3 Legends of Genesis - Forgotten Books · 2 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. public events, the deeds of popular leaders and kings, and e specially wars. Accordingly some sort of po Ifga nisa

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CONTENTSn one

The SignificanceandScope of the LegendsThe Varieties of the L egendsThe L iterary F ormof the L egends

History of the Development of the Legends in

Jahvist, Elohist. Jehovist, Later CollectionsPriestly Codexand F inal Reduction

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

The present volume i s an authorized trans lat ion

of the Introduction to Prof. Gunkel ’s l arge Commentary on Genes i s , pub l i shed dur i ng the present

year by‘

Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, of Gott i ngen ,under the t i t le of Handcommentar sumAlton Testan

'

bersetztand erkle‘

z’

rt non H . Gunkel . The general

c r i t i cal and h i stor i cal cons iderat ions offered to the

pub l i c i n a cont i nuous and compend ious form i n

th i s Introduction are e l aborated and substant iated

i n t he l arger work wi th al l the detai l that belongsto exhaust ive techn ical expos i t ion ; and the reader

des i rous of further confirmat ion of the v iews here°

presented i s referred to the German origi nal .

The publ i shers are confident that the conc i se

formulat ion of the very latest researches on O ld

Testament h istory here offered to the Engl i shread i ng publ ic wi l l

.

find a cord ia l and extens ive

we lcome .

THE OPEN COURT PUBL ISHING Co.

Ch i cago , November, 1901.

The L egends of

THE SIGNIF ICANCEAND SCOPEOF

THE LEGENDS.

RE the narrat ives of Genes i s h i story or legend?For the modern h istori an th i s i s no longeran open quest i on ; nevertheless i t i s important to

get a c lear not ion Of the bases Of th i s modern pos it ion .

The wri t i ng of h istory i s not an i nnate endowmentOf the human m ind ; i t arose i n the course of humanh i story and at a defin ite stage of deve lopment .Unc iv i l i sed races do not wr i te history ; they arei n capab le of reproduc i ng the i r experi ences ob jectively, and have no i nterest i n l eav i ng to poster i tyan authent i c account of the events of the i r t imes .Experiences fade before they are fa i r ly cold

,and

fact and fancy m i ngle ; only i n poet i cal form , i ns ong and saga, are un lettered tr ibes ab le to reporthi s tor i ca l occurrences . On ly at a certai n s tage ofc i v i l i sat ion has object iv i ty so grown and the i nterest i n transm i tt i ng nat ional exper iences to poster i tyso i n creased that the wr i t i ng of h i story becomes

poss ib l e . Such h i story has for i ts subjects great

2 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS.

pub l i c events , the deeds of popu lar l eaders andk i ngs , and espec i al ly wars . Accord i ngly some sort

of po Ifganisation i s an antecedent presump3“

t‘i iting of h istory.

eate r, i n . the mai n a much later, t ime i s‘wri t i ng h i story, l earned through the prae

e ting nat i ona l hi s tor ies , appl ied to othe rspheres of human l i fe, whence we have memo i rsand the h i stor i es of fam i l i es . But cons iderab le sect i ons of the people have never r i sen to theapprec iat ion of h istory prope r, and have remai ned i n t hestage of the saga , or i n what i n modern t imes i sanalogous to saga .

Thus we find among the c iv i l i sed peop les O fant iqu i ty two

"

d is t i nct k i nds Of h i stor i cal recordss ide by s ide : h i story proper and popu lar trad i t ion ,the latter treat i ng i n naive poet i cal fash i on part l ythe same subjects as the former, and part ly th eevents of o lder, preh i s tor i c t imes . And i t i s not tobe forgotten that h i stor i ca l memori es may be preserved even ihsuch trad i t ions , al though c lothed inpoet i c garb .

Even so d id h i story origi nate i n Israel . I n th eperi od from wh ich the Book of Genes i s i s tran smitted to us the art of h i story had been long establ ished and h igh ly developed accordi ng to anc ien tstandards , hav ing for themes , here as everywhere, th edeeds of k i ngs and espec ia l ly wars . A monumen tof th i s h i s tory i s found i n the narrat ives of t h eSecond Book of Samuel .But i n a people wi th such a h igh ly developedpoet i cal facu l ty as Israel there must have been aplace for saga too. The sense l ess confus ion Ofl egend

” wi th “ lyi ng” has caused good people to

SIGNIF ICANCE OF THE LEGENDS. 3

hes i tate to concede that there are legends in theO l d Testament. But legends are not l i es ; on thecon trary, theyare a part i cu lar form ofpoetry. Whyshou ld not the lofty sp ir i t of O l d Testament re l i

g i on , wh ich employed so many var iet i es of poetry,indu lge i n th i s form also? For re l ig ion everywhere,t h e Israel i te re l ig ion i nc l uded , has espec ial ly cherished poetry and poet i c narrat ive, s i nce poet i c narrative i s much better qual ified than prose to be themed i um of re l ig ious thought. Genes i s i s a morei n tensely re l ig ious book than the Book ofK i ngs .There i s no denying that there are legends i n the

O ldTestament ; cons ider for’

instance the stor i es ofSamson and Of Jonah . Accord ingly i t i s not amatter of bel ief or skept ic i sm , but merely a matterOf obtai n ing better knowledge, to exam ine whetherthe narrat ives OfGenes i s are h i s tory or legend .

The object ion i s rai sed that Jesus and the Apostl esc l early cons idered these accounts to be fact and not

poetry. Suppose they d id ; the men of the NewTestament are not presumed to have been exceptional men i n such matters , but shared the po i n t ofv i ew of the i r t ime. Hence we are not warranted inl ook ing to the New Testamen t for a sol ut ion of

quest ions i n the l i terary h i story of the O ld Testament .

CRITERIA FOR LEGEND AND H ISTORY.

Now, s i nce legend and h i story are very different i nb oth or ig i n and nature, there are many cr i ter i a bywh i ch they may be d ist i ngu i shed . One of the ch iefpo i nts of d ifference i s that legend i s or ig i nal ly ora ltrad i t ion , wh i l e h i story i s usual ly found i n wr i ttenform ; th i s i s i nherent i n the nature of the two


spec i es , l egend be ing the trad i t ion of those who arenot i n the hab it of wr i t i ng, wh i l e h i story, wh i chi s asort of sc ient ific act iv i ty, presupposes pract ice i nwri t i ng . At the same t ime the wri t i ng down ofanh istor i cal trad it ion serves to fix i t , whereas oraltrad i t i on cannot remai n uncorrupted for any lengthof t ime and i s therefore i nadequate tobe the veh i c leof h i story.

Now i t i s ev ident that Genes i s conta i ns the finalsub l imat ion i nto wr i t i ng of a body of ora l trad i t i ons .The tales of the patr iarchs do not have the a i r ofhav i ng been wr i tten down by the patr i archs themse lves ; on the contrary many passages reveal c learlythe great i nterval of t ime that l i es between theper iod of the patr i archs and that of the narrato rs.

We read frequent ly the express ion “ even to th isday,

” as i n Genes i s x ix . 38 ; the k ings of Edomareenumerated down to the t ime of Dav id , xxxvi . 3xff. ; t he sentence

“ i n those days the Canaan i tesdwe l t i n the land” must have been wri tten at a t imewhen th i s race had long s i nce passed away.

But the whole style of the narrat ive, as i s to beshown hereafter, can be understood on ly on the suppos i t i on Of i ts hav ing been oral trad i t ion ; th i s s tateof the case can be real i sed espec ial ly through themany var iants , to be treated i n the fo l lowing pages .

But i f the contenti of Genes i s i s oral trad i t ion , i ti s , as the preced ing cons iderat ions show, l egendal so .

D I FFERENT SPHERES OF INTEREST.

Another d i st i ngu i sh i ng feature of l egend and history i s the i r d i fferen t spheres of i nterest . H i storytreats great pub l i c occurrences , wh i l e legend deals

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LEGENDS. 5

wi th th i ngs that i nteres t the common people,with

personal and pr ivate matters , and i s fond Of presenti ng even pol i t i ca l affa i rs and personages so that theyw i l l at tract popu lar attent ion . H i story would beexpected to te l l how and for what reasons Dav ids ucceeded i n de l iver i ng Israe l from the Ph i l i s t i nes ;l egend prefers to te l l how the boy Dav id once s l ewa Ph i l i s t i ne g iant .How does the materia l of Genes i s stand i n the l igh t

O f th i s d i st i nct ion? With the except ion of a s i ngl ec h apter (Chapter x iv) , i t conta i ns no accounts ofg reat pol i t i ca l events , but treats rather the h i storyO f a fam i ly. We hear a quant i ty of deta i l s , wh ichc erta i n ly have for the greater part no val ue for

po l i t i ca l h i story, whether they are attested or not :that Abraham was p ious and magnan imous , and thathe once put away h i s concub i ne to please h i s wi fe ;t hat Jacob dece ived h i s brother ; that Rachel andLeah were jealous ,—

“ un important anecdotes ofcountry l i fe, s tor i es of spr i ngs , of water i ng- troughs ,a nd such as are told i n the bed - chamber,

” attract ivee nough to read , yet everyth i ng but h i stor i ca l occurre nees . . Such m inor i nc idents aroused no pub l i ci n terest when they took place ; the h i stor i an doesnot report them , but popular trad i t ion and legendde l ight i n such deta i l s .

EYE-W ITNESS AND REPORTER .

I n the case of every event that purports to be acred ib le h i stor i ca l memorandum , i t must be poss ib l eto expla i n the connex ion between the eye - wi tnessof the event reported and the one who reports i t .Th i s i s qu i te d i fferent i n the case of l egend , wh ichdepends for i ts mater i al part ly upon tradi t ion and


part ly upon imagi nat ion . We need on ly apply t h istest

,to the first narrat ives of Genes i s i n order to

recogn i se the i r character stra ightway. No man waspresent at the creat ion of the un iverse ; no humantrad i t ion extends back to the period of the orig in ofour race, of the first peoples and the pr im i t ive l anguagesI n former t imes , before the dec ipher i ng of

h i eroglyphs and cune i form wr i t i ng, it -was poss i b lefor I srae l i t i c trad i t ion to be regarded as so o ld th ati t d id not seem absurd to look to i t for such reminiscences of preh i s tor i c ages ; but now when creat i onhas widened so m ight i ly i n our V i ew,

when we seethat the Peopl e Of I srae l i s one of the youngest i nthe group to wh ich i t be longs , there i s an end of a l lsuch conjectures . Between the orig i n of the pr imit i ve races of southwestern As i a and the appearan ceof the People of I srae l upon the stage Of l i fe h adro l l ed unnumbered m i l l enn i ums ; hence there i s noroom for ser ious d i scuss ion over h i stori ca l trad i t i o‘ nssaid to be possessed by Israe l regard i ng thoseprim i t ive t imes .The accounts of the patr i archs al so g ive ri se tothe most ser ious doubts . Accord i ng to the t rad it ion the period of the patr i archs i s fo l lowed by thefour hundred years dur i ng wh ich I srae l l ived i nEgypt . Noth i ng i s reported from th i s l atter per i od ;h i stor i cal recol lect ion seems to have been utter lyb lotted out . And yet we have an abundance Ofun important detai l s regard i ng the period of thepatr i archs . How i s i t conce ivab le that a peopl eshou ld preserve a great quant i ty of the veryminutest deta i l s from the h istory of i ts prim i t i ve an cestorsand at the same t ime forget i ts own nat iona l h i s tory

SIGNIF ICANCE OF THE LEGENDS. 7

for a long per iod fo l lowing? I t i s not possib le forora l trad i t ion to preserve an authent i c record ofsu ch deta i l s so v iv id ly and for so long a t ime . Andt hen , cons ider these narrat ives i n deta i l . The quest i on how the reporter cou ld know of the th i ngs wh ichhe re lates cannot be ra i sed i n most cases wi thoutexc i t i ng l aughter. How does the reporter of theD e luge pretend to know the depth of the water?A re we to suppose that Noah took sound i ngs? Howis anyone supposed to know what God said or

t hought a lone or i n the counc i l s of Heaven? (Cp.

G enes i s i . 2 , 18, v i . 3-6 ff. , x i . 6 ff. )

THE CRITERION OF INCRED IBILITY.

The c learest cri ter ion of l egend i s that i t fre

quent ly reports th i ngs wh i ch are qu i te i ncred ible .

Th i s poetry has another sort of probab i l i ty from thatwh ich obta i ns i n prosai c l i fe , and anc ient I srae l consideredmany th ings to be poss ib l e wh i ch to us seem

,

i mposs ib l e. Thus many ' th ings are reported i nGenes i s wh ich go d i rect ly agai nst our better knowledge : we know that there are too many spec i es ofan imal s for a l l to have been assemb led i n any ark ;that Ararat i s not the h ighest mountai n on earth ;that the "

firmament of heaven ,” of wh ich Genes i si . 6 ff. speaks , i s not a real i ty, but an opt ical i l l us i on ; that the stars cannot have come i nto ex istenceafter plants , as Genes i s i i . IO- I4 reports ; that ther i vers of the earth do not come ch i efly from fourprinc ipa l streams , as Genes i s i i . th i nks , that theTigr is and the Euphrates have not a commonsource, that the

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Dead Sea had been i n ex i stencelong before human bei ngs came to l ive i n Palest i ne,instead of orig inat i ng in h i stor i ca l t imes , and so on.


Of the many etymologies i n Genes i s the majorityare to be rejected accord i ng to the i nvest igat ions O fmodern ph i lo logy. The theory on wh ich thel egends of the patr iarchs are based , that the nat i on sof the earth orig i nated from the expans ion of as i ngl e fam i ly, i n each case from a s i ngle ancesto r ,i s qu i te i nfant i l e .

‘ Any other conc l us ion i s imposs ib l e from the poi nt of v i ew of our modern h i stor i c a lsc i ence, wh ich i s not a figment of imagi nat ion b u ti s based upon the observat ion of facts . And how .

ever caut ious the modern h i stor i an may be i n dec lari ng anyth ing imposs ib l e , he may dec lare wi thal lconfidence that an imal s— serpents and she - asses , fori n stance—do not speak and never have spoken , th atthere i s no tree whose fru i t confers immortal i ty orknowledge, that ange l s and men do not have carnalconnex ion , and that a world - conquer i ng army cannot be defeated— as Genes i s x iv . dec lares— wi ththree hundred and e ighteen men .

WAN ING ANTHROPOMORPH ISM .

The narrat ives of Genes i s be i ng most ly of a re l ig ions nature are constant ly speak i ng Of God . Nowthe manner i n wh ich narrat ives speak ofGod i s oneof the surest means of determ i n i ng whether they areh i s tor i cal or poet i c . Here too the h i s tor i an canno tavo id havi ng a un iversal poi nt of v iew . We bel ievethat God works i n the un iverse i n the s i l ent andsecret background of al l th i ngs ; somet imes h i si nfluence seems almost tang ib le , as i n the case Ofexcept ional ly great and impress ive events and personal ities ; we d iv i ne h i s contro l i n the marve l l ous

l Comparemy Commentary on Genesis, pp. 78 E.

SIGNIFICANCEOF THE LEGENDS. 9

interdependence of th i ngs ; but nowhere does heappear as an operat ive fac tor bes ide others

,but

always as the las t and u l t imate cause of everyth ing .

Very d i fferen t i s the po i nt of view of many of thenarrat ives i n Genes i s . We find God walk i ng abouti n the Garden of Eden ; with h is own hands he fashi ons man and c loses the door of the ark ; he evenb reathes h i s own breath i nto man’s nostr i l s , andmakes unsuccessfu l exper iments wi th an imals ; hescents the sacr ifice ofNoah ; he appears to Abrahamand Lot i n the gu i se of a wayfarer, or, as an angel ,ca l l s d i rect ly out of Heaven . Once, i ndeed , Godappears to Abraham i n h i s proper form , havi ng theappéarance of a burn i ng torch and of a smok i ng baking

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pot (the Revi sed Vers ion i n Engl i sh has hereThe speeches of God i n Genes i s are

remarkab l e for the fac t that h i s words are not heardi n the obscure moments of i n tensest human exc i tement , i n the state of ecstasy, as was the case wi ththe prophets when they heard the vo ice of God, butthat God speaks i n al l respects as does one man toanother. We are ab l e to comprehend th i s as thenaive concept ion Of the men of Old, but we cannotregard be l i ef In the l i teral truth of such accounts asan essent i al of re l ig i ous conv ic t ion .

And these arguments are immensely strengthenedwhen we compare the narrat ives wh i ch on i nner ev idence we regard as poetry wi th the spec imens wh ichwe know Of str i c t I srae l i t i sh h i story. F or thesev io l at ions Ofprobab i l i ty and even of poss ib i l i ty arenot found throughout the O l d Testament, but on lyi n certa i n defin i te port ions possess i ng a un i formtone , whereas they are not to be found i n other port i ons wh ichfor other reasons we regard as more


s tr i ct ly h i stor i ca l . Cons ider espec ia l ly the centralport i on of the SCcond Book of Samue l , the h is toryof the rebel l i on Of Absalom , the most exqu i s i tep iece of ear ly h i stor i cal wr i t i ng i n I srae l . Theworld that i s there portrayed i s the world that weknow. I n th i s world i ron does not float and serpents do not speak ; no god or angel appears l i ke aperson among other persons , but everyth i ng happens as we are used to see i ng th i ngs happen . In aword , the d ist i nct ion between legend and h istory isnot in jected i nto the O l d Testament, but i s to befound by any attent ive reader al ready present i n theO l d Testament .Moreover, i t shou ld not be forgotten that manyof the legends of the O ld Testament are not on lys im i lar to those of other nat ions , but areactua l lyre lated to them by orig i n and nature . Now we cannot regard the story of the De l uge i n Genes i sash i story and that of the Babylon ians as l egend ; i nfact, the account of the De l uge i n Genes i s is ayounger vers i on of the Babylon i an l egend . Ne i thercan we reject al l other cosmogon i es as fict ionanddefend that of Genes i s as h i s tory ; on the contrarythe account of Genes i s i. , great ly as i t d i ffers i n i tsre l ig ious sp i r i t fromother cosmogon i es , i s by i tsl i terary method c losely rel ated to them .

LEGEND IS POETRY.

But the important poi nt i s and wi l l remai n thepoet i c tone of the narrat ives . H i s tory

,wh ic h

c l aims to i nform us of what has actual ly happened,

i s i n i ts very nature prose , wh i le legend i s by natu repoetry, i ts aim be ing to please , to e levate, to i n sp i reand to move. He who wishes to do just i ce to such

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modern theolog ian shou ld be further developed .

The evangel i cal churches and the i r chosen repre

sentatives would do wel l not to d i spute the fact thatGenes i s conta i ns legends— as has been done too

frequent ly— but to recogn i se that the knowledge ofth i s fact i s the i nd i spensab l e cond i t i on to an h istorical understand ing of Genes i s . Th i s knowledgei s a l ready too widely d i ffused among those tra i nedi n h i stor i cal s tudy ever agai n to be suppressed . I twi l l sure ly spread among the masses of our peopl e,for the process i s i rres i st ib l e . Shal l not we Evan

gel icals take care that i t be presented to them i n ther ight sp i r i t?

THE VARIETIES OF LEGENDS IN

GENESIS .

N the great mass of ourmater i al s two groups ared i st i nct ly recogn i sab le

I . The legends of the orig i n of the world and ofthe progen i tors of the human race , the stor i es downto the tower of Babel , the i r l ocal i ty be i ng remote 'e

and the i r sphere of i n terest the whole world ;2 . The legends of the patr iarchs of Israe l : Abraham ,

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I saac and Jacob , and the latter’s sons , the

local i ty and the sphere of i n terest be i ng Canaan andadjacent l ands .Even i n the i r character the two groups are most

p la i n ly d i st i ngu i shed : the narrat ives of the first

g roup speak of God i n a way d i fferen t from that ofthe legends of the patr i archs . I n the l atter thed iv i n i ty appears always enveloped i n mystery,unrecogn i sed or speak i ng out of Heaven , or perhaps on ly i n a dream . I n the earl i er legends , onthe contrary, God walks i n t imate ly among men andno one marvels at i t : i n the legend ofParad ise mendwel l i n God’s house ; i t i s assumed that he i s i n thehab i t ofv i s i t i ng them every even ing ; he even c losesthe ark for Noah , and appears to h im i n person ,attrac ted by h i s sacr ifice. Furthermore, i n thelegends of the patri archs the rea l actors are a lwaysmen ; if the d iv i n i ty appears , i t i s regarded as an

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14 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS

except ion . But i n the prim it ive legends the d iv in i tyi s the lead i ng actor (as i n the creat ion) , or at l eas tamong those ch iefly concerned (as i n the story ofParad i se

,of the un ion ofmen and ofange ls , of the

Deluge and the Tower of Babel) . Thi s d ist i nct i oni s

,to be sure , on ly re lat ive, for some of the legend s

of the patr i archs (notab ly those connected wi t hHebron and Penue l) represent the d iv i n i ty asappear i ng i n the same way. On the other hand , th estory of Cai n and Abe l and that of the curs ing ofCanaan, i n wh ich human be ings are the ch ief actors ,are among the prim i t ive legends . However, th estinction appl i es on the whole

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to the two groups.

Th i s prom inence of the act ion of the d iv i n i ty i n theprim i t ive legends i nd i cates that these have a moredec ided ly “ myth ica l" character : that they are fadedmyths .

SOME LEGENDS ARE FADED MYTHS.

4‘Myths”— l e t no one shri nk from the word—ares tor ies of the gods , i n contrad i s t i nct ion to thel egends in wh ich the actors are men . Stories of thegods are i n al l nat ions the o ldest narrat ives ; thel egend as a l i terary vari ety has i ts origi n i n myths . 1Accord i ngly, when we find that these pr im i t ivel egends are ak i n to myths , we must i nfer that theyhave come down to us i n comparat ive ly anc ien tform . They come from a period of Israe l ’s h i storywhen the ch i ld l i ke bel i ef of the people had not ye tfu l ly arr ived at the concept ion of a d ivi n i ty whoseoperat ions are shrouded i n mystery. On the othe rhand , these orig i nal myths have reached us i n comparatively faded colors . Th i s we can perce ive inthe narrat ives themselves , w here we are ab l e in

VARIETIES OF THE LEGENDS 15

some po i nts to reconstruct an older form of thestory than the one transm i tted to us : notab lyGenes i s vi. 1- 4 i s noth ing but a torso .

We are l ed to s im i lar conc l us ions when we compare the pr im i t ive l egends wi th the al l us ions to themyths wh i ch we find i n the poets and prophets ofthe O l d Testament and the later apocalypt i c wri ters ;‘ as , for i nstance, the myths of Jahveh’s combatwi th Rahab or Lev i athan , of the fa l l of Helal , andso on. The same resu l t very c learly fo l lows a compar i son of the pr im i t ive l egends of Genes i s wi th themyths of the Or i en t, espec ial ly of the b ib l i ca l s toryof the creat ion and the Deluge wi th the Babylon i anvers ions of the same subjects . The colossal outl i nes

,the pecu l i ar ly br i l l i ant co lors wh i ch character

ise these myths i n the or ig i na l form are lost i n ameasure i n the b ib l i ca l l egends of the‘

beg innings ofth i ngs . The equ ival ence of the d iv i ne be i ngs andthe objects or realms of nature, the combat of thegods wi th one another, the b i rth of the gods , aresome of the features wh ich have d i sappeared i n thevers ion of Genes i s .

MONOTHEISM HOSTILE TO MYTHS .

I n al l th i s we can see the essent i a l character ofthe re l ig ion of Israel . The fundamental tra i t of there l ig ion of Jahveh i s unfavorab le to myths . Forth i s re l ig ion from i ts very begi nn i ng tends towardmonothe i sm . But for a story of the gods at leas ttwo gods are essent i al . Therefore the I srae l wh i chwe observe i n the O l d Testament could not tol erategenu i ne and unmod ified myths , at least not i n prose .1Compare thematerial gathered in mywork CreationandCl ear, IS95 .


The poet was excused for occas i onal a l l us ions tomyths . Hence i n poetry we find preserved traces

of a po i nt of v iew older than that of the trad i t i on ofGenes i s

,one frank ly fam i l i ar wi th myths . But the

prim it ive l egends preserved to us are al l dom inated

by th i s unspoken avers ion to mythology.

The monothe ism of Israe l to lerates on ly thosemyths that represent God as act i ng alone, as i n thestory of the creat ion , and even then there i s no rea l" story

,where act ion and coun ter- act ion g ive r i se

to a new s i tuat ion or act ion . Or at the most, thestory deal s wi th act ion between God and men ,where, however, men are too weak i n the true

I srael i t i sh concept ion to be worthy r iva l s ofGod, toproduce i n the i r c lash wi th God a real ep i cact ion ;as soon as God i ntervenes al l i s dec ided . I f in sucha case a story” i s to be told , men must performthe i r part first . Th is i s the method of the l egendsof Parad i se and of the Tower of Babel . With thestory of the Deluge i t i s d i fferent , God tak i ng partfrom the begi nn ing ; but as a resu l t of th i s the con

t i nned i nteres t of the hearer i s not mai n tai ned .

Furthermore , i t shou ld be noted that the legendspreserved to us wi th myth i cal e l ements are muchl ess numerous than the legends of the patri archs i nwh ich th i s e lement i s absent . Th i s fact al so mayfa i rly be regarded as -aresu l t of the Israe l i t i sh avers ion to mythology.

THE S IGN I FICANCE OF MYTHS.

I t i s not proposed to present here a theory of theor ig i n and pr im i t ive s ign ificance ofmyths . On ly afew observat i ons may be perm i tted . A certai nser ies of myths may be i nterpreted on theassump

VARIETIES OF THE LEGENDS. 17

t i on that some natural phenomenon that i s wont tooccur frequent ly or regu larly in the actual worldhas furn i shed the co lors for the pai nt i ng ofone s imilar but g igant i c phenomenon i n pr im i t ive t imes .Thus the creat ion of the world i s pai nted as Springon a grand scal e, and the overflows of the r ivers ofMesopotam ia gave ri se to the story of the Del uge .

Many myths attempt to answer quest ions , be i ngi ntended to give i nstruct ion . Th is i s the case wi ththe pr im i t ive l egends ofGenes i s : the story of creat i on rai ses the quest ion , Whence come heaven andearth? and at the same t ime , Why is the Sabbathsacred? The story of Parad i se treats the quest ion ,Whence are man ’s reason and h is mortal i ty? andalong wi th th i s , Whence are man

’s body and m ind?Whence h i s l anguage? Whence the love of thesexes? Whence does i t come that woman bri ngs forthw i th so much pai n , that man must t i l l the stubbornfie ld , that the serpent goes upon i ts bel ly, and soon? The legend ofBabelasks the quest ion ,Whencei s the var iety of nat ions i n language and locat ion?The answers to these quest ions const i tute the realcontent of the respect ive legends . I n the case ofthe legend of the De luge th i s i s d i fferen t, but therei s an aet io log i ca l , or explanatory feature at thec lose : Why i s there never such a flood agai n? Andwhat i s the mean i ng of the ra i nbow?Al l these quest ions i nterest not I srae l alone, butthe whole wor ld . We know that anc ient I srae l i ngeneral was not i nc l i ned to ph i losoph i c specu lat ion ,but that i t always took most i n terest i n immed iateand Israe l i t i sh affa i rs . But here i s a place i n wh ichthe anc ient race i s ab l e to treat un iversal humanproblems , the profoundest quest ions of mank i nd .

18 THELEGENDS OF GENESIS.

Th i s they have done In un ique fash ion i n the s tor i esof the creat ion and of Eden : these are the begi nnings of theology and ofph i losophy. I t i s no wonder that espec ia l emphas i s has been l a id upon thesefeatures, and that every generat ion , s i nce Genes i shas been known , has read i nto i t i ts own deepestthoughts .

THE LEGENDS OF THE PARTIARCHS.

The prim i t ive legends are fol lowed i n Genes is bythe l egends of the patr iarchs . The d i s t i nct i vefeature of these legends i s that they te l l of the progen i tors of races , espec i al ly of I srae l . At the foundat ion of these legends l ies the theory that al lraces , I srae l i nc l uded , have come i n each case fromthe fam i ly of a s i ngl e ancestor, wh ich gradual lyexpanded . Th i s theory i s not supported byobserved facts , for no human eye observes the or ig inof races ; on the contrary, i t i s the remnan t ofapr im i t i ve poet i c concept ion of tr ibal l i fe.I n earl i est t imes the i nd iv i dual man coun ts forl i tt l e. There i s much more i nterest i n the dest i n i esof the race : the tr ibe, the nat ion , are regardedasreal ent i t i es much more than at the present day.

