The book of Genesis in the light of modern knowledge

Front matter

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Chapter One: A General Introduction

1 BEGIN this discussion with a great deal of pleasure and with some trepidation. The book that we are to study is the oldest and, in some respects, the grandest and the most difficult book of the Old Testament. Outside of the four Gospels, probably no book has influenced the thought of the world so much as the Book of Genesis. For ages it has been regarded as the sacred repository, the infallible witness of those truths which man most desires to know. The reason of its vast importance is this. It deals in a masterly way with the beginnings of things, and the beginnings of things are always the most difficult and the most interesting. The world of effects, of nature, of orderly progression, has its charm and its importance, but the world of causes is the peculiar domain of God and of those great intelligences which endeavor to penetrate the secrets of God. That is the lesson which we of the latter half of this century have thoroughly learned. Auguste Comte once said in an inspired moment, " You can know little of any idea until you know the history of that idea/' and Darwin showed us how to trace the history of our ideas back to their origins. The best thought of the latter half of this century has been little more than a study of origins. That is why this book, the first rational attempt at a study of origins, has so great a fascination for us to-day. The Book of Genesis has been studied during the past fifty years as it was never studied before, and its real character is understood now as never before. It is true that with the rise of modern knowledge Genesis has been attacked on many sides. It is also true that for us its ideas in the field of positive science have not the absolute value that they once had. And yet the old book has not lost its importance. Like a huge cube of granite cut by some giant of old, it has resisted all the attacks of time. It has been " overturned " again and again, but it makes little difference which face is uppermost. It is still grand, solid, imposing. If this great block has been set for centuries in the path of progress to discourage investigation and to ruin science, that is not the fault of the block itself, but of the pygmies who placed it there. The Book of Genesis was not written to impede progress and to ruin science. On the contrary, its grand opening verse, '' In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," as Renan says, ''swept away at one breath the whole brood of chimeras and mythological fancies which had darkened knowledge from the beginning." Who can estimate the indebtedness

Method of Treatment of subsequent science to the opening verses of Genesis, which laid the eternal foundation of all sane thought — one God, one solitary, unique cause of all that happens. Heathen wisdom with all its subtlety failed to apprehend that truth.

In my opinion, a comprehensive and really fruitful study of the Book of Genesis ought to include three distinct parts. First, we ought to determine exactly what this book is and what it actually wishes to teach. Second, we should attempt to ascertain the sources from which its ideas are derived, and its relation to other works of the same sort. Third, we cannot altogether refuse to ask, how do those ideas square with what we know of the universe to-day? We should remember, however, that the real problem of to-day is. not, are the views of Genesis scientifically true, but, how did they originate? Let me speak of these three points a little more fully.

It is of the first importance in studying any book, and especially a scientific book, that we should know when and by whom it was written. The writings of Aristotle were marvels of wisdom in their day, but if they were to be put forth now for the first time, without any preface explaining when and by whom they were written, they would be regarded as the work of an exceedingly clever lunatic. We are accustomed to regard the Book of Genesis as a single composition, Avritten at one time, by one man; but we shall see before long that the Book of Genesis is not a single composition, written at one time, by one man, but a collection of compositions, written at different times by different men, and then brought together and woven into one more or less continuous narrative. This accounts for the strange repetitions, inconsistencies, and contradictions of the book, such as the two accounts of the creation and of the flood, and the f wo seizures of Sarah, over which men Hke Ingersoll make merry, and which would be inexcusable if the whole book were the work of a single mind. To make this important matter plainer, let me cite an almost parallel case in Christendom.* In the latter half of the second century a celebrated Christian writer named Tatian, then living in Rome, made up his mind to reduce our four Gospels to one Gospel. It seemed to him that one continuous narrative of the Saviour's life, containing all the events preserved by the four Evangelists, would be more satisfactory than four accounts, the very number of which might give rise to some suspicion. He called his work the " Diatessaron," i.e., '' Harmony of the Four." This book became very popular in the church until, on account of the heresies of which Tatian was suspected, its use was prohibited, and for centuries the book was lost. Within the past twenty-five years large portions of this work have been recovered, and they are in the hands of scholars. Now, in this " Diatessaron " of Tatian, in which he tried to weave the strands of the four Gospels into one continuous story, we find the same contradictions, the same repetitions and inconsistencies that we find in the Book of Genesis. Only, happily for us, the four Gospels are still extant, so that we can say with certainty how those contradictions and discrepancies arose. This

* T borrow this illustration from Bacon's " Genesis of Genesis," pp. 5 and 6.

