By E. F. SUTCLIFFE, S.J.
§ 136a Bibliography—T. J. Lamy, Comm. in Librum Geneseos, 2 vol. (Mechliniae, 1883–4); 1298*A. Dillmann, Die Genesis (Leipzig, 189212996); F. de Hummelauer, Comm. in Genesim (CS1300S; Parisiis, 1895); G. Hoberg, Die Genesis (Freiburg im Breisgau, 190813012); 1302*J. Skinner, Genesis (IC1303C; Edinburgh, 191213042); M. Hetzenauer, O.C., Comm. in Librum Genesis (Graecii et Viennae, 1910); P. Heinisch, Das Buch Genesis (B1305B; Bonn, 1930); 1306*S. R. Driver, The Book of Genesis (W1307C; London, 191313089); 1309*E. König, Die Genesis (Gütersloh, 1919); J. Chaine, Le Livre de la Genèse (Paris, 1948); H. Junker, Genesis (Echter Bibel; Würzburg, 1949).
§ b P. F. Ceuppens, O.P., Quaestiones selectae ex Historia Primaeva (Torino-Roma, 194813102); id., Genèse (no place, 1945); P. Heinisch, Probleme der biblischen Urgeschichte (Luzern, 1947); H. J. T. Johnson, The Bible and the Early History of Mankind (London, 194713112); C. Lattey, S.J., Back to the Bible (London, 1944); 1312*W. F. Albright, The Archaeology of Palestine and the Bible (New York, 1932); R. T. O’Callaghan, S.J., Aram Naharaim: a Contribution to the History of Upper Mesopotamia in the Second Millennium B. C. (Rome, 1948); 1313*E. A. Speiser, ‘Ethnic Movements in the Near East in the second Millennium B. C.’, AASO1314R 13 (1933) 13–54; R. de Vaux, O.P., ‘Les patriarches hébreux et les découvertes modernes’, R1315B 53 (1946) 321–48; 55 (1948) 321–47; 56 (1949) 5–36; 1316*H. H. Rowley, Recent Discovery and the Patriarchal Age, reprint from JR1317B 32 (1949).
§ c Name—Our English name is taken over from V1318g, which itself owed it to LX1319X, and its meaning is accordingly that of Γένεσις ‘becoming, beginning, coming into being’. The word was probably taken from 2:4, perhaps with an eye on 5:1. It is no objection to this origin of the title that it refers only to the beginning of the book. The book of Numbers is similarly named. The Hebrew title, indicated in V1320g, is Bereshith, from the opening phrase of the book.
§ d Contents and Purpose—The book traces the descent of the ancestors of the people of Israel from the beginning of the world down to the twelve sons of Jacob who were the eponyms of the twelve tribes, and to their immediate descendants, ch 46. The story of these ancestors is carried down to the descent of Jacob and his family into Egypt, ch 46, and ends with the death of Joseph, 50:25.
§ e The main theme of the book is to narrate how the family of Jacob came to be the progenitors of the one race which God chose out of all the nations of the earth to be his own. Cain, the firstborn of Adam, was reprobated by God, 4:11, and the blessing of God then rested on Seth and his descendants, 5:1 ff. But they too corrupted their ways and were visited by the punishment of the Flood. Noe, the just man of his generation, was saved, but his descendants did not remain free from guilt, and the Semites were singled out by God for his especial favour, 9:26. But even among the Semites many fell away from God, 11:1–9, who finally chose Abraham and his line as the recipients of his favours, 12:1–3. With Abraham God entered into a covenant, 17:4, 7, which he renewed with Isaac, 26:2–5, and with Jacob, 28:13–15. The way is thus prepared for the central fact from which the Old Testament takes its name, the covenant solemnly entered into with the people of Israel, Ex 24.
