But it is a minute criticism, hardly worth answer- ing, which tries to cast suspicion on the veracity of the
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writer, because of difficulties such as these. The pos- itive evidence is ovcrwhehuing in favor of his credi- liilitv. The patriarchal tent beneath the shade of some spreading tree, the wealth of flocks and herds, the free and generous hospitality to strangers, the strife for the well the purchase of the cave of Machpelah for a bur- ial-place— we feel at once that these are no inventions of a later writer in more civilized times. So again, what can be more life-like, more touchingly beautiful, than the picture of Ilagar and Ishmael, the meeting of Abraham's servant with Kebekah, or of Jacob with Eachel at the well of llaran.' There is a fidelity in the minutest incidents which convinces us that we are reading historj^ not fable. Or can anything more completely transport us into patriarchal times than the battle of the kings and the interview between Abra- ham and Mclchizedek ? The very opening of the sto- r}', " In the days of Amraphel," etc., reads like the work of some old chronicler who lived not far from the time of which he speaks. The archaic forms of names of places, Bela for Zoar; Chatsatson Tamar for En- gedi ; Einek Shaveh for the King's Vale ; the Vale of Siddim, as descriptive of the spot which was afterwards the Dead Sea ; the expression " Abram the Hebrew ;" are remarkable evidences of the antiquity of the nar- rative. So also are the names of the different tribes who at that early period inhabited Canaan ; the Ee- phaim, for instance, of whom we find in the time of Joshua but a weak remnant left (Josh, xiii, 12), and the Zuzim, Emim,Chorim, who are only mentioned be- sides in the Pentateuch (Deut. ii, 10, 12). Quite in keeping with the rest of the picture is Abraham's "arm- ing his trained servants" (xiv, 14) — a phrase which occurs nowhere else — and, above all, the character and position of Melchizedek : " Simple, calm, great, he comes and goes the priest-king of the divine history." The representations of the Greek poets, says Creuzer (^Si/7nb. iv, 378), fall very far short of this ; and, as Hil- vernick justly remarks, such a person could be no theo- cratic invention, for the union of the kingly and priest- ly offices in the same person was no part of the theoc- racy. Lastly, the name bj' which he knows God, "the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth," oc- curs also in the Phoenician religions, but not amongst the Jews, and is again one of those slight but accurate touches which at once distinguishes the historian from the fabulist. See Melchizedek.
V. Author and Date ofComposi/ion. — It will be seen, from what has lieen said above, that the book of Gene- sis, though containing different documents, owes its existing form to the labor of a single author, who has digested and incorporated the materials he found ready to his hand. A modern writer on historj', in the same way, might sometimes transcribe passages from an- cient chronicles, sometimes place different accounts to- gether, sometimes again give briefly the substance of the older document, neglecting its form.
But it is a distinct inc[uiry who this author or editor was. This question cannot properl}' be discussed apart from the general question of the authorship of the en- tire Pentateuch. Under that head we shall show that this could have been no other than Moses, and that the entire work was finished when he deposited a copy of the law within the "sides" of the sacred Ark (Deut. X, 5). See Pentateuch. We shall here confine our- selves to a notice of the attempt of some critics to as- certain the period when Genesis was composed, from a few passages in it, which they say must be anachro- jifsms, if Moses was rcalh' the author of the book (e. g. Tuch, Commeniar i'tber Genesis, p. Ixxxv sq.).
A distinction, it is obvious, must be made between anachronisms of a subjective character, originating merely in dogmatic preconceptions, and such as relate to matters of fact. Thus the rejection of prophecy leads critics like Vater, Von Bohlen, and Kalisch to conclude that passages of Scripture declaratory of mat- ters realized in the historv of Israel must have been