Three Narratives in One story, we say, is the result of Tatian's attempt to piece together such a chapter of St. Matthew with such a chapter of St. John. That repetition occurred because the story had already been told by St. Mark; but Tatian, for certain reasons, wished to incorporate into his book the corresponding chapter of St. Luke. So, in reading his book we are not puzzled at all. We know what it is— an attempt to combine four narratives in one narrative. In the Book of Genesis a similar attempt was made by some unknown writer, who lived long before the time of Christ, to reduce at least three narratives to one narrative. He had all three before him, and he was able to choose what seemed to him the finest passages and to weave them together into one book. In doing this he was obliged, of course, to take a great many liberties to make them fit together, and even then he was not able to prevent the seams and stitches from being seen, and a good many contradictory statements from slipping in. Unfortunately, the three original sources have completely perished, and yet they were so different from each other in style, in the range of their ideas, in their names for the Deity, etc., that scholars have little difficulty in separating the book into its original parts. The new polychrome edition of Genesis will have these three principal narratives, or documents, as they are called, printed in three colors, so that the reader can tell at a glance which one he is reading. I might compare the book as it stands in our Bible to a cord of three strands, red, white and blue.

As we look at the cord the effect is confusing, here a little red, there some white, and there some blue. But when we get hold of the ends of those threads and unravel them, we find that they are continuous, and if we persevere we have at last a red thread, a white thread, and a blue thread, each slighter and less imposing than the whole cord, but independent. It is criticism that enables us to unravel the Book of Genesis, and when our task is done, we find that these three documents run not only through the Book of Genesis, but through the whole Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua as well. I shall not attempt to prove this now. I do not even ask you to believe it because I say it is true. I ask you to believe only what you see with your own eyes and what your own judgment pronounces true. I touch on these matters here merely to chow you that Genesis is by no means so simple a book as most persons suppose, and that to know what kind of book it is, one must study it with the utmost care. It is just because so few persons have had the patience to study this work as it ought to be studied that many of the criticisms passed upon it are more childish than the passages they criticise. If the Book of Genesis pretended to be a literal history of the world, from the day of creation down to the descent into Egypt, like histories written to-day in the age of printing and newspapers, then there might be some reason in asking who was Cain's wife, or why Cain was afraid that everybody would kill him when there was no one in the world but his father and mother ; or how it happened that after Isaac was born of parents so old that his birth was a sort of miracle, Abraham became the father of several other sons in the ordinary course of nature. But

Futility of Ignorant Criticism

as soon as we get a true insight into the character of the composition, we shall see that these inconsistencies are mere trifles, and only to be expected. I shall notice the discrepancies when they are forced on our attention, but I shall not go out of my way to seek them. Hundreds of sceptics have had their little scoff at the Book of Genesis on account of matters of this kind. But scoffs do not advance science nor make people religious. Any strolling vagabond, as Strauss says, can stuff a turnip into the town pump. Neither, on the other hand, shall I try to prove that every statement of Genesis, nor even its general theory of the origin of the world, is in complete agreement with the most recent results of modern science. I gladly leave that task to those who are sufflciently ignorant both of science and of Genesis. My own firm conviction is that the Book is so great in itself that it does not need the assistance of maladroit apologists.

The second part of a comprehensive study of Genesis, as I conceive it, would consist in a comparison of its account of the creation and the origin of man, with similar accounts contained in the sacred books of other nations, and especially in the books of other members of the Semitic family. I know that there are persons who shrink from a comparison of our religion, in any stage of its development, with the religions of the world, but I think that their timidity is based on scepticism rather than on faith. In what a situation, they say, should we find ourselves if we discovered that other religions possessed our conceptions and our history in an older, purer, richer form than our own. and

_ we were forced to admit that our narratives, if not inferior, were borrowed from the Gentiles, rather than inspired by God! These persons really undervalue their religion, and perhaps they will never know how the religion of the Bible is inspired until they compare it with the best that man has been able to do and to think outside the religion of the Old Testament and of Christianity. Just as a man who knows only his own language does not know that very well, so he who knows only his own religion knows it imperfectly. But to those who are acquainted with the historical sciences I need not say that this method of prudent and fruitful comparison has almost recreated the past.