Thus i t comes that the dest i n ies of the raceareregarded as be ing the dest i n i es of a person : the races ighs , tr i umphs , i s dejected , rebel s , d ies , comes tol i fe agai n , etc . Thus too the re l at ions of racesareregarded as the re lat ions of i nd iv idual s : two racesi t i s said , are brothers , i . e. , are c lose ly re latedandequal ; i f one of them i s regarded as r i cher, stronger,or nob ler, i t i s said to be the firstborn brother

,

or i t comes of a better mother, wh i l e the otheris younger, or comes of a concub i ne . I srae l be i ng



On the other hand , we must go about th i s attemptwi th caut ion , for we must reckon wi th the poss ib il ity that some of these figures do not or igi nal lyrepresent tr ibes , but on ly came to be regarded aspatr i archs i n a l ater t ime, and further, after the figures of the patri archs had once become estab l i shedas the heroes of ep ic legends , that l egends of othersorts and want i ng the bas i s of tr ibal h i story becameattached to these . We may certa i n ly regard as

personifications of tr ibes those figures whose namesare known to us i n other connex ions as names oftr ibes ; such are , notab ly : I shmael , Ammon , Moab ,the twelve tr ibes a nd the i r d iv i s ions . Somet imes i ti s perfectly ev ident from the narrat ives themselve sthat we have to do wi th tribes , as i n the case of

Cai n and Abel , Jacob and Esau , Ham and Japhet.

Accord i ngly, many of the narrat ives treat i ng suc hancestors are orig i nal ly the experiences of races ortr ibes .Once i n anc i en t t imes , so we may assume, therewere confl i c ts over we l l s between the C i t i zens of

Gerar and the ne ighbori ng Bedouins , end ing i n acomprom i se at Beersheba . The legend dep icts theseaffai rs as a war and a treaty between Ab imelech,k i ng of Gerar, and the patr iarchs cal l ed i n thel egend Abraham or I saac . (xx i , 22 ffD i nah , the daughter of Jacob , i s seduced by

Shechem , and i n pun i shment Shechem is treache rously assaul ted by D i nah

’s brothers ; Jacob , however, abjures the brothers and curses them . Theh istoryat the bottom of th i s i s probab ly as fol lows :D i nah

,an Israel i t i sh fam i ly, i s overpowered by the

Canaan i t i sh c i ty of Shechemand then treacherous l yavenged by S imeon and Levi , the most c lose ly

VARIETIES OF THELEGENDS. 21

re lated tr ibes , but the other tribes of I srae l renouncethem and al low the two tr ibes to be destroyed .

The legend of Tamar, al so , depicts i n part earlyre l at i ons i n the tr ibe of Judah : J udah al l i ed it

se l f wi th Canaan i tes , i n the legend H i rah of Adull am and Judah ’s wi fe , Bathshua ; a number ofJudaean - Canaan i t i sh tribes (Er and Onan) peri shedearly ; final ly two new tribes arose (Perez andZerah) . I n the Esau - Jacob legend al so there arequ i te ev ident ly h i stor i cal rem in i scences : Esau andJacob are brother tr ibes , Esau a tr ibe of hunters ,Jacob a tr ibe of shepherds ; Esau i s the elder, .

but

by sal e or fraud he loses h i s b i rthr ight, that i s , theo lder and better known tr ibe ofEsau was compe l ledto give way to the l ater and or ig i nal ly weaker tr ibeofJacob and has now the poorer l and .

A s im i l ar r ival ry i s assumed by the legendbetween the Judaean tr ibes of Perez and Zerah andbetween Ephraim and Manasseh . Reuben , thefirst- born among the I srae l i t i sh tr ibes , l oses h i sb i rthr ight on account of s i n : the tr ibe of Reuben ,wh ich was the l eadi ng tr ibe i n the earl i est t imes ,afterwards forfe i ted th i s pos i t i on . Cai n , the husbandman

,s lew h i s brother Abel , the herdsman , but

was compe l l ed to l eave the l and wh ich they hadbefore occupi ed i n common . Shem , Japhet, andCanaan are orig i nal ly brothers ; but Japhet has nowa much more extens ive terr i tory than the others ,and Canaan i s the servant of both .

We hear of many m igrat ions . From the northAbraham m igrates to Canaan , after h im Reb eccah,to marry I saac , and final ly comes Jacob ; the i n i t i a lpoin t of the m igrat ion i s g iven as Ur-KasdimandHaran the c i ty ofNahor (xx iv. In the legend


of Joseph there i s descr ibed a m igrat ion of I srae litishtr ibes to Egypt ; the accoun t of the tr ip ofAbraham to Egypt has a s im i lar basis .Now i t i s i n the nature of l egend that we do notcatch s igh t of these old occurrences c l ear ly by i tsmeans

,but on ly as through a m ist. Legend has

woven a poet i c ve i l about the h i stori ca l memor iesand h idden the i r out l i nes . I n most cases the t imeof the even t i s not to be der ived from the legendi tse l f ; often even the place i s not to be d i st i n

guished, and somet imes not even the personal i ty ofthe actor. Who can te l l what race i t was that cameto Canaan from Aram -Naharaj im? Where the realhome of Jacob and Esau’ was , of Cai n and Abel , ofShem and Japhet, the legend has forgotten . Whattr ibes parted at Bethe l , i n case there i s anyhistori cal bas i s to

“

the legend of the separat ion ofLot andAbraham? And so , al though the th i ngs of the pastare ' h idden rather than reveal ed i n these legends

,

he wou ld be a barbar ian who would despi se them on

th i s account , for often they are more valuab le thanwould be prosai c reports of actua l occurrences .For i nstance, i f we had good h i stor i cal data regarding I shmae l we shou ld not value them h igh ly, forth i s “ wi ld ass” rendered l i tt l e serv i ce to mank i nd ;but as i t i s , touched by the hand of poetry, he i simmortal .I n these l egends the c learest matter i s the character of races : here i s Esau , the huntsman of thesteppes , l i v i ng wi th l i tt l e reflexion from hand to

mouth , forgetful , magnan imous , brave, and hai ry asa goat ; and there i s Jacob the herdsman , a smoothman , more cunn i ng and accustomed to look i nto thefuture . H i s unc l e Laban i s the type of the


Aramman, avari c ious and dece i tfu l , but to outwardappearances an exce l lent and upr ight man , never atl oss for an excuse . A more nob l e figure i sAbraham , hosp i tab l e, peacefu l , a mode l ofpiety.

Moreover i t i s c l ear to us i n many cases i n whatsp i ri t the i nc idents are regarded : we perce ive mosteas i ly how the legend desp ises the unchast i ty of

Canaan ,how i t mocks at Esau and Laban , how i trejo i ces that Lot, . withal l h i s avar i ce , obta i nedafter al l the worse land , etc .

ANTIQUITY OF THE LEGENDS .

These legends have not h i therto rece ived fu l l just i ce, even when i t has been recogn ised that they arel egends . Even the most superfic i a l reader can d i stinguishfor h imsel f the ch i ef or ig i nal sources - in

Genesis'

fromwh ich the presen t redact i on was constructed , now common ly cal l ed the wr i t i ngs of theE loh i st, of the Jahvi s t, and of the Pr i estly Code.S i nce the sources of the E l oh i s t and the Jahv i stwere wr i tten down i n the n i n th or e ight century B .

C. , some commentators have been d isposed to th i nkthat the legends themselves or ig i nated i n the mai nin the age of the I srae l i t i sh k i ngdom and furn i shedtherefore no reve l at ions of pr im i t ive h i s tory. Butin real i ty these legends are much o lder. Thetr ibal and race names wh ich they preserve area lmost al l forgotten i n other records : we knownoth i ng of Shem , Ham , and Japhet, of Abel andCai n

,of Esau and Jacob , noth i ng of Hagar and

scarcely anyth i ng of I shmael , from the h i stor i calrecords of I srae l . Hence we must conc l ude thatthese races al l belong tg

vp rehistoric. t imes . Th is i spart i cu l arly ev ident i n the case of Jacob and Esau,


who were , to be sure, identifieol later wi th Israeland Edom . But th i s very lappi ng of names, aswel l as many features of the legend wh i ch are not

appl i cab le to I srae l and Edom ,as, for i ns tance, th etreat i es between the c i ty of Gerar and the sons ofAbraham (or Isaac) concern i ng !

'

the possess ion of

certai n wel l s , espec i al ly that of Beersheba, show usthat the old narrat ive or ig i nal ly had i n m i ndent ire ly d ifferent races ; i n the Legend Jacob i s notd isposed to war ; i n h i story I srae l conquered Edomi n war ; i n the legend Esau i s s tup id , i n h i storyhei s famous for h i s wi sdom .

Another proof of the age of these tr ibal l egendsmay be found i n the h i story of the legend i n Israe l .The legends i n the Book of Judges have ceased tospeak of tr ibes as persons (except i ng Judges but

they te l l of heroes, of i nd iv i dual leaders of thetr ibes . The latest story that preserves the old

s tyl e and to wh ich an h i stor i cal date can be ass ignedi s the legend of the capture of Shechem , the D i nahl egend of Genes i s . Somet ime i n the earl i er port ion of the per iod of Judges, then , th i s naive styl eof narrat ive d i sappeared so far as we can ascerta i n ;from that t ime on such narrat ives are mere ly transmitted, but no longer constructed new.

CLASS I FICATION OF LEGENDS .

We cal l these l egends “ h istori cal” when theyreflect h i stori cal occurrences ,

“ ethnograph i c” whenthey contai n ch iefly descr ipt ions of race and tr iba lre lat ions . Thus we character i se the l egend of th etreaty of Beersheba and the var ious legends of

migrat ions as ”h i stor i cal ,” but those of Jacoband

Esau as ethnograph i c ."

VARIETIES OF THELEGENDS. 25

IETIOLOGICAL LEGENDS.

Alongs ide these narrat ives of Genes i s are alsoastiological l egends , that i s , those that are wri tten for a purpose, or to exp la i n someth i ng . Therei s no end of the quest ions wh ich i nterest a prim it ive people . The i nst i nct for ask i ng quest ions i si n nate i n man : he wants to know of the orig i n of

t h i ngs . The ch i ld looks i nto the world with wideeyes and asks , Why? The answer wh ich the ch i ldg ives i tse l f and with wh i ch i t i s for the t ime sat i sfied, i s perhaps very ch i ld i sh , and hence i ncorrect ,and yet , i f i t i s a bright ch i ld the answer i si nterest ing and touch i ng even for the grown man .

I n the same way a prim i t ive people asks s im i larquest ions and answers them as best i t can .

These quest ions are usual ly the same that we our

se lves are ask i ng and tryi ng to answer i n our sc ien

tific researches . Hence what we find i n thesel egends are the begi nn i ngs of human sc i ence ; on lyhumble begi nn i ngs , of course, and yet venerab le tous because they are beg inn i ngs , and at the samet ime pecu l i arly attract ive and touch i ng, for i n theseanswers anc ient I srae l has uttered i ts most i n t imatefee l i ngs

,c loth i ng them in a br ight garb of poetry.

Some of these quest ions are the fol lowi ng :

ETHNOLOGICAL LEGENDS.

There i s a des i re to know the reasons for the rel at i ons of tr ibes . Why i s Canaan the servant of h i sbrethren? Why has Japhet such an extended terr itory? Why do the ch i ldren of Lot dwe l l i n thei nhosp i tab le East? How does i t come that Reubenhas lost h i s b i rthr ight? Why must Cai n wander


about a rest less fug i t ive? Why is sevenfold vengeance proc la imed aga i nst the s l ayer of Cai n? Whyi s G i l ead the border between I srae l and the Aramzeans? Why does Beersheba belong to us and notto the people of Gerar? Why i s Shechem i n possess ion ofJoseph? Why have we a righ t to the ho lypl aces at Shechem and Machpel ah? Why hasI shmael become a Bedou i n people wi th just th i s territory and th i s God? How does i t come that th eEgypt i an peasants have to bear the heavy tax of th efifth , wh i le the fields of the pr iests are exempt?And wi th espec i al frequency the quest i on was asked ,How does Israe l come to have th i s glor ious land ofCanaan?The legends te l l i n many vari at ions how i t cameabout that the patr i archs rece ived th i s part i cu larl and : God gave i t to Abraham because of.

h i sobed ience ; when on the occas ion of the separat i o nat Bethe l Lot chose the East, the West fe l l toAbraham ; Jacob obta i ned the b less i ng of the bette rcountry from Isaac by a decept i on ; God prom i sedi t to Jacob at Bethel , and so on.

Such ethnologi cal legends , wh ich te l l a fic t i t iou sstory i n order to explai n tr ibal re l at ions , are of

course very diflicu lt to d i s t i ngu i sh from h istor i ca llegends wh ich conta i n the remnant of a trad i t ion ofsome actual event . Very common ly ethnologica land ethnograph i c features are comb i ned i n the samelegend : the re lat ions under lyi ng the story are h i storical , but the way i n wh ich they are explai ned i spoet i c .The usual nature of the answer g iven to thesequest ions by our l egends i s that the present relat ions are due to some transact ion of the patr iarchs



th i ngs . I t was qu i te imposs ib le i n many cases forthe anc i ent people to g ive the correct explanat ion ,for names were, wi th I srae l as wi th other nat ion s,among the most anc i en t possess ions of the peop l e,com i ng down from ext i nct races or from far aways tages of the nat i onal l anguage . Many ofour current names such as Rh i ne , Mosel l e, Neckar, Harz,Berl i n , London , Thames , Se i ne , etc . , are equal lyun inte l l ig ib l e to those

‘

not tra i ned i n ph i lo logy. It

i s probabl e that the very fac t of the odd i ty andun i nte l l ig ib i l i ty of these names attracted the atte nt ion of the anc i en t race . Early Israel as a matterof course explai ns such names

’

wi thout any sc ient i ficsp i r i t and whol ly on the bas i s of the l anguage as i tstood . I t ident ifies the old name with a modernone wh i ch sounds more or less l i ke i t, and proceedsto te l l a l i tt l e story expla i n i ng why th i s part i cu l arword was uttered under these c i rcumstances and wasadopted as the name . We too have our popu l aretymolog ies . How many there are who bel i evethat the nob le r iver wh i ch runs down between NewHampsh i re and Vermont and across Massachuset tsand Connect i cut i s so named because i t “ connect s”

the firs t two and “ cuts” the latter two state s !Manhattan Is l and , i t i s said, was named from theexc lamat ion of a savage who was struck by the s i zeof a Dutch hat worn by an early burgher,

“ Man haton !

” Many are the stor i es told to expla i n why afamous London h ighway . i s cal l ed “

Rotten Row”

The Lombards, we are to ld by another l egend ,were or ig i nal ly cal l ed Winil i. But on an occas i onthe women of the tr ibe put on beards as a d i sgu i se

,

and Wodan look i ng out of h i s wi ndow in the morn


mg exc la imed, What are those‘long beards’ (Lang

(Gr imm , German Legends, No .

The famous Thur ing i an castl e , the Wartburg, i ssa i d to have der i ved i ts name from the fact that thel andgrave, hav i ng strayed th i ther dur i ng a hunt ,exc la imed ,

"Wort, Berg , darol lst mz'

r ez'

ne Burgwarden” (Wai t , mounta i n , thou shal t become myfortress) .S im i l ar l egends are numerous i n Genes i s and i nl ater works . The c i ty of Babe l i s named from thefact that God there confused human tongues (balal ,x i . Jacob i s i n terpreted as “heelholder” becauseat b i rth he he ld h i s brother, whom he robbed of theb i rthrigh t, by the heel (xxv . Zoar means“ tr ifle

,because Lot sa id appeal i ng ly,

“ I t i s on ly atr ifle’ (x ix . 20 , Beersheba i s the wel l ofseven

,because Abraham there gave Abimelech

seven lambs (xx i . 28 ff) ; I saac (fir/Ink) i s said tohave h i s name from the fact that h i s mother laughed

(sahak) whenhis b i rth was foretold to her (xv i i i .and so forth .

I n order to real i se the utter naivete of most ofthese i nterpretat ions , cons ider that the Hebrewlegend calm ly explai ns the Babylon i an name Babe lfrom the Hebrew vocabu lary, and that the writersare often sat i sfied with mere ly approx imate s im i lari t ies of sounds : for i nstance Cai n (more exactlyKaj in) from kam'

tz'

, I have murdered” ( iv .

Reuben from ml : oeonj z,“ he hath regarded my

m isery” (xx ix . etc . Every student of Hebrewknows that these are not sat i sfac tory etymologies .Invest igators have not always fu l ly perce ived thenaive character of th i s theory of etymology, buthave al lowed themse lves to be m is led i nto patch i ng


up some very unsat i sfactory etymolog ies wi th modern app l i ances . I n one case many theolog ians evenare wont to dec lare one of these exp l anat ions , avery i ngen ious one i ndeed (Jahveh

“ I am that Iam , Ex . i i i . 14) as an estab l i shed etymology. Butetymolog ies are not acqu i red by revelat ion . Theetymolog ical l egends are espec i al ly valuab le to usbecause they are espec ial ly c lear i l l ustrat ions of theaet io log i cal vari ety of l egend .

CEREMON IAL LEGENDS .

More important than these etymologi ca l l egendsare those whose purpose i s to expla i n the regu l at ions of rel ig ious ceremon ial s . Such ceremon i a lregu lat i ons pl ay a great part i n the l i fe ofpr im i t i veraces , but many of these customs had become i npart or al together un i ntel l ig ib l e to the one whoobserved them in the earl i est t imes ofwh ich we haveauthent i c record . For customs are far more pers i stent than op i n ions , and rel ig ious customs are particu larly conservat ive . And even we, whose re l ig i ousservi ce has undergone a v igorous purg Ing In theReformat ion and agai n at the hands of rat ional i sm ,

see and hear i n our churches many th ings wh ich weunderstand on ly i n part or not at al l .Anc ient I srae l reflected deep ly upon the orIg In of

these re l ig ious pract i ces. And i f the grown peopl ebecame too b l unted by custom to be ab l e to perceive the strange and un i nte l l ig ib l e features of thecustom , they were roused from the i r i nd ifference bythe quest ions of the ch i ldren . When the ch i ldrensee the i r father perform al l sorts of cur ious customsdur i ng the Feast of the Passover, they wi l l askthus i t i s express ly told , Ex . x i i . 26 ; x i i i . I4—What


does th i s mean? and then the story of the Passoveri s to be told them . A s im i lar d i rect ion i s g ivenw i th re lat ion to the twe lve stones i n the Jordan

(Josh . i v. wh ich the father i s to expla i n to thech i ldren as memorial s of the passage of the Jordan .

I n these examples , then , we see c learly how such al egend i s the answer to a quest ion . S im i l arly,quest ions are asked wi th regard to the orig i n ofc i rcumc is ion , and of the Sabbath . Why do we noteat the musc le of the th igh? Why do they anoi ntthe holy stone of Bethe l and de l iver the t i thesthere? Why do we not sacr ifice a ch i ld at Jeruel asJahveh commands , but i n i ts stead a ram (Gen .

Why do our people “ l imp ,” that is, per

form acerta i n dance, at the fest ival i n Penuel(xxxn.

No Israe l i te cou ld have g iven the rea l reason fora l l these th ings , for they were too old . But tore l i eve th i s embarrassment myth and legend stepi n . They te l l a story and exp lai n the sacred custom: l ong agoah even t occurred from wh ich th i sceremony very natural ly sprang, and we perform theceremony represent ing the event i n commemorat ionof i t . But th i s s tory that expl a i ns the custom is .

always laid i n prim i t ive t imes . Thus the anc ientrace g ives the ent i re ly correct impress ion that thecustoms of the i r re l ig ious serv i ce or ig i nated i n theimmemor ia l past : the trees ofShechem and Hebronare older than Abraham ! We perform the ri te ofc i rcumc is ion i n memory of Moses , whose firstbornwas c i rcumc i sed as a redempt ion for Moses whoseb lood God demanded (Ex . i v. 24 We rest onthe seventh day because God at the creat ion of theworld rested on the seventh day (a myth , because


God h imsel f i s the actor i n i t) . The musc le of theth igh i s sacred to us because God struck Jacob onth is muscle wh i l e wrest l i ng wi th h im at Penue l

(xxx i i . The stone at Bethe l was first ano i ntedby Jacob because i t was h i s p i l low i n the n ightwhen God appeared to h im (xxv i i i .

'

I I A t

Jerue l— th i s i s the name of the scene of the sacrific eof Isaac , xx i i . I - Ig (cf. the Commentary, p . 2 18 ff. )—God at first demanded of Abraham h i s ch i ld, butafterward accepted a ram . We " l imp” at Penue li n im i tat ion of Jacob , who l imped there when hish ip was lamed i n the wrest l i ng wi th God (xxxi i .

And so on .

I n al l th i s matter we are constant ly heari ng of

certa i n defin i te p laces , such as Bethe l , Penue l ,Shechem , Beersheba, Lacha- ro i , Jeruel , etc . , and o fthe trees , wel l s , and stone monuments at thes eplaces . These are the pr im i t ive sanctuar i es of thetr ibes and fam i l i es of I srae l . Pr im i t ive t imes fel tthat there was some immed iate man i festat ion ofthenature of the d iv i n i ty i n these monuments , butal ater t ime, wh ich no longer regarded the connex ionas so c lear and so se l f- ev ident, ra i sed the quest ion ,Why is th i s part i cu lar pl ace and th i s sacredmemor ial so espec ial ly sacred? The regu lar answerto th i s quest ion was , Because i n th i s place the d iv i ni ty appeared to our ancestor. In commemorat ion ofth i s theophany we worsh ip God i n th i s p lace . Nowi n the h i s tory of re l ig ion i t i s of great s ignificancethat the ceremon ia l l egend comes from a t ime whenrel ig ious fee l i ng no longer perce ived as sel f- evidentthe d ivi n i ty of the local i ty and the natural monumentand had forgotten the s ign ificance of the sacredceremony. Accord i ngly the legend has to supply


an explanat ion ofhow i t came about that the Godand the tr ibal ancestor met i n th i s part i cular place .

Abraham happened to be s i tt i ng under the tree i nthe noonday heat just as the men appeared to h im ,

and for th i s reason the tree i s sacred (x ix . I

The wel l i n the desert, Lacha- ro i , became the sanctuary of I shmae l because h i s mother i n her fl igh ti n to the desert met at th i s wel l the God who comforted her (xv i . 7 Jacob happened to be passi ng the n ight i n a certa i n pl ace and rest i ng h i s headupon a stone when he saw the heaven ly ladder ;therefore th i s s tone i s our sanctuary (xxv i i i . IO fl ) .Moses chanced to come with h i s flocks to the holymounta i n and the thornbush (Ex . i i i . I Probab ly every one of the greater sanctuar i es of I srae lhad some s im i lar legend of i ts or ig i n .

We can eas i ly imag ine that any such legend of asanctuary was orig i nal ly to ld on the occas ion of thefes t ival concerned and on the orig i nal spot , just as theFeast of the Passover and the legend of the exodus ,the feast ofPurim and the legend of Es ther, the Babylonian Easter fest ival and the Babylon ian hymn ofthe creat ion , belong together, and as wi th us Chr i s tmas and Easter are not to be thought of wi thoutthe i r stor i es . These ceremon ia l l egends are sovaluab le to us because we d i scover from them whatwere the sacred p laces and customs of Israe l and atthe same t ime they g ive us a very viv id real i sat ionof anc ient rel ig ious feel i ng : they are our ch iefsources of i n format ion regard ing the oldest re l ig ionof I srae l . Genes i s i s fu l l of them , and but few arefound i n the l ater books . Almost everywhere i nGenes i s where a certa i n p lace i s named , and atleast wherever God appears at a defin i te p lace, i t i s


based on such a l egend . I n these legends we havethe begi nn i ng of the h i story of re l ig i on .

GEOLOG I CAL AND OTHER LEGENDS.

As ide from the forego i ng we may d i st i ngu i sh anumber of other sorts of l egends , of wh ich at l eastthe geolog i cal deserves ment ion . Such geolog i call egends undertake to expla i n the or ig i n ofal ocal i ty. Whence comes the Dead Sea wi th itsdreadfu l desert? The reg ion was cursed by God onaccount of the terr ib le s i n of i ts i nhab i tants .

Whence comes the p i l l ar of.

sal t yonder wi th itsresemb lance to a woman? That i s a woman , Lot

’

s

wife, turned i nto a p i l l ar of sal t i n pun i shment forattempt i ng to spy out the mystery ofGod (x ix .

But whence does i t come that the b i t of terr i toryabout Zoar i s an except ion to the general desolat ion? Because Jahveh spared i t as a refuge for Lot

(x ix . 17Al l these e t io log ical legends , then , are remotefrom the standards of the modern sc iences to wh ic hthey correspond ; we regard them wi th the emot ionwi th wh i ch a man looks back upon h i s ch i ldhood .

But even for our sc ience they have a great value, forthey furn i sh us i n the i r descr ipt ions or impl i cat ion sof defin i te cond i t ions the most importan t mater i a lfor the knowledge of the anc ient world .

M IX ED LEGENDS .

Very frequent ly var ious types of l egend are comb ined

.

i n one. The fl ight of Hagar (xvi . ) i s to becal led ethnograph i c because i t dep i cts the l i fe ofI shmael ; ethnolog i c , because i t undertakes to

explai n these cond i t ions ; i n one feature i t i s al l i ed



el us ion that he a lways has the or ig in of the legendi n th i s o ldes t i n terpretat ion atta i nab le by us . On

the contrary, we have to reckon wi th the poss ib i l i tythat the features of the s tory wh ich are i n te l l ig ib l eto us were i njected i nto i t l ater, and that the legendi tsel f i s older than any mean i ng we can see i n it .F i nal ly, there are legends wh i ch cannot be c lass i

fied under any of the heads g iven above . Of suchare large port i ons of the legend of Joseph ; al so thech ief feature of the story of Jacob and Laban ; thedece i ts and tr i cks cannot b e

‘

understood from thestandpo in t of e ither h istory or e t io l ogy.

The preced ing c lass ificat ion of l egends i s based ofcourse upon the chi ef or dom inant features . Alongwi th these go the pure ly ornamental or e sthet i cfeatures , twi n i ng about the others l i ke v i nes overthe i r tre l l i ses . The art of these legends i s revealedespec ial ly in th i s portrayal of the subject matterg iven .

THE L ITERARY FORM OF THE

LEGENDS.

HE beauty of the legends of Genes i s hasalways been a source ofde l ight to readers of

refined taste and i t i s not mere chance that pai ntershave been so fond of choos i ng the subjects of the i rworks from Genes i s . Scholars have more rare lyexpressed apprec i at i on of the beauty of these narratives, often perhaps for personal reasons , and perhaps often because the e sthet i c po i nt of v iewseemed to them incompat ib l e wi th the d ign i ty ofsc i ence . However, we do not share th i s prejud ice ,but, on the contrary, are of the opi n ion that one

°

whoignores the art i s t i c form of these l egends not on lydepr ives h imsel f of a great pleasure, but i s unab leproper ly to sat i s fy the sc i en t ific demands of theunderstand i ng of Genes i s . Nay, more : i t i s no

rinsignificant quest i on for sc i ence to answer, i n whatthe pecu l i ar beauty of the legends cons i sts , -aproblem whose sol ut ion requ ires a thorough i nvest igat ion of the contents and the re l ig ion ofGenes i s .

GENES IS IS PROSE .

The first quest ion i s , whether the form of the d i ct ion i s prose or poetry. As ide from Gen es i s x l i x .

wh ich i s a poem and not a narrat ive, and on that37


ground a lone i s out ofplace i n Genes i s , al l that thebook contai ns i s prose i n form . Deta i l ed i nvest i

gations of the nature of th i s prose have not beencarr ied on. Meanwh i l e , at least th i s may be sa id ,that th i s prose i s not the common col loqu i al l anguage of every- day l i fe, but i s more art i st i c i n i tscompos i t ion and has some sort of rhythm i ca l construct ion . Hebrew prosody i s st i l l a seal ed bookto us , but i n read ing Genes i s aloud one fee l s anagreeab le harmony of rhythm ical ly balanced members . The trans l ator of Genes i s i s const ra i ned to

im i tate th i s balanc i ng of sentences .S i nce the legends were al ready very old whenthey were wri tten down , as wi l l be shown hereafter, i t i s a matter of course that the language of

Genes i s i s somewhat archai c ; th i s too must bereproduced i n the trans lat i on . I n certa in passages ,the c l imaxes of the stor i es , the l anguage r i ses i n topoetry, as i s the case

' wi th the German Mitre/zenwhere the spel l s and charms are i n poet i c form . I nthe case of some of the legends we know var i antsboth B ib l i cal and extra- B ib l i ca l , notab ly of thestor ies of creat ion , of the Garden of Eden and ofthe F l ood , wh ich are i n ,

str i ct ly metr i ca l form .

