"Modern Critical" Theory on the Two Creations Fails in the Particulars

THE first example, and an important one, of the working of the "Documentary Hypothesis" divides the first three chapters of Genesis into two supposed sources. A critical overview of said approach will be offered in this article. (For another look at the limitations of the Documentary Hypothesis, see "Wellhausen and the Levitical Priesthood" by Father Manning, S.J.)

What should especially be noticed, what gives to the Documentary Hypothesis its peculiar character, is that the main sources which are proposed for the Pentateuch are also said to mark stages in the historical development of the Jews. The Jahvistic (Yahwistic) and Elohistic sources, known as J and E, are said to date from the eighth or ninth century, and these, speaking quite broadly, are taken to represent the trustworthy narratives of primitive fact. The Book of Deuteronomy, which we may take as roughly equivalent to the source D, is admitted by all students alike to have been found by the priest Helcias in the Temple in 621 B.C. (4 Kings 22:8). The critics, however, would further maintain that the book had been written but a little time before, and many of them, indeed, would regard the whole proceeding as fraudulent, and the finding as an elaborate fiction. In any case, they would say that D put into Moses' mouth regulations which were found desirable at the latter date. But in the case of the Priestly Code, P, comprising all Leviticus, and also fragments, large and small, of Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, and Josue, not merely was this done, but a history of the Mosaic period was concocted in accordance with the later laws, as though they had been substantially in force from the beginning. This last source would date from the Babylonian exile, in the sixth century.

One only has to realize the general character of what is assigned to the Priestly Code to see that this Documentary Hypothesis, if accepted, must profoundly affect our interpretation of the whole of the Old Testament. If the Priestly Code was of obligation, it must have deeply colored the life and customs both of nation and individual from the very beginning; if it did not exist, the exile brought about a transformation almost rivaling that needed on the rationalistic hypothesis to develop Christianity from the work of Christ. For to the Priestly Code is relegated, not merely what belongs to systematic chronology, but what belongs to systematic religion. "In P's picture of the Mosaic age," says Dr. Driver,[1] "the minute description of the tabernacle, sacrifices, and other ceremonial institutions, the systematic marshaling of the nation by tribes and families, and the unity of purpose and action which in consequence regulates its movements (Numbers 1-4, 10:11-28, etc.), are the most conspicuous features." And hence we may say that the Documentary Hypothesis, such as we know it in its main essentials today, sprang into being, not when Astruc, in the eighteenth century, first essayed to use the divine names as a basis for the partition of a Pentateuch still acknowledged Mosaic, but when Reuss, in the nineteenth, stated the view that the Priestly Code was not, as supposed till then, the most ancient, but the latest of the component documents. His theory was popularized by Graf and Wellhausen, and outside the Church it holds the field today. It marked the final passage into evolutionary rationalism; for the Priestly Code is no longer a historical document at all, but an audacious attempt, to say no more, to read back the institutions of a later time into primitive history.

It is not any mere question of sources as such, then, that makes the Documentary Hypothesis impossible to accept, but the historical conclusions involved in the hypothesis, such as it is actually propounded. It may be admitted without difficulty that a Biblical work may draw upon sources themselves either Biblical or non-Biblical. The author of the second book of Machabees, for example, tells us that he is summarizing a work in five books, by Jason of Cyrene (2 Mach. 2:24); and the regular appeal by the writer of the third and fourth books of Kings to the royal chronicles of Israel or Judah make it inevitable to suppose that he had these before him and drew upon them. Indeed, in the very case of the Pentateuch, the Biblical Commission, in its decree of June 27, 1906, expressly declares that Moses may have had recourse to sources, either written or oral. But the Documentary Hypothesis involves the denial of the historical character of at least a large part of the Pentateuch, and excludes Moses from any share, or any but the smallest share, in its authorship.

At the outset it is well to distinguish the literary and the historical aspect of the discussion. From the literary point of view we may notice as significant that, on the general question of the language of P, Driver is rather on the defensive than inclined to use it as an argument for himself,[2] and under present limitations of space we must be content to leave it at that.

The use of the divine names, too, is not made so much of nowadays, indeed the "critics" are at some pains to show that they rely less on this argument than is often supposed. Still, it remains a very prominent feature in their system, especially in regard of the chapters before us, so that it appears to be worth while to deal with it at some length, and more systematically than Catholic writers are wont to do. None the less, it may be premised that in any case it would not by itself prove the separate existence of P, since in J and E we should have sources capable of appropriating either divine name as it came.

