*********************************************** 1.  “There is nothing whatever in the piece that merits the name of invention but the chronological order of the various creations.”  Buttmann, p. 133. **********************************************

The first sentence of the Jehovistic account of the beginning of the world’s history has been cut off by the reviser. [It was all a dry waste] when Jehovah formed the earth, and nowhere did the green herb spring up, for Jehovah had not yet caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.  But a mist (?) went up out of the earth, and watered the face of the ground.  And Jehovah formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.  Then he planted a garden far to the eastward in Eden, in the place where the four chief rivers of the earth part asunder from their common source; there grow among other fine trees the tree of life and the tree of knowledge.  In this garden Jehovah placed the man, to dress it and keep it and to eat of all the trees, forbidding him to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge only.  But the man is utterly alone in his garden:  he must have company that is suitable for him.  So Jehovah first forms the beasts, if perchance the man will associate with them and make friends with them.  He brings them to him one after another to see what impression they make on him, and what the man will call them.  He calls them by their right names, ox, ass, bear, thus expressing his feeling that he finds in them nothing relate to himself, and Jehovah has to seek other counsel.  Then he forms the woman out of a rib of the sleeping man, and causes him to awake.  Wearied as it were by all the fruitless experiments with the beasts, the man cries out delighted when he looks at the woman:  This surely is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone; she may be called wo-man.

Thus the scene is drawn, the persons introduced, and an action secretly prepared:  now the tragedy begins, which ends with the expulsion of man from the garden.  Seduced by the serpent, man stretches out his hand after the food which is forbidden him, in order to become like God, and eats of the tree of knowledge.  The first consequence of this is the beginning of dress, the first step in civilisation; other and sadder consequences soon follow.  In the evening the man and his wife hear Jehovah walking in the garden; they hide before Him, and by doing so betray themselves.  It is useless to think of denying what has taken place, and as each of them puts the blame on the other, they show themselves one after the other to be guilty.  The sentence of the judge concludes the investigation.  The serpent is to creep on its belly, to eat dust, and to perish in the unequal contest with man.  The woman is to bear many children with sorrow, and to long for the man, who yet will be her tyrant.  The principal curse is directed against the man.  “Cursed be the ground for thy sake:  in