I nasmuch as these poet i ca l var i ants are known to beolder than the prose vers ions transm i tted i nGenes i s , we are warranted i n the conjecture thatthe poet i c form of these l egends i s o lder than anyprose form whatever . The older and str i c t lyrhythmical form , wh ich we must suppose to havebeen sung, would d i ffer from the later prose form ,

wh ich was rec i ted , as does the anc ient German ep i cfrom the l ater Vol/trout}: (book ofpopu lar legends) ,or as do the Arthuri an poems of Chr i s t i an ofTroyes

LI TERAR Y F ORM OF THE LEGENDS. 39

from the prose vers ions of Mal lory’s Morte d’

Art/znr

or the Welsh Mab i nogion .

GENES IS A FOLK- BOOK.

A second quest ion i s , whether these poet i c vers ions are popular trad i t ions or the product ions ofi nd iv idual poets . Modern i nvest igators haveanswered the general pr inc ipl e of the quest ion tothe effect that Genes i s i s popu lar oral trad i t ionwr i tten down . We are ab le to expla i n c l earlyhowsuch popular trad i t ions or ig i nate . O f course, i nthe u l t imate beg i nn ing i t was always an i nd iv idualwho improv i sed or devi sed th i s or that poem . Butit i s characteri st i c of such popu lar trad i t ions thatwe are never ab le to observe them i n the germ , anymore than we can i n the case of language , but thatthey appear, wherever we hear of them , as pr imitive possess ions i nherited from the patr i archs .Between the poet who first conce ived them and thet ime when they were fixed for transm iss ion to posterity a long per iod e lapsed , and i n th i s period thel egends were repeated from generat ion to generat i on and passed through many bands. Y et howeverfai th fu l ly such legends are transm i tted

,they are

i nev i tab ly al tered i n the course of the centur i es .

And thus they final ly become the common product-

oi the people . Th i s transformation -of the legendswas unconsc ious , at l east i n i ts earl i er stages . On lyi n the more recent mod ificat ions i s i t reasonab le toassume the operat ion of consc ious art .Both narrators and aud i tors regarded the legendsas " true” stor i es . That th i s i s true of the legendsof the O ld Testament i s shown i n the h i stor i calbooks of the B ib l e, where the narrators proceed by


almost impercept ib l e degrees from legends to genui ne h i stori cal narrat ives . I t fo l lows al so from th elegends themselves , wh ich go about i n al l ser iousness to account for ac tual cond i t ions : because th ewoman was made from man ’s r ib , therefore he longsfor un ion wi th her ; here we see that th i s story wasno mere poet i cal figure to the one who told i t, bu tan event that had actual ly happened . And furthe rmore , it i s to be expected from the nature of thecase ; l egends come from ages and stages of c iv i l i sat ion wh ich have not yet ac qu i red the i ntel l ectualpower to d ist i ngu i sh between poetry and real i ty.

I t i s therefore no s l ight error when modern i nvest igators dec lare the legend of Parad i se to be anal legory wh i ch was never i n tended to represen tactual occurrences .Moreover, for the very reason that the l egend i sthe product of the whole peopl e, i t i s the express ion of the people’s m i nd . And th i s i s a po i n t ofgreatest importance for our i nterpretat ion of th elegends of Genes i s . We are warranted i n regarding the judgments and sent iments presented i n Genes i s as the common possess ionof l arge numbers ofpeople .

THE CONTENTS OF GENESIS IN PRIM ITIVE FORM .

Accord i ngly, we should attempt i n cons ider ingGenes is to real i se first of al l the form of i ts contentswhen they ex i sted as oral trad i t ion . Th i s po i nt ofv iew has been ignored al together too much h i therto ,and i nvest igators have i nstead treated the legendarybooks too much as “ books .” I f we des i re to understand the legends better we must recal l to v iew thes i tuat ions i n wh ich the legends were rec i ted . We

LI TERAR Y F ORM OF THE LEGENDS. 4-1

hear of such s i tuat i ons Ex . 3m. 26 f. , x i i i . 14 f. ,

Joshua iv. 6: when the ch i ldren ask about the reasonof the sacred ceremony then the father answerst hem by te l l ing the story. S im i l arly we can imag i nehow the story ofSodom was told wi th the Dead Seai n v iew, and the l egend of Bethe l on the summ i t ofBethe l . But the common s i tuat ion wh ich we haveto suppose i s th i s : I n the le i sure of a wi nter eveni ng the fam i ly s i ts about the hearth ; the grownpeople , but more espec i al ly the ch i ldren , l i s teni ntent ly to the beaut i fu l o ld stor ies of the dawn ofthe world

,wh ich they have heard so often yet never

t i re of hear i ng repeated .

Many of the legends , as wi l l be shown later, havesuch a marked art i st i c s tyle that they can scarcelybe regarded i n th i s form as products of the col lect ive people. On the contrary, we must assume thatthere was i n I srae l , as we l l as among the Arabs , ac l ass of profess ional storyte l l ers . These populars tory- tel lers , fam i l i ar wi th old songs and legends ,wandered about the country, and were probably tobe found regularly at the popular fest ivals .We have already seen (page 38) that the transmitted oprose narrat ive was perhaps preceded by anarrat ive i n regu lar rhythm ica l form and i ntendedfor s i ngi ng. I n the case of these songs the c i rcumstances of the i r presentat ion may have been d i fferent . From the precedent of the Babylon i an poemof the creat ion , wh ich i n i ts form i s an Easter hymni n pra i se of Marduk , we may i nfer that the legendsregard ing forms of worsh ip go back to hymns forthe sanctuary wh ich were perhaps sung by the priestat the sacred fest ival s and on the sacred ground (p .

But however th i s may be, the legends regard


i ng sanctuar i es as we have them now had certain lyceased to be sung, and , as the i r pecul iarly colorl e ssatt i tude shows , were not connected with the sacredp lace i n th i s form , but belong al ready to popu l artrad i t ion .

THE REAL UN IT IN GENESIS.

A new and fundamental quest ion i s : What un i t i sreal ly the const i tuen t un i t i n Genes i s , the one wh i chwe shou ld first apply ourse lves to? For there are anumber of d ifferen t un i ts i n Genes i s . The mostcomprehens ive un i t i s the whol e Pentateuch , thenGenes i s , and then the s i ngl e col lect ions of legendsthat preceded i t ; then the i nd iv idual legends of wh i chthe book was composed . Among these a distinct ion has to be made between the i ndependent i nd iv idual legends , such , for example, as those of thefl igh t ofHagar and the sacr ifice of I saac , and on theother hand certai n groups of severa l l egends constituting l egend - cyc les , such as the cyc le wh i chtreats the dest i n i es of Abraham and Lot down tothe b i rth .of the i r sons , or the one compri s i ngJacob’s exper iences wi th Esau and wi th Laban , orthe one of wh i ch Joseph i s the hero . Al l of thesevarious un i ts must be cons idered . But the firstquest ion i s , Wh ich of these un i ts i s most importantfor our purposes , that i s , wh ich of them was theorig i na l un i t i n oral trad i t ion?Th i s i s a quesfion that ari ses i n many s im i l arcases : Which i s the e lemental un i t : the song- book

,

the i nd iv idual group of songs i n i t , or the ind iv idualsong? I s i t the gospe l , the address , or the i nd iv idual utterance that i s reported of Jesus? The



ham was reso lved upon the deed and very nearl yaccompl i shed i t , but at the l as t moment the sacr ificewas prevented by God h imse l f : I saac i s preserved toAbraham .

“Then they returned together to Beersheba .

” We see that the narrat ive always opens i nsuch a way that one recogn i ses that someth i ng newis about to begi n ; and i t C loses at the poi n t wherethe compl i cat ion that has ari sen i s happ i ly reso lved :no one can ask , What fol lowed?S im i l ar ly

,the un i ty of the separate l egends i s

shown i n the fact that they are i n each case fi l ledwi th a s i ngle harmon ious sent iment . Thus , i n thestory of the sacr ifice of I saac , emot ion i s predominant ; i n that ofJacob

’ s decept i on of I saac , humor ;i n the story of Sodom , moral earnestness ; i n thestory of Babel , the fear of Alm ighty God .

Many stor ies are ent i re ly spo i l ed by fol lowi ngthem up immedi ate ly wi th new ones wh ich dr ive thereader sudden ly from one mood to another . Everysk i l fu l storyte l l er, On the contrary, makes a pauseafter te l l i ng one such story, giv i ng the imagi nat iont ime to recover, al lowi ng the hearer to reflect i nqu iet on what he has heard wh i l e the chords thathave been struck are perm i tted to d i e away: Anyone, for i nstance, who has fol lowed the story of

I saac sympathet i cal ly, fee l s at the c lose the need ofrepose i n wh ich to recover . from the emot ionaroused . Those stor ies espec ial ly wh ich a im tog ive a reason for some present cond i t ion (Cp. pp. 17,and 25- 36) requ i re a pause at the c lose so thatthe hearer may compare the prophecy and i ts present fu lfi lment ; as ev idence of th i s cons ider the c loseof the story ofEden , of the F lood, orof the drunkenness of Noah .

L! TERAR Y F ORMS OF THE LEGENDS. 4-5

LEGEND CYCLES.

I n l ater t imes there were formed of these i nd iv idual legends greater un i ts , cal l ed legend cyc les ,i n wh ich the separate l egends are more or lessart i st i cal ly comb i ned . But even here i t i s not ata l l diflicu lt i n most cases to extr i cate the or igi nalconst i tuent elements from one another. Thus thel egend cyc le wh ich treats Abraham and Lot separates c learly i n to the fol lowi ng stor ies : (1) Themigrat ion ofAbraham and Lot to Canaan ; (2) the i rseparat ion at Bethel ; (3) the theophany at Hebron ;(4) the destruct ion of Sodom ; (5) the b irth ofAmmon and Moab ; (6) the b i rth of I saac . Thel egend cycl e of Jacob - Esau - Laban divised c learlyi nto the legends of Jacob and Esau , of Jacob andLaban , the legends of the orig i n of the twelvetr ibes , with var ious l egends i nterspersed of theor ig i n of r i tual Observances . I n the stor ies connected with Joseph , al so , those of Joseph ’s i ntercourse wi th h i s brothers are c l ear ly d ist i ngu i shedfrom those of Pot iphar’s wi fe, ofPharaoh

’s dreams ,and those of the agri cu l tura l cond i t ions of Egypt

(Gen . x lv i i . 13Th i s leads to the pract i ca l conc l us ion for the exegete that each i nd iv idual legend must be i nterpretedfirst of al l from wi th i n . The more i ndependent astory i s , the more sure we-may be that i t i s preservedi n i ts or igi nal form . And the connex ion betweeni nd iv idual legends i s of l ater orig i n i n many cases ,i f i t be not s imply an hal l uc i nat ion of the exegete .

As an example of a pr im it ive l egend wh ich i sa lmost whol ly without antecedent assumpt ions , takethe story of H agar’s fl ight , Gen . xv i . , for wh i ch we

4-6 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS.

need to know on ly that there i s a man named Abraham withawife named Sarah ; everyth i ng e lse i sto ld by the legend i tse l f. An example of a l at ernarrat ive i s that of the su i t for the hand ofReb eccah(chap . th i s l egend i s based upon a who l eser ies of i nd iv idual e l ements wh ich be long to othe rlegends , as the k i nsh ip and m igrat ion of Abraham,

the prom ise of Jahveh at the m igrat i on , the fact sthat I saac was h i s on ly son and the son of h is o ld age ,and so forth . Hence i t i s the i nd iv idual legendwith wh ich we shal l have to deal first i n th i s treat i s e .

LENGTH OF LEGENDS .

What are the l im i ts of such a story? Many of

the stories of Genes i s extend over scarcely morethan ten verses . Th i s i s the case wi th the stor i esof Noah ’ s drunkenness , of the tower of Babel , ofAbraham’s journey to Egypt , of Hagar

’s fl igh t orthe ex i l e of I shmael , of the tr i al of Abraham , of

Jacob at Bethel and at Penuel . After these verybr ief stori es we can group a ser i es of more detai l edstories occupyi ng about a chapter, such as the storyof Parad ise, of Cai n

’s parr i c ide , of the F lood , ofthe theophany at Hebron , of the betrothal of Rebeccah , of the fraud perpetrated upon Isaac by Jacob .

F i nal ly the legend cyc les exceed th i s l im i t of space.Th i s matter of the compass of the legends const i

tutesadec ided d i st i nct ion between them and ourmodern product i ons . Even the most complexlegend groups of Genes i s , such as that of Joseph ,are of very modest extent by modern standards ,wh i l e the o lder l egends are absolute ly abrupt tomodern taste . Now, of course, the br i ef compassof the old l egends i s at the same t ime an i ndex of

LI TERAR Y F ORM OF THE LEGENDS. 47

t he i r character . They deal wi th very s imp le occurrences wh ich can be adequate ly descr ibed i n a fewwords . And th i s compass accords al so wi th theart i st i c ab i l i ty of the narrator and the comprehens ion of the bearer. The earl i es t storyte l l ers werenot capab le of construct i ng art i st i c works of anycons iderab le extent ; ne i ther cou ld they expect the i rh earers to fol low them with und im i n i shed i nterestfordays and even weeks cont i nuous ly. On the contrary, prim i t ive t imes were sat i sfied wi th qu i te briefproduct i ons wh i ch requ i red not much over hal f anhour. Then when the narrat ive i s fin i shed theimag inat ion of the b earer i s sat i sfied and h i s attent ion exhausted .

On the other hand , our narrat ives show us thatl ater t imes were no l onger sat i sfied wi th the verybr i ef stor i es ofprim iti ve construct ion ; a more fu l lydeveloped e sthet i c facu l ty demands more Scope forits express i on . Thus greater compos i t ions arose.Th is growth i n the compass of l egends was favoredby the c i rcumstance of the i r be i ng wri tten down ;wri tten product ions are natural lymore d iscurs ivethan oral ones , because the eye i n read i ng can moreeas i ly grasp l arger concept ions than the ear i n b eari ng. Accord i ng ly, th i s too i s a measure of there lat ive age of legends , though a measure wh ichmust be used wi th caut ion : the bri efer a legend , thegreater the probab i l i ty that we have i t i n i ts origi nal form .

SIMPLICITY AND CLEARNESS OF PRIM ITIVELITERARY ART.

The brev i ty of the legends i s , as we have seen ,amark of the poverty of pr im it ive l i terary art ; but at


the same t ime th i s poverty has i ts pecu l i aradvantages . The narrow l im its wi th i n wh ich the narrato rmoves compe l h im to concentrate h is ent i re poet i cpower i nto the smal lest compass ; so that, wh i l ethese creat ions are smal l , they are also condensedand efi

'

ective. And the moderate grasp whi chthese smal l works of art have to reckon upon i nthe i r hearers resu l ts a l so i n mak ing the narrat ivesas c l ear and synopt i c as poss ib le .

To make th i s last fact more ev ident , cons ider i nthe first place the balance of parts . Not on ly th elonger of these narrat ives , but espec i al ly the bri efest al so are out l i ned with extraord i nary sharpness .Thus , the story of Noah ’s drunkenness i s constructed as fo l lows : Expos i t i on , Noah

’s drunkenness . I . The occurrences : ( I) Canaan

’s shamelessness ; (2) the fi l i a l respect of Shem and Japhet; I I .The judgments : (1) concern i ng Canaan ; (2) concern i ng Shem and Japhet.

— Or take the story of theGarden of Eden , chap. i i i . : I . The s i n : ( I) th eserpent tempts Eve ; (2) the woman and the mans i n ; (3) as consequence , the loss of the i r i nnocence ;I I . The exam inat ion ; I I I . The pun ishments : (1)the curse upon the serpent , (2) upon the woman ,

(3) upon the man ; IV. Conc lus ion : the expuls ionfrom the garden .

By means of such pl ai n and beaut i fu l ana lyses thenarrat ives ga i n i n c learness , that i s , i n the prerequis i te of al l e sthet i c charm : the who le i s analysedi nto d ivi s ions and subd iv i sions wh i ch are themse lveseas i ly grasped and the re lat ion of wh ich to oneanother i s perfect ly pla i n . And these out l i nes arenever pai nfu l ly forced , but seem to have come qu i teas a matter of course from the nature of the subj ect .

LITERAR Y F ORM OF THE LEGENDS. 4-9

Cons ider, for instance, In the story of Eden , howperfect ly the out l i ne corresponds to the contents :i n the fal l the order i s : Serpent, woman , man ; theexam i nat ion begi ns with the l ast resu l t and reversest he process , the order here be i ng : Man , woman ,se rpent ; the pun i shment fal l s first upon the ch iefs i n ner, and accord ingly the origi na l order i s hereresumed : Serpent , woman , man . Hence the modern reader i s advi sed to heed the systemat i c arrangement of parts , s i nce the analys i s wi l l at the samet ime give h im the course of the act ion .

Furthermore, the narrator of the legend , un l i ket he modern novel i st, cou ld not expect h i s hearers tobe i nterested in many persons at once, but on thecontrary, he always i ntroduces to us a very smal lnumber. Of course the m i n imum is two , because i tt akes at l east two to make a compl i cat ion of i nterests : such are the cases of the separat ion of Abraham and Lot, of Esau

’s sale of h i s b i rthr ight , andof the story of Penue l ; there are three personagesi n the story of the creat ion of the woman (God , theman and the woman) , i n the story of Ca i n ’s fratric ide (God, Cai n and Abel) , i n the story of Lot i nt he cave, and ofthe sacr ifice of Isaac ; there are fouri n the story of Eden , of Abraham

’s journey i ntoEgypt , ofHagar

’s fl ight, of the decept ion pract i sedupon I saac by Jacob .

There are i ndeed narrat ives i n wh ich more personages take part , as i n the case of the detai led storyof the su i t for the hand of Rebeccah, and espec i al lyi n the stor i es of the twelve sons of Jacob . Y et evenhere the narrators have not been neglectfu l of c learness and d i st i nctness . I n very many cases where anumber of persons appear, the many are treated as


one: they th i nk and wi sh the same th i ngs and actal l al i ke : thus i n the story of the F lood and of thetower of Babel a l l mank i nd are treated as one person , so also wi th the brothers Shem and Japhet,with the three men at Hebron and at Sodom

(accord ing to the origi nal vers ion of the story) ,Lot’s son - in- l aw at Sodom , the court iers of Pharaoh ,the c i t i zens of Shechem (Gen . xxx iv. thebrothers of D i nah (xxx iv. the c i t i zens of

Temnah(xxxv i i i . and i n many other cases .Th i s i s i n accord wi th the cond i t ions of ant iqu i ty,i n wh i ch the i nd iv idual was much less sharp ly d i stingu ished from the mass of the people than i nmodern t imes . At the same t ime, however, th i scondensat ion of several persons i nto one i s due tothe i nab i l i ty of the narrator to catch and depict theactual d i st i nct ions among ind iv iduals .How l im i ted i n those days the capac i ty of evenan art i st i cal ly deve loped narrator to dep ict character i s shown i n the consp icuous i nstance of thestory of Joseph : the narrat ive presents Joseph andthe e leven i n confl i ct ; among the others the storyd i st i ngu ishes Joseph ’s fu l l brother, Benjam i n , theyoungest ; of the remai n i ng ten Reuben (Judah) i srecogn ised separate ly. But th i s i s the extent of thenarrator’s power to characteri se ; the rema in i ng n i nel ack al l i nd iv idual i ty ; they are s imply

“ thebrothers .Further s impl i c i ty i s atta i ned by means of thearrangement of parts , wh ich , as we have noted ,reso lves the story i nto a number of l i tt l e scenes .And i n these scenes i t i s rare that a l l the persons ofthe story appear at once , but on ly a few,

usual lyon ly two , are shown us at once . Compare the


52 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS;

versat i on between a number of persons at once.Thus at the end of the story of Eden God does notreprove al l the part i c i pants i n one common address ;but he turns first to the serpent , then to the woman ,then to the man . And el sewhere al so i t i s thenature of the style to d iv ide up the conversat ioni nto so many d ialogues .

CH IEF AND SUBORDINATE PERSONAGES.

The survey of the various personages i s furtherfac i l i tated by a very d i st i nct separat ion of l ead i ngand subord i nate parts . The hearer does not have toask many quest ions to learn wh i ch of the personages shou ld rece ive h i s espec i a l attent ion ; the narrator makes th i s very pla i n to h im s imply by speak i ngmost of the ch ief personage. Thus i nmost of thelegends of the patri archs the patr i archs themselvesare as a matter of course the ch ief personages . I nthe fo l lowi ng cases the personages of the i r respect i ve stories are arranged in the order i n wh i ch theyi nterest the narrator : Cain , Abel ; Abraham , Sarah ,Pharaoh (Genes i s x i i . 10 Abraham , Lot;

Hagar, Sarah , Abraham (chap . the servantand Rebeccahare the ch ief personages i n chap .

xx iv. , the others be i ng al l of second rank ; in chap.

xxvi i . the ch ief personages are Jacob and Esau ,wh i le the parents are secondary ; i n the story of

Jacob and Laban these are the ch ief personages , thewomen secondary. I n th i s c l ass ificat ion sympathyand venerat ion are not to be confused with i nterest ;t he art i st i c i nterest of the narrator i s greater i nCai n than i n Abel , i n Hagar than i n Sarah ; i n chap .

xx iv, the servant i s the Ch ief personage wh i le Abraham has only a subord inate part—In many cases i t

L I TERARY FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 53

i s the dest i n i es of a s i ngle l ead i ng personage thatwe pursue , not i ceab ly i n the case of the stories ofJoseph .

DESCRIPTION OF CHARACTERS .

I n attempt i ng to d i scover the’ method by wh i chCharacters are depicted we are first struck by thebrev i ty with wh i ch subord i nate personages aret reated . Modern l i terary creat ions have accustomed us to expect that every personage i ntroducedbe characteri sed i f poss ib le wi th at l east a fewtouches as an i ndependent i nd iv idual . The method ofthe prim i t ive saga- man i s ent i re ly d i fferent . Thepersonages whom he cons iders al together or tem

porarily subord i nate rece ive l i tt l e or no characterisat ion . I n v iew of the prim i t ive fee l i ng on thesubject i t i s a matter of course that not much attent i on was paid to s l aves . The attendants of Esau

(xxx i i . ff. ) or of Laban (xxx i . 23) are i ntroducedmere ly to show the i r masters ’ importance, and haveno further s ign ificance . The narrators d id not evencons ider i t necessary to ment ion the s i n of the twoChamberla i ns of Pharaoh (xl i . or the fee l i ngs ofD i nah or those of Sarah on the journeyto Egypt (x i i . 10 H i rah , the fri end of Judah

(xxxv i i i . 1, 12 , i s not character ised ; the s i nofEr (xxxv i i . 7) i s not spec ified ; noth i ng i s to ld ofShuah , the wi fe of Judah (xxxv i i i . 2 that i sreal ly character i st i c ; the same i s true of Joseph

’ssteward (xl i i i . of Pot i phar, and others .And even the character i sat ion of the ch ief personages i s remarkably brief accord i ng to our not ions .On ly a few tra i ts are ascribed to them , often butone. Cai n i s jealous of h i s brother, Canaan i s


shameless , Shem and Japhet respectfu l . I n thestory of the separat ion of Lot and Abraham , th eformer i s greedy, the l atter conc i l i atory. I n thestory ofHebron , Abraham i s hosp i table , and i n them igrat ion he i s obed i ent to the wi l l of God . I nthe story of Penue l , Jacob i s strong and brave , inthe affa i r wi th Esau he i s crafty, i n the story of

Joseph he i s fond of the ch i ldren of Rachel . ‘ I nthe somewhat complex story of the Fal l the serpenti s crafty and ev i l , the man and the woman aregu i le less as ch i ldren , the woman i s fond of dai nt iesand gu l l ib le , the man fo l lows h i s wi fe. Even i nthe case of God each i nd iv idual story as a ru l espeaks of but one s i ngle qual i ty : i n most of thelegends he i s the grac ious he lper, i n others , as thestor ies of Parad i se and Babel , he i s the lofty sovereign whose concern i s to keep men wi th i n bounds .We are struck by th i s pauc i ty i n the legends , s i ncewe are fam i l i ar i n modern compos i t ions wi th portra i ts made up of many separate tra i ts and paintedwi th art i st i c deta i l . The art of the prim i t ive story

i s very d ifferent . True, i t i s based upon thecond i t i ons of prim it ive ages i n one respect :en of ant iqu i ty were i n general more s implee many- s ided men of modern t imes . Y et i t

wou ld be an error to suppose that men i n thoseearl i er days were as s imple as they are representedto be i n the legends ; compare i n ev idence of th i sthe character sketches of a somewhat maturer art i nthe Second Book of Samue l . With th i s example inm ind we shal l recogn i se a l so that there i s someother ground for the brev i ty of the legends ofGenes i s than that abbrev i at ion of the real wh ich isi n ev i tab le i n every art i st i c reproduct i on of l i fe.

LI TERAR Y FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 55

POPULAR LEGENDS TREAT MEN AS TYPES.

I t i s, on the contrary, a pecu l i ar popu lar concep

t i on ofman that we meet i n Genes i s . Th i s concept i on was unab le to grasp and represent many s idesofman , much less al l ; i t cou ld see but a l i tt l e . Butso muchthe more need had i t to catch the essent i a lt ra i ts of the i nd iv idual , wherefore i t constructedtypes . Thus i n the story of the fl ight of Hagar,H agar i s the type of the s l ave (xvi .) who i s too we l lt reated , Sarah of the jealous wi fe , Abraham the typeof the conc i l i atory husband . Rache l and Leah aretypes of the favor i te and of the un loved wi fe ; i n thestory of the m igrat i on of Abraham to Egypt , or thestory of Joseph , Pharoah acts l i ke the typical Or iental k i ng i n such cases ; h i s court i ers are court i ers andnoth i ng more ; Abraham

’s servant , chap. xx iv. , i s ano ldand tr ied servant ; Isaac , i n the story ofthe decept i on , i s a b l i nd old man , and Rebeccaha cunn i ng,part i a l mother ; Abraham i n h i s m igrat ion and i nchap . xx i i . i s the type of the p ious and obed ient man .

A number offigures are the types of the races wh ichare sa id to be descended from them : the shame lessCanaan , the generous but stup id Esau , the craftyLaban , the st i l l more crafty Jacob (cp. p.

Doubt less i t i s another s ign of the lack of creat ivegrasp when the legends th us present to our eyesspec ies i nstead of i nd iv idual s ; but the narratorshave made a v i rt ue of necess i ty. With i n the l imited sphere ass igned to them they give us extraordinary ach i evements . The types wh i ch they hadthe opportun i ty to observe they have depicted witha confidenceand a c l earness s im i lar to those d i sp layed in the nat ional types preserved to us by the

5 6 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS.

Egypt ian pai nters . And for th i s very reason manyof the old legends st i l l fasc i nate the modern reader,and even the un learned reader ; they often reproduce un iversal ly human cond i t ions and relat ionswh ich are i nte l l ig ib le without i nterpretat ion unto.

th i s day. To the spec i a l student , however, theyyie ld much greater pl easure, for to h im they furn i shthe most i nt imate reve lat ions regard i ng pr im i t ivecond i t ions and sen t iments .As a natura l conc l us ion from th i s s impl i c i ty ofthe characters represented we recogn i se that the artof these popu lar l egends was far from undertak i ngto show any deve lopment i n the characters , such asimprovement or degenerat ion . Not that prim i t ivet imes ignored the poss ib i l i t i es of such changes ; thedenunc iat ions of the prophets as wel l as h istor i calev idence prove the contrary. But the art of thestory- te l ler i s far from equal to the - task of dep ict i ngsuch an i nward change . Al l that modern exegetesc la im to have found i n Genes i s i n th i s l i ne i s s implyimported i nto the sources : Jacob ’s d i shonest character d id not change at a l l ; and Joseph

’s brethrenare not at al l reformed i n the course of the story,but s imply pun i shed .

