Note 7 — Chapter IV · RELATIVE FREETHOUGHT IN ISRAEL
Reading edition
The unlearned reader may here be reminded that in Gen. i the Hebrew word translated “God” is “Elohim” and that the phrase in Gen. ii rendered “the Lord God” in our versions is in the original “Yah-weh-Elohim.” The first chapter, with its plural deity, is, however, probably the later as well as the more dignified narrative, and represents the influence of Babylonian quasi-science. See, for a good general account of the case, The Witness of Assyria, by C. Edwards, 1893, ch. ii. Cp. Wellhausen, Proleg. to Hist. of Israel, Eng. tr. pp. 196–308; E. J. Fripp, Composition of the Book of Genesis, 1892, passim; Driver, Introd. to the Lit. of the Old Test. 1891, pp. 18–19. ↑