Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-11-29
TRADITIONS OF GENESIS
GIVEN FRESH WORTH IN LIGHT
OF MODERN RESEARCH.
A Critical View of the Biblical Mar
rative of Creation-Historical
Fact Behind Legends.

From the Saturday Review.
Understood in the light of modern
knowledge. the early traditions Of Cen
esis, SO far from being emptied of pres
ent-day application, seem to gain fresh
worth. Legends and myths we are bound
to call them; and as the terms are apt
to raise suspicious 1t is we'll to make it
clear what we mean. Let 1t be said at
once that legends and myths are neither
frauds nor conscious literary inventions.
Behind the legend lies a background of
historical fact, behind the myth an at
tempt to find an answer to the inevitable
questions raised by the mysteries of life.
Both contain an ideal element created by
the Imagination, and both are worthy of
the reverence which is due to the sincere
efforts of the human mind at the primi
tive stage. 1t has now become almost
commonplace to say that the early ira
ditions of Israel do not stand by them
selves; they belong to a class Of kindred
stories and must be examined on the
comparative principle The principle,
however, requires caution in the handling.
There Is strong temptation to use a
single key to unlock all the secrets. One
school traces everything to Babylonia,
another forces an astral theory through
the text.
Sources Of Israelite Tradition.
DR.. Gordon of Montreal III his book on
THE Early Traditions Of Genesis" uses
the material with more discrimination;
he recognizes several sources as contrib
uting to the Israelite traditions. and sug-
gests that the author of the Jehovist doc
ument had before him an earlier nara
tive round which he gathered his stories.
Some of them are of desert origin, rem
iniscent of the days when the Hebrew
tribes had their home in Arabia; others
are obviously Babylon, others again seem
to be colored by Canaanite associations.
OF course. the connection with Babylo-
MAN traditions is the most marked, but it
varies curiously in degree. For example,
of the two documents which narrate the
legend of the flood one adheres to the
general outline of the Babylonian original,
while the other shows closer acquaint-
ance with the details The influence of
Babylon was thus neither continuous nor
exclusive. Probably the Hebrew tribes
first became familiar with the Babylonian
legends somewhere about the fifteenth
century B. c.. when the civilization of
ancient Babylon was dominant in Pales-
tine. The next stage would be that
which Is marked by the advance of AS
syria into the west in the days of Ahaz
and Isaiah; finally. at the period of the
exile. the Jews came to close quarters
with local traditions on the shores of the
Euphrates. But while the traces of bor-
rowing are more or less distinct, we mark
the presence of another element which is
native and owes nothing to outside influ-
ence.
Morality Of Genesis.
Over against the fantastic, immoral
polytheism of the Babylon epics stands
the grave moral monotheism of the book
of Genesis. The old traditions have been
purged by Israers religious and moral
ideals. and without a doubt these had
their foundation in the conception of God
which we find in Israel and nowhere else.
Certain fundamentals Of religion, indeed.
such as the belief that man is capable of
fellowship with God and that the uni
verse had it's origin in the divine will, are
common to most of the higher religions;
peculiar to Israel is the conception of
Jahyeh as an ethical personality, a God
of righteousness: and this belief in the
infexibly moral character of the national
God determined the whole course Of Is
raels religious life and secured from the
first its survival and expansion. 1t was
inevitable that as time went on the God
of Israel should come to be regarded as
the only true God. The full creed did not
receive expression till a later day. but
Prof. Gordon adopts the opinion. which
is steadily gaining ground, that the germs
of pure monotheism were already pres
ent in the religion taught by Moses