Whi le, therefore, the i nd iv idual l egends recogn i sei n the mai n on ly one qual i ty of the personagesi nvo lved , the legend cyc les are ab le to give moredeta i led descri pt ions , al though after a pecu l i ar manner. The character ist i c i nstance i s , of course, theport rayal of the figure of Joseph i n the cyc le of

l egends devoted to h i s h i story. Here each i ndividua l l egend bri ngs out one or two s ides of h isnature : one legend (xxxvi i . ) te l l s us that he wasloved by h is father and therefore hated by h i s

LI TERARY FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 5 7

brethren , and that he had dreams ; another (xxx ix . )te l l s us that everyth i ng throve under h i s hand , andthat he was fa i r and chaste ; a th i rd (x l . ) that hecou ld i nterpret dreams ; and a fourth (xl i . ) that hewas crafty ; and so on . Combi n i ng al l these i nd iv idual t ra i ts we get final ly a complete portra i t .Furthermore, the narrators are exceed i ngly grudgi ng i n the outward descript ion of the i r personagesthey reveal noth i ng regard i ng hai r, complex ion ,eyes or garb . I n al l th i s they seem to take thenormal Hebrew type for granted . And whereverthey deviate from th i s ru le i n the i r descr ipt ion i t i sdone for spec ific reasons : Esuai s red and hai ry(xxv .

'

25) C learly because he i s a type of theEdom i te ; Joseph wears h i s long garment withs leeves (xxxvi i . 3) as a badge of the love of h i sfather ; Leah had tender eyes” and Rache l i s beaut i fu l of form (xx ix . 17) to explai n why Jacob rejectsLeah and loves Rache l .Now if we ask what pri nc ip le the storyte l l er foll ows when he does emphas i se defin i te character i st i csof h i s personages , we d iscover that the characterisat i on i s general ly subord i nated to the act ion . Thepart i cu lar qual i ty of the person i s emphas i sed thati s necessary for the development of the act ion ; al lothers are ignored . The story of the decept ionpract i sed by Jacob te l l s how the latter, fo l lowi ngh i s mother’s counsel , i nduces h i s father to b less h imi nstead of Esau : here Jacob i s crafty, he pract isesdeception ; Esau i s stupid , he lets h imse l f becheated ; I saac i s eas i ly dece ived, i s b l i nd ; Rebeccahi s cunn i ng, she g ives the dece i tfu l advice andi s part i al to Jacob . Th i s i s further portrayed i n amore deta i l ed narrat ive : Jacob i s a shepherd who

5 8 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS

dwel l s at home wi th h i s mother, Esau a hun terwhose ven i son the father i s fond of. The modernstory- te l l er would add a quant i ty of further tra i ts tog ive color and l i fe to the figures , but the prImitivestory- te l l er rejected al l such deta i l s . I t i s veryeasy to see what the e sthet i c i nterest of the narrator was : he cared above al l th i ngs for the act ion ;the portrayal of figures was for h im only a secondary matter.

METHODS OF THE NARRATORS.

What means do the narrators use for the representation of the character of the i r heroes?The modern art i st i s very apt to expla i n i nextended descr ipt ions the thoughts and feel ings ofh i s personages . When one turns from such a modern storyte l ler to the study ofGenes i s, one i s astonished to find i n i t so few utterances regard ing thei nner l i fe of the heroes . On ly rarely are thethoughts of even a lead ing personage express lyto ld , as i n the case of the woman when she wasIook ing des i rous ly at the tree of knowledge, or of

Noah , when he sent forth the b i rds“ to see whether

the waters were dri ed up off the earth ,” or the

thoughts ofLot’s sons - in- l aw, who judged that the i rfather- in- l aw was jest i ng ; the thoughts of I saac,who feared at Gerar that he m ight be robbed of h i swi fe (xxv i . or the cunn ing thoughts wi th wh i chJacob proposed to evade the revenge of h i s brotherEsau (xxx i i . and so on . But how briefand unsat i sfactory even th i s appears comparedwi th the psycholog i cal descr ipt ions of modernwr i ters !



THOUGHT EX PRESSED BY ACTIONS.

Now what i s the reason for th i s strange proceedi ng? We can find i t i n an i nstance l i ke that ofx ix .

27 ff. I n s ight of the c i ty of Sodom Abraham hadheard certa i n remarkable utterances from the threemen ; they had said that they were go ing down toSodom to exam ine i nto the gu i l t of the c i ty. Th i sstrange remark he let run i n h i s head ; i n the morni ng of the fol lowing day he arose and went to th esame place to see whether anyth i ng had happenedi n Sodom dur i ng the n ight . And i n fact , he sees i nthe val ley below a smoke , whence he must i nfe rthat someth i ng has taken place ; but th i s smokeh ides the reg ion , and he cannot make out what hashappened . F or the storyte l l er th i s l i tt l e scene i spl a i n ly not of i nterest because of the th i ng thathappens , but because of the thoughts wh ich Abraham must have thought , and yet he does not te l l u swhat these thoughts were . He mere ly reports to usthe outward i nc idents , and we are ob l iged to suppl ythe real ly important po i nt ourse lves . Th i s storyte l ler

,then , has an eye for the sou l - l i fe of h i s hero ,

but he cannot conce ive these i nward processes wi t hsufli c ient c learness to express them i n defin i tewords .Th i s i s a typi cal i nstance for Genes i s . I n verymany s i tuat ions where the modern wri ter wou ldexpect a psycholog i cal analys i s , the prim i t ive storyte l ler s imply presents an act ion . The sp i r i tua lstate of the man and woman i n Parad ise and afte rthe Fal l i s not analysed , but a s i ngl e object ivetouch i s g iven by wh i ch we may recogn ise i t . Thenarrator says noth i ng of the thoughts ofAdam when

L I TERAR Y TORM OF THE LEGENDS. 61

the woman handed h im the forb idden fru i t , butmere ly, that he ate i t ; he does not d i scourse to uson Abraham ’s hospi tab le d i spos i t ion , but he te l l s ushow he enterta i ned the three men . He does not saythat Shem and Japhet fe l t chastely and respectfu l ly,but he has them act chaste ly and respectfu l ly ; notthat Joseph had compass i on upon h i s brethren , butthat he turned away and wept (x l i i . 24; xl i i i . notthat Hagar

,when m istreated by Sarah , fe l t offended

i n the depths of her maternal pr ide, but that she ranaway from her m i stress (xv i . not that Laban wasdazzled by the go ld of the stranger, but that he madehaste to i nv i te h im (xx iv . not that obed ienceto God tr i umphed i n Abraham over parental love ,but that he arose straightway (xxi i . not thatTamar remai ned fa i thfu l to her husband even b eyond the grave, but that she took measures to rearup ch i ldren from h i s seed (xxxv i i i) .From al l this we see on what the storyte l ler l ai dthe ch i ef emphasi s . He does not share the modernpo i nt of view that the most i nterest i ng and worthytheme for art i s the sou l - l i fe ofman ; h i s ch i ld l i ketas te i s fondest of the outward , object ive facts .And i n th i s l i ne h is ach ievements are exce l lent .He has an extraord i nary facu l ty for se lect i ng justthe act ion wh i ch i s most character i st i c for the stateof fee l i ng of h i s hero . How cou ld fi l i a l p iety bebetter represented than i n the story of Shem and

Japhet? Or mother- love better than by the behav iorofHagar? She gave her son to dri nk— we are notto ld that she herse l f drank . How could hosp i tal i tybe better dep i cted than i n the act ions of Abrahamat Hebron? And there i s noth i ng less than gen iusi n the s imple manner i n wh i ch the i nnocence and


the consc iousness of the first men is i l l ustrated bythe i r nakedness and the i r c loth i ng.

These s imple art i sts had not l earned how toreflect ; but they were masters of observat ion . I t i sch i efly th i s adm i rab le art of i nd i rect ly depict i ngmen through the i r act ions wh i ch makes the legendsso v iv id . L i tt le as these prim it ive men cou ld talkabout their sou l - l i fe, we gai n the impress ion thatthey are lett i ng us look i nto the very hearts of the i rheroes . These figures l ive before our eyes , andhence the modern reader, charmed by the lum i nousc l earness of these o ld legends , i s qu i te wi l l i ng toforget the i r defects .

SOUL - LI FE NOT IGNORED .

But even when the storyte l ler sa id noth i ng of thesou l - l i fe of h i s heroes , h i s hearer d id not ent i re lyfai l to catch an impress ion of i t . We must recal lat th i s point that we are deal i ng with ora l ly rec i tedstori es . Between narratorand hearer there i sanother l i nk than that of words ; the tone of thevo i ce talks , the express ion of the face or the gestures of the narrator. Joy and gri ef, l ove

'

, anger,jealousy, hatred , emot ion , and al l the other moodsof h i s heroes , shared by the narrator, were thusimparted to h i s hearers wi thout the utterance of aword .

Modern exeges i s i s cal led to the task of read i ngbetween the l i nes the sp i r i tual l i fe wh ich the narrator d id not express ly utter. Th is i s not alwayssuch a s imple matter. We have i n some cases gotten out of touch with the emot ions of older t imesand the express i ons for them . Why, for i nstance ,d id Rebeccahve i l herself when she caught s ight of

L ITERARY FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 63

I saac? (xx iv . Why d id the daughters ofLot goi n unto h im? Why d id Tamar des i re offspri ng ofJudah? (xxxvi I. ) What is the connex ion of theawaken ing modesty of the firs t men and the i r s i n?I n such cases exeges i s has often gone far astray bytak i ng modern mot ives and poi nts of v iew forgranted .

A further med ium of express ion for the sp i r i tuall i fe of the personages i s art i cu late speech . Wordsare not , i t i s t rue , so v iv id as act ions , but to makeup for th i s they can the better reveal the i nner l i feof the personages . The early storyte l lers weremasters in the art of find ing words that su i t themood of the speakers : thus the mal i ce of the cunn i ng serpen t i s expressed i n words , as wel l as thegu i le lessness of the ch i ld l i ke woman , Sarah

’s jealonsy of her s l ave as wel l as the conc i l i ator i ness ofAbraham (xvi . the r ighteous wrath of Abimelech

(xx . the caut ion of the shrewd Jacob (xxx i i .and the b i tter l ament of Esau (xxvi i . and of

Laban (xxx i . 43) when dece ived by Jacob . Notab lemasterpi eces of the portraya l of character i n wordsare the temptat ion of the first couple and the conversat ion between Abraham and Isaac on the way tothe mount of sacrifice .

LACON ISM OF THE LEGEND WRITERS .

But even i n th i s connex ion we find many th i ngsto surpr i se us . F i rst of al l , that the personages ofGenes i s often fai l to speak where the modern wri terwould sure ly have them do so

,and where the very

nature of the case seems to requ i re i t . We maywel l imagi ne that Joseph complai ned aloud when


he was cast i nto the pi t and carri ed away to Egypt

(cp. al so x l i i . that the murder of Abel was preceded byad ispute, that Hagar l eft Abraham ’ shouse weeping and compla i n i ng that Abraham hadput her away (xx i . but there i s noth i ng of th ek i nd . The first couple do not utter a word of rep lywhen God pronounces h i s curse upon the i r future :they do not even i ndulge i n se l f- accusat ions ; notaword does Rebeccahsay i n chapter xxvi . , norNoahdur i ng the De luge, nor Abraham in chapter xv i i i ,when a son is prom ised h im or when he i s commanded to sacr ifice I saac ; ne ither does Hagar whenshe sees her ch i ld dyi ng, nor later when God heardthe weep ing of I shmael . One who exam i ned thesereferences m ight eas i ly conc l ude that the personages of Genes i s were i ntended to be portrayed astac i turn and even secret ive ; he wou ld find the on lytal kat ive i nd iv idual to be—God .

But i f we go more deeply i nto these legends, we .

perce ive that th i s extraord inary lacon i sm i s part ofthe style ofthe narrator. The narrators subord i natedeveryth i ng to the act ion . They i ntroduced on lysuch speeches as real ly advanced the act ion .

Hence espec ia l ly they avo ided giv i ng utterance tothe fee l i ngs of the merely pass ive personages .Whether Joseph compla i ns or keeps s i lence

,when

h i s brethren se l l h im , makes no d i fference wi th h isdest i ny. What words were spoken by Abraham andNoah when they rece ived the commands of Godmakes no d i fference ; suffice i t , they obeyed . Thedest i ny of the first fam i ly i s fixed when God hascursed them ; no se l f- reproaches wi l l he lp the matter. Or, what do we care about the d ispute thatpreceded the murder of Abel , s i nce we know the


reason wh ich prompted Cai n ’s deed ! And i t appearsperfect ly natural that men shou ld make no reply tothe prom ises of God , as i s usual ly the case ; forwhat can man add when God has spoken?The other s ide of th i s strange ly lacon i c method i sthat the remarks wh ich the narrator does i ntroduceare an essent i al part of the narrat ive . The conversat i on between the serpent and the woman i s toshow how i t came about that the forb idden fru i t waseaten . Cai n pours forth h i s gu i l t - l aden heart beforeGod , and as a resu l t mod ifies h i s sentence . Abraham begs h i s wife to dec l are herse l f h i s s i ster ; andthus i t comes about that she was taken i nto theharem of Pharaoh (x11. 11 Abraham gave Lotthe cho i ce ofgo i ng to the east or to the west ; henceLot chose the plai n of the Jordan . At Sarah ’srequest Abraham takes Hagar as concub i ne and ather request he gives her up agai n . I n these casesthe words are not id le ; on the contrary they arenecessary to suggest an i nner mot ive for the act ionto fo l low. Espec i al ly necessary are the words ofcurs i ng and of prom ise ; they are the very c l imax ofthe story, up to wh ich al l the rest leads . Th i sexpla i ns why God i s so often represented as speaki ng i n Genes i s ; for speech i s real ly the ch iefmed ium through wh ich God i nfluences the act ion i nthese legends .I n some places the narrators have i ntroduced mon

ologues, the most unconcrete of al l forms of speech ,when the s i tuat i on showed that there was no one present to whom the person cou ld have spoken . Th isi s qu ite common ly the case with God ; for to whomshou ld God revea l h i s most h idden decrees? But i na few cases we can i nfer ( i . 26 ; i i . 6 f. ) an e lder


form of the account , i n wh ich God addressed h imse l f to h i s ce lest i a l assoc iates .But even i n the lacon i c legends there arespeeches wh i ch

,wh i l e they are not exact ly neces

sary,e i ther characteri se a person or attempt to give

the opi n ion of the narrator, or wh ich a im at someother poi nt wh ich the narrator wants to make .

Many of the speeches i n Genes i s are exceed inglybr ief. Recal l the l ament of Hagar : “ I am flee i ngbefore the face ofmy m istress” (xvi . or the wordsof the daughters of Lot (x ix . of Sarah (xx i .

of Abraham (xx i .“ I wi l l swear,

”of

Rebeccah(xx iv . 18 ofJacob (xxv.“Swear

to me th i s day, of Isaac (xxvi . She i s mys i ster,

” of the shepherds of Gerar (xxv i .“The

water i s ours ,”

of Isaac’s s l aves (xxv i .“We

have found water, of Laban (xx ix . Y ea,thou art my flesh and b lood , and so on. Ofcourse, the speeches are not always so brief ; theyare espec i al ly apt to grow longer i n the so lemn andimpress ive formu lae of curs i ng and b less i ng . Buti n general we may see i n brev i ty a character i st i cmark of a certa i n type i n Genes i s .Even such utterances do not a lways revea l theu l t imate purpose of the actors , and reveal the i r sp i r i tual l i fe on ly i n an i nd i rect way. Hence the express ions are not always ent i re ly c lear for us, andrequ i re an espec ia l g i ft for the i r i nterpretat ion . Weare to ld that God forbade to man the fru i t of thetree of l i fe , but h i s reason for th i s i s not given .

What thought was i n God ’s m ind when threaten ingman wi th immed iate death , whereas th i s resu l t d idnot actual ly fo l low? So, too, we learn that the serpent des i res to betray the woman , but not h i s



drank of the wi ne , om i tt i ng the i nterven i ng stepsof pi ck i ng and press i ng the grapes ; he no more te l l sus how the contempt of Hagar was expressed (xvi .

4) than how Sarah took her revenge . We are won tto adm i re the c i rcumstant i al i ty of the narrat ives ,and just ly

,but th i s by no means impl i es that the

legends abound i n str i k i ng and h igh ly concretetouches ; on the contrary, they presen t on the whol enot an abundance, but a pauc i ty, of concrete e lements . But the l i tt l e that we have i s so jud ic iouslyse lected that we are warranted i n seek i ng for a purpose in almost every m inute feature.Th i s economy of C i rcumstant i a l deta i l s i s themore str i k ing because alongs ide such l ight lysketched features , and espec ial ly i n the moredeta i led narrat ives

,there are often very m i nute

descript ions . Thus,for i nstance, the meal that

Abraham serves to the_

three men i s descr ibed i ndeta i l , wh i le the meal of . Lot i s but brieflysketched . For the purpose of exeges i s it i s verysuggest ive to keep th i s quest ion constant ly i n m i nd ,to observe the br ief and deta i l ed treatments , and tocons ider everywhere the i nterest of the narrator .I n genera l th i s wi l l warrant the conc lus ion that thenarrator portrays the pri nc ipal events concrete ly,wh i l e merely h i nt i ng at or om i tt i ng those wh i chare i nc idental to the act ion : thus , for i nstance, i nthe story of the sacr ifice of Isaac the three days ’

journey i s covered at a bound , wh i le the short passage to the place of sacr ifice i s descr ibed i n al ldeta i l . The narrator i s qu i te arb i trary In the matter. S im i lar ly the experiences of Abraham ’s servanton the day when b e sued for the hand of Rebeccahare reported very m inute ly, wh i le al l the days con

L I TERAR Y FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 69

sumed i n the journey to the c i ty of Nahor are d i sposed of i n a breath .

Th is emphas i s l a id upon the act ion i s seen also i nthe manner of the conc lus ion of the narrat ive . Thel egends stop prompt ly when they have atta i ned thedes i red object , not wi th a gradua l cadence , but witha sudden jo l t . Th i s observat ion al so i s importantfor exeges i s . The poi nt just before the c lose i srecogn ised as the c l imax by the narrator. Y et

there are here two vari et i es of conc l us i on : the customary sort fo l lows the c l imax wi th a short sentence(the type i s the sacrifice of I saac) ; the l ess common ,and p la i n ly more impress ive, c loses wi th a pathet i caddress (the curse ofNoah i s here the type) .

UN ITY AND COHERENCE OF PARTS .

From the above observat ions we conc lude thati n the pr im i t ive legends everyth i ng i s subord i natedto the act ion . I n other l i teratures there are narratives i n wh ich the act i on i s merely a garb or athread , wh i l e the ch ief concern i s the psycho logi cstudy, the bri l l i ant conversat i on , or the idea ; butnot so with the prim i t ive Hebrew legend . Theprim i t ive man demanded from h is storyte l ler firstof a l l act ion ; he demands that someth i ng shal l happen in the story to please h i s eye . But the firstessent i a l i n such a story i s to h im i ts i nner un i ty ;the narrator must furn i sh h im a connected ser ies ofeven ts each necessar i ly dependent on the preced i ng.

One of the ch ief charms of the early legend i s justth i s : to show how one th i ng resu lted from another.The more plaus ible and necessary th i s connex ionappears , the more attract ive seems the whole story.

A fam ine forces Abraham to go to Egypt ; but he i s


afra id of be i ng k i l led there on account of h i s beaut i fu l wi fe . Therefore he reports h i s wi fe to be h i ss i ster. Dece ived by this Pharaoh takes Sarah andmakes presents to Abraham . Therefore Go

'

d puni shes Pharaoh . In consequence of this Pharaohreleases Sarah but perm its Abraham to reta i n thepresents .—Sarah has no ch i ldren , but des i res them .

Therefore she g ives her maid to Abraham as concub i ne . Thus Hagar conce ives by Abraham .

Hence Hagar desp ises her m i stress . This offend sthe proud Sarahmost deeply. Thercy'ore she causesAbraham to restore Hagar to her, and m istreats her .Asaresnlt Hagar flees i nto the desert . Here Godhas compass ion on her and prom ises her a son .

Observe how i n such cases each success ive member i s l i nked to the preced i ng one ; how each preced ing member appears as the natura l cause or atl east the antecedent of the succeed ing one . We arei n the habi t, fo l lowing a sort of trad i t ion , of cal l i ngth i s k i nd of narrat ive ch i ld i sh ; but i n so do i ng weare on ly part i al ly right .These narrat ives , then , are exceed ingly tense i nthe i r connex ion . The narrators do not l i ke digress ions, but press wi th al l the i r energy toward themark . Hence they avo id , i f poss ib l e, the introduct ion of new features i n a given story

,but seek an

un i nterrupted connex ion . Rare ly i ndeed are newassumpt ions i ntroduced , but good styl e demands theannouncement of a l l assumpt ions as near the begi nn ing as poss ible . I n pursu i t of th i s method i t i scons idered perm i ss ib le to sk ip over the necessaryconsequences of what has been to ld , provided on lythat those features stand forth wh i ch are essent i a l tothe ’

continuation of the act ion . There must be


noth i ng too much , and noth i ng too l i tt le . The narrator does not spr i ng as ide ; but the hearer al somust not be al lowed to spri ng as ide : the narratorholds fast to h im so that he can th i nk on ly what then arratorwants to have h im th ink .

VARIATIONS ON A G IVEN THEME .

Many of the legends are fond of vary i ng a givenmot ive . Cons ider how the story of Eden makeseveryth i ng dependent on the nakedness and thec loth i ng of man , and how the re lat ion of

“ field”

and “field- t i l l er” (th i s i s the etymology of the

Hebrew word here used for “man”) pervades th i swhole legend ; how the story of Joseph

’s sal e i ntoEgypt treats the coat - s leeve (coat ofmany colors)and the dreams ; how the story of Jacob’s l ast testament (x lv i i . 29 ff. ) constant ly connects h i s act ionswi th h i s bed : i n praying he bows at the head of thebed , x lv i i . 31; i n b less i ng he ri ses up i n bed,x lv i i i . 2 ; i n dying he stretches h imsel f out upon h i sbed , x l ix. 33 (Engl i sh vers ion :

"gathered up h i sfeet i n h i s and so on . I n th i s the ru l e i s

,

qu i te i n oppos i t ion to our sense of s tyl e,to repeat

the express ion every t ime the th ing i s referred to,

so that one and the same word often runs throughthe story l i ke a red thread . Undoubted ly th i s customorig i nated in the poverty of the language ; butthe narrators of our l egends fo l low i t i n order toproduce an impress ion of un i ty and s imp l i c i ty.

Prec i se ly because of th i s i nward connex ion i n thestory i t i s poss ib le i n many places where our

rece ived text shows gaps or d i stort ions to recogn i sethe or iginal form of the legend : the text - cr i t i c i smis i n th i s po i nt very much more pos i t ive than i n the


case of the prophets , the l aws and the songs, wh i chl acked th i s connected condensat ion .

PLAUS IBIL ITY DEMANDED.

Furthermore , the course of the act ion must beprobabl e, h igh ly cred ib le, even unavo idab l e .Nowhere must the hearer be ab le to make the ob ject i on that what i s be i ng told i s i ncons i stent wi thwhat has preceded or with i tse l f. Hagar, whene levated to too h igh stat ion , cou ld not fa i l to growhaughty ; and Sarah could not hel p fee l i ng offended .

True, the probab i l i ty aimed at by these old storyte l l ers was d i fferent from that of wh i ch we speak .

The i r understand ing of nature was d i fferent fromours ; for i nstance, they . regarded i t as ent i re lycred ib le that a l l the k inds of an imal s cou ld get i ntothe ark ; furthermore, the way i n wh ich they speakof God and h i s part i c ipat ion i n the affai rs of theworld was naiver than i s poss ib l e for us of modernt imes ; they regarded i t as qu i te plaus ib l e that theserpent shou ld have spoken i n pr im i t ive t imes ; thatJoseph

,the grand viz ier, shou ld look after the sal e

of the corn i n person .

Hence i t wou ld be qu i te unwarranted to speak ofthe “ arb it rari ness and ”ch i ld i sh reck lessness” of

the legends s imply because the assumpt ions of thenarrators are imposs ib l e to us i n modern t imes .On ly i n a very few places can the eye of the modernreader, even though tra i ned for cr i t i c i sm ,

detectimprobab i l i t i es . I n th i s l i ne we may ask whyJoseph , who was so much attached to h i s father,fa i l ed to commun icate wi th h im al l the long years .Even after Hagar and her son were once rescued

,

were not the dangers of the desert sure to recur

LI TERARY FORM OF THE LEGENDS 73

every day? But the aud itor of anc ient t imesdoubt less d id not ask such quest ions ; he was morew i l l i ng to surrender to the narrator, and was moree as i ly charmed ; he was also more credu lous than weare ; compare for i nstance, x l i i i . 23.

SUSTAINED INTEREST.

On the other hand , i n a we l l - to ld legend the i nc idents are not so s imple that one can guess the wholec ourse of events from the first few words ; i f i t wereso, the legend would lose i ts i nterest . No onec ares to hear of th i ngs that are se l f- evident . Ont he contrary, Our storyte l lers are deal i ng wi th whatt hey regard as a compl i cated s i tuat ion , whose finaloutcome cannot be surveyed i n advance by thehearer. Thi s l eads h im to l i sten the more i ntent ly.

Jacob wrest l es with a supernatural be ing ; wh ich ofthe two wi l l conquer? Jacob and Laban are equal lyg i fted i n cunn i ng ; wh ich wi l l succeed i n dece iv i ngthe other? The shrewd but unwarl i ke Jacob has tomeet the du l l but phys i cal ly superior Esau ; howwi l l he manage h im? Abraham has to go downi nto Egypt , and how wi l l he fare there? Thus al lthese stori es are more or l ess exc i t i ng . The ch i ldl i ke l i stener holds h i s breath

,and rejo i ces when the

hero final ly escapes al l the threaten i ng dangers .The narrators are very fond of contrasts : the

Ch i ld cast out i nto the desert becomes a m ighty

people ; a poor s l ave, l angu i sh i ng i n pri son ,becomes the ru ler ofEgypt wi th al l her abundance .They try if poss ibl e to focus these contrasts i nto as i ngle po i n t : at the moment when Hagar i s i n utterdespai r, God takes compass ion on her ; the veryi n stant when Abraham rai ses h i s arm to s lay I saac

,


he i s checked by God . Lot l ingers, and Jacob ho ldsthe d ivi n i ty fast unt i l the dawn i s at hand : the nextmoment wi l l sure ly br ing the dec i s ion .

And where th i s i ntense i nterest i s whol ly lack i ng,where there i s no compl i cat ion of i nterests , therewe have no real l egend . Thus the account of creat ion i n Genes i s i . i s scarce ly to be cal l ed a story ;and yet , from v . 2 and 26, as we l l as from the poet i cvers ions referred to on pp. 10 - 12 and 25

- 26, we canconjecture a form of the account in wh ich more personages appear and i n wh i ch the world i s createdafter a confl i ct of God with Chaos . In l i ke manner,the accounts of Abraham ’s m igrat ion and of h i sleague with Abimelech are not real l egends

,but

on ly legendary trad it ions wh ich have origi natedprobably from the decay of earl i er and fu l lerlegends ;

LEGENDS NOT PURE INVENTION .

As we have seen i n the second d iv i s ion of th istreat i se

,the legends are not free i nvent ions of the

imagi nat ion . On the contrary, a legend adopts andworks over certai n data wh ich come from reflexion,trad i t ion or observat ion . These fundamenta l datahave been treated i n the preced i ng pages ; our present task i s to cons ider the part taken by the imagi nat ion i n the deve lopment of the legends . With th issubject we have reached the very heart of our

i nvest igat ions .As has been shown above, many of the legendsseem intended to answer defin i te quest ions . Thati s , these l egends are not the thought less p lay of animagi nat ion act i ng wi thout other purpose than thesearch for the beaut i fu l , but they have a spec ific



the l egend of the Deluge pl ays wi th the name ofNoah (cp. vi i i . 4, 9, the story of the sacr ifice ofI saac wi th Jerue l (xx i i . 8 , 12 , the story of themeet i ng of Jacob and Esau wi th Mahanaim andPenuel (cp. p . 32 1 i n my Commentary) , and so on.

