A certain apparent difference of style and language; the occurrence of what seemed gaps on the one, and repetitions and contradictions on the other hand; the special head ings (Toledoth) above mentioned; and, lastly, the different use of the term for the divine name, led very early to the question of the integrity of Genesis. Celsus, Isaac, C. Jasos, Aben Ezra, Karlsstadt, Spinoza, all assumed smaller or larger interpolations; that is, pieces evidently not written by the author of the book himself, but added afterwards. It was not before 1783 that the " hypothesis of documents," based on the alternate use of the word Jeltova (everlasting) and Eloltim (Almighty) was first broached. While the Talmud, Tertulhan, St. Augustine, Chrysostom, Jehudah, Hallevi, etc., had all endeav ored to explain how the individual word was always necessary in the special passage where it occurred, Astruc, a Belgian physician, published in that year his Conjecture sur les Memoi•es originaux dont it parole que Moyse s'est serve pour composer is livre de GeWee, in which he endeavored to show that this writer, or rather editor of the hook, had made use of two large and ten small—respectively " Elohistic" and " Jehovistic"— documents for his composition. This theory was at first received with silent contempt in the writer's own country The only man who took any notice of it was Charban, who at the same time excused himself for refuting this "absurd but dangerous" theory. It soon, however, found its way to Germany, where it was warmly advocated and developed by Eichhorn (Repert. and Introd.),. Ilgen, and Gramberg. A further step was taken by Vater and Hartmann, to whom belongs the "Hypothesis of Fragments," or of the whole Pentateuch being a mosaic of fragments by various authors. Both these notions have now been pretty generally rejected, chiefly on account of their incompatibility with the apparent unity of the whole work and its single parts. The theory adopted by the majority of biblical critics of our day, among whom may be mentioned Wette, Len gerke, Knobel, Stithelin, Bleek, Tuch, Delitzsch, and Bunsen, is the "complimentary," according, to which the author of the Pentateuch—the Jehovist—had worked upon an old Elohistic fundamental record which embraced the time from the creation to the death of Joshua, altering, enlarging, and completely rewriting it. Ewald and Hupfeld, however, assume four writers; the former two Elohists and two Jehovists, the latter three Elohists and one Jehovist; while the apologetic school of Hengstenberg, Haver. nick, Keil, attempts to uphold the primitive theory of one single author.
Considered from the remotest time as a book written under the influence of divine inspiration—a term very differently understood—and thus raised above all doubt as to its truthfulness, various efforts were made, from the days of the earliest interpreters to our own, to explain, by allegory and symbol, such of its statements as in their plain sense seemed incomprehensible to human understanding. Philo and the Alexandrines generally, Papias, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, and others, in all seriousness spiritualized into divine parable that which was given as history; so much so, that St. Augustine— exemplifying the spirit of the times—shortly after his conversion, explains paradise to represent nothing more than the happiness of mankind, the four rivers the four virtues, the serpent the devil, the coats of skin immortality, etc. In more recent times, how ever, after Luther had restored the belief in the literal meaning of the text, some have gone so far as to refer all that is not grasp of human reason to the region of myth, and to point to the obvious similarity between the biblical narrative of the para dise, its four rivers, the' serpent, the apple, the fall, etc. ; and certain legends, common to most eastern nations in the remotest times. as a proof that.they were all, derived from one and the same mythical source. Since the revival of science in the 10th c., another and much graver difficulty, however, has arisen—viz., how certain disiinct and explicit statements of the Scripture, allowing of but one translation, were to be reconciled with certain undeniable physical facts. It is more especially the Mosaic cosmogony, as con tained in the opening chapters of Genesis, which has given rise to violent controversies. The age of the world, which, according to the Bible, would be 6000, or at most, between 7000 and 8000 years; its creation and the formation of the whole system of the universe in six days; have been declared by astronomers and geologists, who reckon the period of the existence of the earth by millions, of the universe by millions upon millions, to be subjects on which information must be sought elsewhere than in the Bible. Most of
the apologists have to a certain degree granted this, and they only differ among them selves as to the extent to which the Bible, a book intended for religious instruction exclusively. has reserved such knowledge as has been or may be acquired by scientific investigation. The words of the biblical record themselves, so -far from being in con• tradiction to the results of human knowledge, are said to convey, if not directly, yet by implication all that science more plainly teaches. The two principal methods of recon ciliation advanced in this country are those of Dr. Buckland and Hugh Miller (and their followers) respectively, the first of whom adopts and amplifies the Chalmerian interpo lation of the geological ages before the first day (an opinion strangely enough to be found already in the Midrash (q.v.): "Before our present world, the Almighty had created worlds upon worlds, and destroyed them again"), the latter the Cuvierian expansion of the six days into geological ages. On the other hand, it is asserted both by those who hold that the Bible is entirely the work of man, and by those who take it as a mixture of the divine and the human element, that the biblical notion of the cosmogony, as well as of all the other physical phenomena, are simply in accordance with the state of sci ence in the days when the book was compiled.
The apologists adduce, as a further proof of the authenticity of the Bible, the sur passing sublimity and moral superiority of its cosmogony as compared with all others. The dualism of God and matter, which, according to the different pagan systeins, are either eternally co-existent or fused into each oth6r, is exchanged for the awful and moving idea of a one personal God, who first created, then molded. and everlastingly sustains the universe, lavishing his highest gifts on man, made in his own image, and standing towards him in the living relation of a son to a father. The occurrence of similar traditions in the religious records of other primeval nations is taken as a corrobo rating proof of the historical truth of the biblical account. Recent investigations have likewise affirmed the division of mankind into three principal races, corresponding to Shem. Ham, and Japhet, to be substantially correct, as far as language is concerned.
The question whether Moses really was the author or compiler of Genesis has been negatived by some, chiefly on the ground that certain apparently obsolete names men tioned are explained by others which first came into use at a much later time, and that there are allusions made to events which happened centuries after Moses. Graves, Faber, Rosenmfiller, and others, consider such passages to be late additions. The fur ther question whether Moses wrote it while at Midian, or during the forty days on Mt. Sinai, or during the forty years' sojourn in the desert, will he considered in the article PENTATEUCH, where also some other points in connection with the composition of this book will be glanced at. Of opinions on the other side, we will briefly mention that of Lengerke, who holds the Elohist to have written under Solomon. and the Jehovist under Hezekiah; of Tuch, who places the former in the time of Saul, the latter in that of Solomon; and of Bleck, who assigns to the Elohist the time of Saul or the Judges, and to the Jehovist the beginning of David's reign Of the infinite number of ancient and modern writers who have commented on Gene sis, we will mention Cyril of Alexandria, Ephraem Syrus, Theodoret, Procopius, Chry sostom, Jerome, Augustine, Jitzchaki (commonly, but wrongly, called Jareld), Ahen Ezra, Levi b. Gershom, Abrabanel, Mendelssohn, Michaelis, Vater, Bohlen, Rosenmuller, •Eichhorn, Augusti, Faber, Graves, Schumann, Knobel, Herder, Hamann, Baumgarten, Delitzsch, Hengstenberfr, Keil, Kalisch, Kurtz, etc. See also Turner's and IlAvernick's Introductions to Genesis; Miller's Testimony of the Racks; Pye Smith's Relation between Scripture and Science; Dr. Whewell's Bridgewater Treatise; Goodwin's _Mosaic Cosmogony, etc.