What are generally cited as points of superiority in Genesis i. over Genesis ii. iii. are beyond doubt signs of progress in outward culture.  The mental individuality of the two writers, the systematiser and the genius, cannot be compared, and the difference in this respect tells nothing of their respective dates; but in its general views of God, nature, and man, Genesis i. stands on a higher, certainly on a later, level.  To our way of thinking its views are more intelligible, simpler, more natural, and on this account they have been held to be also older.  But this is on the one hand to identify naturalness with originality, two things which every one knows not to be the same, and on the other hand it is applying a standard to prehistoric tradition which applies to historical tradition only:  freedom from miracle and myth count in favour of the latter, but not of the former.  But the secret root of the manifest preference long shown by historic-critical theology for Genesis i. appears to lie in this, that scholars felt themselves responsible for what the Bible says, and therefore liked it to come as little as possible in conflict with general culture. 1

******************************************** 1.  I merely assert that Genesis ii. iii. is prior to Genesis i.; I do not believe the story of Paradise and of the Fall to be very old with the Israelites.  We are led to think so by the fact that the man and the woman stand at the head of the genealogy of the human race; a place we should rather expect to be assigned to the serpent (according to primitive Semitic belief the serpent was by no means opposed to God).  This is the case in the Chronicon Edessenum and in Abyssinian legend, and a trace of this is perhaps preserved in the name of Eve, as Noldeke thinks.  The name certainly receives this interpretation in Philo (de agric.  Noe, # 21) and in the Midrash Rabba on Genesis iii. 20 (D.  M. Z. 1877, p. 239, 326).  Moreover, the true seat of God to the Hebrews was Mount Sinai, and the original Hebrew life was the nomadic life of the patriarchs, not gardening or agriculture.  And finally we cannot believe barbarians to have indulged in reflections on the advantages and disadvantages of civilisation.  The materials of Genesis ii. iii. can hardly have been imported before the time of Solomon.  Where they came from we can scarcely guess; it would be most natural to think of the Phoenicians or the Canaanites generally, and this theory is favoured by Genesis iv.  But in JE Babel is regarded as the last home of the primitive human race, Eden and Nod having preceded it; and the Hebrews probably derived the legend in the last instance from Babylon.  But this does not prove that this or that parallel brought forward by Assyriologists is necessarily of value. **********************************************

VIII.I.2.  After the beginning of the world we have in Genesis i.-xi., both in the Priestly Code and in the Jehovist, the transition from Adam to Noah (chapters iv. v.), then the flood (vi.-ix.), then the transition from Noah to Abraham (chapters x. xi.).