the light of 
 modern science and of modern criticism. If I have 
 failed to do so with the reverence due to Holy 
 Scripture, I most humbly express regret for a fault 
 I have striven especially to avoid. 
 
 In these eleven chapters are recorded the popular 
 and unscientific narratives whicli, in early Hebrew 
 tradition, conveyed pictorially the prevalent con- 
 ceptions as to the origin of the Universe and the 
 
136 EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS viii 
 
 foundations of human society. Inspiration did not 
 infuse into the mind of a writer accurate scientific 
 knowledge of things unknown. But the Israelite 
 writer, gifted by the Holy Spirit, was overruled 
 to draw, here from one source and there from 
 another, the materials for a consecutive account, 
 which, while it embodied the fulness and variety of 
 Hebrew tradition, was itself the appointed medium 
 of Divine instruction. 
 
 If we look for perfection of scientific teaching, 
 whether of geology and astronomy, or of history, 
 ethnology, and philology, we shall inevitably be 
 disappointed. Earthly learning is not the subject 
 of Divine Eevelation. But if we look for spiritual 
 teaching, our search will be amply rewarded. Here, 
 no less than in the other narrative portions of 
 Scripture, the Word is powerful, not so much be- 
 cause of the facts which it records, but because 
 of the instruction which it is the means of con- 
 veying to our hearts, spiritual instruction, even 
 " things necessary to salvation." 
 
 The literature of Holy Scripture differs not 
 widely in its outward form from other literature. 
 In its prehistoric traditions, the Israelite literature 
 shares many of the characteristic features of the 
 earliest legends which the literature of other nations 
 has preserved. 
 
 What, though the contents of these chapters are 
 conveyed in the form of unhistorical tradition ! 
 
VIII EARLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS 137 
 
 The infirmity of their origin and structure only 
 enhances, by contrast, the majesty of their sacred 
 mission. In a dispensation, where every stage of 
 Hebrew thought and literature ministers to the 
 unfolding of the purpose of the Most High, not 
 even that earliest stage was omitted, which to 
 human judgment seems most full of weakness. 
 Saint and seer shaped the recollections which they 
 had inherited from a forgotten past, until legend too, 
 as well as chronicle and prophecy and psalm, be- 
 came the channel for the communication of eternal 
 truths. 
 
 The poetry of primitive tradition enfolds the 
 message of the Divine Spirit. Criticism can analyse 
 its literary structure ; science can lay bare the de- 
 fectiveness of its knowledge. But neither in the 
 recognition of the composite character of its writing, 
 nor in the discernment of the childish standard of 
 its science, is there any reproach conveyed. For, as 
 always is the case, the instrument of Divine Eeve- 
 lation partakes of limitations inalienable from the 
 age in which it is granted. The more closely we 
 are enabled to scan the human framework, the more 
 reverently shall we acknowledge the presence of the 
 Spirit that pervades it. 
 
 Frankly to accept the teaching of science, and 
 the resvilts of criticism, is no concession to scepticism 
 on the part of the Christian student ; it is but a step 
 forward in the recognition of God's way of making 
 
138 EAKLY NARRATIVES OF GENESIS viii 
 
 known His will to man. That such a step is not 
 incompatible with the loyal and reverent treatment 
 of Holy Scripture, I have endeavoured, even at the 
 risk of wearying my readers, to make plain at each 
 stage in the course of the discussion which I now 
 conclude. 
 
 It is my prayerful hope that at least the tone 
 and spirit in which these chapters have been con- 
 ceived, if not the actual line of thought which has 
 been pursued, may be welcome to some who have 
 wished to see the claims of science and criticism 
 combined with the reverent interpretation of " The 
 Early Narratives of Genesis." 
 
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LOAN DEPT. 
 
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