§ f The Scheme of Genesis—It is important to notice the process of elimination which accompanies the tracing of the descent of Jacob from Adam. Other descendants of the main figures in the line of descent are mentioned as the development of the story requires and are then cut out of the narrative. This process of elimination is at the same time a gradual narrowing of the theme. Thus the Cainites are eliminated, 4:24, and the story proceeds with the Sethites only. After the Flood the descendants of Noe are divided into Japhethites, Chamites and Semites. The two former are cut out of the story at 10:20 and it proceeds with the Semites alone. In 11:27 there is a sharp limitation to the family of Abraham. This patriarch begets Ishmael by Agar and various sons by Cetura (Keturah). Through these the Israelites, descendants of his son Isaac by Sara, are connected with the Ishmaelites, the Madianites, and other Arabian tribes, as through Abraham’s nephew Lot they are blood relations of the Ammonites and Moabites. When these connections have been established, the story proceeds with Isaac, the inheritor of the promises. He in his turn is the father of two peoples, the Edomites through Esau and the Israelites through Jacob. The story proceeds exclusively with Jacob and his twelve sons.
§ g All the many peoples mentioned are thus gradually eliminated. None of them did God choose as his peculiar possession though many of them were more ancient, more powerful and more cultured than Israel. The wonder of God’s favour and choice is thus strongly emphasized, but, as is the writer’s way, such considerations are left to the reflexion of the reader.
§ h This gradual narrowing of the theme and simultaneous elimination of elements foreign to it give important indications of whom the sacred writer is speaking at different stages of his narrative. These indications are the more valuable as the Hebrew habit of using universal expressions at times hyperbolically and at times with reference only to the matter in hand is apt to mislead modern western readers into thinking that the whole world and all mankind are the subject of discourse. Thus universal expressions are used in the narrative of the Flood, but the sacred writer having said all he had to say of the Cainites in ch 4 and then dismissing them from his story proceeds only with the Sethites, of whom these universal expressions are employed. So too in the case of the tower of Babel, 11:1–9, the Japhethites and Chamites having been eliminated from the story the narrative is concerned only with the Semites, and not with all of them; cf. § 149l.
Another important feature in the scheme of the book is the interlocking of its various parts. This will be best explained together with the division of the book. § i Division of the Book and Interlocking of its Parts—Considered from the point of view of the periods concerned the book falls into two parts. The first ends at 11:26 and the other occupies the rest of the book. The first deals with prehistory and protohistory whereas the second contains the narrative concerning the patriarchs who lived in historical times. Both parts, however, have fundamentally the same theme, which is that of the origins of the Chosen People and the divine favours received by their ancestors. The story ends with the death of Joseph while his kinsfolk were still regarded with favour by the Egyptian court.
§ j The text itself gives no prominence to this division, the formula used to introduce 11:27 being only one of ten which stand at the head of as many sections of unequal length and importance. The characteristic word in these headings is tôleḏôṯ (always in the construct state). This word, derived from yālaḏ ‘to give birth to’, means ‘generations’ and so by passage from the cause to the effect ‘the persons generated’ and finally the ‘history’ of these persons. It consequently tends to introduce the story of the persons generated rather than that of their progenitor. It occurs in the following places: (1) 2:4a, the history of heaven and earth, i.e. of the inhabitants of the newly created world; (2) 5:1, the book of the generations of Adam, his genealogical tree through Seth; (3) 6:9, the story of Noe; (4) 10:1, the generations of the sons of Noe; (5) 11:10, the genealogy of Sem’s descendants; (6) 11:27, the generations of Thare (practically the history of Abraham); (7) 25:12, the generations of Ishmael; (8) 25:19, the heading ‘the generations of Isaac’ introduces the story of his son Jacob rather than of Isaac himself; (9) 36:1, the generations of Esau; (10) 37:2, here the chief figure in the generations of Jacob is his son Joseph.
§ k In the first instance, 2:4a, the word is used not metaphorically of the production of the world but in the developed sense of ‘history’. That this is the meaning is shown by the analogy of the other occurrences in all of which the word is used in a title or introduction. This appears decisive against the view that it is here a subscription to the previous section referring to the creation of the universe.
§ l These ten sections, which are preceded by the account of God’s creative work, 1:1–2:3, are not merely juxtaposed but are interlocked, the whole book being thus formed into a unity not only by its theme but by its form. Thus (1) is linked to the introduction by a brief reference to God’s creation of earth and heaven, 2:4b (2) is interlocked with both the introduction and (1) by the repetition that God made mankind in his image and made them male and female, 5:1 f. (3) resumes from the foregoing that Noe begot Sem, Cham and Japheth, 6:10. (4) links up with the previous narrative by a mention of the Flood, and that Sem, Cham and Japheth were Noe’s sons, 10:1. The link in (5) is again the mention of the Flood, 11:10. (6) is interlocked by the repetition from the previous verse that Thare begot Abram, Nachor and Aran, 11:27. (7) repeats the detail of Ishmael’s parentage, 25:12. (8) tells the reader what is now well known to him that Isaac was the son of Abraham and the husband of Rebecca, 25:19 f. (9) starts with a renewed account of Esau’s marriages, 36:2 f., where, however, see note. Only in (10) is such repetitive interlocking entirely missing.