The strongest argument for P as a separate source, based, that is, on the divine names, comes from Exodus 6:3. God declares that He appeared unto Abraham and Isaac and Jacob as El Shaddai (translated rather dubiously as "God Almighty"), "but by my name Yahweh I was not known to them." This, then, is regarded as a proof "that Genesis 15:7, 28:13, as also the numerous passages in Genesis in which the patriarchs make use of this name, cannot have been written by the same author."[2] This is certainly a formidable argument; yet, is it sufficient of itself to settle the whole question? It is only a consideration of the evidence as a whole and that, indeed, more detailed than we can attempt here that can embolden us to answer in the negative; but even so, if the question is to be kept open at all, an alternative interpretation of the verse must be set forth at once. May we not say, then, that the name Yahweh now acquired a significance which it had not hitherto possessed? "Henceforth," says the French Crampon Bible, ad loc., "the name Yahweh will be the proper name, the official title of the God of Israel, and this new relation will inaugurate a new phase in the history of human salvation." How many Fathers and medieval writers have used eloquent and devout words in reference to Our Lord's Heart, and how dear to many was the devotion to the Five Wounds; and yet might we not say that the Sacred Heart was not revealed to anyone before Blessed Margaret Mary? And this sense seems to be indicated by Holy Writ itself, in the passage under consideration, for, in Exodus 6:7 it is written, "ye shall know that I am Yahweh your God," that is, they shall understand the full significance of the name; up to that time they will not have "known" it any better than Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob "knew" it.

Curiously enough, as Wiener has pointed out,[4] this argument for the building up of P can be used for the demolition of J. According to Genesis 4:26, it was after the birth of Enosh that "men began to call upon the name of Yahweh," literally, as Driver rightly explains, "to call with, i.e., to use the name in invocations, in the manner of ancient cults, especially at times of sacrifice."

Yet [to return to Wiener] not only does the Tetragrammaton occur very freely in the narrative of the preceding chapters, but it is actually put into the mouth of Eve, the grandmother of Enosh, long before Seth, his father, had been born. She is made to say, "I have gotten a man with the Lord" (Genesis 4:1). How is this possible, on the critical theory? Why is it conceivable that the author of J could do that which, ex hypothesi, the author of the Pentateuch, could not?

How, indeed, can it be supposed that Eve, who avows in a so-called J section, that it is "with Jahweh's[5] help" that she has borne a son, had never invoked Almighty God as Yahweh? As a matter of fact, on page 17, Wiener inadvertently, one would think gives away his own argument by changing the divine name in Genesis 4:1, from "Yahweh" (i.e., Lord) to "God." But the "critics" appear to be right in charging him with setting too high a value upon the Greek Septuagint, important as that version is, and this emendation seems to be due to this exaggerated predilection. If, then, as Driver would have it, we must explain Genesis 4:26 of a more formal recognition of the name, why not suppose that Exodus 6:3 represents yet another stage in the same direction? It may be noted in passing, though the issue involved cannot possibly be discussed here, that the data "seem sufficient to show that there was a West-Semitic deity, Ya-u, known as early as c. 2100 B.C."[6] This name may be identical with Yahweh, of which the etymology, or rather explanation, may be merely popular, like the explanation of Babel (Babylon) from the verb balal.

To pass now from Exodus 6:3 to the consideration of the divine names in general. Not infrequently their distribution is inconsistent with the division into sources as expounded by the critics. In the case of the Book of Genesis, Wiener[7] finds "Yahweh" out of place in two passages of P (Genesis 17:1, 21:1b: "in both cases a redactor or copyist has to be invoked to get rid of it"), and in four passages of E (Genesis 15:1-2, 22:11, 27:7b: "in all cases recourse is had, as usual, to a redactor"; but the fourth passage seems to be more generally assigned to J), while he counts Elohim ("God") in as often as nineteen times (but it seems safer to reduce the number to fifteen). However, as Wiener truly says, "an even more serious objection is to be found in the divisions which the critics are compelled to effect in order to carry through their theory." These, it must be remembered, are only the misfits that obstinately remain, after every artifice has been exhausted to make the names suit the sections, and the sections the names. Perhaps we cannot do better than to quote the rest of the same rather breezy paragraph from Wiener, only explaining that the particular work he has in view throughout is The Hexateuch according to the Revised Version, arranged in its constituent documents by members of the Society of Historical Theology, Oxford, edited by J. Estlin Carpenter and G. Harford-Battersby:

