and these have been placed in position where they would least disturb the flow of narration. Some slight transpositions have been made, and a number of glosses have been introduced; but how far these last are due to the Redactor himself and how far to subsequent editors, we cannot tell (for details see the notes). Duplicates are freely admitted, and small discrepancies are disregarded; the only serious discrepancy (that of the chronology) is ingeniously surmounted by making J's 40 days count twice, once as a stage of the increase of the Flood (712) and once as a phase of its decrease (86).[1] This compound narrative is not destitute of interest; but for the understanding of the ideas underlying the literature the primary documents are obviously of first importance. We shall therefore treat them separately.
The Flood according to J.
VI. 5-8. The occasion of the Flood:—Yahwe's experience of the deep-seated and incurable sinfulness of human nature. It is unnecessary to suppose that a description of the deterioration of the race has been omitted, or displaced by 61-4 (Ho.). The ground of the pessimistic estimate of human nature so forcibly expressed in v.5 is rather the whole course of man's development as hitherto related, which is the working out of the sinful knowledge acquired by the Fall. The fratricide of Cain, the song of Lamech, the marriages with the angels, are incidents which, if not all before the mind of the writer of the Flood-story, at least reveal the gloomy view of the early history which characterises the Yahwistic tradition.—5. the whole bent (lit. 'formation') of the thoughts of his heart] It is difficult to say whether (
Hebrew characters) is more properly the 'form' impressed on the mind (the disposition or character), or 'that which is formed' by the mind (imagination and purpose—Sinnen und Trachten):
5. (Hebrew characters) G (Greek characters) (so v.8).—(Hebrew characters)] G loosely: (Greek characters) ((Hebrew characters)?]) (Greek characters); V cuncta cogitatio. Another Gr. rendering ((Greek characters), see Field, ad loc.) is (Greek characters); but in 821 the same translator has (Greek characters). On the later Jewish theologoumenon of the (Hebrew characters) (the evil impulse in man, also called (Hebrew characters) simply) which is based on this passage, and by Jewish comm. (Ra. on 821) is found here; see Taylor, Sayings of Jew. Fathers2, 37, 148 ff.; Porter, Bibl. and Sem. Studies by members . . . of Yale
- ↑ The supposition of Hupfeld and Lenormant (Orig. i. 415), that the double period occurred in the original J, has no foundation.