Thus these legends are r i ch in po ints and al l us ions ; they are so to speak transparent : even the Onewho reads them naive ly and s imp ly as beaut i fu lstor i es finds p leasure i n them , but on ly the one whoho lds them up agai nst the l ight of the pr im i t iveunderstand ing can catch al l the i r beaut i fu l colors ;to h im they appear as smal l but flash i ng and br i ll iant works of art . The characteri st i c feature of th eHebrew popu lar l egends as contrasted wi th othe rlegends

,i f we understand the matter, cons i sts i n th e

flash i ng of these po i nts .The art of the storyte l lers cons i sts i n avo id ingevery susp i c ion of del iberate purpose at the samet ime that they give great prom i nence to the i r po i n t .With marve l lous e legance, wi th fasc i nat i ng grace ,they manage to reach the goa l they have set .

“

Theyte l l a l i tt le story so charm ingly and wi th suc hfidel i ty to nature that we l i sten to them al l unsus

pecting ; and al l at once, before we expect i t, theyare at the i r goal . F or i nstance, the story ofHagar

’ sfl ight (xvi . ) wishes to explai n how Ishmae l , al thoughthe ch i ld of our Abraham , was born i n the wi lde rness ; to th i s end i t draws a p icture of Abraham ’ shousehold : i t shows how, by an ent i re ly cred ib l eseries of events , I shmae l

’s mother wh i l e wi th ch i l dwas brought to desperat i on and fled i nto the wi lde rness ; thence i t came that I shmael i s a ch i ld of th edesert .In many cases the task of the narrator was very

LI TERAR Y FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 77

complex : he had to answer a whole ser ies of d ifferent quest ions , or to ass im i late a quant i ty ofantecedent presumpt ions . Thus , one variant of the legendof Babe l asks the origi n of the d i fference of languages and of the c i ty ofBabe l , the other wants tok now the source of the d ist r ibut ion of races anda l so of a certa i n anc ient structure . Or again, thes tory of Abraham at Hebron undertakes to te l l noton ly the origi n of the worsh ip at Hebron , but alsoto explai n the b i rth of I saac and the cho i ce of h i sn ame . Here then the task was , to un i te the d i fferi ng e lements i nto un i ty. And i t i s j ust here thatth e storyte l lers show the i r art . The prime mot ivefu rn i shes the lead i ng thread of the story ; the subordinate mot ives they spi n i nto a s i ngle scene wh ichthey i ntroduce i nto the body of the story wi th easygrace .

ETYMOLOG IES SUBORDINATE FEATURES.

The etymologies usual ly const i tute such subordi

nate mot ives . Thus i n the story of the worsh ip atJe rue l a scene i s i nterjected wh i ch i s to expla i n then ame of the place,

”God sees but th i s l i tt l es cene, the d ia logue between Abraham and Isaac ,xxi i . 7 f. , expresses so comp lete ly the tone andsent iment of the whole story that we shou ld not bewi l l i ng to d i spense with i t even i f i t had no particu lar po i nt of i ts own . I n other cases the art i stshave jo i ned together two lead ing mot ives ; thenthey i nvented a very s imple and plaus ib l e trans it ion from one to the other : thus the first part of thelegend of Hebron presents the establ i shment ofworsh ip there under the gu i se of the story that


Abraham enterta i ned the three d iv i ne v i s i tors there ;the second port ion , wh ich i s to accoun t for the b i rt hof I saac, s imply proceeds with the given s i tuat ion ,hav i ng the three guests enter i nto a conversat ion attab le and there i n prom ise Isaac to Abraham . I t isthe most charm ing port ion of the task of the interpreter of Genes i s to search for these matters , andnot on ly, so far as th i s i s poss ib le, to d iscover whati s for us the o ldest mean i ng of the legends , but a lsoto observe the refinements of art i st i c compos i t i oni n the stor i es .

SUMMARY.

We have to do, then , even i n the oldest legendsof Genes i s , not wi th aimless , rude stori es, tossed Offwithout reflexion, but on the contrary, there i srevealed i n them a mature, perfected , and veryforc ible art . The narrat ives have a very dec idedstyle .

F i nal ly, attent ion shou ld be cal led to the fact that‘

the narrators scarce ly ever express a d i st i nct op i nion about persons or facts . Th is const i tutes a c leard i st i nct ion between them and the later l egends andh istori es worked over under the influence of theprophets . Of course, the narrators of the earlyl egends had the i r opi n ions ; they are by no meansobject ive, but rather i ntensely subject ive ; and oftenthe real comprehens ion of the legend l i es i n our

obtai n i ng an impress ion of th i s opi n ion of the narrator. But they almost never gave express ion toth i s opi n ion : they were not ab le to reflect c learlyon psychologi cal processes . Wherever we do geta more d i st inct v iew of such an op i n ion i t i s by

L ITERAR Y FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 79

means of the speeches of the actors wh i ch throwsome l ight on what has happened ; cons ider part ieu larly the utterances of Abraham and Abimelech ,c hapter xx . , or the final scene of the story of Labanand Jacob, xxx i . 26 ff. At the same t ime th i s suppress ion of op i n ions shows most c learly that thenarrators, espec ial ly the earl ier ones , d id not careto proc la im general truths .I t i s true, there are at the bas i s of many of thel egends and more or l ess d i s t inct ly recogn i sab le,certa i n general truths , as , i n the case of the storyof the m igrat ion of Abraham , a thought of the valueof fai th , and i n the story ofHebron , the thought oft he

”

reward of hosp ital i ty. But we must not imagi ne that these narrat ives a imed primar i ly at theset ruths ; they do not a im to teach mora l truths .W i th myths, as has been shown on pages 15- 17, th i si s d ifferent , for they a im to answer quest ions of ageneral nature .

AN EARLY ISRAELITISH ROMANCE

Out of the type of legend wh ich has beensketched i n essent i als i n the preced ing pagesthere was evolved , as we may d iscover even i nGenes i s i tse l f, another type re l at ive ly much nearerto modern fict ion . Whi le the story of Hagar’sfl ight i s a c lass i c i nstance of the former sort

,the

most consp icuous example of the second i s the storyofJoseph . I t i s necessary on ly to compare the twonarrat ives i n order to see the great d i fferences i nthe two k i nds : there, everyth i ng characteri st i cal lyb r ief and condensed , here, j ust as character i st i cal ly,everyth ing long spun out .


The first str i k i ng d ifference i s the extent of thestor ies . S i nce the earl ier form was i n vogue we seethat men have learned to construct more cons iderab le works of art and are fond of doing so. Thesecond is , that people are no longer sat i sfied to te l la s i ngle legend by i tse l f, but have the g i ft of comb i n i ng severa l l egends i nto a whole . Thus i t i s i nthe story ofJoseph , so al so i n the Jacob -Esau - Labanstory and in the legends ofAbraham and Lot .Let us i nqu i re how these comb i nat ions cameabout . I n the first place, re lated legends attractedone another. For instance, i t was to be expectedthat legends treat i ng the same i nd iv idual wou ldconst i tute themselves i nto a smal l ep i c, as i n thestories of Joseph and of Jacob ; or the s im i lar, andyet

,

character i st i cal ly d ifferent , l egends of Abrahamat Hebron and Lot at Sodom have become un i ted .

S im i larly i n J , a story of the creat ion and a story ofParad ise are i nterwoven ; both of them treat thebeginn i ngs of the race . I n P the prim it ive legendsof the creat ion and of the deluge orig inal ly const ituted a connected whole . I n many cases that wecan observe the nature of the un ion i s ident i ca l : themore important l egend i s spl i t i n two and the lessimportant one put i nto the gap . We cal l th i sdev ice i n compos i t ion , wh ich i s very common i nthe h i story of l i terature — i nstance The ArabianNag/ctr, the Decameron, Gil Bias, and Hauff’s Tales“ enframed stori es .” Thus, the story of Esau andJacob i s the frame for the story of Jacob and Laban ;the experiences of Joseph i n Egypt are fitted i ntothe story of Joseph and h is brethren ; s im i lar lythe story of Abraham at Hebron i s un i ted with thatofLot at Sodom .

LI TERARY FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 8 1

DEVICES FOR UN ITING SEVERAL STORIES.

I n order to judge of the art i st i c qual i ty of thesecompos i t ions we must first of al l exam ine the jo i ntsor edges of the elder stories . Usual ly the narrators make the trans i t ion by means of very s impledev ices from one of the stor i es to the other. Thetrans i t ion par excel lence i s the journey. When thefirst port ion of the Jacob - Esau legend i s fin ishedJacob sets out for Aram ; there he has h i s experi

ences with Laban , and then returns to Esau . I nthe story of Joseph the carryi ng off of Joseph toEgypt, and later the journey of h i s brethren th i ther,are the connect ing l i nks of the separate stories .S im i larly i n the story of Abraham and Lot , we arefirst to ld that the three men v is i ted Abraham andwent afterwards to Sodom .

Now we must exam i ne how these various journeysare mot ivated . The sale of Joseph i nto Egypt i sthe goal at

'

wh ich everyth i ng that precedes hasaimed . The journey of h i s brethren to Egypt i sprompted by the same great fam i ne wh ich hadal ready been the dec i s ive factor i n bri nging Josephto honor i n Egypt . And the experiences of thebrethren i n Egypt are based upon Joseph’sadvancement . Thus we see that the story of Josephi s very cunn i ngly b lended i nto a whole .

There i s less of un i ty i n the story of Jacob ; buteven here there i s a plaus ib l e mot ive why Jacobgoes to Laban : he i s flee i ng from Esau . I n otherrespects we find here the origi nal l egends s ide bys ide unb l ended . On the contrary, i n the story ofAbraham and Lot no reason is a l l eged why the threemen go d i rect ly from Abraham to Sodom ; that i s to


say, there i s here no attempt at an i nnerharmonisi ng of the d i fferent l egends , but the narrator hasexerted h imse l f a l l the more to devi se art ific ial l i nksof connex ion ; th i s i s why he tel l s that Abrahamaccompan ied the men to the gates of Sodom , andeven returned to the same pl ace on the fo l lowi ngmorn i ng. I n th i s we rece ive most c learly theimpress ion of consc ious art, wh ich i s tryi ng to makefrom orig i nal ly d isconnected e lements a more plaus ib le un i ty. I n the Joseph legend we have aninstance of a much more i nt imate b lend ing of partsthan the ”frames” of these other stor ies , a wholeser ies ofd ifferent adventures harmon ised and i nterwoven .

EPI C D ISCURSIVENESS.

Another characteri st i c feature of the Joseph storyi s i ts d i scurs iveness, wh ich stands in notab le contrast with the brevi ty of the o lder narrat ives . Wefind i n i t an abundance of long speeches , of sol ilo

quies, of deta i led descr ipt ions of s i tuat ions, ofexpos i t ions of the thoughts of the personages . Thenarrator i s fond of repeat i ng i n the form of a speechwhat he has already told . Whatare we to th i nk ofth i s “ epic d iscurs iveness”? Not as an espec ia l characteristic of th i s part i cu lar narrat ive alone, for wefind the same qual i t i es, though less pronounced , i nthe stories of the wooi ng of Rebeccah, of Abrahamat the court of Abimelech (Genes i s in somefeatures of the story of Jacob (notab ly the meet ingofJacob and Esau) ; and the stories of the sacrificeof Isaac and var ious features of the story of Abraham and Lot also furn i sh paral le l s .Very ev ident ly we have to do here wi th a d ist i nct



scenes on the bas is of the earl ier mot ives, as withthe last scene between Joseph and h i s brethren ,chapter 1.

Qu ite un ique i s the i ntercalated episode, thenegot iat ions of Abraham with God regard i ngSodom , wh ich may almost be cal led a d idact i c compos i t ion . It i s wri tten to treat a re l ig ious prob lemwh ich ag i tated the t ime of the author, and wh ichoccurred to h im i n connex ion with the story ofSodom . These narrators have a qu i te remarkab l efondness for long speeches , so great as to l ead themto subord inate the act ion to the speeches . Themost marked i nstance i s the meet i ng of Abrahamwith Ab imelech , chapter xx . Here, qu i te i n opposition to the regu lar ru le of anc ient style , the eventsare not to ld i n the order i n wh ich they occurred , buta series of occurrences are suppressed at the begi nn i ng i n order to bring them i n l ater i n the succeeding speeches . Thus the narratonhas attempted tomake the speeches more i nterest i ng even at theexpense of the i nc idents to be narrated .

I t i s al so a favor i te dev ice to put substance i ntothe speeches by having what has a l ready beenreported repeated by one of the personages of thestory (x l i i i . 13, 2 1, 30 E; x l i i i . 3, 7, 20 f. ; xl iv. 19

ff) .' The ru le of style i n such repet i t ion of speech

i s , contrary to the method of Homer, to vary themsomewhat the second t ime . Th is preference forlonger speeches i s , as we c learly perce ive , a secondary phenomenon i n Hebrew style

,the mark of a

later period . We observe th i s i n the fact that thevery pieces wh ich we recogn i se from other cons iderations as the latest deve lopments of the legendor as i ntercalat ions (x i i i . 14

- 17; xvi . 9 f. ; xvi i i .

LITERAR Y F ORM OF THE LEGENDS. 8 5

17- 19, 23 33) are the ones wh ich contai n thesespeeches .We may find th is del ight i n d iscurs iveness i nother spec ies ofHebrew l i terature also The brief,condensed style of Amos i s fo l lowed by the d i scurs ive style ofaJeremiah, and the same relat ionex ists between the lacon i c sentences of the Book ofthe Covenant and the long- winded expos i t ions ofDeuteronomy, between the brief apothegms wh ichconst i tute the heart of the Book of Proverbs and theextended speeches wh ich were afterwards added byway of i ntroduct ion , between the oldest fo lk - songs ,wh ich often conta i n but a s i ngle l i ne each , and thelong poems of art poetry .

INTEREST IN SOUL - L I FE.

We do not always agree with th i s taste of the latert ime ; for i nstance, the story of Joseph approachesthe danger- l i ne of becom ing un i nterest i ng fromexcess ive deta i l . On the other hand , th i s d i seursiveness i s at the same t ime the ev idence of a newlyacqu i red facu lty. Whi le the earl ier t ime canexpress i ts i nner l i fe on ly i n bri ef and brokenwords , the new generat ion has l earned to observei tse l f more c losely and to express i tse l f fu ore com

pletely. With th i s there has come an i ncrease ofi nterest i n the sou l - l i fe of the i nd iv idual . Psychological prob lems are now treated wi th fondness andwith sk i l l . Thus i n the story of the sacrifice ofIsaac there was created the perfect ion of the character study.

The narrator of the stories of Joseph shows h imse l fa master of the art of pai nt i ng the portrai t of a manby means of many smal l touches . Espec i al ly suc

86 YYLEZLFKLEAUDSWOF ’ GJ QVZHQEI

cessful i s the descr ipt ion of Joseph’s Inner vac i l l at ion at the s ight of Benjam i n (x l i i i . and thesou l pai nt i ng when Jacob hears that Joseph is st i l la l ive (x lv. and e lsewhere . But wh i le i n theselater narrat ives the inc idefital features of the oldlegend are st i l l deve loped wi th greater detai l , onthe other hand th i s very fact has natural ly thrownthe ch ief features somewhat i nto the backgroundand made the origi nal po i nt of the whole lessobvious . Th is resu l t has been further favored bythe c i rcumstance that the origi nal po i nts had i nmany cases ceased to be al together c lear to thoseof the later t ime . Thus i n the story of Joseph theh i stori cal and e t io logi cal e lements have lost importance .

The d i fference between the two styles i s so greatthat i t seems advi sable to d ist i ngu ish them bydifierent names , and to l im it the use of legend tothe first wh i le we cal l the second romance .

” Ofcourse, the trans i t ion between the two is fluctuant;we may cal l such trans i t ion forms as the story ofLaban and Jacob , or that of Rebeccah, “ l egendstouched wi th romance,

” or “ romances based on

l egendary themes.”

On the re lat ive age of these styles , al so, an opi nion may be ventured , though wi th great caut ion .

The art of narrat ive wh ich was acqu i red i n the writi ng of l egends was appl i ed later to the wri t i ng ofh i story, where, accord i ngly, we may make paral le lobservat ions . Now we see that the oldest h i stori calwr i t i ng known to us has al ready adopted the“ detai led” style. Accord ingly we may assume thatth i s "detai led” style was cu lt ivated at least as earlyas the beginn i ng of the t ime of the k i ngs . And

LITERAR Y FORM OF THE LEGENDS. 87

therefore the condensed style must have been cul t ivated formany centuries before that t ime. However

, it shou ld be observed , th i s fixes on ly thet ime of the styles of narrat ive, and not the age ofthe narrat ives preserved to us in these styles .

H ISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENTOF THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS

IN ORAL TRADITION .

AT the t ime when they were wri tten down thelegends were al ready very old and had al ready

a long h istory beh ind them . Th i s i s i n the verynature of legend : the origi n of legends alwayse ludes the eye of the i nvest igator, goi ng back i ntopreh i stori c t imes . And so i t i s i n the present case .

The great age of the legends i s seen , for example,i n the fact that they often speak ofvan ished tribes ,such as Abe l and Cai n , Shem , Ham and Japhet,Jacob and Esau , none of wh ich are known to h i storical t imes , and further, by the prim it ive v igor ofmany touches that reveal to us the re l ig ion and themoral i ty of the earl i est t imes , as for i nstance, themany mytholog ical traces , such as the story of themarri ages with ange ls , of Jacob

’s wrest l i ng withGod , and the many stori es of dece i t and fraud onthe part of the patr iarchs , and so on .

FOREIGN INFLUENCES.

A port ion of these legends , perhaps very many,d id not orig i nate i n I srae l , but were carr ied i ntoIsrael from fore ign countr ies . Th i s too i s part ofthe nature of these stor ies , th i s wander ing from tribeto tribe

,from land to l and , and al so from rel ig ion

88

THE LEGENDS IN ORAL TRADITION. 89

to re l ig ion . Thus for i nstance many ofourGermanl egends and Marc/ten came to us from fore ign lands .And even to th i s day there i s perhaps noth ing wh ichmodern c iv i l i sed peoples exchange so eas i ly and soextens ive ly as the i r stories , as may be seen , fori nstance , i n the enormous c i rcu lat ion of fore ignnove l s i n Germany.

Now i f we recal l that I srae l l ived upon a soi lenri ched by the c iv i l i sat ion of thousands of years ,that i t l ived by no means i n a state of i so lat ion butwas surrounded on al l s ides by races wi th superiorcu lture, and i f we cons ider further the i nternat ionaltrade and i ntercourse of the ear ly ages , which wentfrom Babylon ia to Egypt and from Arab i a to theMed iterranean by way of Palest i ne, we are warranted in assum ing that th i s pos it ion of Israelamong the nat ions wi l l be reflected in i ts l egends aswel l as i n i ts language , wh ich must be l i teral ly fu l lof borrowed words .Invest igators h i therto , espec ial ly Wel lhausen andh is school

,have erred frequent ly i n assum ing that

the h i story of I srae l cou ld be interpreted almostexclus ive ly from with in , and i n ignori ng al togethertoo much the l i nes wh ich connect Israe l wi th therest of the world . Let us trust that the i nvest igators of the future wi l l be more d isposed than hash i therto been the case to give the h istory of Israeli ts place i n the h i story of the world ! Of course,with our s lender knowledge of the prim i t ive Orientwe are i n large measure thrown back upon conjeetures . Y et th i s cannot just i fy us i n ignori ng altogether the surround ings i n wh ich Israe l l ived , andthere are after al l certa i n th i ngs wh ich we maydeclare wi th tolerable certa i nty.


BABYLON IAN INF LUENCES.

Babylon ian i nfluence i s ev ident more than anyother i n the prim i t ive legends . We can demonstrate th i s i n the case of the legend of the De luge

,

of wh ich we possess the Babylon ian vers ion ; andwe have strong reasons for accept ing i t i n the caseof the story of creat ion , wh ich agrees with theBabylon ian story i n the characteri st i c po i nt of thed iv is ion of the primeval sea i nto two port ions ; alsoi n the legend of N imrod , and i n the trad it ions ofthe patr iarchs , the ten patr i archs of the race as givenby P be ing u l t imate ly the same as the ten prim it ivek ings of the Babylon ians . The legend of theTower ofBabel , too, deals wi th Babylon ia and musthave its or igi n i n that region . The Eranian parallels to the legend of Parad ise show that th is, too,came from further East , but whether from Babylon i aspec ifical ly i s an open quest ion , s i nce the Babylonians located Parad ise not at the source of thestreams , so far as we know, but rather at the i rmouth . We have bes ides a Buddh i st i c paral le l tothe story of Sodom . (Cp. T. Casse l , Mischle Sind

As to the t ime when these legends entered Israe lthe op in ions of i nvest igators are d iv ided ; to us i tseems probable from inter ior ev idence that theselegends wandering from race to race reached Canaanas early as some t ime i n the second m i l l enn i um B . C .

and were adopted by Israe l just as i t was ass im i lati ng the c iv i l i sat ion of Canaan . We know from theTel l - c l -Amarna correspondence that Babylon iani nfluence was work ing upon Canaan even i n th i searly period ; and on the other hand , a l ater t ime,



came into Canaan . Th is assumpt ion i s supportedby the character of many of the legends of Genes i s :the complai sance and peacefu l ness of the figures ofthe patri archs are by no means I srae l i t i sh characteristics. The connex ion of man and fru i t land

(Cp. the Commentary, p. 5) i n the story of Parad i sei s conce ivab le on ly among a people of peasants .Accord ing to the Cai n and Abe l legend also, thefield i s God ’s property, iv . 14.

But espec i a l ly the re l igion of Genes i s h i nts of anon - I srae l i t i sh orig i n for most of the legends : twoof our sources (E and P) avo id cal l i ng the God ofthe patr i archs “ Jahveh ,

” i n wh ich we may see a l astre l i c of the fee l i ng that these stori es real ly havenoth i ng to do wi th “ Jahveh” the God of I srael , asfurthermore the book of Job , wh ich also treats afore ign theme, does not use the name

"Jahveh .

”

But even in the th i rd source (J) , wh ich speaks of“ Jahveh ,

” the name “ Jahveh Zebaoth” i s notfound . On a few occas ions we are able to catch thename of the pre - Jahvi st i c God of the legend ' wehear of E l Lahai Ro’ i” at Lahai Ro’ i , xvi . 39, of“ E l ’O l am at Beersheba, xx i . 33 ff. , of

“ElBethel” at Bethe l , xxx i . 13; E l Shaddai and E l’El jon are probably also such prim i t ive names . I nthe legend ofAbraham at Hebron there are assumedat the start three gods ; po lythe i sm i s al so to betraced i n the legend of the heaven ly l adder atBethe l and i n the fragment of the Mahanaimlegend , xxx". 2 , where ment ion i s made of manyd iv i ne be ings .We recogn i se I srae l i t i sh origi n with perfect certai nty on ly i n those l egends that i ntroduce express lyIsrae l i t i sh names , that i s part i cu larly i n the legends

TIIE LEGENDS IN ORAL TRADI TION. 93

of D i nah (S imeon and Levi) xxx iv, Tamar (J udah)xxxv i i i , and Reuben xxxv. 22 . But we do notmean to dec lare by th is that other narrat ives maynot be of I srae l i t ish origi n . I n part i cu lar the considerab le number of legends wh ich have the i r scenei n Negeb (southward of Judah) may very l i ke ly beof Is rae l i t i sh origi n . But Israel i t i sh trad it ion flowsunm ixed , so far as we can see , on ly from the i ntroduct ion of the story of Moses .The genera l v i ew of the legendary trad i t i ons ofI srae l gives us , then , so far as we are ab le to makei t out, the fo l lowi ng mai n features : The legends ofthe begi nn i ngs i n the mai n are Babylon i an , thelegends of the patri archs are essent i al ly Canaan i t i sh ,and after these come the spec ifical ly Israe l i t i sht rad i t ions . Th i s p i cture corresponds to the h i storyof the development of c ivi l i sat ion : i n Canaan thenat ive c iv i l i sat ion grows up on a foundat ion essential ly Babylon ian , and after th i s comes the Israe litishnat ional l i fe . I t i s a matter of course that thesequence of periods i n the themes for storyte l l i ngand i n the epochs of c iv i l i sat ion should correspond ;thus among modern peoples the ch i ldren make theacqua i ntance first of the I srae l i t i sh stor ies , next ofthe Gre co - Roman , and final ly the modern subjects ,qu ite i n accordance with the i nfluences i n the h istory ofour c iv i l i sat ion .

GREEK PARALLELS .

A part i cu larly i nterest i ng prob lem i s offered bythe correspondence of certa i n legends to Greek sub

jects ; for i nstance the story of the three men whov is i t Abraham is told among the Greeks by Hyrieusat Tanagra (Ovid , Fast , V. , 495 the story of


Pot iphar’s wi fe contai ns the same fict i onal mot iveas that of H i ppo lytus and Phe dra and i s found i nother forms ; there are al so Greek paral le l s for thestory of the curse upon Reuben (Homer, Iliad, IX . ,

447 ff. ) and for the story of the quarre l of thebrothers Esau and Jacob (Apol lodor. , Br

'

b lz'

ofla, I I . ,2/ the legend of Lot at Sodom suggests that ofPh i lemon and Bauc i s . I n the legends of the beg innings al so there are re l ated features : the dec l arat ionthat man and woman were origi nal ly one body

(P lato , Symp. , p. 189 and the myth of theE lys i an happi ness of the primeval t ime are al sofam i l i ar to the Greeks . The solut ion of th i s problem wi l l sure ly be found i n the assumpt ion that boththese currents of trad it ion are branches of one greatOri ental stream .

Accord ingly we i nfer that the legends of Genes i sare of very varied origi n , wh ich i s a l together confirmed by more carefu l exam i nat ion . For the narratives themselves are far from cons i stent : someconce ive of the patri archs as peasants , others asshepherds , but never as c i ty-dwel lers ; some havethe i r scene i n Babylon ia , some in Egypt , some i nAram , and others i n North and South Canaan ; someassume an or igi nal po lythe i sm , others speak of theguard ian gen ius (E !) of the place, some th i nk of

God as the severe lord of mank i nd , others pra isethe mercy of God , and so on .

THE ADAPTATION OF THE LEGENDS.

Natural ly these fore ign themes were v igorous lyadapted i n Israe l to the nat ional i ty and the rel ig ionof the people, a process to be recogn ised mostc learly i n the case of the Babylon ian - Hebrew legend



sal t lake, bes ide the Dead Sea. And i n the processvarious spec ifical ly Israe l i t i sh features have beeni ntroduced i nto the legends , for i nstance , theprophec ies that Esau (Edom) wou ld somet imeseparate from Jacob (I srae l) , xxvII. 40 ; that Josephwould rece ive Shechem

,xlv i i i . 22 ; that Manasseh

would dwind le as compared with Ephraim . In thelegend of Jacob and Laban the mot ive of the boundary treaty at G i l ead i s a l ater i nterpolat ion ; apiece about the preservat ion of Zoar has been addedto the legend of Sodom . The legends of worsh ipwh ich were origi nal ly i ntended to expla i n the sanct i ty of the p lace , were transferred to Jahveh and tothe patri arch Jared and rece ived the new poi nt thatthey were to explai n why Jared had the right toworsh ip Jahveh at th i s place .

MODE OF AMALGAMATION .

Further a lterat ions came about by exchange or

comb inat ion.

of local trad i t ions . We can imagi nethat such th ings happened very frequent ly in connexion wi th travel , espec i a l ly perhaps on the occas ion ofthe great p i lgr images to the tribal sanctuari es , andby means of the c lass of trave l l i ng storyte l lers .Thus the legends travel led from place to place andare to ld i n our present form of the trad i t ion regardi ng var ious p laces . The story of Sodom andGomorrah was local i sed , as i t seems , by anothertrad i t ion at Adma and Sebo’ im (cp. my Commentary, p . Accord i ng to another trad i t ion as im i lar legend was told i n connex ion wi th G ibeahi n Benjam in (Judges x ix) . The rescue of I shmae lwas local i sed both i n Lahai Roi‘ and i n Beersheba

(xx i . The meet ing of Jacob - and Esau on the

THE LEGENDS IN ORAL TRADI TION. 97

former’s return was located at Mahanaim and atPenue l on the Jabbok (i n Northeastern Canaan) ,where i t seems origi nal ly not to be long, s i nce Esaui s supposed to be located i n Edom , south of Canaan .