§ 137a Doctrine—Our book manifests a lofty conception of God. He is one and there is no other beside him. This fundamental truth is taught not by abstract propositions but in more telling fashion. He it was who created the beings elevated by pagan nations to divine rank. As the Creator of all he is the supreme Lord and Master of the world. He is omnipotent: ‘Is there anything hard to God?’, 18:14. His mere word suffices to effect his will. ‘He spoke and they were made’, Ps 148:5. These fundamental lessons are taught in ch 1, where the order and details, as of the days, serve only as a framework for the religious teaching; see § 142a–b. As of the material universe, so also he is Creator and Lord of man. This truth is twice expressed, 1:27 and again, in anthropomorphic language, in 2:7. § b In all this teaching the religious truth must be sharply distinguished from the setting in which it is conveyed. The Bible is not a handbook of physical science, which it was not God’s purpose to teach as of itself of no avail for eternal salvation. So Leo XIII in Providentissimus Deus, D1321z 1947. As the world owes its origin to God and the laws of nature are of his ordaining, the working out of these laws is in the Bible spoken of as God’s act, as in 2:5. So in the case of the formation of man’s body, 2:7, it cannot be concluded from the wording that it was fashioned immediately by God. The possibility of its having been gradually evolved by God’s own laws from lower forms is not excluded by the teaching of Scripture; see further § 143k.
§ c God’s power is not limited to any one region of the earth as the pagans conceived the dominion of their deities to be confined to the territory of their own peoples. God’s power extends to all peoples and countries, Mesopotamia, 12:1; 31:13, Egypt, 12:17; 50:20, the Pentapolis, chh 18–19, Gerar, 20:3. He guides events and draws good out of evil, a truth finely expressed in 50:20. But though the omnipotent Creator of man is able, if he wished, to impose absolute submission to his will as in the case of the lower creatures, he would not have of the human race a forced service. Man’s obedience to God’s law must be free. He is given a law, but he is left free to obey or to transgress, 2:17 and see on 4:7. But man is not left only to a sense of duty and of gratitude to God to help him to obey. Obedience is rewarded by happiness; punishment is threatened for sin.
Some of these points of doctrine are more fully developed in the commentary on chh 1–3, where also others will be more conveniently dealt with. For a discussion of the religion of the patriarchs the reader is referred to §§ 105–6.
§ d In the time of Moses neither revelation nor religious philosophy had yet brought man to the highly refined and difficult concept of spiritual substance, and consequently there was only a vague idea of the nature of God, of angels, and of the human soul. The way to a higher conception was prepared by the prohibition to make any image of God in the likeness of anything whatsoever known to man, Ex 20:4; and the sublime concept of God’s creative power producing its effects by his mere word cannot have rested on any but a vague, though lofty, conception of his nature. The first explicit expression of the belief that whereas man is flesh, God is spirit, occurs in Is 31:3.
§ e It was known that the body does not live by any power inherent in itself. For the body to live God breathes into it the breath of life, 2:7, but there was as yet no developed notion what this imports and the same is said of the life of animals, Ps 103:29 f. It was known however, from the earliest times that man does not cease to exist at death. His body is laid in the tomb or may be devoured by wild beasts, 23:19; 44:28, but he himself goes down to Sheol, the dwelling-place of all the dead deep in the earth, 37:35. Precisely what part of man survived is nowhere stated until the advanced doctrine of Wis 3:1, ‘the souls of the just are in the hand of God’. It must be remembered that, though the Israelites were a religious people, they were little given to philosophic thought even on religious topics. For an understanding of the religious background of the time it must also be borne in mind that there was not yet knowledge of the existence of evil spirits. The tempter of our first parents, later known to have been the devil, Wis 2:24, is vaguely represented as a crafty serpent, 3:1. These various points illustrate the slow development of doctrine in OT times.
