should have compiled a narrative from a number of detached legends
which he reported just as he found them, regardless of their internal
consistency. Nevertheless, there seems sufficient evidence to warrant
the conclusion that (as Wellhausen has said) we have to do not merely
with aggregates but with sequences; although to unravel perfectly the
various strands of narrative may be a task for ever beyond the resources
of literary criticism. Here it will suffice to indicate the principal
theories.—(a) We. (Comp.2 9-14) seems to have been the first to perceive
that 41-16a is a late expansion based (as he supposed) on 416-24
and on chs. 2, 3; that originally chs. 2-4 existed not only without 41-16a,
but also without 425f. and 529; and that chs. 2. 3. 416-24 111-9 form a
connexion to which the story of the Flood is entirely foreign and
irrelevant.—(b) The analysis was pushed many steps further by Budde
(Biblische Urgeschichte, pass.), who, after a most exhaustive and
elaborate examination, arrived at the following theory: the primary
document (J1) consisted of 24b-9 16-25 31-19. 21 63 323 41. 2b[Greek: b]. 16b. 17-24
61. 2. 4. 109 111-9 920-27. This was recast by J2 (substituting (
Hebrew characters) for
(Hebrew characters) down to 426), whose narrative contained a Cosmogony (but no
Paradise story), the Sethite genealogy, the Flood-legend, the Table of
Nations, and a seven-membered Shemite genealogy. These two recensions
were then amalgamated by J3, who inserted dislocated
passages of J1 in the connexion of J2, and added 41-5 529 etc. J2
attained the dignity of a standard official document, and is the authority
followed by P at a later time. The astonishing acumen and thoroughness
which characterise Budde's work have had a great influence on
critical opinion, yet his ingenious transpositions and reconstructions of
the text seem too subtle and arbitrary to satisfy any but a slavish
disciple. One feels that he has worked on too narrow a basis by confining
his attention to successive overworkings of the same literary
tradition, and not making sufficient allowance for the simultaneous
existence of relatively independent forms.—(c) Stade (ZATW, xiv.
274 ff. [= Ak. Reden u. Abh. 244-251]) distinguishes three main strata:
(1) chs. 2. 3. 111-9; (2) 425f. 17-22 920-27 109? 61. 2?; (3) the Flood-legend,
added later to the other two, by a redactor who also compiled a Sethite
genealogy (425f. . . . 529 . . .) and inserted the story of Cain and Abel, and
the Song of Lamech (423f.).—(d) Gunkel (Gen.2 1 ff.) proceeds on somewhat
different lines from his predecessors. He refuses in principle
to admit incongruity as a criterion of source, and relies on certain
verses which bear the character of connecting links between different
sections. The most important is 529 (belonging to the Sethite genealogy),
where we read: "This (Noah) shall comfort us from our labour and
from the toil of our hands on account of the ground which Yahwe has
cursed." Here there is an unmistakable reference backward to 317,
and forward to 920ff.. Thus we obtain a faultless sequence, forming
the core of a document where (Hebrew characters) was not used till 426, and hence called
Je, consisting of: one recension of the Paradise story; the (complete)
Sethite genealogy; and Noah's discovery of wine. From this sequence
are excluded obviously: the second recension of the Paradise story; the
Cainite genealogy; and (as Gu. thinks) the Flood-legend, where Noah
appears in quite a different character: these belong to a second docu-