The names of the patri archs are given i n connexionwi th the most various places , al l C l a im ing to havebeen founded by them ; Abraham part i cu larly i nHebron

,but a lso i n Beersheba and e lsewhere ; Isaac

not on ly i n Beersheba, but also i n M izpah (xxxi .Jacob i n Penuel , Bethe l and Shechem . I n wh i ch

of the p laces the figures were origi nal ly located weare unab le to say, nor whether Abraham or I saacwas the origi nal personage i n the legend of Gerar.These transformat ions are too old to be traced outi n detai l . Wel lhausen’

s conjecture (ProZegorncna,p . 323) that Abraham i s probab ly the latest personage among the patr i archs , i s untenab le .

Thenagai n , var ious l egends have been comb i ned(see pp . 45 and for i nstance

,the stor ies of Para

d i se and of the creat ion as to ld by J, and the mythof the creat ion and of the E lys i an period as toldby P .

Or agai n , var ious d i fferent personages have growntogether : thus the figure of Noah i n Genes i s cons i stsof three orig i nal ly d i fferent personages

,the bu i lder

of the ark , the v i ntager, and the father of Shem ,

Ham and Japhet. In Cain we have comb ined thed ifferent personages : (1) Cain , the son of the firsthuman couple, (2) Cai n , the brother of Abel , (3)Cain , the founder of c i t i es . Jacob

,accord ing to

the legend of Penue l , i s a giant who wrest les wi thGod h imse l f ; accord i ng to the Jacob - Esau stor ies hei s shrewd but coward ly, thus seem i ng to be anent i re ly d i fferent person ; probab ly the Jacob to


whom God reveal s h imse l f at Bethel i s st i l l a d ifferent person .

I nc idental ly to the jo i n i ng together of the legendsthe ped igrees of the patr iarchs were estab l i shed :thus Abraham became the father of I saac , and he i nturn of Jacob ; thus I shmae l was made a son of

Abraham and Lot made h i s nephew, and so on.

And the reasons for th i s are not at al l c lear. Howold th i s ped igree may be we cannot te l l . Theamalgamat ion of the legends i s a process wh ich certainly was under way long before I srae l was i nCanaan ; we can imagine that i t proceeded withespec ia l rap id i ty and thoroughness at the t imewhenIsrae l was agai n gatheri ng i tse l f together as a nat ionunder the first k i ngs .

FIDELITY OF TRANSM ISSION .

And not on ly from place to place, but al so fromage to age, do our l egends wander. I n general theyare s imply repeated , and often with what i s to usan i ncred ib le fidel ity,

— perhaps on ly half understoodor grown ent i re ly un i nte l l igib l e , and yet transm i ttedfurther ! How fai thfu l ly the legends have been to ldwe can learn by comparing the d ifferent vari ants ofthe same story, wh ich , i n sp i te of more or l essdevi at ion , agree neverthe less i n the general planand often even i n the very words . Compare

,for

i nstance, the two variants of the legend of Rebeccah.

And yet even these fa ithfu l ly told legends aresubject to the un iversal l aw of change . When anew generat ion has come, when the outward cond it i ons have changed or the thoughts of men havealtered , whether i t be i n rel igion or eth i cal ideal s ore sthet i c taste , the popu lar legend cannot per



ta i n i s to ld also of Moses and Z ipporah ; the renunc iation of the old gods under the oak at Shechem i sto ld ofJacob and also of Joshua (Joshua thei nterpretat ion of the dream of the fore ign k i ng i sto ld ofboth Joseph and Dan ie l .Let the i nvest igator make h is first observat ionson these twice - told tales ; when he has thus acqu i redthe keen eye and found certa i n l i nes of deve lopment , then let h im compare also the legends wh i chare to ld but once . Then he wi l l begin to see howextraord inari ly varied these legends are ; amongthem are the coarsest and the most del i cate, themost offens ive and the most noble, those showi ng anaive, polythe i st i c re l ig ion , and others i n wh ich i sexpressed the most ideal form of fa i th .

JUDGMENT OF INDIVIDUAL NARRATIVES .

Moreover, the h istory of the legends i s to bederived from the i nd iv idual narrat ives themse lves .I f we look sharply we shal l see revi s ions i n the tasteof a later t ime , s l ight or extens ive add i t ions br i ngi ng i n a thought wh ich was fore ign to the old narrator ; i n certa i n rare cases we may even assume thata whole story has been added to the trad it ion (chap .

and such add i t ions are recogn ised by the factthat they are out of place i n an otherwise b armonious story, and usual ly also by the fact that they arerelat ive ly unconcrete : the art of storyte l l i ng, wh ichin o lden t imes was i n such h igh perfect ion , degenc rated i n later t imes , and the latest , i n part i cu lar,care more for the thought than for the narrat ive.Hence such add i t ions usual ly contai n speeches .Somet imes al so short narrat ive notes are added tothe legend cycles , as for i nstance , we are told br iefly


ofJacob that he bought a fie ld i n Shechem (xxxi i i .18 or that Deborah d ied and was bur ied atBethe l (xxxv. and so on.

But with these fai thfu l narrators more s ign ificantthan the add i t ions are certa i n ly the om iss ions wh ichare i ntended to remove features that have becomeobject ionab le ; for we find gaps i n the narrat ives atevery step . I ndeed , to those of a later t ime oftenso much had become object ionable or had lost i tsi nterest that some legends have become mere torsos :such i s the case wi th the marr iages with angel s

,with

the story of Reuben (xxxv . 2 1- 22a) , of Mahanaim(xxx i i i . 2 I n other cases on ly the names of thefigures of the legend have come down to us wi thoutthe i r legends : thus of the patri archs Nahor, Iscah ,Mi lcah (xi . Ph ichol , Ahuzzath (xxv i . fromthe legend of the giant N imrod we have on ly theproverb ial phrase,

“ l i ke N im rod , a m ighty hunterbefore the Lord” (x . By other i nstances we cansee that the stories , or part i cu lar port ions of them ,

have lost the i r connex ion and were accord ingly nolonger right ly understood : the narrators do notknow why Noah’s dove brought prec i se ly an ol ivel eaf (v i i i . why Judah was afra id to give toTamar h i s youngest son al so (xxxvi i i . whyI saac had but one bless i ng to give

'

(xxvII. andwhy he had to partake of good th i ngs before thebless i ng (xxvi i . why i t was orig i nal ly told thatJacob l imped at Penuel (xxx i i . and so forth .

Hence there i s spread over many legends someth i ng l ikeab lue haze wh ich ve i l s the co lors of thelandscape : we often have a fee l i ng that we i ndeedare st i l l abl e to recal l the moods of the anc ientl egends , but that the last narrators had ceased to


have a true apprec iat ion of those moods . We mustpursue al l these observat ions , find the reasons thatled to the transformat ions, and thus descr ib e thei nner h i story of the legends . But here we give on l ya short sketch .

CHANGES WROUGHT BY TIME IN THE LEGENDS .

The most important e lement i n the h is tory of

the legends i s probably th i s : i n older t imesas th eoutward c i rcumstances i n wh ich they arose weresh i fted , the legends al so i ncurred certa i n al terations. Thus i t was forgotten who the k ing of

Gerar real ly was (xx . and the k ing of Egyptwas put i n i nstead (x i i . 10 I nc idental ly i tseems , accord ing to Winck ler, that a confus ionarose between M izra im (Egypt) and the NorthArab i an tr ibe of the Muzrim, to whom Gerarbelonged ; and Hagar also has been Changed from aMuzritishArab ian woman to a woman of M izra im ,

that i s, an Egypt ian . Or, at a t ime when the Ph i l i st i nes had possess ion of Gerar th i s people also wasbrought i nto the legend of Gerar, whereas the oldestvers ion of the story (xx i . 22 ff. , 26) knowsas yetnoth i ng of th i s fact . The figure of Hagar, once thetype of a tempestuous Bedou i n woman (xvi . ) haslost th i s character i st i c co lor i n the later trad i t ion ,wh ich was not fam i l i ar wi th the desert . The stor iesof Jacob ’s breed ing devi ces wh i le i n Laban’s employ,once the del ight of the profess ional hearers andtherefore qu ite deta i led , were later much abbrev iatedfor hearers or readers who had no i nterest in

.

thesubject. (See Commentary, p. Of the theor iesregard i ng the gradual origi n of human arts andtrades ( iv. 17 ff.) on ly fragments have been pre



MOD I FI CATION OF THETHEOPHANY.

Furthermore, we may observe how naively theolder l egends speak of Jahveh’s appearance on

earth , but how the l ater t ime objected to th i s andmade the reve lat ion of the d iv i n i ty even morei ntang ib l e . Whi le accord ing to the oldest bel iefthe d iv i n i ty h imsel f walked without reserve amongmen— as i n the present form of the legends ofParad i se and of the De luge— the later t ime deckedthe theophany i n the ve i l of mystery : Godappeared on ly i n the darkness of n ight and van ishedwi th the r i s i ng of the sun or he appeared tomen wi thout the i r recogn i s i ng h im and inth i s way the d iv i n i ty, though reveal i ng h imsel f,nevertheless d id not whol ly unve i l h i s nature . St i l llater vers ions put some subord i nate d iv i ne be i ng i nplace of the d iv i n i ty h imsel f, J cal l i ng i t

“ the angelofJahveh ,

” and E the ange l ofGod ,” though th is

devi ce was not observed cons i stent ly ; passagesenough have been left wh i ch presuppose the appearance of Jahveh h imse l f, the o lder vers ion peepi ngforth from beh i nd the newer one.

Th is same poi nt of v iew has led to the change ofGod ’s appearance on earth to the appari t ion i n adream , or to the dec larat ion that the angel remainedi n heaven and spoke to the patr iarch from there :the mystery of the dream - l i fe l eft a ve i l for thed iv i n i ty who revealed h imse l f, or i n the other casehe was not seen at a l l , but on ly heard . The laststage i n th i s development i s represented by thoselegends i n wh ich the d iv i n i ty no longer appears ata defin i te po i nt i n the story, but dom inates thewhole from the u l t imate h idden background , as i nthe stor ies of Rebeccahand of Joseph .


Thus we progress i n Genes i s by many stages fromcrass mythology to a bel ief i n prov idence wh ichseems to us al together modern . I t i s a marveli ndeed that the legend of Penuel (xxx i i . 25 ff. ) i stransm i tted to us i n such prim it ive form ; i n th i sthe device has been to l eave i t undefined who theGod real ly was that attacked Jacob .

THED IVIN ITY AND THE SANCTUARY.

We recogn i se i n th i s process of refin i ng thenature of the theophanyat the same t ime the d i ssoc i at ion of the d iv i n i ty from the sanctuar ies : theo ldest bel ief that the God belonged to th i s particu lar place and could operate nowhere e l se, i s notc l early found i n a s i ngle legend of Genes i s . Onthe contrary, the op in ion of the legend is that thep laces are sacred to the d iv i n i ty because he hadonce i n pr im i t ive t ime appeared here to someancestor. Even the very old legend of Hebron , wh ichactual ly has God appear and eat , does not al legethat the d iv in i ty came forth out of the tree . I nthe story of Hagar’s fl ight, the mother of Ishmae lmeets the d iv i n i ty at the wel l , but no explanat ioni s g iven as to what connex ion he had wi th the we l l .The great age of th i s whole poi nt of VIew Is to begathered from the story of Bethel : the oldest re l ig ion had thought to find the God of the place i n thestone i tse l f, as the name of the sacred stone, beth- cl ,

or"house of God ,

” shows ; but those of the laterage bel i eved that God dwel t h igh above Bethe l , i nheaven , and on ly a ladder preserved the connex ionbetween the real dwel l i ng of God and i ts symbol .Th i s be l i ef i n the heaven ly dwel l i ng of the d iv i n i tyrested , as the legend shows , upon a polythe i st ic


bas i s : Jacob sees many d ivi ne be i ngs goi ng up anddown the ladder.Many legends of sanctuari es are transm i tted to

us i n very faded form : from the story of I shmae l

( i n both vers ions) and l i kewise from the legends ofHebron Mahanaim (xxx i i . 2 Penue l

(xxx i i . 2 5 ff. ) and others , we no longer gather thatthe scenes of the stor i es are p laces of worsh ip .

The legend of the sacr ifice of I saac , original lyal egend of worsh ip, has lost a l l i ts e t io log i cal purpose in the vers ion transm i tted to us and remai nsnoth ing but a character sketch . I n the legend ofPenuel , too , the e t io log ical e lement i s now forgotten . The ano i nt i ng of the stone at Bethel , once asacr ific ia l ceremony, seems i n i ts transm i tted formto be no more than a sort of r i te of consecrat ion .

The Massebha, once sacred stones , symbols of thed ivi n i ty, are final ly mere memorial or tomb stones .The cave of Machpel ah , once a place of worsh ip, isnoth i ng but the bur ial - place of the patr i archs i n ourform of the narrat ive . And so on .

The fad ing out of these l egends of worship showsplai n ly that these stor i es are not preserved forusi n the form i n wh ich they were probably told or iginal ly on the spot for the purpose of establ i sh i ngi ts sanct i ty, but as they c i rcu l ated among the peoplei n later t imes and far from the p l aces concerned .

At the same t ime we see from th i s co lorl ess character of the legends concern i ng the popular sanctuar i esthat the latter had ceased to occupy the foregroundof re l ig ious i n terest wi th the people , or at l eas t wi thcerta i n groups of the peopl e . The bond betweenre l ig ion and the sanctuaries was al ready loosenedwhen the pass ionate polem ic of the prophets severed



helped by h im because he has deserved ass i stanceby h i s chast i ty and h i s magnan im i ty ; to Abrahamhe gives a son because of h i s k i ndness to strangers .These legends al l belong, taken absolute ly, to alater t ime wh ich has a finer eth ical sense, yet theyare al l pr im i t ive i n Israel . The bel ief that Godlooks wi th approval upon the j ust and rewards thewicked accord i ng to h i s s i n i s certai n ly fam i l i ar tothe re l ig ion of Israe l from the begi nn i ng (cp. 1Sam.

xx iv . 20 ; 2 Sam . i i i . From a broader poi n t ofv iew we may i nc l ude here another group of legendswh ich tel l how God has compass ion on the outcastand despai r i ng ; a part i cu l arly affect i ng i nstance ofth i s i s the l egend of the ex i l e of Hagar (xxi . 8A th i rd variety of l egend emphas ises s tronglywhat i t i s that wi ns God ’s approval , to wi t, fa i th ,obed ience , i nv inc ib le trust,— these God imputes asr ighteousness . At God ’s command Noah bu i l t ash ip upon dry land ; fol lowing God

’s word Abrahamleft h i s secure home and m igrated to al i en lands,trust i ng i n God’s prom ise that he should become anat ion despi te the fact that he had not even a sonas yet . Thus they won the favor of God . Thelegend of the su i t for the hand of Rebeccahalsoshows how such steadfast trust i n God i s rewarded .

I n the legend of the sacr ifice of I saac we have awonderfu l character sketch showing how the man oftrue piety subm i ts to even the hardest and most terr ib le trial s i f God so commands . The famous prayerof Jacob , xxx i i . 10 - 13, portrays the humb le grat itude of the pious man who confesses h imsel f to beunworthy of the d ivi ne favor. The narrat ives andpieces wh ich speak thus of d iv i ne favor mark thec l imax of h igh re l igious fee l i ng i n Genes i s ; i t i s


these espec ial ly Wh ich give value to Genes i s evenfor the pi ety of the present day. We see i n thema comparat ive ly l ate development . Th is conc lus ioni s supported by other reasons i n the case ofmost ofthem : the Babylon ian legend of the Del uge, fori nstance, knows noth i ng of the tr i al of the hero’sfa i th ; Jacob

’s prayer i s qu ite secondary i n i ts connexion, and what a contrast th i s prayer and i ts deepfee l i ng makes wi th the remain i ng conduct of theee l - l i ke Jacob ! What a d i fference between i t andthe legend wh ich stands bes ide i t, Jacob

’s wrest l i ngwi th the d iv i n i ty ! I t i s to be noted al so howpecu l iar ly i nconcrete the story of Abraham ’s exodusi s ; wh i le the narrat ive of the covenant , chapter xv . ,

i s perhaps a later compos i t ion without any bas i sof trad i t ion !

NOT MERELY A TRIBAL GOD.

Thus we can d i scern here a ser i es of thoughtsabout God lead i ng from the crudest up to the h ighest . But i n any case these legends teach that i t i san error to th i nk that anc ient Israel conce ived on lyOf a re lat ion between God and Israe l ; on the con

“

trary, i t i s everywhere a matter of the re lat ion ofGod to ind iv idual men . I t i s true that these persons are i n part race types , but the legend looksupon them as persons and depicts God ’s re l at ion tothem i n large measure just i n the way i n wh ich thepeople of that t ime be l i eved that God deal t withi nd iv idual s . We should depr ive many of thesenarrat ives of the i r whole charm i f we fai l ed torecogn i se th i s fact : the reason the legend ofHebronwas heard so glad ly by anc ient l i steners i s that i tte l l s how God rewards hospita l i ty (th i ne and m ine


and the story ofhow God hears the vo i ce ofthe weep ing boy I shmae l i n the wi lderness i s touching because i t shows God hav ing compass ion on

a ch i ld : th i s God wi l l hear the cry of our ch i ldrenalso !

RELIGIOUS AND PROF ANE MOTIVES M INGLED .

Another l i ne of deve lopment i s seen i n the factthat the e lder stor ies have a naive way of m ingl i ngprofane and re l igious mot ives , and c learly wi thouttak i ng any offence at i t : thus the legend ofAbraham in Egypt ce lebrates the shrewdness of thepatri arch , the beauty of h is wi fe and the steadfastness of God . The legend of the De luge pra i ses noton ly the piety, but al so the shrewdness , of Noah

( i n the story of h i s send ing out the b i rds) ; thelegend of the fl ight of Hagar (xvi . ) gives qu i te areal i st i c pi cture of the cond i t ion ofafi’airs i n Abraham ’s household and then te l l s of God ’s ass i stance .These legends come, therefore, from a t ime whenprofane and sacred matters were st i l l frank ly un i ted ,when the men of I srael fought at the same t ime forGod and the popular hero (

“ a sword for Jahveh andG ideon !” Judges v i i . when l ive ly humor wasnot i ncons i stent wi th piety, as , for i nstance, themerry butcher Samson who i s at the same t imeGod ’s nazir (devotee) , or the humor of the legendof Abraham i n Egypt . Now we see by the variantsespec i al ly of th i s last l egend that later t imes nolonger tolerated th i s m ingl i ng of profane and sacredmot ives , or at least that i t offended by the attemptto glor i fy at the same t ime God and profane qual it ies of men . Accord ingly th i s later t ime con

structed stor ies wh i ch are spec ifical ly “ sacred,

”



ofiensive caused no hes i tat ion i n the t ime wh ichfirst to ld the stor ies , but were, on the contrary, asource ofp leasure or of i nsp i rat ion . The people ofold took pleasure i n Benjam i n ’s career of plunder

(xl ix . i n Hagar’s defiant sp i r i t (xvi . ) and i nthe courage ofTamar and the daughters ofLot , whotook seed of a man where they cou ld find i t , andfurther i n the shrewd dece i t of Abraham i n Egypt ,i n Joseph ’s cunn i ng when he i ntroduced h i s brothers to h i s pri nce as shepherds (xlvi i . 1 i nRache l ’s tr i ck by wh ich she dece ived her father soperfect ly (xxx i . and espec ial ly i n the wi les andschemes of the arch - rogue Jacob . I t i s imposs ib leto ignore the great rOle played by dece i t and cunn ing i n these legends of the patri archs , and theamusement the people of o ld got out of i t, and thecharacter wh i ch they thus reveal to us . Then wesee from many examples how the l ater trad it iontook offence at these stori es , re- i nterpreted them or

remodeled them and tried to e l im inate the questionab le features as far as th i s was poss ib le . Th i si s most ev ident i n the vari ants of the legend of thedanger of Sarah : here the later narrators haveremodeled the whole story, wh i ch pla i n ly appearedh igh ly quest ionab le to them , changi ng, for i nstance ,Abraham ’s l i e i nto a mental reservat ion (xx .

the d isgracefu l presents wh ich the patr iarch rece ivesfor h i s wi fe i nto a test imon ial of good repute (xx .and even final ly deriv i ng Abraham ’s weal thfrom the bless i ng of God (xxvi . s im i lar ly, thedeportat ion of Abraham (x i i . 20) has been changedi nto i ts oppos ite (xx . and so on .

The defiant Hagar of chapter xv i . has beenchanged into a pat ient and unfortunate woman

,i n


order that no ofience might be taken with God ’scompass ion upon her (xxi . 8 E) ; the attempt hasbeen made to expla i n Abraham’s treatment ofHagar by add ing that God had commanded h im toput her away (xx i . Espec i a l pai ns has beentaken to c lear Jacob of the charge of d i shonesty i nh i s re l at ions with Laban : i n several long speechesthe narrator undertakes the demonstrat ion thatthere i s no shadow upon Jacob ; Jacob

’s wives andfinal ly Laban h imsel f are ob l iged to recogn ise h i suprightness (xxxi . 4 ff. ; 36 Here too the resorti s , to ascribe to the authori ty of God that wh ichseems quest ionab le to men : God always caused theherds to bring forth i n Jacob ’s i nterest (xxxi .and God h imse l f revealed to Jacob the co lor of thenewborn for the com ing year (xxxi . 10 Withsomewhat less energy the narrators have taken ho ldof the story of Tamar ; yet here too they have donethe i r best to wash Judah wh ite : Judah , they urge,d id not go to Timnath unt i l h i s wi fe was dead.

And a s im i l ar endeavor has been made to give atl east for Lot h imsel f a somewhat more decent shapeto the story of Lot’s daughters , wh ich was veryoffens ive to those of the later age : they say thatLot was dece ived by h i s daughters .

THE PATRIARCHS NOT SAINTS.

The o lden t ime undoubted ly took del ight i n thepatri archs ; i t d id not cons ider them sai nts, but toldof them qu i te frank ly al l sorts of th i ngs that werefar from ideal . Some of the o ld stori es are i n th i srespect exceed ingly true to nature : they portraythe fathers as types of the I srae l i t i sh nat ional i ty

114 THELEGENDS OF GENESIS.

just such as i nd iv idual men in Israe l are. Thus thestory of the fl ight of Hagar (xvi . ) sketches thepeople i n Abraham’s household : Sarahas the jealous wi fe

,Hagar as the defiant s lave, and Abraham

as the peace- lov i ng husband . The later t ime wi thi ts “ sacred” or

“ priest ly” fee l i ng cou ld not tolerate such th ings . On the contrary, th i s age alwayssaw i n the patr i archs models of piety, and of thati ntense and tender p iety wh ich be longed to th i slater age. Thus there has entered i nto the portra i tsof the patr i archs a pecu l i ar d issonance : the veryAbraham who thrust h i s son I shmael i n to the wi lderness (xxi . who does not hes i tate to turnSarah over to the fore ign k i ng and even to acceptpresents for her (x i i . we are asked to regardas the same who i s the lofty model of fa i th for al lages ! And the cunn ing Jacob i s the same whospeaks the wonderfu l prayer of grat i tude ! Wereso lve th i s d i ssonance and free these legends fromthe unpleasant susp ic ion of untruthfu ln recognising that the d i fferent tones are the ofd ifferent periods .The earl ier t ime d id not hes i tate to r i sehere and there the r ights of al i ens when broughti nto confl i ct wi th the patr i archs : for i nstance,Pharaoh ’s r ight as opposed to Abraham ’s (x i i . 18and Esau ’s as opposed to Jacob’s (xxv i i .

i ndeed some of the patriarchs have been s implyabandoned : S imeon , Levi and Reuben were cursedby the i r great - grandfather (x l ix . 3 I srae l i t i shpatri ot i sm was at that t ime so sound that i t to leratedsuch views . But the later t imes , with the i r ones ided, excess ive reverence for

“ the people ofGod,”

cou ld not endure the thought that the patriarchs



t ion , and On the contrary how much is said of peacefu l occupat ions and household affai rs , espec ial ly ofthe begett i ng of ch i ldren ; eat i ng and dr i nk i ng, too,play qu i te a rOle. These narrators are thorough lyposted i n the l i fe of peasants and shepherds and aretherefore a prime source for our “ arche ology” ;but they are not at home i n po l i t i ca l affa i rs : i n th i sthey are s imple and natural .The older l egends are often qu i te coarse : fori nstance , the legend of the defiant Hagar or

Jacob’s decept ion of h i s b l i nd father and the del ight of the l i s teners or the exceed i nglycoarse way i n wh i ch Laban ’s qu i ck - witted daughterdece ives her father (xxx i . 34 i t must have beena strong, coarse race that took pleasure i n suchstor ies . How very d ifferent are the later stor ieswh ich overflow with tears , such as the legend of theex i le of Hagar of the sacr ifice of Isaac

,and

espec ial ly the legends of Joseph ! Here a d ifferentgenerat ion i s express i ng i tse l f, one that loves emot ion and tears .St i l l another d ist i nct ion between the o lder and thelater t ime i s that the former was interested i n thefam i l i ar th i ngs of i ts nearest surround i ngs , wh i l e thel atter tr ies to give a piquant charm to i ts stories bylocat i ng the legend far away and introduc i ng thedescri pt ion of fore ign customs , as i n the story of

Joseph .

CRITERIA OF THE AGE OF THE LEGENDS .

Accord ingly we have an abundance of grounds onwh i ch we can estab l i sh the age or the youth of thenarrat ives . Somet imes we are enab led to out l i nea very brief pre l im i nary or pre - nata l h i story of the


l egend i n quest ion , as for i nstancei n the case of thel egend ofHagar i n wh ich first an E l ,

” thenJahveh h imsel f, and then h i s messenger, was thed iv i n i ty that appeared . Often a ser ies of var iousarguments lead to a given conc lus ion , that a legendi s late or early ; thus the legend of Abraham i nEgypt i s to be regarded for many reasons as veryO ld ; i t i s very bri ef, has a prim i t ive local colori ng,and does not idea l i se i ts personages , and so on.

On the other hand , many arguments l ead to the conelus ion that the legend of Joseph i s very late : i t hasthe latest , spun - out style , few e t io logi cal e l ements ,conta i ns the bel i ef i n Providence , and so on . Butvery often the various cons iderat ions cross oneanother : i n that case i t i s ev ident that the legendcontai ns a confused m ixture of early and late e lements : thus the narrat ive i n chapter xv . , contai n i ngno compl i cations , seems to be re lat ive ly late, butthe theophany i n fire and smoke is surelyaveryprim it ive concept ion . The d i fferent phases ofdevelopment have not been d ist i nct and c lear cutearly features often cont i nued to hold the i r own fora long t ime ; hence i t wi l l be necessary to conce iveof th i s out l i ne of the h i story of the legends not assimple and straightforward , but as very confusedand fu l l of v ic i ss i tudes .

TRIBAL LEGENDS.

I f we take one more survey of the h istory of thesetransformat ions , we shal l sure ly have to adm it thatwe can get s ight of on ly a smal l part of the ent i reprocess . These transmutat ions must have begun ata very early per iod , a period so early that our


sources give us no i ns ight into i t . Th i s shou ld warnus agai nst suppos i ng that we are abl e to arr ivea lways at the very prim it ive s ign ificance of the stories from the h istor i ca l and e t io logical a l l us ionswh ich we find i n the narrat ives . I n th i s connex ionwe may refer to the legends i n wh ich there havebeen no such al l us ions from the begi nn i ng, espec ial ly the legend of Jacob and Laban . And a spec ial warn ing i s needed agai nst rash ly i nterpret i ngas tr ibal l egends those legends whose heroes arepla i n ly ancestors of tribes , for i t may be,as hasbeen shown above, that the story was appl ied to thetribal hero long after i ts origi n .

And i f i t i s scarce ly poss ib le for us to dec larefrom the sources handed down to us the origi nals ign ificance of the legends , ne i ther may we c la im toknow i n every case who the origi nal s were of thefigures i n the legends of the patr iarchs . Some ofthem are real ly names of countr ies , or races, and oftr ibes , as for i nstance, Israe l , I shmae l , Ammon ,Moab , Rache l , Leah , Hagar, Keturah , and thetribes of I srae l . I n an i nscript ion of ThotmosisI I I (ca . 1500 B . C . ) ment ion i s made of a Canaanit i sh tribe or d istr i ct J

’

qb’ar, wh ich wou ld corre

spond to a Hebrew Ja“qob ’

el (Hebrew l Egypt i anr) ; and the name Jacob - e! would be rel ated to Jacobas Jephthahel and Jahn‘e l are re lated to Jephthahand Jabne: they are al l names of tribes or of places ,l i ke I srae l , I shmae l , and J

°rahm°

el . Even on th i sev idence we shou ld conc l ude that Jacob was orig i nal ly the name of a Canaan it i sh d istr ict, whichexi sted i n Canaan before the I srae l i t i sh imm igrat ion .