§ f The Messianic concept has its roots in Genesis. In 3:15 final victory over the powers of evil is promised to mankind, not indeed individually but collectively. But only in the light of later predictions does it become plain that this victory is to be won through the power and under the leadership of a single person, § 145e. Out of all the descendants of Adam God makes a covenant with Noe, ch 9, and of his offspring Sem is privileged to receive God’s favour in a special degree, 9:26. Among the Semites Abraham is singled out by God as the recipient of the remarkable promise that through him and his descendants all the nations of the earth are to be blessed, 12:3, and the religious ground for this promise, 18:18 f., shows that the blessing itself will carry with it spiritual benefits. This promise, confirmed to Abraham, 22:18, was not to be shared by all his descendants, for instance the Ishmaelites, but was renewed first to Isaac, 26:4, and then to Jacob, 28:14. Among his sons Judah is chosen out for leadership and promised a sceptre which will not be taken away till one come whose it is by special right, 49:10. And it is thus implied that when he comes, he shall retain it for ever. The previous promises show that the rule symbolized by this sceptre will be a source of blessing to mankind. For Melchisedech’s prefiguring of the Christian sacrifice, see on 14:18–24.
§ g Sources—That Moses required sources for the compilation of Genesis is clear from the fact that the whole period treated was anterior to his time. And these sources can have been either oral or written. The possibility of written sources being available is demonstrated by what is now known of ancients scripts and their diffusion (cf. § 80i). The document quoted in ch 5 appears to be one such source. Written sources were not necessary for the transmission of most of the material of the book. Though writing was used, books were rare. They were days of hearing, not of reading; and the stories of the patriarchs must have been repeated countless times round the camp fires and, during the years of servitude in Egypt, will have kept the hopes of the sufferers alive. The custom of such family history lessons long survived in Israel. ‘How great things he commanded our fathers, that they should make the same known to their children; that another generation might know them—the children that should be born and should rise up and declare them to their children’, Ps 77:5 f.
§ h That the whole book is not from the pen of one author is clear from the differences of style to be met in it. Were these confined to the treatment of different themes, the change of style might be explained as due to the requirements of the subject-matter. But in the sections 1:1–2:3 and 2:4–25, which provide a case of this kind, the former having the grandiose theme of the creative power of God and the latter the more personal theme of man’s first earthly home, the difference of style is accompanied by the more subtle difference of mental outlook. In the second section this is more intimate, more personal, more simple. But even within this latter section there is one passage, 10–14, that describing the four rivers, which the reader feels to be out of harmony with the tone and spirit of the rest of the account and to be therefore from another mind.
§ i As yet there is no agreement about the division of the book as a whole, and we must agree with the verdict of Heinisch, Genesis 65, that ‘much laborious and minute research is still required before we can form a clearer and more reliable picture’ of the sources which have contributed to its compilation. Further, it must not be forgotten that our effort is to understand the book in its final form, in that namely in which it was given to the Church. It is in this final form that the book has its inspired and sacred character. This is important but sometimes lost sight of. Even if it is possible to discern a more primitive form of a narrative behind that contained in the inspired text, this is a matter of only literary and perhaps historical interest. We have no right to read into the existing text what the compiler has carefully eliminated therefrom. And again we have no right to separate what he has combined. For instance, even if it were the case, as some have thought, that behind chh 2–3 are two narratives, one of which spoke only of the tree of life and the other only of the tree of knowledge, this would in no way alter the fact that the inspired text speaks of both as growing in the Garden of Eden. See further § 45n.
§ 138a Historical Character—The narrative ending at 11:26 is concerned with the period of prehistory or protohistory, whereas the patriarchs who are the subjects of the rest of the book lived in the second millennium b.c. in a period now well-known to history and reaching down almost to the time of Moses. A consideration of the historical character of the book falls naturally therefore into two parts.