Not to be tedious, there is the wonderful literature of Babylon unearthed by the labors of men like Rawlinson and Layard and George Smith. At first it was a mere puzzle — slabs of clay covered with arrowheads and combinations of arrowheads in every conceivable arrangement. Gradually a little light begins to dawn. A proper name here and there is identified, a town whose name is known supplies a few more significant signs. Certain words like prepositions, articles, etc., recurring again and again, are identified. So it goes on, the light constantly growing stronger and broader, until at last we find ourselves in the possession of a new language, or rather of an old language, which, but for the patient toil of these illustrious men, would have perished forever. Dictionaries of what is left of the old cuneiform inscriptions are slowly and painfully prepared. Their grammar, syntax, and the etymology of their words are studied, and the

Value of Prudent Comparison

language turns out to be an old Semitic idiom, connected by a thousand ties with Hebrew on the one side and with Arabic on the other. Armed with this powerful instrument, scholars return to the inscriptions, and now, instead of unintelligible arrowheads on clay, they find thoughts. The sign has become significant. The intelHgence of men of to-day is confronted with the intelligence of men who lived and died thousands of years ago. Is not the world the richer ?

But, you say, how do these discoveries affect the Book of Genesis? In this way. We find here a sister people that has preserved a good many of the old family traditions, a people that developed a great national literature, which is absolutely independent of the Hebrew Hterature, but which reflects a great deal of light upon it. In that literature there is also a Book of Genesis, or rather chapters of such a book. Here also we find an account of the creation of the world and of man, perhaps also of the fall of man, and a wonderful account of the deluge.

Although this is not the place to enter minutely into the details of the comparison, I may briefly indicate some of its grand results. First of all, we find the genuine antiquity of our Book of Genesis abundantly vindicated. Before the Babylonian inscriptions were thoroughly understood, and after the Mosaic authorship of Genesis had been generally abandoned and it was admitted that the Book in its present form was not older than the Exile, a good many persons conceived the idea that the contents of Genesis were not very old. In other words, it was believed

_ that Genesis was a manufactured book, composed throughout by anonymous writers in an advanced stage of Hterary art. If this were true, it would be a book of Httle vakie. Its traditions and wonderful stories, instead of coming down to us hoary from an immeasurable past, would be but the inventions of clever Jews who lived only five hundred years before Christ. It was imagined, therefore, that Genesis was not a sincere work. The very archaic simplicity of its limpid and matchless style was thought to be a piece of literary embellishment, Hke the forged poems of Ossian, palmed off on an unsuspecting age by an older and more skilful Macpherson.

But that dream, which would simply destroy Genesis for most persons, is shattered into fragments by the discovery of the Genesis of Babylon, which George Smith called the '' Chaldean Genesis." For here, unmistakably, we have a series of narratives coined at the same mint, though of inferior metal, and representing the oldest traditions of another Semitic people, entirely independent of the Hebrew traditions. But this may point to the fact that there was a time, before these two branches of the Semitic family had differentiated so much that they ceased to speak and to understand each other's language, when the old traditions of creation, the flood, etc., were the common possession of the peoples which afterward became Hebrews and Babylonians. When we reflect on the great age of the Babylonian civilization, which scholars believe they can trace in the ruins of buried cities to at least four thousand years before Christ, we see that criticism,

The Old Dilemma far from diminishing the real age of the Book of Genesis, has added to its age hundreds if not thousands of years.

There is one other general result of this comparison of the Hebrew and the Chaldean Genesis, which is of even greater interest. If Moses, in the fourteenth century B.C., really wrote the Book of Genesis in the sense of being the actual composer of its pages without the assistance of tradition,^ we should be confronted with a very singular dilemma. Either God miraculously supplied Moses with exact knowledge of the past history of the world, which of himself he could not know, or else Moses wrote these things entirely out of his own head. In the first case, the scientific errors of the book, its contradictions and repetitions, would be unthinkable ; and in the second case, the work would lose almost all its value and importance. The historical parts, narratives of events which happened thousands of years before Moses' birth, would fall to the ground.

