GENESIS (Sept. Plyecris), the first book of the Pentateuch is, in Hebrew, called =wiz, from the word with which it begins. This venerable monument, with which the sacred literature of the Hebrews commences, and which forms its real basis, is divided into two main parts ; one uni versal, and one special. The most ancicnt history of the whole human race is contained in chapters i.-xi., and the history of Israel's ancestors, the patriarchs, in chapters xii.-1. These two parts are, however, so intimately connected with each other that it would be erroneous to ascribe to the first merely the aim of furnishing a universal history. The chief aim which pervades the whole is to sliew how the theocratic institution subsequently founded by Moses was rendered possible and necessary. The book, thereforc, talces its starting point from the original unity of the human race, and their original relation to God, and proceeds thence to the interruption of that relation by the appearance of sin, which gradually and progres sively wrought an external and internal division in the human race for want of the principles of divine life which originally dwelt in man in general, but which had subsequently been preserved only among a small and separate race—a race which in progress of time became more and more isolated from all the other tribes of the earth, and enjoyed for a series of generations the special care, blessing, and guidance of the Lord. The Mosaical theocracy appears, therefore, by the general tenor of Genesis, partly as a restoration of the original relation to God, of the communion of man with God, and partly as an institution which had been preparing by God himself through a long series of manifesta tions of his ttower, justice, and love. Genesis thus furnishes us with the primary view and notion of the whole of the theocracy, and may therefore be considered as the historical foundation without which the subsequent history of the covenant people would be incomplete and unintelligible.
The unity and composition of the work, which is a point in dispute among the critics in regard to the books of the Pentateuch, have been particu larly questioned in the case of Genesis. The ques tion was raised whether the sources from which the writer of Genesis drew his information were written documents or oral tradition. Writers as early as Vitringa (Obs. Sac. i. 4), Richard Simon, Clericus, and others, though they were of opinion that Genesis is founded on written sources, did not un dertake to describe the nature and quality of those sources. Another opinion, advanced by Otmar, in Henke's Alagaz. ii., that Egyptian pyramids and other monuments of a similar nature were the sources of Genesis, was but transient in the critical world ; while the attempt of some critics not only to renew the previous assumption that Genesis is founded on written sources, but also to determine more closely the character of those sources, has gained more lasting approval among the learned. Why different names of God are prevalent in dif ferent portions of Genesis is a question much dis cussed by early theologians and rabbis. Astruc, a Belgian physician, in his Conjectures sur les Me /noires originaux, etc., Bruxelles, 1733-58, was the first to apply the two Hebrew names of God, 7ehovah and Elolzim, to the subject at issue. As truc's demonstration had many feeble points. He assumed that there had originally existed a number of isolated documents, which had subsequently, by the fault of transcribers, been joined and strung together in the present form of Genesis. Eich horn's critical genius procured for this hyaothesis favourable reception almost throughout the whole of Germany. Eichhorn pruned away its excre
scences, and confined his own view to the assump tion of only two different documents, respectively characterised by the two names of 7ehovah and E/okitn. Other critics, such as Ilgen (Urkuna'en a'es yerusalenz Tempel-Arch/vs, 179S), Gramberg (Aa'umbratio libri Geneseos secunclum fontes, 1828), and others, went still farther, and pre-supposed three different documents in Genesis. Vater went much beyond Eichhorn. He fancied himself to be able to combat the authenticity of the Pentateuch by producing- a new hypothesis. He substituted for Eichhorn's document-hypothesis' his can frag ment-hypothesis,' which obtained great authority, especially on account of its being adopted by De Wette. According to this opinion Genesis, as well as the greater part of the Pentateuch, consists of a great number of very small detached fragments, internally unconnected with each other, but tran scribed seriatim, although originating in very dif ferent times and from different authors. This fragment-hypothesis' has now been almost gene rally given up. Even its zealous defenders, not excepting De Wette himself, have relinquished it. In its place the former document-hypothesis' has been resumed by some critics, simplified however and supported by new and better arguments. There is at present a great variety of opinion among divines concerning this hy-pothesis. The leading features of this diversity may be comprised in the following summary. According to the view of Stahelin, De \Vette, Ewald, Von Bohlen, Tuch, and others, Genesis is founded on two principal original documents. That of Elohim is closely connected in its parts, and forms a vvhole, while that of y'elumals is a mere complementary docu ment, supplying- details at those points where the former is abrupt and deficient, etc. These two documents are said to have been subsequently com bined by the hand of an editor so ably, as often to render their separation difficult, if not altogether iinpossible. But Ranke, Hengstenberg, Drechsler, Havernick, and others, maintain that Genesis is a book closely connected in all its parts, and composed by only one author, while the use of the two different names of God is not owing to two different sources on which Genesis is founded, but solely to the different significa tions of these two names. The use of each of the two names, Jehovah and Elohim, is everywhere in Genesis adapted to the sense of the passages in which the writer has purposely inserted the one name or the other. This point of view is the more to be considered, as it is the peculiar object of the author to point out in Gencsis the gradual and pro gressive development of the divine revelations. The opponents have in vain attempted to discover in Genesis a few contradictions indicative of diffe rent documents in it ; their very admission, that a fixed plan and able compilation visibly pervade the whole of the book, is in itself a refutation of such supposed contradictions, since it is hardly to be conceived that an editor or compiler who has shown so much skill and anxiety to give unity to the book should have cared so little about the removal of those contradictions. The whole of Genesis is per vaded by such a freedom in the selection and treat ment of the existing traditions, such an absence of all trace of any previous source or documents which might in some measure have confined the writer within certain limits of views and expressions, as to render it quite impracticable to separate and fix upon them specifically, even if there were portions in Genesis drawn from earlier written documents.