§ b The chapters on the first ancestors of the Chosen People from Adam to Thare, namely, 2:4–11:26, carry the story back to the origins of the human race. The remoteness of this origin has become known only in modern times. In earlier ages when there was no reason to suppose the antiquity of the human race to exceed that apparently assigned in the Bible and nothing was known of the remote stone age, it appeared possible and credible that a tradition deriving from our first parents should have survived through the two thousand years which were thought to separate them from Abraham. Such faithful transmission seemed the more probable in that early men were credited with lives extending over hundreds of years. According to M1322T Adam died in the year of creation 930, when Mathusala was already 56 years old, and therefore of an age to be a reliable witness to the details of stories which would have fallen many times from the lips of Adam. When Mathusala came to die in the year of the world 1656, Noe was 600 years old; and Noe survived the birth of Abraham by 60 years and died only 15 years before Abraham’s departure from Harran for Canaan. Three lives, therefore, covered the whole of this period of proto-history, and there was no difficulty in accepting the faithful transmission of the scanty records preserved in the Bible. § c Now, however, the discovery of human bones and artefacts in strata the age of which can be determined with more or less accuracy has completely altered this simple presentment of human history. We do not yet know how long mankind has inhabited this globe, but it is now certain that the period is to be reckoned not in thousands, but in tens of thousands, if not in hundreds of thousands of years. Now it passes belief that detailed stories should have survived by mere human tradition through such immensely long periods of time. God could, of course, have provided miraculously for their preservation through countless generations or he could have revealed them to Moses. But the indications are against such a supposition. Cain and Abel, Adam’s two first sons, are said to have been respectively an agriculturist and a shepherd, and there is nothing to suggest that the terms are not to be understood in the sense they bore in the time of Moses in the second millennium b.c. Now the first signs of agriculture discovered in archaeological research place its beginnings long after the first appearance of man, at the earliest in the mesolithic period; and the animal remains found with the earliest beginnings of agriculture show that the domestication of animals was of later origin than the introduction of controlled crops. Similarly the statement that Cain built a city gives no hint that the word is not to be understood as it was in the time of Moses of a collection, however small, of dwellings built of stone or dried mud and mortar. See ‘Le concordisme préhistorique ou la fin du concordisme,’ by D. Buzy, S.C.J., in Mélanges E. Podechard (Faculté de Théologie de Lyon, 1945).
§ d It is for such reasons that the Biblical Commission wrote, ‘It is impossible to deny or to affirm [the] historicity [of these chapters] as a whole without unduly applying to them norms of a literary type under which they cannot be classed’. And again, ‘To declare a priori that these narratives do not contain history in the modern sense of the word might easily be understood to mean that they do not contain history in any sense, whereas they relate in simple and figurative language, adapted to the understanding of mankind at a lower stage of development, the fundamental truths underlying the divine scheme of salvation, as well as a popular description of the origins of the human race and of the Chosen People’, § 53l–m, where see the whole passage. Thus we conclude that the sacred author adopted a style of writing, recognizable as such by his contemporaries, by which he clothed important religious truths in the form of a concrete graphic narrative. In a rude and uncultured people such vivid presentment was probably the only means possible for impressing these truths on their minds and hearts.
§ e These considerations do not mean that we are yet in a position to answer all the questions which these chapters present, and they do not apply with equal force to the whole of this proto-history of Israel. Certain incidents such as the Flood belong to times much nearer to those of the historical patriarchs and the memory of them had remained alive and vivid. The subject is delicate and complex. It is not yet possible to discriminate sharply between elements which are strictly historical and others which are symbolic or necessary for the completion of the picture as a whole. The Israelites knew that their people must be descended from the first human beings and also that their election by God to be what they were, his Chosen People, was no mere accident of time, but part of God’s over-ruling Providence in the government of the world from the beginning of time. This is the lesson which lies behind the genealogies. We have an analogy to such quasihistorical records in the Babylonian tablets relating to prediluvian times, though without trace of the religious significance.
