"
That at the same time the majesty of Jehovah is in no way compromised
is the mystery of poetic genius. How would the colourless God of
abstraction fare in such a situation ?
The treatment, finally, of the microcosm in the two accounts,
reflects the difference between them. In chapter i. man is
directed at the very outset to the ground on which he moves to
this day: "Replenish the earth, and subdue it," he is told; a
perfectly natural task. In chaps. ii. iii. he is placed in
Paradise, and his sphere of activity there, nestled, as he may
be said still to be, in the lap of the Deity, is very limited.
The circumstances of his life as it now is, the man's toil in the
fields, the woman's toil in bearing children, do not answer to his
original destiny; they are not a blessing, but a curse. In the
Jehovistic narrative man is as wonderful to himself as the
external world; in the other he is as much a matter of course as
it is. In the one he sees astonishing mysteries in the difference
of the sexes, in marriage, in child-birth (iv. 1); in the other
these are physiological facts which raise no questions or
reflections: "He made them male and female, and said, Be
fruitful and multiply.
Pages:
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691