the chief indices by which to distiuguish the various documents out of which it is composed. The name of Yahveh was left untranslated, because it cannot be translated. It is a proper name from the ancient Hebrew root "Havah," being; but, like Jupiter or Zeus, it has lost its adjective power, and has become stereotyped as a proper name, the name of the national God of the Israelites. The best evidence we find of this is in Ex., VI. 14, where the verse closes with the words, "and my name Yahveh, I have not made known to them," and in First Kings, XVIII., 21, Elijah addresses the people in a harangue, where he proposes to test the power of the national gods and says: "If Yahveh is the powerful one, follow him, and if Baal, follow him," and throughout the whole transaction we find Yahveh, and Baal placed in opposition as two personalities, claiming a certain title, one of whom was named Baal and the other Yahveh. The English word "Lord" translates the term Adonai, which the Israelites substitute for Yahveh, as the holy name was declared by priestly authority unpronounceable. Another important deviation from the authorized version is that ha-adam is consistently translated "the man throughout, whereas the authorized version, from Gen. II., 19, to the end of the history of the first man, uses the proper name " Adam," for which there is no warrant whatever, as the Hebrew word is the same as before. The reasons of King James's translators were undoubtedly doctrinal, and these can have no weight in true criticism. Other minor differences need not be specified, since they are often modernizations of the obsolete forms of the version. They have all been made for the sake of accuracy, not forgetting that, with

man"

many people, early influences have invested the antiquated English of the Version with a certain sacredness, which dims the impartial judgment, and prevents the reader from applying to Holy Writ the critical acumen, and also the candor with which books, not invested with such sacredness, are read and criticised.

If we now turn to the contents of the above text and translation, we wonder how they ever could have been conceived to be one continuous narrative. That we have there two distinct narratives of the Creation would never have been doubted, had they been found inserted in any other ancient book. They differ in almost every particular, in the arrangement, in the facts, in the name of the Deity, in their object and, lastly, in the language used. The different arrangements of the two accounts need hardly be pointed out. In the first account we have an orderly progression, a subdivision of the whole drama into acts. After each act, occupying a day, the curtain drops; the work must have been done in the night, as the day begins with the evening, although we are somewhat puzzled to understand how the author could have imagined "evening and morning" before the creation of the sun. The author by the term "yom" meant a "day," in the common acceptance of the word and all attempts to give the term a wider significance are futile. The term "yom " is never used otherwise than to designate the 24 hours, except where it is used in contrast with "la'ylay" night, then it means the period of daylight. The plural "Yamim " is occasionally used for "times," but even in the Talmud it is laid down as a rule of interpretation, that the figurative employment of a word does not deprive it of its natural and literal meaning. Besides we find

Two distinct narratives.

Meaning of the word "day."

in Ch. I., 14, the word "ul'yamim," "and for days,” in contrast with the following term "v'shanim," "and years." And lastly we have that unanswerable, though. almost threadbare reference to Ch. II., 3, where Elohim blessed the "seventh day," because he rested on that day from his labor. The second account, on the other hand, beginning Ch. II., 4, has no division of time at all, nor is there any orderly subdivision of events; all events are only told with reference to one central fact, the creation of man. A comparison of the facts narrated in each shows the following differences. The first account begins with Chaos, as in the Greek Cosmogony, the first differentiation being between light and darkness on the first day. The second day brings about the division between heaven and earth. On the third, land appears. The second account opens with the earth as a dry arid plain without vegetation and animal life. In the first account the earth is made to produce the herbs bearing seed and the trees bearing fruit with seed, independently of rain and human interference. In the second account the herb of the field does not grow until it has rained and man has tilled the ground, though we are not told whence he obtained the seed to plant, nor how the uncultivated plants originated. Man, however, appears first on the ground, while in the first account he is the last object of creation. In this act itself a variety of divergencies may be noted. In the first account man is made in the image of Elohim; in the second no mention is made of his "god-likeness," on the contrary we find that it was quite against the will of the Deity that he should become so. And after he had become so by the advice of the serpent and the curiosity of Eve, he is driven

Difference in the accounts of

the creation of man.

from the Garden of Eden for, says Yahveh Elohim (Ch. III., 22), “Behold the man has become like one of us to know good and evil," exactly as the serpent had foretold in the same chapter (verse 5): "for Elohim knows that, on the day of your eating therefrom, your eyes will be opened and you will be like Elohim knowing good and evil." In Chapter I., 27, man is created male and female. In the second account woman appears only after a surgical operation. In the first account birds appear on the fifth day, the wild beast and domesticated cattle at the beginning of the sixth day, after which follows the creation of man, male and female. In the second account Adam is first made alone in a manner to which we find no reference in the first account. Then the "beast of the field and the fowls of the Heaven" are made by Yahveh Elohim from the ground before woman is created. Mark also, that first beasts and then fowls are made by Yahveh Elohim himself out of the ground, in the same way as Man; but in the first account the fowls are produced at command on the fifth day out of the water, and beast and cattle are brought forth by the earth on the sixth day, The first account knows nothing of the garden of Eden, of the four rivers, of forbidden fruit, of the naming process and of matrimony. The second does not mention the creation of heavenly bodies, of the fishes, and "whales" and of creeping things. It knows nothing of "festive seasons" and of the Sabbath. In the first account Man is given unlimited control over the whole earth and all animal creation, in the second he is simply the gardener of Eden. The next important difference between the two accounts is the employment of differ- Different names for the ent appellations for the Deity. The first account uses Deity.

throughout the term "Elohim," rendered "God" in the common version, and the second uses "Yahveh Elohim," rendered "the Lord God." This fact has induced many Bible critics to call the first account Elohistic and the second Yahvistic, and, taken together with the differences pointed out above, there cannot be the least doubt that we have here the work of two different authors of different localities. And we may also, through these names for the Deity, find the key to the motives of the two writers. The first account was probably committed to writing by an Israelite belonging to the northern tribes, of which the tribe of Ephraim was the most powerful. Among these tribes the exclusive worship of Yahveh was not introduced until the time of King Josiah, of the southern kingdom. All passages that give prominence to Joseph and his descendants are Elohistic, while the passages which detail the ritual of the tabernacle or temple, the office of the priests and Levites, which give prominence to the tribe of Judah, are Yahvistic, and must have had a Levite as their author. To the Yahvistic account belongs the history of the Exodus, and hence we find that the same writer refers all festivals of the Israelites back to that event, and in Deuteronomy V., 15, we read: "And thou shalt remember that thou wast a slave in the land of Egypt, and Yahveh, thy God brought thee out from thence with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm, therefore Yahweh thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day." Here we find even the Sabbath based on the Exodus from Egypt. Deuteronomy was undoubtedly composed under Josiah, 640-609, B. C.