" There his attitude towards the beasts
is one of mixed familiarity and bewilderment; he does not know
exactly what to make of them; they are allied to him and yet
not quite suitable society for him; here they are beings not
related to him, over which he rules.
The chief point in which the difference between the two accounts
comes to a head is this. In Genesis ii. iii., man is virtually
forbidden to lift the veil of things, and to know the world,
represented in the tree of knowledge. In Genesis i. this is the
task set him from the beginning; he is to rule over the whole
earth, and rule and knowledge come to the same thing--they mean
civilisation. There nature is to him a sacred mystery: here it
is a mere fact, an object; he is no longer bewildered over
against nature, but free and superior. There it is a robbery for
man to seek to be equal with God: here God makes him at first in
His own image and after His own likeness, and appoints him His
representative in the realm of nature. We cannot regard it as
fortuitous that in this point Genesis i. asserts the opposite of
Genesis ii. iii.; the words spoken with such emphasis, and
repeated i.
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