COMMENTARY.
Chapters I–XI.
It has been shown in the Introduction (page xxxiii) that the most obvious division of the book of Genesis is into four nearly equal parts, of which the first (chapters 1–11) deals with the Creation of the world, and the history of primitive mankind prior to the call of Abraham. These chapters are composed of excerpts from two of the main sources of the Pentateuch, the Priestly Code, and the Yahwistic document. Attempts have been made from time to time (e.g. by Schrader, Dillmann, and more recently Winckler) to trace the hand of the Elohist in chapters 1–11; but the closest examination has failed to produce any substantial evidence that Elohist is represented in the Primitive History at all. By the great majority of critics the non-Priestly traditions in this part of Genesis are assigned to the Yahwistic cycle: that is to say, they are held to have been collected and arranged by the school of rhapsodists to whose literary activity we owe the document known as Yahwist.
To the Priests’ Code, whose constituents can here be isolated with great certainty and precision, belong: 1. The Cosmogony (1¹–24a); 2. The List of Patriarchs from Adam to Noah (5); 3. An account of the Flood (6⁹–9²⁹*); 4. A Table of Peoples (10*); 5. The Genealogies of Shem (1110–26), and Terah (1127–32*), ending with Abraham. There is no reason to suppose either that the original Priestly-Code contained more than this, or, on the other hand, that Priestly-Code was written to supplement the older tradition, and to be read along with it. It is in accordance with the purpose and tendency of the document that the only events recorded in detail—the Creation and the Flood—are those which inaugurate two successive World-ages or Dispensations, and are associated with the origin of two fundamental observances of Judaism—the Sabbath (2³), and the sanctity of the blood (94 ff.).
In marked contrast to the formalism of this meagre epitome is the rich variety of life and incident which characterises the Yahwistic sections, viz.: 1. The Creation and Fall of Man (24b–3²⁴); 2. Cain and Abel (41–16); 3. The Genealogy of Cain (417–24); 4. A fragmentary Sethite Genealogy (425 f. ... 5²⁹ ...); 5. The marriages with divine beings (61–4); 6. An account of the Flood (6⁵–8²²*); 7. Noah’s Curse and Blessing (920–27); 8. A Table of Peoples (10*); 9. The Tower of Babel (111–9); 10. A fragment of the Genealogy of Teraḥ (1128–30). Here we have a whole gallery of varied and graphic pictures, each complete in itself and essentially independent of the rest, arranged in a loosely chronological order, and with perhaps a certain unity of conception, in so far as they illustrate the increasing wickedness that accompanied the progress of mankind in civilisation. Even the genealogies are not (like those of Priestly-Code) bare lists of names and figures, but preserve incidental notices of new social or religious developments associated with particular personages (417. 20–22. 26 5²⁹), besides other allusions to a more ancient mythology from which the names have been drawn (419. 22. 23 f.).
Composition of Yahwist.—That a narrative composed of so many separate and originally independent legends should present discrepancies and discontinuities is not surprising, and is certainly by itself no proof of literary diversity. At the same time there are many indications that Yahwist is a composite work, based on older collections of Hebrew traditions, whose outlines can still be dimly traced. (1) The existence of two parallel genealogies (Cainite and Sethite) at once suggests a conflate tradition. The impression is raised almost to certainty when we find that both are derived from a common original (page 138 f.). (2) The Cainite genealogy is incompatible with the Deluge tradition. The shepherds, musicians, and smiths, whose origin is traced to the last three members of the genealogy, are obviously not those of a bygone race which perished in the Flood, but those known to the author and his contemporaries (page 115 f.). (3) Similarly, the Table of Nations and the story of the Confusion of Tongues imply mutually exclusive explanations of the diversities of language and nationality: in one case the division proceeds slowly and naturally on genealogical lines, in the other it takes place by a sudden interposition of almighty power. (4) There is evidence that the story of the Fall was transmitted in two recensions (page 52 f.). If Gunkel be right, the same is true of Yahwist’s Table of Peoples, and of the account of the Dispersion; but there the analysis is less convincing. (5) In 4²⁶ we read that Enosh introduced the worship of Yahwe. The analogy of Exodus 62 f. (Priestly-Code) affords a certain presumption that the author of such a statement will have avoided the name יהוה up to this point; and as a matter of fact אֱלֹהִים occurs immediately before in verse ²⁵. It is true that the usage is observed in no earlier Yahwistic passage except 31–5, where other explanations might be thought of. But throughout chapters 2 and 3 we find the very unusual compound name יהוה אלהים, and it is a plausible conjecture that one recension of the Paradise story was distinguished by the use of Elohim, and that Yahwe was inserted by a harmonising Yahwistic editor (so Budde, Gunkel, al.: see page 53).
