Ch. IV.—Beginnings of History and Civilisation.
Critical Analysis.—Ch. 4 consists of three easily separable sections: (a) the story of Cain and Abel (1-16), (b) a Cainite genealogy (17-24),[1] and (c) a fragment of a Sethite genealogy (25. 26). As they lie before us, these are woven into a consecutive history of antediluvian mankind, with a semblance of unity sufficient to satisfy the older generation of critics.[2] Closer examination seems to show that the chapter is composite, and that the superficial continuity conceals a series of critical problems of great intricacy.
1. We have first to determine the character and extent of the Cainite genealogy. It is probable that the first link occurs in v.1ff., and has to be disentangled from the Cain legend (so We. Bu.); whether it can have included the whole of that legend is a point to be considered later (p. 100). We have thus a list of Adam's descendants through Cain, continued in a single line for seven generations, after which it branches into three, and then ceases. It has no explicit sequel in Genesis; the sacred number 7 marks it as complete in itself; and the attempts of some scholars to remodel it in accordance with its supposed original place in the history are to be distrusted. Its main purpose is to record the origin of various arts and industries of civilised life; and apart from the history of Cain there is nothing whatever to indicate that it deals with a race of sinners, as distinct from the godly line of Seth. That this genealogy belongs to J has hardly been questioned except by Di., who argues with some hesitation for assigning it to E, chiefly on the ground of its discordance with vv.25. 26. Bu. (p. 220 ff.) has shown that the stylistic criteria point decidedly (if not quite unequivocally) to J;[3] and in the absence of any certain trace of E in chs. 1-11, the strong presumption is that the genealogy represents a stratum of the former document. The question then arises whether it be the original continuation of ch. 3. An essential connexion cannot, from the nature of the case, be affirmed. The primitive genealogies are composed of desiccated legends, in which each member is originally independent of the rest; and we are not entitled to assume that an account of the Fall necessarily attached itself to the person of the first man. If it were certain that 320 is an integral part of one recension of the Paradise story, it might reasonably be concluded that that recension was continued in 41, and then in 417-24. In the absence of complete certainty on that point the larger question must be left in suspense; there is, however, no difficulty in supposing that in the earliest written collection of Hebrew traditions the genealogy was preceded by a history of the Fall in a version partly preserved in ch. 3. The presumption that this was the case would, of course, be immensely strengthened if we could suppose it to be the intention of the original writer to describe not merely the progress of culture, but also the rapid development of sin (so We.).
