1. It is almost impossible to read the book of Gene- sis with anything like a critical eye without being struck with the great pecidiarities of style and lan- guag2 which certain portions of it present. Thus, for instance, chap, ii, 3-iii, 24 is quite different both frcm chap, i and from chap. iv. Again, chap, xiv and (ac- cording to Jahn) chap, xxiii are evidently separate documents, transplanted in their original form without correction or modification into the existing work. In fact, there is nothing like uniformity' of style till we come to the history of Joseph.
2. We are led to the same conclusion hx the inscrip- tions which are prefixed to certain sections, as ii, 4 ; v, 1 ; vi, 9 ; X, 1 ; xi, 10, 27, and seem to indicate so many older documents.
3. The resumptive form of some of the narratives, c. g. the repetition of the account of the creation of man in chap, ii, with additional particulars, is evidence of the same character. We maj- even hazard the con- jecture that the pure cosmogony of chap, i may havo been one of the mysteries of the Egyptian theosojihy, while the more distinct accounts of the subsequent chapters may have been derived from the early tradi- tions of the Helirews and cognate nations. See ]MosE.s.
4. Lastly, the distinct use of the divine names, Jdio- vah in some sections, and Elohim in others, is charac- teristic of two difi'erent writers ; and other peculiarities of diction it has been observed fall in with this usage, and go far to establish the theory. All this is quite in harmony with what we might have expected it priori, viz., that if Moses or any later writer were the author
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of the book, he -would have availed himself of existing traditions, cither oral or written. That they might hiive been written is now established beyond all doubt, the art of writing having been proved to be nuich ear- lier than Moses. That they were written we infer from the book itself. Yet these peculiarities are not so absolute as to show that the same writer did not embodj' them all into one composition, for they are sometimes found blended in the same piece.
The evidence alluded to is strong ; and nothing can be more natural than that an honest historian should seek to make his work more valuable liy embodying in it the most ancient records of his race; tlic higher the value which they possessed in his eyes, the more anxious would he be to preserve them in tlieir original form. Those particularly in the earlier portion of the work were perhaps simi)ly transcribed. In one in- stance we have what looks like an omission (ii, 4), where the inscription seems to promise a larger cos- mogonj'. Here and there throughout the book we meet with a later remark, intended to explain or sup- plement the earlier monument. In some instances there seems to have been so comjjlete a fusion of the two principal documents, the Elohistic and the Jeho- vistic, that it is no longer possible accurately to distin- guish them. The later writer, the Jehovist, instead of transcribing the Elohistic account intact, thought fit to blend and intersperse with it his own remarks. We have an instance of this, according to Iliipfeld (Z)/e Quellen der Genesis), in chap, vii : vers. 1-10 are usu- ally assigned to the Jehovist ; but whilst he admits this, he detects a large admixture of Elohistic phrase- ology and coloring in the narrative. But this sort of criticism, it must be admitted, is very doubtful. Many other instances might be mentioned where there is the same dilHculty in assigning their own to the several authors. Thus in sections generally recognised as Jehovistic, chaps, xii, xiii, xix, here and there a sen- tence or a phrase occurs which seems to betray a dif- ferent origin, as xii, 5 ; xiii, 6 ; xix, 29. These an- omalies, however, thougii it may be difficult to account for them, can hardly be considered of sufficient force entirely to overthrow the theorj^ of independent docu- ments which has so much, on other grounds, to recom- mend it. Certainl3' when Keil, Hengstenberg, and others, who reject this theorj', attempt to account for the use of the divine names on the hj'pothesis that the writer designedl}' employed the one or the other name according to the subject of which he was treating, their explanations are often of the most arbitrary kind. As a whole, the documentary character of Genesis is so re- markable when we compare it with the later books of the Pentateuch, and is so exactly what we might ex- pect, supposing a Mosaic authorsliip of tlie whole, that, whilst contending against the theory of different docu- ments in the later portions, we feel convinced that this theory is the only tenable one in Genesis.
Of the two principal documents, the Elohistic is the earlier. So far as we can detach its integral portions, they still present the appearance of something like a connected work. Tliis has been very well argued by Tuch (Die Genesis, Allgiin. Einl. li-lxv), as well as bj' Hupfeld {Die Quellen der Genesis), Knobel, and De- litzsch. This whole theory of a double origin of the book, however, is powerfully opposed bj' Tiele in the Sitid. u. Krit. 1852, i.