The Early Narratives of Genesis 89 kel’s theory as the explanation of the patriarchal history ©n the ancient principle of a fortuitous concourse of atoms. Only that does not quite answer to the kind of history we have in these narratives, which stand in such organic connection with the rest of revelation. Approach these narratives in another way and they are the oldest and most precious tradi- tions of our race; worthy in their intrinsic merit of standing where they do at the commencement of the Word of God, and capable of vindicating their right to be there; not merely vehicles of great ideas, but presenting in their own archaic way-—f or archaic they are in form—th e memory of great historic truths. The story of the Fall, for example, is not a myth, but enshrines the shuddering memory of an actual moral catastrophe in the beginning of our race, which brought death into the world and all our woe.
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Coming now to deal a little more closely with these nar- ratives, I suppose I ought to say something on the critical aspect of the question. But this I must pass over briefly, for I want to get to more important matters. In two points only I would desire to indicate my decided break with current critical theory. The one is the carrying down of the whole Levitical system and history connected with it to the post- exilian age. That, I believe, is not a sound result of criti- cism, but one which in a very short time will have to be aban- doned, as indeed it is already being abandoned or greatly modified in influential quarters. This applies specially to the date of Gen. 1. Professor Delitzsh, a commentator often cited as having come round practically to the newer critical view, takes a firm stand here. In his new commentary, on Gen. 1, he tells us: “The essential matters in the account of the creation are among the most ancient foundations of the religion of Israel—t here are no marks of style which constrain us to relegate the Elohistic account of the creation to the exile—it is in any case a tradition reaching back to the Mosaic period.”
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