***************************************
But with the Jehovist justice was yet done to some extent to the
individuality of the different narratives: in the Priestly Code
their individuality is not only modified to suit the purpose of
the whole, but completely destroyed. The connection leading up
to the Torah of Moses is everything, the individual pieces have
no significance but this. It follows of course from this mode of
treatment that the connection itself loses all living reality; it
consists, apart from the successive covenants, in mere genealogy
and chronology. De Wette thinks all this beautiful because it is
symmetrical and intelligible, and leads well up to a conclusion.
But this will not be every one's taste; there is such a thing as
poetical material without manufacture.
How loosely the narratives of the primitive history are connected
with each other in the Jehovist we see very clearly in the
section dealing with the flood. It disagrees both with what goes
before and with what follows it. The genealogy Genesis iv. 16-24
issues not in Noah but in Lamech; instead of Shem, Ham, and
Japhet, the sons of Noah, we have Jabal, Jubal, Tubal, the sons of
Lamech, as the inaugurators of the second period.
Pages:
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712