§ 139a We now turn to the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who lived only some centuries before Moses in the second millennium b.c. Given the relatively small amount of material and its vivid, graphic character there is no difficulty in admitting its faithful oral transmission aided by constant repetition; cf. § 135a. St Jerome records that the young Jews of his day could repeat from memory all the generations from Adam to Zorobabel with the same accuracy and fluency as they would give their own name, In Ep. ad Tit. 3:9 (P1323L 26, 595). On the power of memory see also G. Ricciotti, Hist. d’Israël 1 (1939) 200–3. That God could make the promises and prophecies recorded there is no doubt and no reference to them can be expected in any external source. And the fact of actions being attributed to God does not necessarily imply a direct divine intervention. The Israelites spoke of the effects of the secondary causes created by God as being the actions of God himself. This is not incorrect, but is apt to mislead us, with our different way of speaking, into supposing a miraculous intervention where none is intended. Thus 2:5 speaks of God raining on the earth. Similarly there is no adequate reason for thinking that the Lord’s opening Lia’s womb, 29:31, was a miraculous intervention; cf. 30:22. So, too, the Lord’s scourging of Pharaoh and his house, 12:17, was probably providential but not miraculous. Considered in the light of this usage the narrative is seen to be sober and free from any multiplication of the miraculous, such as would be alien to all we know of God’s Providence.
§ b The veracity of the story is attested by the frank simplicity with which the wrong-doing of the patriarchs and others is set down—Jacob’s inhumanity and covetousness in refusing food to his exhausted twin brother except at the price of his birthright, 25:29–34; the fraud and lies with which he extorted his father’s dying blessing, ch 27; Rachel’s theft of her father’s teraphim, 31:19; the craft and savagery with which the sons of Jacob avenged the dishonour done to Dina, ch 34; their idolatry, 35:2; Ruben’s sin of incest, 35:22; the hatred and cruelty Joseph met with from his brothers, ch 37; the wickedness of Judah’s sons, Her and Onan, and their father’s fornication with Thamar, ch 38. There is nothing here of which the Israelites would be proud, and the fidelity with which it is recorded is a guarantee of the endeavour of the human author to set down a veracious narrative.
§ c Mention of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and of their experience is not to be looked for in contemporary records as they played no part in secular history. Joseph was an important personage in Egypt of whom archaeological discovery might have found a mention. But the period of the Hyksos (1324c 172–1325c 1580), under whom he most probably held office, is obscure and little is known of it. The general setting of patriarchal times in the Near East, however, is now known from the abundant information revealed by extensive excavation carried on throughout this region. The more numerous the sites explored and the ancient tablets deciphered, the more evident it has become that the background of the lives of the patriarchs as set forth in Genesis is in full accord with the conditions prevailing in the first half of the second millennium b.c. Thus E. A. Speiser writes: ‘There is today no reason to doubt the authenticity of the general background of the patriarchal narratives. In point of fact, recent discoveries have greatly increased our respect for their essential accuracy’, 43. And again, ‘The minor incidents are demonstrably in keeping with the times, not to say conditioned by-them’, 45. So, too, W. F. Albright speaks of ‘the extraordinary accuracy of the narratives of the patriarchs, when tested by our rapidly accumulating material’, Archaeology, 144, and see § 79k.
§ d The patriarchs lived in tents, wandering from place to place with their herds and flocks. They were not nomads in the strict sense; they remained at times long enough in one place to grow corn. Now these wanderings are always in the mountain country and in the northern Negeb, not on the coastal plains. The country was already populated and had numerous towns, and the movements of the new-comers were conditioned by the geographical disposition of these existing inhabitants. And Albright has pointed out that this description of the lives of the patriarchs ‘does not agree at all with conditions in any part of Palestine in the Iron Age’, i.e. from 1200 b.c., 131. ‘In the Middle and Late Bronze Ages (2000–1600 and 1600–1200 b.c.) the hill-country was still but sparsely peopled, and almost the entire sedentary population occupied the coastal plains, Esdraelon and the Jordan Valley. The plains and broad valleys were dotted with towns.… Occupation in these regions was considerably denser than it was in the Iron Age’, whereas in the hill-country there was little hindrance to the movements of semi-nomads and their flocks, 131 f. § e Further, archaeology has established the age of many inhabited sites, and of the towns mentioned in the patriarchal narratives it has been definitely proved that the following were in existence in the Middle Bronze Age, Shechem, Bethel, Ai, Gerar, Dothan, Beersheba. Circumstances have not allowed archaeological examination of Hebron, but there is ample reason to credit its equal antiquity. On the other hand, no one of the Israelite settlements, such as Mizpah and Gibeah, is mentioned, Albright, 133.
