Even the fratricide of Cain,
with the contrast in the background between the peaceful life of
the Hebrews in the land of Canaan and the restless wanderings of
the Cainites (Kenites) in the neighbouring desert, quite falls out
of the universal historical and geographical framework. Still
more does the curse of Canaan do so; here the trait is evidently
old, that Noah was the first to make wine, but this has been made
a merely subordinate feature of a pronouncedly national
Israelite narrative. But in the Jehovist the process of emptying
the primitive legend of its true meaning and contents has not gone
nearly so far as in the Priestly Code, where it actually creates
surprise when some mythic element shines through, as in the cases
of Enoch, and of the rainbow.
The mythic materials of the primitive world-history are suffused
in the Jehovist with a peculiar sombre earnestness, a kind of
antique philosophy of history, almost bordering on pessimism: as
if mankind were groaning under some dreadful weight, the pressure
not so much of sin as of creaturehood (vi. 1-4). We notice a shy,
timid spirit, which belongs more to heathenism.
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