2. The fragmentary genealogy of vv.25. 26 corresponds, so far as it
goes, with the Sethite genealogy of P in ch. 5. It will be shown later
(p. 138 f.) that the lists of 417-24 and 5 go back to a common original;
and if the discrepancy had been merely between J and P, the obvious
conclusion would be that these two documents had followed different
traditional variants of the ancient genealogy. But how are we to
account for the fact that the first three names of P's list occur also in
the connexion of J? There are four possible solutions. (1) It is conceivable
that J, not perceiving the ultimate identity of the two genealogies,
incorporated both in his document (cf. Ew. JBBW, vi. p. 4); and that
the final redactor (RP) then curtailed the second list in view of ch. 5.
This hypothesis is on various grounds improbable. It assumes (see 25b)
the murder of Abel by Cain as an original constituent of J's narrative;
now that story takes for granted that the worship of Yahwe was
practised from the beginning, whereas 26b explicitly states that it was
only introduced in the third generation. (2) It has not unnaturally
been conjectured that v.25f. are entirely redactional (Ew. Schr, al.); i.e.,
that they were inserted by an editor (RP) to establish a connexion
between the genealogy of J and that of P. In favour of this view the
use of (
Hebrew characters) (as a proper name) and of (Hebrew characters) has been cited; but again the
statement of 26b presents an insurmountable difficulty. P has his own
definite theory of the introduction of the name (Hebrew characters) (see Ex. 62ff.), and it is
incredible that any editor influenced by him should have invented the
gratuitous statement that the name was in use from the time of Enosh.
(3) A third view is that vv.25. 26 stood originally before v.1 (or before v.17),
so that the father of Cain and Abel (or of Cain alone) was not Adam but
Enosh; and that the redactor who made the transposition is responsible
also for some changes on v.25 to adapt it to its new setting (so Sta.)
(see on the v.). That is, no doubt, a plausible solution (admitted as
possible by Di.), although it involves operations on the structure of the
genealogy too drastic and precarious to be readily assented to. It is
difficult also to imagine any sufficient motive for the supposed transposition.
That it was made to find a connexion for the (secondary)
story of Cain and Abel is a forced suggestion. The tendency of a
redactor must have been to keep that story as far from the beginning as
possible, and that the traditional data should have been deliberately
altered so as to make it the opening scene of human history is hardly
intelligible. (4) There remains the hypothesis that the two genealogies
belong to separate strata within the Yahwistic tradition, which had
been amalgamated by a redactor of that school (RJ) prior to the
incorporation of P; and that the second list was curtailed by RP because
of its substantial identity with that of the Priestly Code in ch. 5.
The harmonistic glossing of v.25 is an inevitable assumption of any
theory except (1) and (2); it must have taken place after the insertion
of the Cain and Abel episode; and on the view we are now considering
it must be attributed to RJ. In other respects the solution is free from
difficulty. The recognition of the complex character of the source called
J is forced on us by many lines of proof; and it will probably be found
that this view of the genealogies yields a valuable clue to the structure