‘

‘Cp. Ed. MeyerZAW 1886 , p. I . If.



t ion i s very natural for the stor ies of Jonah i n thewhale’s bel ly, of Esther (I star) , of Samson (Semes

’

s

sun) and others . What i s more natura l than toattempt th i s i nterpretat ion with the legends ofGenes i s whose origi n goes back i n part to preh i stor i ct imes when myths were the order of nature? Butas we look at it— the attempts i n th i s l i ne h ithertomade have not been exact ly fortunate and havesomet imes fa i led to demonstrate the i r theses . Ofsuch p ieces as can be i nterpreted with reasonab lecerta i nty as remnants of myt h i ca l narrat ives thereare not many among the tales of the patr iarchs (weare not now speak i ng of the legends of the begi nnings) : the note that Abraham wi th 318 servants s lewh i s enem ies (x iv . I4) -may

,i nWinck ler’s opin ion , go

back to a moon-myth the moon be i ng v i s ibl e 318days i n the year ; Jacob 5 wrest l i ng wi th God suggeststhat th i s Jacob was real ly a Titan , and consequent lywe can scarce ly avoid see i ng here a faded out myth ;Joseph ’s dream that the sun , the moon , and e levenstars were compel led to bow down before h im musthave been origi nal ly an orac l e referr i ng to the Lordof Heaven before whom the h ighest powers of

heaven bow, al though i t seems that th i s dreamwasi ntroduced very late i nto the story of Joseph .

CAUTION NEEDED IN INTERPRETATION .

But before we are warranted i n dec lari ng withregard to afigure in Genes i s that i t bears theimpress of an earl i er god, we must demand not

merely that certai n e lements of a story permit amyth ical i nterpretat ion , but that who le legendsshal l possess str ik i ng resemblances to known myths

,

or that they can be i nterpreted as myths i n perfect ly


c lear and unquest ioned fash ion . Such a demonstration as th is has not been given by i nvest igatorshi therto .

‘ Let us hope that those who attempt i tin the future may be more successfu l ! But let usby no means fa i l to recogn i se the fact that I srae l i nhistor i cal t imes , when these l egends were to ld , sawin Abraham , I saac , and Jacob , not gods but men ,i ts ancestors . And we must further demand that

1The older theory of Goldziher (DerMythos bei den Heb

rc'

icrn , which depended chiefly on the etymologies of

names, is long since discredited. Stucken (Astralmythcn , 1.

Abraham, 1896, 11. Lot, 1897) bases hisassertions upon individual elements ofthe legends, forwhich he hunts togetheranamazingabundance of parallels fromal l over theworld ; butthese parallelsare often on ly very incidental. As Etana,carried up to heaven byan eagle,according to the Babylonianmyth, looks down upon the earth , soAbrahamandLot,according to Stucken, look upon the land fromBethel ,and so Abrahamlooks up to heavenand upon Sodom. But suchanalogieswill not standattack. Winckler, Geschz

’

chtc Israel s, II . , 1900 ,

who continues to buildupon this uncertain foundation, dependsespecially upon the characteristic numbers : the fourwives ofJacobare the four phases of the moon, his twelve sons themonths ; the seven children of Leahare the gods of the daysof the week, the 300 pieces of silver which Benjamin, theyoungest, receivesare the 30 days ofthe lastmonth , the 5 statedressesare the 5 intercalary days ; Joseph’s coat suggests thegarments ofTamarand Istsr (andevery othergarment l) ; hisbeing thrown into the cistern denotes the descent ofTammuzinto the underworld ; the dipping ofhis coat in bloodandhisfather’s belief that hehadbeen eaten byawild beast suggestthe slaying of Adonis by the boar,and so on. Aftersuchareview we cannot yet see satisfactory solutions ofthe problemin either of these works,although we gladly recognize theextensive learningand the keenness of themboth. Andyet

wewould emphasize the point, that there is no reason on princ ipleagainstamythical interpretation of the legends ofthepatriarchs.


those i nvest igators who propose to findmythological foundat ions to our legends must first of al l investigate most carefu l ly the h i story of the legendswh ich l ies before us so c learly i n the sources . On lyfor the o ldest e lements of the l egends may a mythical or igi n be ul t imately expected . Accord i nglyweare unable to say what the figures of Abraham ,

Isaac, and Jacob , wh ich ch iefly interest us , mayhave s ign ified origi nal ly. But th i s i s by no meansstrange . These mattersare s imply too prim i t ivefor us .Med itat ive apologet i cs i s wont to lay great impor

tance upon the h i storical veri ty ofAbraham ; i n ouropi n ion there i s no longer any room for th i sassumpt ion , and moreover i t i s hard to see whats ign ificance th i s pos i t ion can have for rel ig ion andthe h istory of rel igion. For even i f there hadonce been a leader by the name of Abraham , as i sgeneral ly bel i eved , and who conducted the m igrat ion from Haran to Canaan , th i s much i s beyondquest ion with every one who knows anyth ing of the “

h i story of l egends , that a legend cannot be expectedto preserve throughout so many centur ies a pi ctureof the personal piety of Abraham . The re l ig ion ofAbraham is i n real i ty the rel ig ion of the narratorsof the legends, ascr ibed by them to Abraham .



i ng remnants oforal trad it ion , just as the wri tten lawdestroyed the i nst i tut ion of the pri est ly Thora, andthe New Testament canon the prim i t ive Chr i st i anPneumat ics .The col lect ion of the legends i n wri t i ng was notdone by one hand or at one period , but i n thecourse of a very long process by several ormanyhands . We d ist i ngu i sh two stages i n th i s process :the o lder, to wh ich we owe the col lect ions of theJahv i st des ignated by -

‘

J’ and the E loh i st des ignated

by ‘E’

, and then a l ater, thorough rev i s ion i n whati s known as the Priest ly Codex ‘P ’ . I n the precedi ng pages as a ru l e on ly those legends have beenused wh ich we attr ibute to J and E . Al l thesebooks of legends contai n not on ly the pr im i t ivelegends , of wh ich we have been speak i ng, but alsote l l at the same t ime the i r add i t ional stor ies ; wemay (with Wi ldeboer) character i se the i r theme as“ the cho ice of I srae l to be the people of Jahveh” ;i n the fo l lowing remarks , however, they wi l l betreated i n general on ly so far as they have to dowith Genes i s .

JAHVIST AND ELOH IST COLLECTORS, NOTAUTHORS.

Prev ious wri ters have i n l arge measure treated !and E as personal authors , assum ing as a matter ofcourse that the i r wri t i ngs , const i tute , at least to someextent , un its and origi nate i n al l essent i a l featureswith the i r respect ive wri ters , and attempt i ng toderive from the various data of these wr i t i ngs cons i sten t pictures of the i r authors . But i n a finalphase cr i t i c i sm has recogn i sed that these two coll ec t ions do not const i tute complete un i t i es , andpursu i ng th i s l i ne of knowledge st i l l further has d is

THE LA TER COLLECTIONS. 125

tinguished with i n these sources st i l l other subordinate sources . ‘

But i n do i ng th i s there has been a neglect to ra i sewi th perfect c l earness the pr imary quest ion , howfar these two groups of wri t i ngs may be understoodas l i terary un i t ies i n any sense, or whether, on thecontrary, they are not col lect ions , codifications oforal t rad it ions , and whether the i r composers arenot to be cal led col lectors rather than authors .That the latter v iew i s the correct one i s shown

(1) by the fact that they have adopted such hetero

geneous mater ia l s . . J contai ns separate legends andlegend cyc les , condensed and detai l ed stories ,del i cate and coarse e lements , prim i t ive and modernelements i n moral s and re l igion , stories with v ividant ique colors along with those qu ite faded out .I t i s much the same with E , who has, for i nstance ,the touch i ng story of the sacr ifice of Isaac and atthe same t ime a var iant of the very anc ient l egendof Jacob’s wrest l i ng with the angel . Th is var ietyshows that the legends of E, and st i l l moredec ided ly those of J , do not bear the stamp of as i ngle defin ite t ime and st i l l l ess of a s ingle personal i ty, but that they were adopted by the i r col lectorsessent i al ly as they were found .

Second ly, the same conc lus ion i s suggested by anexam inat ion of the variants of J and ofE . On theone hand they often agree most characteri st i cal ly :both , for i nstance , employ the most condensed stylei n the story of Penuel , and i n the story of Josephthe most deta i led . For th i s very reason , becausethey

_are so s im i lar, i t was poss ibl e for a later hand

to combine them i n such a way that they are often1Such is the outcome especially in Budde's Orgasmic/ fie.


merged to a degree such that i t i s imposs ible for usto d ist i ngu ish them . On the other hand , theyfrequent ly d iffer, i n wh i ch case J very often has theelder vers ion , but often the reverse .

Thus the robust prim it ive vers ion of the Hagarstory i n ! (chap . xvi .) i s o lder than the l achrymosevers ion of E (xx i the story of Jacob and Labani s to ld more l acon i cal ly and more naive ly by J thanby E ; i n the narrat ive of the b i rth of the ch i ldrenof Jacob , J speaks w ith perfect frankness of themagi c effect of the mandrakes (xxx . 14 i nsteadof which E subst i tutes the operat ions of d ivi nefavor (xxx . i n the story of D i nah , J , whodepicts Jacob’s horror at the act of h i s sons , i s morejust and more v igorous i n h i s judgment than E,

where God h imse l f i s compe l led to protect Jacob 'ssons (xxxv. 5, see variant read ing of RV) ; i n thestory of Joseph the Ishmael i tes ofJ (xxxvu . 25) areolder than the M id ian i tes of E (xxxvi i . 28) whoafterwards van ish from the account ; i n the testament of Jacob h i s wish , accord i ng to E (x lvi i i.to be buried bes ide h is best l oved wife i s moretender and more sent imental than h is request in J(xlvi i . 29 ff.) to rest i n the tomb with h is ancestors ;and other s im i lar cases m ight be c i ted .

On the other hand , E does not yet know of thePh i l i s t i nes i n Gerar of whom J speaks (xxi . thedecept ion ofJacob by means of the garb of sk i ns i nE i s

‘

more naive than that by means of the scentof the garments i n J ; the many d ivi ne be i ngs whom ,

accord ing to E , Jacob sees at Bethel are an olderconcept ion than that of the one Jahveh i n the vers ion of J ; only i n J , but not yet i n E, do we suddenly meet a belated Israel itising of the legend of



l i terary method ofJ and aim ing to give a h i story ofthe ent i re l i terary spec ies .

THE Janvrsr’

s SOURCES.

I n J’

s story of the begi nn i ngs we d i st i ngu i sh threesources, two of wh i ch present what were origi nal lyi ndependent paral l e l threads . I t i s part i cu l ar lyc lear that J contai ned orig inal ly two para l le l ped igrees of the race : bes ide the trad i t ional Cain i tegenealogy, a Seth i te l i ne, of wh ich v. 29 i s a fragment . I n comb in ing the two earl ier sources a th i rdone was al so i ntroduced , from which comes thelegend of Cai n and Abel , wh ich cannot origi nal lybelong to a prim i t ive t ime . I n the story of Abraham al so we can recogn ise three hands : i n to a cyc l eof legends treat i ng the dest i n ies of Abraham andLot have been i ntroduced other elements , such asthe legend of Abraham i n Egypt and the fl igh t ofHagar, probab ly from another book of l egends ; st i l la th i rd hand has added certa i n deta i ls , such as theappeal of Abraham for Sodom . More compl icatedi s the compos i t ion of the stories of Jacob : i nto thecyc le ofJacob , Esau and Laban have been i njectedcerta i n legends of worsh ip ; afterwards

.

there wereadded legends of the var ious sons of Jacob ; we areable to survey th i s process as a whole very wel l

,but

are no longer abl e to detec t the i nd iv idual hands .Whi le the i nd iv idual s tor ies of the creat ionmerely stand i n loose juxtapos i t ion , some of theAbraham stor i es and espec ial ly the Jacob - EsauLaban l egends are woven i ntoac loser un i ty. Th i sun ion i s st i l l c loser i n the legend of Joseph . Herethe legends of Joseph ' s exper i ences i n Egypt andwith h i s brothers const i tute a we l l - constructed com


pos i t ion; but here too the passage on Joseph’s agra

r ian pol icy ( xlv i i . 13 wh i ch i nterrupts the connexion, shows that several d i fferent hands have beenat work . Furthermore, i t i s qu i te p la i n that thelegend of Tamar, which has no connex ion wi thJoseph , and the

“ b less i ng of Jacob ,” wh ich i s a

poem , not a legend, were not i ntroduced unt i l l ater .From th i s survey we perce ive that J i s not aprimary and defin i t ive col l ect ion , but i s based uponolder co l lect ions and i s the resu l t of the col laborat ion of several hands .The same cond i t ion i s to be recogn i sed in E ,

though on ly by s l ight ev idences so far as Genes i s i sconcerned, as i n the present separat ion by the storyof Ishmael ( xxi . 8 ff. ) of the two legends of Gerar

( xx . , xx i . , 25 ff. ) wh ich be long together, or i n thederivat ion of Beersheba from Abraham ( xxi . 25 ff. )by the one l i ne of narrat ive, from Isaac ( xlv i . 1-

3)by the other.

THE PROCESS OF COLLECTION.

The h istory of the l i terary col lect ion presents ,then

,a very complex p icture , and we may be sure

that we are ab le to take i n but a smal l port ion of i t .I n olden t imes there may have been a whole l i terature ofsuch co l lect ions , of wh ich those preserved tous are but the fragments , just as the three synopt i cgospels represent the remains of a whole gospe ll i terature. The correctness of th i s v iew is supportedby a reconstruct ion of the source of P, wh ich i sre l ated to J i n many respects ( both conta i n ing, fori nstance

,a story of the begi nn i ngs ) , but al so cor

responds with Eat t imes ( as i n the name F addan ,attached to the characteri sat ion of Laban as the


Arame an cp. the Commentary, p. and al socontributes i n deta i l s ent i re ly new trad i t ions ( suchas the i tem that Abraham set out from Ur-Kasdim,

the narrat ive of the purchase of the cave ofMachpe lah , and other matters ) .

But for the complete picture of the h istory of theformat ion of the co l lect ion the most important observat ion i s that wi th wh ich th i s sect ion began : thewhole process began i n the stage of oral trad i t ion .

The first hands wh ich wrote down legends probablyrecorded such connected stories ; others then addednew legends, and thus the whole body of materi algradual ly accumulated . And thus, along withothers , our co l lect ions J and E arose. J and E,

then , are not i nd iv idual authors , nor are they ed itors of older and cons i stent s i ngle wri t i ngs , butrather they are schools of narrators . From th i spoi nt ofv iew i t i s a matter of comparat ive indifference what the i nd iv idual hands contributed to thewhole , because they have very l i tt l e d i st i nct ionand i nd ividual i ty, and we shal l probably neverascertai n with certai nty. Hence we fee l constra i nedto absta i n as a matter of pri nc i ple from constructi ng a hypothes i s on the subject .

RELATION OF THE COLLECTORS TO THEIR SOURCES .

These col lectors , then , are not masters, but ratherservants of the i r subjects . We may imagi ne them ,

fi l led with reverence for the beaut i fu l anc ient stor iesand endeavori ng to reproduce them as wel l andfa i thfu l ly as they could . F ide l i ty was the i r primequal i ty. Th is expla i ns why they accepted so manyth i ngs wh ich they but hal f understood and wh ichwere al ien to the i r own taste and feel i ng ; and why



i t wi l l a lways remain the capi tal matter to understand the i nner reasons for the mod ificat ions .I t i s al so probab le that some port ions of cons iderable s i ze were om i tted or severe ly al tered under t h ehands of the col lectors ; thus the l egend of Hebron ,as the promise ( xv i i i . 10) c learly shows , presumesa cont i nuat ion ; some port ions have been om i ttedfrom the trad it ion as we have i t, probably by acol lector ; other cons iderab le port ions have beenadded after the whole was reduced to wri t i ng, fori nstance, those genealogi es wh ich are not remnantsof l egends , but mere out l i nes of ethnograph ic re l ationships ; furthermore a piece such as the conversat ion of Abraham wi th God before Sodom , wh ich byi ts style i s of the very latest or ig i n , and other casesof th i s sort . Moreover a great , prim i t ive poem wasadded to the legends after they were complete

(Genes is xl i x) .

We cannot get a complete general V i ew of thechanges made by these col lect ions , but desp i te thefide l i ty of the col lectors i n detai ls we may assumethat the whole impress ion made by the legends hasbeen very cons iderab ly al tered by the col lect ionand redact ion they have undergone . Espec i al lyprobable i s i t that the br i l l iant colors of the i nd iv idual legends have been du l led i n the processwhat were or igi nal ly prom inent features of thelegends lose the i r importance i n the combinat ionwi th other stor ies ( Commentary, p . the varying moods of

'

the separate l egends are reconc i l edand harmon i sed when they come i nto juxtapos i t ion ;jests , perhaps , now fi l led i n wi th touches of emot ion

( p. or comb i ned wi th serious stor ies (Com!

mentary, p. cease to be recogn isedas mirthful ;

Q


the ecc les ias t i ca l tone of certai n legends becomesthe al l - pervad i ng tone of the whole to the fee l i ngof l ater t imes . Thus the legends now make theimpress ion of an old and or ig i nal ly many- co loredpai n t i ng that has been many t imes te- touched andhas grown dark wi th age . F i nal ly, i t must beemphas ised that th i s fidel i ty of the col l ectors i sespec ial ly ev ident i n Genes i s ; i n the later l egends ,wh ich had not such a firm hold upon the populartaste, the rev i s ion may have been more thoroughgoing.

RELATION OF JAHVIST TO ELOH IST.

The two school s of J and E are very closelyre lated ; the i r whole att i tude marks them as be longi ng to essent ia l ly the same per iod . From themater i al wh ich they have transm i tted i t i s naturalthat the col lectors shou ld have treated wi th espec i alsympathy the l atest e lements , that is , part i cu lar lythose wh i ch . were nearest to the i r own t ime andtaste . The d i fference between them i s found firsti n the i r use of language, the most s ign ificant featureof wh ich i s that J says Jahveh before the t ime ofMoses , wh i le E says E loh im . Bes ides th i s thereare other e lements : the tr iba l patr i arch i s cal led" I srae l” by J after the ep i sode of Penuel , butJacob by E ; J cal l s the maid - servant “sipha, Ecal l s her J cal l s the grainsack saq,

” Ecal l s i t “ ’amtahat, and so on . But , as i s oftenthe case , such a use of language i s not here an evidence of a s i ngle author, but rather the mark of ad i str i ct or region .

I n very many cases we are unab le to d i st i ngu i shthe two sources by the vocabu lary ; then the on ly


gu ide i s , that the var iants from the two sourcespresent essent i al ly the same stories , wh ich showi nd iv idua l d ifferences i n the i r contents . Thus in JIsaac i s dece ived by Jacob by means of the smel l ofEsau’s garments , i n E by the sk ins , a d ifferencewh ich runs through a great port ion of both stories .Or, we observe that d ifferent stories have certai npervad ing marks, such as, that Joseph i s so ld in Jby Ishmael i tes to an Egypt ian househo lder, but i nE i s so ld by Mid ian i tes to the eunuch Pot ipharOften evidences of th i s sort are far from con

c lusive ; consequent ly we can give in such casesnoth ing but conjectures as to the separat ion of thesources . And where even such ind icat ions arelack ing there i s an end of al l safe d i st i nct ion.

In the account of the beginn i ngs we cannot recogn ise the hand ofE at al l ; i t i s probable that he d idnot undertake to give i t, but began h is book withthe patri arch Abraham . Perhaps there is i n th i san express ion of the opi n ion of the school that theh istory of the beg i nn i ngs was too heathen i sh todeserve preservat ion . Often but not a lways thevers ion of J has an older form than that ofE . Jhas the most l ive ly, object ive narrat ives, wh i le E,

on the other hand , has a ser ies of sent imental , tearfu l stor i es , such as the sacr ifice of Isaac, the expuls ion of Ishmael , and Jacob

’s tenderness for h i sgrandch i ldren .

The i r d i fference i s espec ial ly str ik ing in the i rconcept ions of the theophany : J i s characteri sed bythe most prim i t ive theophan ies , E, on the otherhand , by dreams and the ca l l i ng of an angel out ofheaven , i n a word by the least sensual sorts of

revelat ion . The thought of d iv i ne Prov idence,



THEAGE OF THE JAHVIST AND ELOH IST SCHOOLS.

The quest ion of the abso lute age of J and E i sexceed i ngly d ifficu lt . We, who be l i eve that wehave here to deal wi th a gradual cod ificat ion of

anc ient trad it ions , are constrai ned to resolve th i squest ion i nto a number of subord i nate quest ions :When d id these trad i t ions ari se? When d id theybecome known i n I srae l? When d id they rece iveessent ial ly the i r present form? When were theywritten down? That i s to say, our task i s not tofix a s i ngle defin i te date ; but we are to make achronological scale for a long process . But th i s i sa very d ifficu lt prob lem , for i nte l l ectual processesare very d ifficu l t i n genera l to fix chronologi cal ly ;and there i s the further d ifficu l ty that blocks us i ngeneral wi th al l such quest ions about the O ld Testament , that we know too l i tt l e about anc ient I srae li n order to warrant pos i t ive conc l us ions i n the present case . Very many of the ch ronologi cal conjeetures of l i terary cri t i c i sm , i n so far as they are basedon ly upon the study of the h istory of re l ig ion , aremore or l ess unsafe .

The orig i n ofmany of the legends l ies i n what i sfor I srae l a preh i stor i c age . Even the lacon icstyle of the legends i s pr im i t ive ; the stories of the“ Judges are al ready i n a more detai led style .

After the entrance of I srae l i nto Canaan fore ignthemes come i n i n streams . Very many of thelegends presuppose the possess ion of the land and .

a knowledge of i ts local i t i es . Among the Israe l i t i shsubjects , the genealogy of the twelve sons ofJacobdoes not correspond wi th the seats of the tribes i nCanaan , and must , therefore, represent older re lat ions . The latest of the Israe l i t i sh legends of Gen

THE LATER COLLECTIONS. 137

es i s that we know treat the ret i rement of Reuben ,the origi n of the fam i l i es of Judah and the assau l tupon Shechem , that i s , events from the earl i er port ion of the period of the “ Judges . I n the laterport ion of th i s per iod the poet i c treatment of racesas i nd iv idual s was no longer current : by th is t imenew legends of the patr i archs had ceased to beformed .

The period of the format ion of legends of thepatri archs i s , then , c losed with th i s date ( about

The correctness of th i s est imate i s confirmedby other cons iderat ions : the sanctuary at Jerusalem ,

so famous i n the t ime of k ings , i s not referred to i nthe legends of the patr i archs; on the contrary theestabl i shment of th i s sanctuary i s placed by thel egends of worsh ip i n the t ime of Dav id ( 2 Sam .

The re ign of Sau l , the confl i ct of Sau lw i th David

,the un ited k i ngdom under David and

Solomon , the separat ion of the two k i ngdoms andthe war between them ,

— we hear no echoes of al lth i s i n the older legends ; a c lear proof that nonew legends of the patr iarchs were be ing formed atthat t ime . At what t ime the legends of Moses,Joshua and others or ig i nated i s a quest ion for d i scussion e lsewhere.

RE- MODELING OF THE LEGENDS .

The period of the format ion of the legends i s fo llowed by one of te-model i ng . Th is i s essent ial lythe age of the ear l i er k i ngs . That i s probably thet ime when Israe l was agai n gathered together fromi ts separat ion i nto d i fferent tr ibes and d i stri cts toone un i ted people, the t ime when the various d ist i nct trad it ions grew together i n to a common body


of nat ional l egends . The great growth wh ich I srae lexperienced under the first k i ngs probab ly yie ldedi t the moral force to lay c l aim to the fore ign talesand g ive them a nat ional appl i cat ion . At th i s t imethe Jacob - Esau legend rece ived i ts i n terpretat ionreferr i ng to I srae l and Edom : I srae l has in themeant ime subjected Edom , the event occurr i ngunder David

,and Judah reta i n ing her possess ion

unt i l about 840 . Meanwh i le Ephraim has out

str ipped Manasseh , probably i n the begi nn i ng ofthe period of the k i ngs . I n the legend ofJosephthere occurs an al l us ion to the dom i n ion of Joseph

( xxxvi i . 8 , E ) , wh ich , however, found i ts way i ntothe legend at some later t ime . The dreadful Syrianwars , wh ich begi n about the year 900, are not yetment ioned i n the Jacob - Laban legend , but onlyoccas ional border forays . The c i ty of Asshur,wh ich was the cap i tal unt i l 1300, has passed from thememory of the Hebrew trad i t ion ; but N i neveh ( x .

the capi tal from about 1000 on , seems to beknown to i t . Accord i ngly we may at l east assumethat bygoo B .C. the legends were essent i al ly, so faras the course of the narrat ive goes , as we now readthem .

As for al l us ions to pol i t i cal occurrences later than

900 , we have on ly a reference to the rebel l ion ofEdom ( about wh ich , however, i s pla in ly anaddi t ion to the legend ( xxv i i . The othercases that are c i ted are i n conc lus ive : the referenceto the Assyr ian c i t i es ( x . 11 ff. ) does not provethat these passages come from the Assyr ian”

per iod , for Assyr ia had certa i n ly been known to theIsrae l i tes for a long t ime ; j us t as l i tt le does thement ion of Kelah warrant a conc l us ion , for the



were completed al l at once , but grew into shapethrough a process wh ich lasted no one can say howmany decades or centuries . The real quest ion i nfixi ng the date of the sources i s the re lat ion of thetwo to the authors of the “ Prophets .” Now thereare, to be sure , many th i ngs i n Genes i s that suggesta re lat ion with these Prophets , but the assumpt ionof many modern cri t i cs that th i s re lat ion must bedue to some d irect i nfluence of the Prophet i c wr i ters i s very doubtful i n many cases ; we do not knowthe re l ig ion of Israe l suffic ient ly wel l to be ab le todec lare that certai n thoughts and sent iments werefirst brought to l ight by the very Prophets whosewri t i ngs we possess ( al l l ater than Amos ) : theearnestness wi th wh ich the legend of the Del ugespeaks of the un iversal s i nfu l ness of mank i nd , andthe glorificat ion of the fai th of Abraham are notspec ifical ly “ Prophet i c .” The host i l i ty of thecol lectors to the images of Jahveh and to theAsher im ( sacred po l es ) , of wh ich they never speak,to the Massébah( obe l i sks ) , wh ich J passes over butE st i l l ment ions , to the "golden cal f” wh ich i sregarded by the legend accord ing to E (Exodusxxx i i . ) as s i nfu l , as wel l as to the teraph im , wh ichthe Jacob - Laban legend wi tt i ly r id icu les ( xxx i . 30

— al l of th is may eas i ly be i ndependent ofProphet i c” i nfluence . Sent iments of th i s naturemay wel l have ex isted i n Israe l long before the“ Prophets,

” i ndeed we must assume the i r ex istencei n order to account for the appearance of the“ Prophets .”

True, E cal l s Abraham a nabt' ( prophet) , xx . 7;

that i s to say, he l ived at a t ime when“ Prophet”

and “man of God” were ident i cal ; but the gu ild


of the N°b umwas flour i sh i ng long before the t imeof Amos , and i n Hosea also, x i i . 14, Moses i scal l ed a “ Prophet . Accord i ngly there i s noth i ngi n the way of regard i ng E and J both as on thewhole “ pre - Prophet i c .