That is the old dilemma which has inspired centuries of fruitless strife, and which has caused the Book of Genesis to stand, as I have said, hke a great cube of granite, in the way of all rational progress. As long as we state the problem in these terms, it is impossible to escape. Hundreds of pseudo-scientific works have been written to prove that the scientific statements of Genesis are literally correct, but they all either do utter violence to the real Genesis, or they fail to establish their point. Nevertheless, the Book of Genesis is true ; it is a sincere and noble composition that retains its grandeur and nobility and its inestimable religious value in spite of all scoffers, from Voltaire to Ingersoll. It is plain, then, that we must state the problem in a different way, in order, on the one hand, to free ourselves from the crushing despotism of authority that has reared itself under the name of this book; and, on the other hand, in order to hold the real sacredness and inspiration of Genesis high and inviolate. It -is one of the greatest services of the historical, comparative, or, if you please, the critical method of studying the Scripture that it enables us to state the problem and to solve it in a way that causes the old bitter antithesis of Genesis and Progress, of revelation and science, almost to disappear, without the sacrifice of anything we ought to defend. As soon as we see that for many of the great narratives of Genesis there are corresponding narratives in Chaldea whose resemblance is unmistakable, it becomes absurd to suppose that those narratives originated with Moses or with any later Hebrew writer. Certainly the Chaldeans did not borrow their accounts of creation from the Hebrews, and it is the opinion of many of the best scholars that the Hebrews did not borrow their accounts from Chaldea at the time of the Exile. Therefore, it is not impossible to suppose that they are two forms of the same primitive Semitic tradition, immeasurably older than most other portions of the Old Testament — a point, however, on which I do not insist. This also does away with the magical, miraculous conception of inspiration which has done so much harm both to religion and to science. If every word, if every statement of our

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Inspiration of Genesis

Genesis is miraculously inspired and so is perfectly true, then at least some words and some statements of the Chaldean Genesis are inspired in the same way, for they are practically identical. But, you ask, what does all this lead to ? Where, then, does the inspiration of Genesis come in ? In what is it superior to those old Babylonian creation myths, which may be interesting to scholars, but which no Christian of good sense would dream of making part of his religion?

That question does not trouble me. I have read many of those writings, and when in the course of these studies you read them and compare them point by point with our Genesis, it will not trouble you. You will see then wherein the inspiration of Genesis consists. Inspiration, breathing in, the drawing of God into the heart, is one of the most difftcult words in language to define, so difficult that no definition of inspiration has ever been accepted by the Church. It is the vibration of the chord in the heart, a peculiar quality of composition easy to feel, but hard to describe. Let us take the only other parallel case we possess, the inspiration of genius. Shakespeare, as is well known, derived the materials out of which he spun many of his great dramas from certain old chronicles and collections of tales, such as the " Gesta Romanorum." Anything barer, more meagre, than these old chronicle narratives it would be hard to conceive; certainly there is nothing inspired in them. Yet, outside of himself, that was all Shakespeare had. But those simple events, passing through the alembic of his imagination, become portentous and symbolical. Those forgotten men and women, recreated by him, and risen, as it were, from the dead, infused by his mighty purpose and animated by his passion, hve again a Hfe a thousand times more real than when they walked the earth. Their lives, through him, attain a universal, a permanent significance. In them human life seems brought to a focus, and on their strength or weakness the final outcome of life seems to be staked. This we feel and admit to be inspiration. Somehow, Shakespeare has breathed in the universal spirit, and he communicates that living breath to his creations, making them live and partake to a certain extent of universal and enduring life. That is why they have the power to move us all.

So, with even higher and grander genius, the author or the authors of the Book of Genesis, having found these old Semitic traditions, which originally were a mere mass of mythology, invested them with a form of classic and flawless purity, and gave them a significance which has touched the heart of the better part of humanity, and changed the meaning of the world. If out of all the myriad books of earth the chapters were to be selected that have borne the greatest fruits, the first would be those of the Sermon on the Mount, the second would be the first chapter of Genesis. The only safe test with which I am acquainted of the inspiration of any book is the effect that book is able to produce. '' Up to this moment it has never been given to charlatanism or mediocrity to produce anything permanently great." Judged by its results, we must pronounce the Book of Genesis to be one of the most truly inspired works ever produced, and

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Attitude of Other Inspired Writers

yet a work not above criticism nor free from error.

