18
intended at creation. it
of
Cows is
little
people,
Book
Thi'
Tliis
(lod's
tirst])()rn,
The problem of Book
of the entire
of
these
first
eleven chapters, and,
of (lenesis,
is
threefold,
the particular
of
relation
Israel
God, and
to
lem and solution are decidedly universalistic
God
and character.
not
merely
the
conception
in
national
deity
evolution, nor
by and for
Israel a nation living only
is
among
a nation
God
not
is
its
itself.
the other nations of the earth, and
fortunes are inseparably bound up with theirs.
rael's
of
conceived in the earlier period of Israel's religious
Israel, as
is
is
all,
the
(cj
Both prob-
particular relation of Israel to the other nations.
Israel
way,
in a
(a) the relation
the peoples of the earth to (jod, the Creator of
all
(b)
its
as
were, was to be Israel.
God
alone,
but
the
Creator
And
Is-
of
the
and the loving Father of all men. To Him is due. His law^ they should keep, and His way they should walk. All this they must eventually
entire universe
alone their w^orship in
learn through Israel.
A
universalism so all-embracing and positive, can have
developed
in
Israel
and found such systematic and
expression only after Israel had begun to outgrow
definite
its
early,
and nationalistic conception of God and religion, through having come into close and protracted contact with other nations and other religions and cultures. nationalism
restricted
Then only
did
it
commence
to
concern
with the vital
itself
and weak nation, to tlie mighty empires Avhich surrounded it, and the role which it was d:stined to play in the history of mankind ac-
(|uestion
of the relation of
cording to the Biblical
present,
all-W'ise
science
])lan
itself,
connected,
century
little
of the Creator of the universe.
has proved that these literary
form
product of the period beginning seventh
a
B.
first
are, in
in
the
stories
the
first
C, when Judah became
in
their
main,
the
of
the
half
tributary
to
Assyria and was dominated by Assyrian culture and thought,
and continuing for almost two centuries,
into the
Babylonian