It is one thing to suggest that a continuous passage like Genesis 1:1-2:3, or 11:1-9, or 15, may be ultimately derived from a separate source it is quite another to postulate such proceedings as are attributed to the redactors of the critical case. The following instances are limited to those in which the appellations of the Deity are the sole or determining criterion; in Genesis 16 the use of the Tetragrammaton in verse 2 compels Mr. Carpenter to wrench 1b and 2 from a P context and assign them to J in 19, verse 29 is torn from a J chapter, in which it fits perfectly, to be given to P; in 20 the last verse is assigned to a redactor, though all the rest of the chapter goes to E, and the verse is required for the explanation of 17; in 22, verses 14-18 go to redactors because the story is assigned to E (a redactor being responsible for the Tetragrammaton in 11). An even more flagrant instance occurs in 28:21, where Mr. Carpenter is compelled to scoop out the words "and the Lord will be my God" and assign them to J, the beginning and end of the verse going to E. What manner of man was this redactor who constructed a narrative on these strange principles? In 31, verse 3 has to go to a redactor, because the preceding and subsequent verses belong to E, yet that gentleman actually postulates the redactor's work by referring to the statement of 3 in verse 5. However, he receives compensation in 22, where verse 30 is wrenched from a J context for his enrichment, though verse 31 (J) cannot be understood without it.

This, then, may suffice as a comment on this vivisection in general; the case of Genesis chapters 1-3 will be examined by itself shortly. Wiener then goes on to treat at length of the distribution of the divine names from the standpoint of textual criticism, and therein it seems to us that, as Plato hath it, there is something in what he says, yet not so much as he thinks. In any case this issue can scarcely be dealt with unless it be at great length; and it may, therefore, be wiser to pass at once on to more certain ground, the substitution of Elohim (God) for Yahweh, that is admitted to have occurred in certain Old Testament documents, and which may, therefore, be the reason why the divine names are occasionally mingled in the Pentateuch in a way that cannot be accounted for by connotation or context. Driver, for example, in his Genesis,[8] expressly says that the Chronicler "is apt to show a preference for Elohim (though he also uses Yahweh), and sometimes changes Yahweh of his source into Elohim; and the exceptional preponderance of Elohim over Yahweh in Book II of the Psalms, and in Psalms 73-83, as compared with the rest of the Psalter, shows that here the editor, or collector, must have substituted it for an original Yahweh." We omit his references, but the reader may easily see what is meant by comparing Psalm 13 (14) with Psalm 52 (53), remembering that "Lord" stands for Yahweh. If then, we ask, the Psalmist (in Psalm 13) and the Chronicler (i.e.. in Chronicles, Paralipomenon) may fluctuate in their use of the divine names, why not Moses? If "Yahweh" may come to be changed elsewhere, why not in the Pentateuch? And if the name be so changed, it is unlikely, as Driver himself observes,[9] that there will be anything in the context to betray the fact.

There is also a curious example of this interchange of the divine names outside the Biblical record, which it would be a pity to omit. Schrader[2] points out that in two inscriptions of Sargon II of Assyria (722-705 B.C.) "Jahubi'd" and "Ilubi'd" stand for the same individual, a king, and that this is due to the interchange of "Ilu" ("God" corresponding to "Elohim," or more strictly to the short form "El") and "Jahu" (or "Yahu," "Yahweh"). As a parallel to this he recalls the change of Eliakim's name to Jehoiakim in 2 (4) Kings 23:34.

And now let us come to the chapters more immediately under consideration. Much stress has, indeed, been laid on them by "modern critics," because nowhere else, perhaps, does the hypothesis of a duplicate narrative, borne out by a divergent use of the divine names, appear at first sight so convincing. And yet a careful analysis of the facts is far from bearing out such an impression. It will more than repay us to sift thoroughly at least one such concrete example. From the beginning of Genesis to the middle of Genesis 2:4 is assigned to P, but the second part of that verse ("in the day ...") had to wait some centuries for its subject and verb, for from here to the end of the fourth chapter is apportioned to J.