§ f The Israelites could not fail to transmit faithfully the names of their great patriarchs. For external evidence of the names Abraham and Jacob see § 59h and de Vaux (1946) 323 f. That of Isaac has not been found, but it is of regular formation and there is no reason to doubt its authenticity.
§ g Much is now known of the legal codes of the ancient Near East and in particular of those of the Babylonians, Assyrians and Hurrites roughly contemporary with the patriarchal age. A study of these shows how closely patriarchal customary law in the matters of marriage and inheritance agrees with that prevailing at the time in the neighbouring countries; see C. H. Gordon in The Biblical Archaeologist III, 1 (Feb. 1940) 1–12 and de Vaux, 20–36. The latter writes: ‘The Israelites of a later age had no knowledge of the documents we have been using; they lived in another stage of civilization; their customs were partly different. If, as has been said for long, they had reconstructed the past according to what they saw and what they imagined, the result would have been a picture different from that which we have, and it would have been incorrect’, 36.
§ h In judging the reliability of the traditional text we must remember that scribes sometimes feel justified in substituting better-known recent names for ancient as Dan in 14:14. W. F. Albright writes of the Joseph narrative: ‘Since the story was so popular, and dealt with Egypt, the temptation for Israelite scribes who were acquainted with the Egyptian language and with life in Egypt to revise the names and details was irresistible’, 143. The names may be anachronistic without detriment to the substantial historicity of the narrative. § i It must also be remembered that the narratives belong to the type of literature which may be called popular tradition. They do not belong to what would now be styled scientific history. In the case of the former, writer and reader are aware that absolute accuracy is not claimed for the details of dialogue. These may be such as the situation would naturally elicit. There is an analogy to this even in the professedly serious history of Thucydides, and, to touch a sacred theme, the words of Consecration pronounced by our Lord once at the Last Supper are differently recorded in various parts of the NT. The inerrancy attaching to any inspired book is that belonging to the type of literature to which it belongs. This has long been recognized, as J. Brucker, S.J., says in L’Eglise et la Critique biblique (1908) 222, ‘Provided that the inspiration and historical character of Genesis is loyally maintained, Catholic tradition leaves us great liberty in the interpretation of this venerable document’. And he proceeds: ‘In each of the little dramas presented by the stories of Genesis may be distinguished what constitutes their action strictly speaking, and the development of the incidents and the dialogue and even their embellishment. Ordinarily it is only the first of these elements which demands a strictly historical interpretation’, 223. Similarly Heinisch, 75, defines the aim of the ancient historian as ‘agreement with fact in all essential points, freedom in the form of the presentation’.
§ 140a A special feature of this ancient type of historical writing is the use made of genealogies, the outstanding example of which is given in the table of nations in ch 10. Of this use Heinisch writes: ‘The genealogies, which enumerate peoples of regions as “sons” of a person or people or land, like … the lists of the posterity of Nachor in 22:20–24, of Abraham by Cetura in 25:1–6, of Ishmael in 25:12–16, also certain parts of the Edomite lists gathered in ch 36, are intended by the author to show that certain relations existed between the peoples named, not necessarily of blood-relationship in every case, but at least the relationship of neighbourhood in the present or the past and trade relations’, 83.
§ b A question which requires separate discussion is that of the ages of the patriarchs. The considerations mentioned (§ 138b–d) render it impossible to suppose that ch 5 presents a genuine historical tradition concerning the actual ages of the antediluvian patriarchs. The date of the postdiluvian patriarchs of ch 11 is in the main much more recent but still belongs to a past so remote that it would conflict with all our knowledge to suppose the figures to be accurate. Even in the second millennium b.c. men in general can have had little more than a rough idea of their age. Even where an era existed, as in Egypt, it would be beyond the ability of any but the learned to reckon by it. And an examination of the information afforded concerning the age of the historical patriarchs at various times in their lives reveals certain facts which strongly suggest that the figures given rest on an artificial scheme appropriate in prescientific history. A number of the figures give the impression of being round or approximate. Abraham is 75 when he travels to Canaan, 12:4. He is just 25 years older at Isaac’s birth, 21:5, and 75 years older again at death, 25:7. The exact age of 99 given in 17:1, 24 clearly depends on his age of 100 at Isaac’s birth, 21:5, preceded by the announcement of Isaac’s coming conception in 18:10. Isaac is 60 years old at Jacob’s birth, 25:26, and Esau is 40 at the time of his marriage, 26:34.