” Th i s conc l us ion i s supported byanumber of cons iderat ions : the Prophet i cauthors are character i sed by the i r pred i ct ions ofthe destruct ion of Israel , by the i r po lem ic agai nsta l i en gods and . against the h igh places of Israe l ,and by the i r reject ion of sacrifices and ceremon ial s .These very character i st i c features of the “ Prophets”

are absent i n J and E i n Genes i s , J has no not ionof other gods at al l except Jahveh , and Jacob

’sabol i t ion of al i en gods for the sake of a sacredceremony i n honor of Jahveh , xxxv . 4 i n the trad i t ion of E, does not sound l i ke a Prophet i c”

utterance . Of an oppos i t ion to strange gods therei s never any talk , at least not i n Genes i s .And wh i le these col lect ions conta i n noth i ng thatis characteri s t i ca l ly Prophet i c , they have on theother hand much that must needs have been exceedingly offens ive to the Prophets : they have, forinstance, an espec ia l ly favorab le att i tude towardthe sacred p laces wh i ch the Prophets assa i l so b i tterly; they mai nta i n toward the rimitive rel igion and moral i ty a s imple l en i ency wh ich is thevery oppos i te of the fearfu l accusat ions of theProphets .We can see from the Prophet ic redact ion of theh i s tor ical books what was the att i tude of the leg itimate pupi l s of the Prophets toward anc ient trad it ion : they would certai n ly not have cu l t ivated thepopular legends , which contai ned so much that washeathen , but rather have obl i terated them .


In v iew of these cons iderat ions we must conc ludethat the col lect ions took shape i n al l essent i a l sbefore the per iod of great Prophet i c wr i t ings, andthat the touches of the sp ir i t of th i s movement i n Jand E but show that the thoughts of the Prophetswere i n many a man’s mind long before the t ime ofAmos . Th i s conc lus ion i s supported by a number of other cons iderat ions : the legend of theexodus of Abraham , wh ich g lorifies h i s fai th , presumes on the other hand the most flouri sh ing pros

perity of Israe l , and accord ingly comes most sure lyfrom the t ime before the great i ncurs i on of theAssyrians . And pieces whi ch from the point ofv iew of the h i story of l egends are so late as chapter15, or as the story of the b i rth of the sons of Jacob ,contai n , on the other hand, very anc i ent re l ig iousmot ives .But th i s does not exc lude the poss ib i l i ty that certai n of the very latest port ions of the co l lect ions arei n the true sense “ Prophet i c .” Thus Abraham ’sconversat ion with God before Sodom is i n i ts con

ten t the treatment of a re l ig ious prob lem , but i nform i t i s an im i tat ion of the Prophet i c “

expostulat ion” with God . Joshua’s farewel l (Joshua xxiv. )with i ts unconcealed d i strust of I srae l ’s fidel i ty i sal so i n form an im i tat ion of the Prophet i c sermon .

I n the succeed i ng books , espec ial ly the port ions dueto E , there i s probab ly more of the same character,but i n Genes i s the i nstances are rare.Accord i ngly we may locate both col lect ions beforethe appearance of the great Prophets , J perhaps i nthe n i nth century and E i n the first hal f of thee ighth ; but i t must be emphas ized that such datesare afteral l very uncertai n .



these latest add i t ions , which profess on ly to g ivethoughts and not stor ies , speeches conta in ing espec ial ly sol emn prom i ses for I srae l : that i t was tobecome a m ighty nat i on and take possess ion of “ al lthese lands . I nc idental ly al l the people areenumerated wh ich I srae l i s to conquer : xv . 19

- 2 1; x_

.

16- 18 . These add i t ions come from the periodwhen the great world cr i ses were threaten i ng theex istence of I srae l , and when the fai th of the peoplewas c l i ng ing to these prom i ses , that i s to say, probably from the Chaldxan period . Here and therewe meet a trace of "Deuteronom ist i c" style : xvi i i .17- 19; xxvi . 3b -

5.

PRIESTLY CODEX AND FINAL

REDACTION .

ESIDES those already treated we find evidenceof another separate stream of trad i t ion . Th i s

source i s so d ist i nct from the other sources both i ns tyle and sp ir i t that i n the great major i ty of cases i tcan be separated from them to the very letter. Th i sco l l ect ion also i s not l im i ted to Genes i s ; on the contrary, the legends of the begi nn i ngs and of thepatr iarchs are to i t mere ly a br ief preparat ion for thecap i tal matter, which i s the legis lat ion of Moses .The Priest ly Codex i s of spec i al importance for usbecause the ent i re d i scuss ion of the O ld Testamenthas h i therto turned essent i al ly upon i ts data . I t i sWel lhausen’s immortal meri t (Prolegomemf p . 299ff. ) to have recogn i sed the true character of th i ssource, wh ich had previous ly been cons idered theoldest , to have demonstrated thus the i ncorrec tnessof the ent i re general v iew of the O ld Testament ,and thus to have prepared the fie ld for a l iv i ng andtruly h istor i cal understand i ng of the h i story of there l igion of Israe l .The style of P i s extreme ly pecu l i ar, exceed i nglydetai led and a im ing at legal c learness and m inuteness , havi ng always the same express ions and formula, with prec i se defini t ions and monotonous setphrases wi th cons i stent ly employed out l i nes wh ich

145

THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS.

l ack substance, with genealog ies and with t i t l esover every chapter. I t i s the tone of prosai cpedantry, often i ndeed the very style of the legaldocument ( for i nstance x i . 11; and xxi i i . 17,

occas ional ly, however, i t i s not wi thout a certa i nsolemn dign i ty (espec i al ly i n Genes i s i . and elsewhere al so, cp. the scene x lv i i . 7 One mustreal ly read the whole mater i al of P consecut ively i norder to apprec iate the dryness and monotony of

th i s remarkab le book . The author i s ev ident lypai nfu l ly exact and exemplary i n h i s love of order,but apprec i at ion of poetry was den ied h im as tomany another scholar.The se lect ion of mater i al both i n l arge and i nsmal l matters i s h igh ly characteri st i c i n P . Theon ly stor ies of any length wh ich he gives us are thoseof the Creat ion and the Deluge, of God

’s appearance t0 °Abrahamand of the purchase of the cave atMachpelah ; al l e l se i s deta i l s and genealogi es .From by far the greatest number of narrat ives hefound use on ly for separate and d isconnected obsorvations. One has on ly to compare the anc ientvar iegated and poet i c l egends and the scanty reportswh ich P gives of them , i n order to learn where h i si nterests l i e : he does not purpose to furn i sh a poet i cnarrat ive, as those of o ld had done, but on ly toarrive at the facts . Th is i s why he was unab le touse the many i ndiv idual tra i ts conta i ned i n the old

l egends , but merely took from them a very fewfacts . He ignored the sent iments Of the legends

,

he d id not see the personal l i fe of the patr iarchs ;the i r figures , once so concrete, have become merepale types when seen through h i s med ium . Int imes of old many of these legends had been l ocated


148

t ime i n h i s gray out l i nes , and there they have l ostal l the i r poet i c freshness : take as an i l l ustrat ion thegenealogy of Adam and Seth . Even the stories ofthe patri archs have been caged by P i n an out l i ne .

IMPORTANCE ATTACHED TO CHRONOLOGY.

Furthermore P attaches to the legends a deta i l edchronology, which plays a great rOle i n h i s account,but i s absolute ly out of keeping with the s impl i c i tyof the o ld legends . Chronology belongs by its verynature to h i story, not to legend . Where h i stor icalnarrat ive and legend ex i st as l iv i ng l i terary spec ies ,they are recogn i sed as d i st i nct , even though uncon

sc iously. Th is confus ion of the two spec ies i n Pshows that i n h i s t ime the natural apprec iat ion forboth h istory and legend had been lost . According ly i t i s not strange that the chronology of P di spl ays everywhere the most absurd oddi t ies wheni njected i nto the old legends : as a resu l t, Sarah i sst i l l at s ixty- five a beaut i fu l woman whom theEgypt ians seek to capture , and Ishmael i s carr iedon h i s mother’s shoulder after he i s a youth of s ixteen .

There has been added a great d iv i s ion of theworld’s h i story i nto per iods , wh ich P forces uponthe whole matter of h i s account . He recogn i sesfour per iods : from the creat ion to Noah , fromNoah to Abraham , from Abrahamto Moses, andfrom Moses on . Each of these periods begi nswi th a theophany, and twice a new name for Godi s i ntroduced . He who i s E loh im at the creat ion i s E l Shaddai i n connex ion wi th Abraham andJahveh to Moses .

°

At the establ i shment of theCovenant certa i n d iv i ne ord inances are proc laimed :

CODEX AND FINAL REDACTION. 149

first. that men and beasts are to eat on ly herbs , andthen , after the Deluge , that flesh may be eaten butno men be s la i n , and then , espec ial ly for Abraham ,

that he and h i s descendants shal l c i rcumc i se themse lves ; final ly, the Mosai c l aw .

I n connex ion wi th these, certa i n defin i te d iv i neprom ises are made and s igns of the Covenant g iven .

What we find i n th i s i s the product of a great andun iversal m ind , the beginn i ng of a un iversal h i storyi n the grand style, and i ndeed P shows a genu i ne lysc ient ific m i nd i n other points : cons ider, fori nstance, h i s prec i s ion i n the order of creat ion i nGenes i s i . and h is defin i t ions there . But themater i al of the legends wh ich th i s grand iose un iversal h i story uses stands i n very strong contrastwi th the h istory itse l f : the s igns of the Covenantare a rai nbow, c i rcumcis ion and the Sabbath , a veryremarkable l i st ! And how remote i s th i s sp i ri t ofun iversal h i story, which even undertakes to est imate the durat ion of the ent i re age of the world ,from the sp i ri t of the old legend , wh ich orig i nal lycons is ts of on ly a s i ng le story that i s never able tori se to the height of such general observat ions : i n J ,for i nstance, we hear noth i ng of the relat ion ofAbraham ’s re l igion to that of h i s fathers and h i str ibal k i nsmen .

THE RELIG IOUS VIEWS OF THE PRIESTLY CODEX .

Furthermore, we cannot deny that th i s reflexionofP ’s , that Jahveh first revealed h imsel f i n qu i te ageneral form as God,

” and then i n a concreterform as E l Shaddai, and only at the last under h i sreal name , i s , after al l , very ch i ld i sh : the real h i story of re l igion does not begi n wi th the general and


then pass to the concrete , but on the contrary, i tbegi ns wi th the very most concrete concept ions , andon ly s lowly and gradual ly do men learn to comprehend what i s abstract .It i s character i st i c of the re l ig ion of the authorP that he says a lmost noth i ng about the personalp iety of the patriarchs ; he regards on ly the ob ject i ve as important i n re l ig ion . F or i nstance, he saysnoth i ng about Abraham ’s obed ience on fai th ; i ndeeddoes not hes i tate to report that Abraham laughed atGod ’s prom ise (xvi i . The re l ig ion that heknows cons i sts i n the prescript ion of ceremon ies ;he regards i t of importance that the Sabbath shal lbe observed , that c i rcumci s ion shal l be pract i sed ,that certai n th ings shal l be eaten and others not .I n such matters he i s very scrupu lous . He abstai ns ,evident ly wi th del iberat ion , from te l l i ng that thepatr iarchs offered sacr ifice in any certa i n place, andth i s eviden tly for the reason that these places wereregarded as heathen i sh i n h i s t ime . S im i lar ly, i nh i saccount of the De luge, he does not d ist i ngu ishthe c lean and the unc l ean beasts . I t i s h i s op i n ionthat estab l i shed worsh ip and the d i st i nct ion of c leanand unc lean were not i ntroduced unt i l the t ime ofLl oses .But i n th i s we hear the vo ice of a pri est of Jeru

saem , whose theory i s that the worsh ip at h i s sanctuary i s the on ly legi t imate worsh ip and thecont i nuat ion of the worsh ip i nst i tuted by Moses .The Israe l i t i sh theocracy— th i s , i n modern phrase,i s the foundat ion thought of h i s work— i s the purpose of the world . God created the world i n orderthat h i s ord i nances and commandments m ight beobserved i n the temple at Jerusalem .



he cons idered i t heathen i sh . Here we see pl a in lythe after- effects of the fearfu l polem ics of thePr0phets : i t i s the same spi r i t wh ich branded theanc ient sacred place of Bethel as heathen ( i n the“ reform” of Jos iah) and wh ich here rejects from theanc ient legends everyth i ng that smacks of heathenism to these ch i ldren of a later t ime .

Th i s much , then , i s certa i n , that the concept ionsof God i n P are loft i er and more advanced thanthose of the old l egends ; and yet P i s far belowthese older authors , who had

Q

not made the acquai ntance of the sacerdotal i sm of Jerusalem , but who d idknow what p iety i s . Just as P purified the re l ig ionof the patri archs , so d id he al so purge the i rmoral i ty . Here, too, P adds the last word to adeve lopment wh i ch we have fo l lowed up in J and E .

The old legends of the patr i archs , be ing an express ion of the most prim i t ive l i fe of the people, contained a great deal that those of a later t ime cou ldnot but regard as wrong and s i nfu l , i f they werequ i te honest about i t .And yet, the be l i ef of the t ime was - that thepatr iarchs were model s of p iety and v i rtue . Whatpai ns had been taken to el im i nate at least the mostoffens ive th i ngs i n th i s l i ne so far as poss ib l e !When i t comes to P at last, he makes a c lean sweephe s imply om its al together what i s offens ive (fori nstance, the quarre l of the shepherds of Abrahamand Lot , Lot

’s se lfishness , the ex i le of I shmael ,Jacob’s decept ions) ; he even goes to the length ofmaintai n i ng the prec i se contrary to the trad i tionIshmael and Isaac together peacefu l ly bur ied the i rfather (xxv . and so d id Jacob and Esau (xxxv.

Facts wh i ch cannot be ob l i terated rece ive a

CODEX AND FINAL REDACTION. 15 3

d i fferent mot ivat ion : thus he explai ns I saac’s b lessi ng ofJacob as a resu l t of Esau’s s i nfu l m ixed marriages (xxvi . 34 f. ; xxvi i i . I and he l ays thec r ime agai nst Joseph at the door of the sons ofB i lhah and Z i lpah (xxxvi i .From al l of th i s i t appears c l ear that P deal t very

arb i trari ly with the trad it ion as i t came down to h im .

He dropped old vers ions or changed them at p leasure ; mere i nc idents he spun out to completestor ies , and from whole stori es he adopted on ly i nc idents ; he m ingled the mot ives of various legends ,decl ari ng, for i nstance , that the b less i ng rece ived byJacob from Isaac was the b less i ng of Abraham ,

wh ich had been ent i re ly fore ign to the thought ofthe old storyte l l ers (xxvi i i . 4; other instances may

.

be found pp . 237, 247, 350 of the Commentary) ;from the stor ies of the o ld trad i t ion , wh ich stood i nloose juxtapos i t ion , he formed a cont i nuous narrative with c lose connex ion ,— th i s, too, a mark of

the latest per iod . I n place of the legends he p lacedh i s chapters with regu lar head ings !Th is narrator, then , has no concept ion of the

fidel i ty of the older authors ; he probab ly had animpress ion that i t was necessary to lay on vigorous lyi n order to erect a structure worthy of God . Theolder authors , J and E, were real ly not authors , butmerely col lectors , wh i le P i s a genu i ne author ; theformer mere ly accumulated the stone left to themi n a loose heap ; but P erected a symmetr i cal structure i n accordance with h is own taste . And yet weshgu ld be wrong i f we shou ld assume that hede l iberate ly i nvented h i s al l egat ions i n Genes i s ;trad it ion was too strong to perm i t even h im to doth i s . On the contrary, he S imply worked over the


materi al , though very vigorous ly i ndeed ; we canoften recogn i se by detai l s how he fol lowed h i ssource i n the genera l out l i ne of events when no personal i nterest of h i s own was i nvo lved (see p. 139 of

the Commentary) . But th i s source, .at l east forGenes i s, was ne i ther J nor E but one re lated tothem .

THEAGEOF THE PRIESTLY CODEX .

After th i s portrayal of the s i tuat ion the age ofPi s ev ident . I t belongs by every evidence at thec lose of the whole h i story of the trad i t ion , and certainly separated by a great gap from J and E : thel iv i ng stream of l egend from wh i ch J and E, the oldcol lectors , had d ipped , must by that t ime have rundry, i f i t had become poss ib le for P to abuse i t i nth i s fash ion for the construct ion of h i s h i story .

And in the meanwh i l e a great i nte l lectual revolut ionmust have taken p lace ,—arevolut ion wh ich hadcreated someth i ng al together new i n the p lace of

the old nat ional i ty represented i n the legends .P is the documentary wi tness of a t ime wh ich wasconsc ious ly movi ng away from the old trad i t ions ,and wh ich bel i eved i t necessary to lay the foundat ions of re l igion i n a way d iffer i ng from that of thefathers . And i n P we have revealed the nature ofth i s new element wh ich had then assumed sway

,— it

i s the spi r i t of the learned priest that we here findexpressed . Furthermore, th i s al so i s c lear to usfrom the whole manner of P , and part i cu lar ly fromh is formal l anguage, that we have not here the workof an i nd ividual wi th a spec ia l tendency

,but of a

whole group whose convi ct ions he expresses . P ’swork i s noth i ng more nor less than an offic ia lutterance .



i n P , and i n Ezek ie l , Haggai , and Zechariah the sameh igh value placed upon exact chronology. Thereckon ing of the months al so, wh ich i s found in P ,was learned by the Jews at th i s t ime, and probab lyfrom Babylon ia . The progress represented by th i sl earned sp i r i t as compared with the s impl i c i ty of

former t imes i s unden iab le, even though the products of th i s learn ing often fa i l to appeal to us . I t i sprobab ly characteri st i c of the begi nn i ngs of un iversal h i story” that such first great h istori calconstruct ions as we have in P deal l argely with mythi cal or legendary materi al s , and are consequentlyi nadequate accord i ng to our modern not ions . I nth is respect P may be compared to Berosus .The emphas i s l aid by P upon the Sabbath , theproh ib i t ion of b loodshed and c i rcumc is ion , i s al socomprehens ib l e to us i n the l ight of th i s per iod : theepoch i n wh ich everyth ing depended on the wi l l i ngness of the i nd iv idual emphas i sed the rel ig ious cornmandmentswh ich appl ied to the i nd iv idual . I ndeedi t may be said , that the p iety of the patr iarchs , whoare always represented as gm

’m ( strangers) , andwho have to get along wi thout sacr ifices and formalceremon ies , i s a reflexion of the p iety of the ex i le ,when those who l ived i n the fore ign l and hadnei ther temples nor sacr ifices .P ’s re l igious cr i t i c i sm ofmixed marri ages al so,espec ial ly those wi th Canaan i t i sh women , wherebythe bl ess i ng of Abraham was forfe i ted ( xxvi i i . 1-

9)connect with the same t ime, when the Jews, l iv i ngi n the D i spers ion , had no more zealous des i re thanto keep the i r b loodand the i r re l ig ion pure.Much more characteri st i c than these evidencestaken from Genes i s are the others der ived from the

CODEX AND FINAL REDACTIOIV. 15 7

l egal sect ions of the fo l lowing books . F i nal lythere is to be added to al l these arguments the l ateorigi n of the style of P‘. And in accordance wi thth i s the fix ing of the date of P as com ing from thet ime of the ex i le i s one of the surest resul ts ofcr i t i c i sm .

We need not attempt to determ i ne here i n justwhat century P wrote ; but th i s much may be said ,that the Law- book of Ezra , i n the opi n ion of manyscholars , upon wh ich the congregat ion took the oathi n 444, and i n the compos i t ion of wh i ch Ezra was i nsome way i nvolved , was P . Hence we may placethe compos i t ion of the book i n the period from 500

to 444. P , too, was not completed al l at once ,though th i s i s hard ly a matter of importance so faras Genes i s goes

THE FINAL REDACTOR .

The final redactor, who comb i ned the older workof JE and P , and des ignated as Rm”, probablybelongs , therefore , to the t ime after Ezra, and surelybefore the t ime of the separat ion of the Samari tancongregati on , wh ich carr ied the complete Pentateuchalong wi th it— though we are unable, i ndeed , to givethe exact date of th i s event . The fact that such acomb i nat ion of the older and the l ater co l lect ionswas necessary shows us that the old legends hadbeen planted too deep i n the popular heart to besupplanted by the new sp i r i t .Great h i stor i cal storms had i n the meant imedesecrated the o ld sacred p laces ; the whole past

l Wel lhausen, Prolog omena, p. 393, E. Ryssel , De elolu’

ste

perfume/it’

d sermone, 1878 . Giesebrecht, W, 1881, p.177 3 . Driver, j ournal of I’m’

lology, 1882 , p. 20 1E.


seemed to the men of the new t ime to be s i nful .And yet the old l egends wh ich glor ified these placesand wh ich gave such a naive reflexion of the oldent ime

,cou ld not be destroyed . The attempt of P to

supplant the older trad i t ion had proven a fai l ure ;accord ingly a reverent hand produced a comb inat ion of JEand P .

Thi s last col l ect ion was prepared wi th extraordinaryfidel i ty, espec i al ly toward P ; i ts author a imedi f poss ib l e not to lose a s i ngl e grai n of P ’s work .

We shal l not b lame h im for preferr i ng P to JE,for

P never ceased to dom inate Jewish taste . Espec ial ly notabl e i s the fact that the redactor appl i edthe chronology of P as a framework for the narrat ivesof ! and E . I n Genes i s there are a very few featureswh ich we can trace wi th more or l ess certa i n ty toh i s hand : such are a few harmon i s i ng comments orelaborat ions l i ke x . 24; xv . 7, 8, 15 ; xxv i i . 46 ;xxxv . 13, 14; and further some retouch i ng i n v i . 7;v i i . 7, 22 , 23; and al so v i i . 8 , 9 ; and final ly thed i st i nct ion between Abram and Abraham , Sarai andSarah , wh ich i s al so found i n J and E, and someother matters .We have now covered the act iv i t ies of al l thevarious redactors of Genes i s . But i n smal ler deta i l sthe work on the text (Diaskeuase) cont i nues for along t ime . Smal ler al terat ions are to be found i nxxx iv . and i n the numbers of the genealogies , i nwh ich the Jewish and the Samar i tan text, and theGreek trans l at ion d i ffer. More cons iderab le al terat ions were made i n xxxv i . and xlv i . 8 - 27; whi l e thel ast large i nterpolat ion i s the narrat ive of Abraham’s v ic tory over the four k i ngs , a legend fromvery late t imes , and of m idrash

” character.



the legends also, from the t ime of the Exodus, haveto do ch iefly with Moses, i t was very easy to comb i ne both legends and laws in one s i ng le book .

Thus i t happened that Genes i s has become the firstpart of a work whose fol lowing parts tel l ch iefly ofMoses and contai n many laws that c la im to comefrom Moses . But i n i ts contents Genes is has noconnex ion with Moses . These narrat ives , amongthem so many of a humorous, an art i st i c, or a sent imental character, are very remote from the spi r i t ofsuch a strenuous and wrathfu l Ti tan as Moses,accord i ng to the trad i t ion , must have been.

INDEX .

et » et seq"! l et seq. .

et seq. , et seq et seq. ,

‘

et seq. , . 128. . et

Actions, thought exp ressed by ,

Adonis,Amalgamation , mode of.Ammon , .et seq..

Aramai c influences, :et seq.

Ararat,

et

Babylonian influences. i et seq

Berosus.

l et seq

Cau tion , needed in interpretat ion ,Ceremonials, religious, 30 .

Characters in the Legends, descrip

Chronology, exact, importance

Cornil l ,

Daniel , 100.

Deluge, ‘net seq. ,

103et seq. , 110, i et seq.

Deuteronomian Reformation ,

Divini ty . itsaction in the primit ivelegends, the sanctuaryand, 105et seq.

Driver,

Economy ofdetails, '

et seq.

Egyp tian influences, 91.Egypt ian names i n Genesis,Elohistand Jahvist, ; et seq.; col

lectors notau thors. . et seq.; te

C i rcumc ision ,Codex, Priestly,seq. , l et seq. ,

Col lection, process c l .' its rela

t ion to the prophets, et seq.

Collect ions, the later, et seq.

Collec tors, their relation to theirsources.

162

lation oftooneanother.133 ;ageofthe schools. l et seq.

Enoch“,Ephraim,

Epic d iscursiveness,Epic , Israeli tic national ,Esau. "

uet seq. ,aet et seq

'

et seq..f ' et

152.

Esther,Etana.Etymologies, in Genesis. 8 ; popular.

subordinate features ;Evangelical churches,Eye-witnessand reporter.Ezra. Book of,Flood . SeeDeluge.

Foreign influences.

Gad,Genesis, h istory or legend ? 1 et seq. ;

not pol itical history, many thingsreported in the book wh ich go d irectlyagainst our better knowledge. its narratives most ly ofarel igious nature, 7 ; God in , f . et

seq. ; closely related to other cosmogonies. 10 ; varieties of legendsin. set seq. ; sources of, prosein form , afolk - b ook. con

ten ts 01, in primitive form. 40 ; realuni t in, . no nature- love in,Egyptian names in , genealogyin. compounded from verymany sources, how i t came tob eattrib uted to Moses,Gerar. f

“

.

G ib eah ,G i lead“Giesebrecht.God, i n Genesis.His relat ion toman,

merelyatr ibal God,Goldziher,Greek paral lels,Ham.

vet seq

Hagar. .et seq. , 1 et seq. ,

THELEGENDS OF GENESIS.

images. host i l ity to,Incred ib i l i ty. the criterion of.In terest. difierent spheres of, in l egendand h istory. .

l saac. et seq. ,T et seq. , et

seq et seq

Ishmael. : “

1 et seq. , et seq

m et seq . f'

152.

Israel , one of the youngest in thegroup to whi ch i t b elongs“ history of, reflected in its legends.civi lisation ofCanaanadopted by."1 95

israel i tic national epic,Jacob , g .

wet seq

ct seq. ,

'

et seq

seq. , ; et seq. ,'et seq. ,

et seq. , 70 etseq. ,

seq. ,

Hebron , .

Helal,Hipwlytfl srH irah ,H istoriography, Judman;H istory , the wri ting of, et seq.

H istoryand legend. criteriafor. et

seq.

Holzinger.Homer.Hyrieus.

Jahveh , "Jahvistand Eloh ist, '

. et seq. ,

col lectors notau thors. . et seq. ;

relation of, to oneanother,age ofthe schools. ‘

iet seq.

Japhet. et seq. ,i et seq. ,

Jared,Jehovist, “

et seq

Jeremiah.Jeruel . zet seq. , et seq.

Jerusalem,

Jesus, j .

Jonah ,Jordan , twelve stones in the,

l et


il tfit

Perez,Personages in the legends, chiefandsubordinate.

Phadra,Pharaoh, . et seq

Ph i lemon , “Phoenician influences.Plato, "Plausibili ty demandedyPoetry in Genesis. 10 et seq.

Pol i tical history, Genesis not,Polytheism ,

Primi tive l i teraryart, simplicityandc learness of, '

et seq.

Prophets. the relation of the col lection to the, net seq.

Prosody, Hebrew. ,

Proverbs, Book of.

Races. progenitors of; characterof in these legends. et seq.

Rachel. et seq. ,

Rebeccah,

Redact ion, Priestly Codexand final ,1et seq.

Rel igion, light on the history of,profane motivemingled w ith. 110.

Reuben. et seq. , 101. et

Romance,an ear ly l srael itish, ‘

et

seq., 86.

Ryssel .

Sabbath.Saga. 111.Sage, the. zet seq.

Sal t, pi l lar of,Samaria.Samson. 110,

Samuel. Book of,Sanctuaries of l srael , legends of,

infil l ? JLJEZ?IZTV29£? (117 (EIZAVIEELLSZ

et seq. , at

Tamar, . et seq‘

et seq. ,

Universal h istory, beginnings of.Variants, value ofthe, et seq.

Variations onagiven theme.Wartburg,W i fe. patriarch's,W i ldeboer.W inckler,Woman.Zerah .Z ipporah , 100.

Sarah , j et seq

seq. ,

Selah ,Seventh day.Shechem.

Shem.» et seq. ,

Simeon. et seq.

Sodom , .

‘

et seq. , .90,

Sou l- lite. not ignored in legends,in terest in , in legends,Stories, devices foruni ting.Story- tel lers, professional , .

Stucken.Style, detai led ,Sustained in terest;Syrian wars, '

Tammuz.Tel l- el -Amarna,Temnah.Theocracy, Israel itish,Theophany, . et seq.,

Th igh , musc le ofthe, :Thotmosis, 111,Thought expressed byactions,Tigris,Trad it ion, h istoricalandoral ,Transmission , fidel ity of,Tribes, relations of exp lained ,van ished , 1' names of.

Documents

3 Legends of Genesis - Forgotten Books · 2 THE LEGENDS OF GENESIS. public events, the deeds of popular leaders and kings, and e specially wars. Accordingly some sort of po Ifga nisa