We begin, then, by remarking that it is not right to speak of the first two chapters as duplicate narratives, for there is a different purpose running through each of them. To put it broadly, we may say that in the first chapter the account of creation is given for its own sake, while in the second we merely have the setting for the story of the Fall, starting, not from a general creation, but from the making of man and the garden. Nor can it be said that there is any discrepancy between the two accounts, provided the general character of the first chapter be recognized, as it has been set forth, for example, by Father O'Hea, S.J., in another essay.

Again, the so-called "second creation" does not really fit in with J, any more than the "first creation" fits in with P. Whoever has carefully perused the article just mentioned will easily understand that there is nothing really like the first chapter of Genesis in the whole of the Pentateuch. It is a unique opening to a unique book. The rhythmical and symmetrical character peculiar to it does not recur in P, but renders the chapter much more different from the rest of P than the rest of P is from J. To speak of the rest of P as "homogeneous in style and character with Genesis 1:1-2:4a"[11] is to betray astounding literary obtuseness.

As regards the "second creation," we have already remarked how awkwardly, on the critics' hypothesis, it is joined to the first. The use of "Lord God" compels them to assign the second part of Genesis 2:4 to J, which follows on, but the word "generations," which precedes, is considered a characteristic P word, and therefore must refer to what precedes. This it may well do in any case; but because the formula, "These are the generations," usually precedes the account to which it belongs, Driver (ad loc.) notices favorably the desire of many critics to prefix Genesis 2:4 (first half) to the whole book, and to assign its removal to the compiler a glaring example of the lack of literary discernment so often displayed by the "higher critics," implying as it does an entire want of appreciation of the present magnificent opening. St. John the Evangelist had better felt its force: "In the beginning God created..."; nay, "In the beginning was the Word"!

But, in the "second creation," as a whole, it is the divine names that are especially at fault. Yahweh does not appear alone, even once, in the second or third chapters, but it is always either "Yahweh Elohim" or "Elohim," the latter in Genesis 3:1, 3, 5, contrary to the whole modern scheme. Further, "Yahweh Elohim" simply, the latter without a pronominal suffix, is very generally considered an anomaly; the two names occur together twenty times up to the end of Genesis 3, but only very rarely elsewhere, and many scholars (e.g., Kittel in his Hebrew Bible, in the apparatus to Genesis 2:4, and the Oxford Hebrew Dictionary, page 219) think, rightly enough, that one of the names should go. Only, according to the textual evidence, as Kittel makes clear, and as Wiener forcibly shows,[12] the latter, unfortunately, without any reference to the Old Latin, it is unquestionably "Yahweh" that should be regarded as an interpolation, not merely because it is not found in Genesis 3:1, 3, 5, but because in some other verses (Genesis 2:9, 21), the Septuagint and Old Latin agree in ousting it, and there is other evidence tending in the same direction, but none, I think, in favor of keeping "Yahweh" alone. The Old Latin may be seen in Dom Sabatier's great volumes (Bibliorum Sacrorum Latinae Versiones Antiquae, 1751), or in Augustine's Versions of Genesis, by John S. Mclntosh (Chicago, 1912). Thus the use of the divine names in reality furnishes a damaging argument against the "critical" treatment of the first three chapters.

Passing from the use of the divine names to the use of "characteristic words" in general, we may still use these chapters to show the weakness of the "critical" contention, so far as it regards P. But first some remarks of a more general kind. No doubt a list of words truly characteristic of P can be compiled; but this was bound to be the case, given the peculiar nature of the passages assigned to P. As Wiener puts it,[13] "the argument amounts to saying that in a technical passage technical terms are used." If all that belongs to systematic chronology, liturgy, and the rest be relegated to P, it follows then that terms which are chronological, liturgical, and so forth will abound there, and perhaps be found there only, and perhaps bring with them other less immediately technical terms. If the reader of a history of modern war were convinced that a special writer had been employed to describe the war by sea, he could easily prove it (if proof it were) by a list of words including such terms as "submarine," "torpedo," "cruiser"; and on the same principles he might discover a separate source for the parts concerned with the war in the air, the war in a particular country, and various other departments or aspects of the struggle. Such an argument from language, taken simply on its own merits, would be worthless. On the other hand, supposing that in the narration of precisely similar events there were paragraphs in which "soldiers," "guns," "advanced," and several other words were consistently used, and others in which "guns," "cannon," "went forward," and other alternative synonyms were employed with equal constancy then we should be justified in at least suspecting that a compiler had made up his narrative from different sources.