To what precise extent these phenomena are due to documentary differences is a question that requires to be handled with the utmost caution and discrimination. It is conceivable that a single author should have compiled a narrative from a number of detached legends which he reported just as he found them, regardless of their internal consistency. Nevertheless, there seems sufficient evidence to warrant the conclusion that (as Wellhausen has said) we have to do not merely with aggregates but with sequences; although to unravel perfectly the various strands of narrative may be a task for ever beyond the resources of literary criticism. Here it will suffice to indicate the principal theories.—(a) Wellhausen (Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen Bücher des Alten Testaments² 9–14) seems to have been the first to perceive that 41–16a is a late expansion based (as he supposed) on 416–24 and on chapters 2, 3; that originally chapters 2–4 existed not only without 41–16a, but also without 425 f. and 5²⁹; and that chapters 2. 3. 416–24 111–9 form a connexion to which the story of the Flood is entirely foreign and irrelevant.—(b) The analysis was pushed many steps further by Budde (Biblische Urgeschichte, passim), who, after a most exhaustive and elaborate examination, arrived at the following theory: the primary document (Yahwist¹) consisted of 24b–9. 16–25 31–19. 21 6³ 3²³ 41. 2bβ. 16b. 17–24 61. 2. 4 10⁹ 111–9 920–27. This was recast by Yahwist² (substituting אלהים for יהוה down to 4²⁶), whose narrative contained a Cosmogony (but no Paradise story), the Sethite genealogy, the Flood-legend, the Table of Nations, and a seven-membered Shemite genealogy. These two recensions were then amalgamated by Yahwist³, who inserted dislocated passages of Yahwist¹ in the connexion of Yahwist², and added 41–5 5²⁹ etc. Yahwist² attained the dignity of a standard official document, and is the authority followed by Priestly-Code at a later time. The astonishing acumen and thoroughness which characterise Budde’s work have had a great influence on critical opinion, yet his ingenious transpositions and reconstructions of the text seem too subtle and arbitrary to satisfy any but a slavish disciple. One feels that he has worked on too narrow a basis by confining his attention to successive overworkings of the same literary tradition, and not making sufficient allowance for the simultaneous existence of relatively independent forms.—(c) Stade (Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, xiv. 274 ff. [= Ausgewählte akademische Reden und Abhandlungen 244–251]) distinguishes three main strata: (1) chapters 2. 3. 111–9; (2) 425 f. 17–22 920–27 10⁹? 61. 2?; (3) the Flood-legend, added later to the other two, by a redactor who also compiled a Sethite genealogy (425 f. ... 5²⁹ ...) and inserted the story of Cain and Abel, and the Song of Lamech (423 f.).—(d) Gunkel (Genesis übersetzt und erklärt² 1 ff.) proceeds on somewhat different lines from his predecessors. He refuses in principle to admit incongruity as a criterion of source, and relies on certain verses which bear the character of connecting links between different sections. The most important is 5²⁹ (belonging to the Sethite genealogy), where we read: “This (Noah) shall comfort us from our labour and from the toil of our hands on account of the ground which Yahwe has cursed.” Here there is an unmistakable reference backward to 3¹⁷, and forward to 920 ff.. Thus we obtain a faultless sequence, forming the core of a document where יהוה was not used till 4²⁶, and hence called Yahwistᵉ, consisting of: one recension of the Paradise story; the (complete) Sethite genealogy; and Noah’s discovery of wine. From this sequence are excluded obviously: the second recension of the Paradise story; the Cainite genealogy; and (as Gunkel thinks) the Flood-legend, where Noah appears in quite a different character: these belong to a second document (Yahwistʲ). Again, 918 f. form a connecting link between the Flood and the Table of Nations; but Gunkel distinguishes two Yahwistic strata in the Table of Nations and assigns one to each of his documents: similarly with the section on the Tower of Babel. The legend of Cain and Abel is regarded (with Wellhausen, Budde, Stade, al.) as an editorial expansion.
In this commentary the analysis of Gunkel is adopted in the main; but with the following reservations: (1) The account of the Flood cannot be naturally assigned to Yahwistʲ, because of its admitted incompatibility with the assumption of the Cainite genealogy (see above). Gunkel, indeed, refuses to take such inconsistencies into account; but in that case there is no reason for giving the Flood to Yahwistʲ rather than to Yahwistᵉ. There is no presumption whatever that only two documents are in evidence; and the chapters in question show peculiarities of language which justify the assumption of a separate source (Stade), say Yahwistᵈ. (2) With the Flood passage goes the Yahwistic Table of Peoples (918 f.). The arguments for two Yahwists in chapter 10 are hardly decisive; and Yahwistᵉ at all events had no apparent motive for attaching an ethnographic survey to the name of Noah. (3) Gunkel’s analysis of 111–9 appears on the whole to be sound; but even so there is no ground for identifying the two components with Yahwistᵉ and Yahwistʲ respectively. On the contrary, the tone of both recensions has a striking affinity with that of Yahwistʲ: note especially (with Wellhausen) the close resemblance in form and substance between 11⁶ and 3²². Thus:
Such constructions, it need hardly be added, are in the highest degree precarious and uncertain; and can only be regarded as tentative explanations of problems for which it is probable that no final solution will be found.