§ c Now Sara was 10 years younger than her husband, 17:17. So at the time of their arrival in Canaan she was 65. Yet some time later when they go down to Egypt, her beauty is so striking that she is taken to Pharaoh’s court, 12:15. In 20:2 when she runs the same danger at the court of Abimelech, she appears to be over 90 (17:17). Isaac appears to be close to death when Jacob’s ruse secures his blessing in ch 27. Actually according to the figures he was about 137, and survived some 43 years till his death at the age of 180 (35:28). (These ages are given by the following calculation. Joseph was 30 when put in control of Egypt, 41:46. After 7 years of plenty and 2 of famine, 45:11, he summoned Jacob to come to Egypt, 45:9. He was therefore about 39 at the time, and, as Jacob was then 130 [47:9], Jacob was about 91 at the time of Joseph’s birth. And Joseph’s birth occurred towards the end of Jacob’s 14-year service with Laban, 30:25. Therefore when Jacob left Isaac and Rebecca to go to Mesopotamia, 27:43, he was about 77; and as his father Isaac was 60 at the time of Jacob’s birth, he was then about 137 years old. And the last link in the argument is that Jacob’s flight to his future father-in-law followed quickly after his outwitting Isaac and so gaining his blessing.)
§ d The primary motive of Jacob’s flight north was to escape the vengeance of Esau, 27:42, 45. Rebecca preferred to put another reason before Isaac. She feared lest Jacob might follow the example of Esau and marry one of the women of Canaan and suggested that he should seek a wife among his cousins in Mesopotamia, 27:46–28:5. So according to the figures given Isaac and Rebecca become nervous about the danger of their son falling in love with a native woman of Canaan when he is not far from attaining the responsible age of nearly fourscore years. Furthermore, when he reached his uncle’s home, he finds two of his female cousins both unmarried and both of marriageable age. In fact, they are both young enough for their father to postpone their marriages for another 7 years, 29:20. Rachel subsequently bore two children and Lia, the elder of the sisters, was still young enough to become the mother of six, 35:23 f.
§ e These combined improbabilities force on the reader the conviction that the figures are not intended to reflect the actual ages of the historical patriarchs but are schematic and to be considered in relation to those of the ante- and postdiluvian patriarchs. That these were known to be schematic only is indicated by the freedom with which they were altered in early times as is clear from a comparison of the Hebrew, Samaritan and LX1326X texts. The additions and subtractions are mostly of 100, 50 or 60 years, and the purpose, most apparent in LX1327X, was to increase the antiquity of the Israelite race. The original numbers are probably those of the Samaritan text, according to which the ages of the antediluvian patriarchs gradually diminished with almost complete regularity in each successive generation from Adam to Lamech: 930; 912; 905; 910; 895; 847; 365 (Enoch); 720; 653. This fits with the ancient conceptions that wisdom comes with years, that wisdom was the special prerogative of the ancients, and that its fountain-head was to be found in the first generation, Job 15:7. According to this scheme Noe, the second father of the stock whence sprang the Hebrew people, must have a life as long as the first father and indeed longer as Adam had incurred the divine displeasure whereas Noe had not. Accordingly Noe lived for 950 years, and after him the ages descend again, much more rapidly now that the list approaches historical times. The figures fall as follows: 600; 438; 433; 404; 239; 239; 230; 148; 145 (Thare). The numbers in M1328T and LX1329X are higher, but show in the main the same diminution.
§ f It was fitting again that Abraham, the direct ancestor of the Chosen People and recipient of the divine promises, should have a longer life than his father, but as a personage of historical times of relatively modest length. He lived to be 175, 25:7. Isaac lived to be 180, 35:28; Jacob 147, 47:28; and Joseph 110, 50:25. (On Joseph see also § 161e.) And Moses, as the great law-giver and deliverer of the people, in his turn has a longer life, dying at the age of 120 years, Deut 34:7. The one disturbing feature in the scheme is the advanced age of Isaac, as there is no apparent reason why his span of life should exceed that of Abraham. It may well be that the number rests on an error in the textual transmission. Ch 27 which represents him as close to death suggests that the original figure was considerably smaller.