Now, the words which Driver[14] gives as characteristic of P are evidently, in the main, words that belong to it in the very nature of the case, words consequently that are no criterion of origin. The first eight belong to the first chapter. To discuss these thoroughly would require much space, and would be a great weariness to the reader. Perhaps the general drift of the rebutting argument will be sufficiently perceived when it is pointed out that (1) the word "kind" (i.e., species, etc.), is used ten times in Genesis 1, seven times in the Flood narrative, and nine times in the enumeration of Leviticus 11; otherwise in the Old Testament only in Deuteronomy 14:13-18; Ezekiel 47:10, neither of which passages, of course, belongs to P; (2) "creep" and "creeping things" are used seven times here, thirteen times in the Flood, and twice in Leviticus 11; otherwise, in the Pentateuch, only in Leviticus 20:25, Deuteronomy 4:18, the latter once more not in P. Evidently we have here words needed only in a peculiar context, and, given the nature of the passages assigned to P, that context can hardly fail to be a P context. As we have said, to show the full force of this criticism of the "characteristic words" of P would be intricate and tedious.

But it may be urged, these literary arguments about sources are only one side of the "critical" case; there are duplicate narratives or precepts which differ, not merely in style, but also in content, so that they are in reality inconsistent. Well, as a matter of fact, we have already had occasion in this article to offer some criticism of the contention that Genesis opens with two inconsistent narratives of creation; and in another essay Father Baillon, S.J., writing of the Flood, incidentally demolishes the attempt to distinguish two inconsistent accounts of that episode. As regards the supposed stages of liturgical and sacerdotal development, culminating in P, which is supposed to read back into the age of Moses regulations which only came into force after the exile, Father Manning, S.J., in his essay, "Wellhausen and the Levitical Priesthood," to which we referred at the outset, has shown that even where Wellhausen appears most specious, the traditional view has nothing to fear from a sound and sane exegesis. To place P so late in the history only produces a fresh crop of difficulties. Thus enough has already been done to make it clear that the rationalist position for such in truth it is lies no less open to attack on its historical than on its literary side. And yet, surely, the onus probandi, the duty of justifying an attitude, lies in reality, not with us, but rather with those who depart from an age-long tradition, in denying unity and truth to a work that obviously claims it.

Indeed, as regards the truth of the matter, it appears safe to say that recent discoveries, such as those of Hammurabi's code, of the Tel-el-Amarna tablets, and of the Elephantine papyri, have in various ways strengthened the argument for the historical character of the Priestly Code. The rationalist position finds its raison d'etre, not in historical evidence, but in an a priori evolutionary philosophy. However, it has been the object of this essay to examine, not into the trustworthiness of P, taken on its own merits, but into the need of separating it and constituting it an independent source, and that, again, in such a way as to discuss in detail only one particular instance or proof, though perhaps the most important.

Note. In this essay an explanation is offered of Exodus 6:3, which would allow of the previous use of the name Yahweh, even in the same source. It may be worth while to point out, however, that this explanation is not strictly necessary to the argument, since it appears reasonably certain, as is shown later in the essay, that the name Yahweh should not appear in Genesis 1-3 at all. A further study of the whole question may be found in the introduction to Dr. Hoberg's edition of Genesis (Die Oeneiit, Freiburg, Herder, 1908)

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1 The Book of Genesis, ed. 9, p. 23.

2 Lit. O.T., pp. 155-7.

3 Driver, The Book of Genesis, p. 8.

4 Essays in Pentateuchal Criticism, p. 8.

5 The Jews avoided the use of the divine name "Yahweh" (or "Jehovah," as it has come through a misunderstanding to be presented in English), and usually read the word for "Lord" in place of it. Hence it appears as "Lord" in the Septuagint, Vulgate, and most later versions.

6 Driver, Genesis, Addenda ii., p. xlvii.

7 Essays in Pentateuchal Criticism, pp. 7, 8.

8 Excursus i., p. 407.

9 Genesis, Addenda ii. pp. xlv-xlvi.

10 Cuneiform Inscription and the Old Testament, vol. i. pp. 23, 24.

11 Driver, Genesis, p. iv.

12 Essay in Pentateuchal Criticism, p. 29.

13 Pentateuchal Studies, p. 206.

14 Genesis, pp. viii-ix.


By Fr. CUTHBERT LATTEY, S.J.