Introduction to the Old Testament | Page 5

the former to enter and one pair of the latter (vii. 2). It is surely no
accident that in this section the name of the divine Being is Jehovah, vv.
1, 5; and its contents follow naturally on vi. 5-8. In other words we
have here, not a continuous account, but two parallel accounts, one of
which uses the name God, the other Jehovah, for the divine Being. This
important conclusion is put practically beyond all doubt by the
similarity between vi. 22 and vii. 5, which differ only in the use of the
divine name. A close study of the characteristics of these sections
whose origin is thus certain will enable us approximately to relegate to
their respective sources other sections, verses, or fragments of verses in
which the important clue, furnished by the name of the divine Being, is
not present. Any verse, or group of verses, e.g. involving the distinction
between the clean and the unclean, will belong to the Jehovistic source,
as it is called (J). This is the real explanation of the confusion which
every one feels who attempts to understand the story as a unity. It was

always particularly hard to reconcile the apparently conflicting
estimates of the duration of the Flood; but as soon as the sources are
separated, it becomes clear that, according to the Jehovist, it lasted
sixty-eight days, according to the other source over a year (vii. 11, viii.
14).
Brief as the Flood story is, it furnishes us with material enough to study
the characteristic differences between the sources out of which it is
composed. The Jehovist is terse, graphic, and poetic; it is this source in
which occurs the fine description of the sending forth of the raven and
the dove, viii. 6-12. It knows how to make a singularly effective use of
concrete details: witness Noah putting out his hand and pulling the
dove into the ark, and her final return with an olive leaf in her mouth. A
similarly graphic touch, interesting also for the sidelight it throws on
the Jehovist's theological conceptions is that, when Noah entered the
ark, "Jehovah closed the door behind him," vii. 16. Altogether different
is the other source. It is all but lacking in poetic touches and concrete
detail of this kind, and such an anthropomorphism as vii. 16 would be
to it impossible. It is pedantically precise, giving the exact year, month,
and even day when the Flood came, vii. 11, and when it ceased, viii. 13,
14. There is a certain legal precision about it which issues in
diffuseness and repetition; over and over again occur such phrases as
"fowl, cattle, creeping things, each after its kind," vi. 20, vii. 14, and
the dimensions of the ark are accurately given. Where J had simply said,
"Thou and all thy house," vii. 1, this source says, "Thou and thy sons
and thy wife and thy sons' wives with thee," vi. 18. From the identity of
interest and style between this source and the middle part of the
Pentateuch, notably Leviticus, it is characterized as the priestly
document and known to criticism as P.
Thus, though the mainstay of the analysis, or at least the original point
of departure, is the difference in the names of the divine Being, many
other phenomena, of vocabulary, style, and theology, are so distinctive
that on the basis of them alone we could relegate many sections of
Genesis with considerable confidence to their respective sources. In
particular, P is especially easy to detect. For example, the use of the
term Elohim, the repetitions, the precise and formal manner, the
collocation of such phrases as "fowl, cattle, creeping thing that creepeth
upon the earth," i. 26 (cf. vii. 21), mark out the first story of creation,

i.-ii. 4_a_, as indubitably belonging to P. Besides the stories of the
creation and the flood, the longest and most important, though not quite
the only passages[1] belonging to P are ix. 1-17 (the covenant with
Noah), xvii. (the covenant with Abraham), and xxiii. (the purchase of a
burial place for Sarah). This is a fact of the greatest significance. For P,
the story of creation culminates in the institution of the Sabbath, the
story of the flood in the covenant with Noah, with the law concerning
the sacredness of blood, the covenant with Abraham is sealed by
circumcision, and the purchase of Machpelah gives Abraham legal
right to a footing in the promised land. In other words the interests of
this source are legal and ritual. This becomes abundantly plain in the
next three books of the Pentateuch, but even in Genesis it may be justly
inferred from the unusual fulness of the narrative at these four points.
[Footnote 1: The curious ch. xiv. is written under the influence of