What encourages me to believe that this viewis correct is the fact that the Book of Genesis was plainly regarded in this light by other inspired writers of the Old Testament. The man, whoever he was, who put the book into its present form and gave it, so to speak, its finishing touches, could not have regarded the account of creation in the first chapter as final or as literally binding in all respects. If he had so regarded it, he certainly would not have added a second account in the very next chapter contradicting the first in so many particulars. The prophets and the writers of many of the psalms never imagined that God had taken any man into His confidence so far as to tell him the whole scheme of creation exactly as it happened. On the contrary, they have their own ideas on that subject, which differ widely from the plan laid down in Genesis. Job specifically and pointedly represents God as saying :

" Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the

earth ?

If thou hast skill, declare !

Who took the measure thereof, Or who stretched the line upon it ? Wherever are the columns of her foundations sunk ? Or who laid her corner stone When the morning stars sang- together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy ? "

Let me take only one other instance. The narrative of the Book of Genesis which has had the most profound effect on the thought of the world is the story of the Fall. Out of this simple, poetic

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narrative has grown up a vast dogma, which at last includes in its domain a large part of human life. Millions of men have accepted it literally, and have shaped their lives accordingly. Especially since the Protestant Reformation has the hideous doctrine of a total depravity supposed to spring from Adam's transgression rested like a nightmare on the conscience of a large part of Christendom. It is true, we are growing restive under that doctrine now. It seems to us strange that God, having made everything so good, should be completely defeated by Satan at the very outset, and we cannot help fearing if He was so defeated once. He may be again, and all the results of human sacrifice and toil may be lost in a single day. The doctrine that man was created perfect is also opposed to all that science is able to teach us in regard to human history, which shows us man slowly struggling upward from the humblest terrestrial beginnings. So, as Christians and believers in the Bible, but also as sane and rational men, we hardly know how we ought to regard this matter. But then, in the very moment of our perplexity and doubt, the comparative method I have already spoken of suggests that we should inquire how the saints of old, the prophets and other inspired men of God regarded this narrative, and to our surprise we find that they did not take it literally at all. They understood far better than we its true significance. They did not associate the sinfulness of man with the transgression of Adam. In fact, outside the account of Genesis, the sin of Adam is only once mentioned in the Old Testament, where Job casually says : '' If I covered my transgression

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Human Sin Not Referred to Adam

like Adam by hiding mine iniquity in my bosom." * Even Cain is not bound in any way to follow his father's example, for the Lord said unto Cain, '' Sin lurks before the door and its desire is for thee, but thou shouldst rule over it." And yet the Old Testament has enough to say of sin. " God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." There is indeed an original sin, but it does not spring from the transgression of Adam. It lies in the carnal nature of man. '' Behold, I was shapen in wickedness and in sin did my mother conceive me." The prophets also speak of a '' Fall." But it is not the fall of Adam, it is Israel's fall from its ideal and destiny. '' Behold the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither is his ear heavy that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear." " But now, O Lord, thou art our Father, we are the clay and thou our potter, and we all are the work of thy hand." f The prophets trace the root of this sinfulness to many things, to the people's love of worldly possessions, which makes them proud and forgetful of God, to sensuality and lust and to the fear of man ; but to Adam, or to his sin, not once. J

This certainly encourages us. It shows us that it is possible to reverence the Book of Genesis without being slavishly bound so as to take literally what was written poetically and figura-

* Job, xxxi. 33. f Isaiah, Ixiv. 8.

^: Schultz, " Alttestamentliche Theologie," 677 ff.

lively. It gives us faith in our method, and hope that we can truly appreciate and reverence this noble book without giving up all that, as educated men and women, we are bound to believe of the workings of God in the history of the world. In other words, we may hope that the antagonism between Revelation and Reason is not final.

Proof of Composite Authorship

Chapter Two: Critical Survey

IN the first chapter two assertions were made. First, that the Book of Genesis in its present form was not written by Moses ; and second, that it is not a single composition, written at one time by one man, but a combination of at least three different compositions, combined like a cord twisted out of three threads into one more or less continuous narrative. I shall now try to a certain extent to make those assertions good. It does not seem to me necessary at this point to go very minutely into the analysis of the book, but I want to lay the main facts of the composition of Genesis so plainly before you that you will be able to recognize the three different documents when we shall have occasion to study them later on. A great deal of the proof in regard to Genesis applies just as well to the composition of the whole Pentateuch and to the Book of Joshua, for the same documents run through them all. But as Genesis is the book we are now studying, I shall pay particular attention to that, and take most of my examples and illustrations from Genesis alone.