ALLEGATION XII Driver's analysis of Genesis as a whole is at fault. His misplacement of the title the "Generations of the Heavens and the earth" is an enormous error. 66 THE next case I have to examine is a case of faulty analysis. Professor Driver, in his Westminster Commentary on Genesis," has placed the title of the second portion, "the Generations of the Heavens, and earth on their creation, or completion," as the closing sentence of the first portion, or "Beginning," of the entire book. This misplacement has been commented upon by Dr. Redpath in his "Modern Criticism and Genesis," p. 55. But Driver and the Germans have so entirely misapprehended the force of the title "generations," that Driver says (p. 6, note), “It is a plausible conjecture that it originally stood as the superscription to i. 1." I cannot say whose conjecture that is, but a more conclusive proof that its author has not yet grasped the meaning of the phrase as used in Genesis could not have been given. The "generations "-title throws such light upon the whole structure of the book, that when it is used as a key to the contents of Genesis, the plan of the narrative imperceptibly transfers itself to the mind of the user, and enables him at once to account for the position of every detail, and to remember it without referring to the pages of the book. The same thing cannot be said of a plan which assigns Genesis i. now to E and now to P, and passes from one author to another several times in the course of a single page, and which fails to assign chapter xiv. to any known or recognised section even of Driver's “Hexateuch." The titles of the eleven "Generations" of Genesis afford a striking and obvious explanation of their contents in nine cases out of eleven. A little attention to detail in the two more difficult cases makes them no less clear. But some attention is demanded. I speak from experience, for I have used this plan for teaching Genesis for more than forty years past, and found it clearer and clearer every time. I offer a brief account of it in the following pages. I shall then quote Professor Driver's explanation of the formula, showing wherein it misses the facts of the case. And then I shall ask the question, Whether a plan, which so obviously explains the entire book in relation to the days of Moses, can possibly be abandoned for a theory which divides Genesis between several nameless authors of uncertain date. If Driver's plan is admitted, it must be what the logicians call a cross division. The "generations "-titles in Driver's "Westminster Commentary are all carefully assigned to P, the Priests' Code; that is, the titles of the several original chapters of Genesis are the work of one author, and the contents which justify the titles are the work of another. Thus the title of the story of Joseph,—called "generations of Jacob," i.e. the history of Jacob's most famous progeny,-is cut off from the story itself, which begins at Genesis xxxvii. 2, and is tacked on to the preceding piece of P, which thus runs from Genesis xxxv. 23 to the end of the first clause of chapter xxxvii. 2. There P stops, and J begins at "was feeding the flock with his brethren." This would probably be explained by Driver as the addition of the "framework" to the narrative, mentioned in his "Introduction" at p. 20. 66 It is really very clever to make a framework to a story after the story is done. First the building, then the plan! First the house, and then the scaffolding! But let me explain how the generations," taken as titles, explain the contents of Genesis. And then let the reader judge whether the titles were the work of one author, and the contents the work of another. And then let me ask, Who invented the titles? And how is it that they so exactly adjust themselves to the entire contents of the book? There are eleven "generations" in Genesis. And they are these:— 1. Generations of the Heavens and the earth, regarded as a pair, on their completion as a whole: Genesis ii. 4 and everything that follows to the 2. Book of the generations of Adam, Genesis v. 1 and what follows as far as the 3. Generations of Noah, Genesis vi. 9 and what follows until we reach the 4. Generations of the sons of Noah, as a family, Gen. x. 1 until we reach the 5. Generations of Shem, Genesis xi. 10, &c., to the 6. Generations of Terah, Genesis xi. 27 and what follows to the 7. Generations of Ishmael, Genesis xxv. 12 to the 8. Generations of Isaac, Genesis xxv. 19 to the 9. Generations of Esau, Genesis xxxvi. 1 to the 10. Generations of Esau the father of the Edomites in Mount Seir, Genesis xxxvi. 9 to the |