SOURCE: “That Old Serpent,” The Sewanee Review, Vol. LXXXI, No. 3, July-September, 1973, pp. 389-428.

In the following essay, Ralston examines the composition and themes of Genesis, maintaining that the book emphasizes man's separation from God.

I.

The anonymous author of the primary literary document of the Old Testament, whose imagination has been determinative for the rest of Biblical literature, begins the story of his people, a narrative he was impelled to write by his experience of the person and the kingdom of David, with an account of creation. For this writer, the form of history, without which the events and circumstances of human life would hold no meaning, was Jahveh (a particular tribal name for the God whose own name was unknown, and who therefore remained beyond definition), whose power had created the physical world, and placed man within it. His nature was the ultimate origin, as his power...