into the divine plan of salvation. Now in this book, from the religious
point of view so extremely worthy of attention, the account of the creation
is given quite differently. Man is the centre of the account; that which
does not directly refer to him is entirely omitted. The order in which the
inhabitants of the earth were created, is not only not divided into the six
day's works of the first account, and in verse 4 is not only directly taken
as the work of a single day, in the expression [Hebrew: BAYWOM] (in the
day, in which = when), without especial stress being put upon the
expression "one day," for [Hebrew: BAYWOM] has become a particle; but this
order is entirely different from the other. In the second account, the
succession is the following: "first, man; then, the paradise into which man
is placed; next, the trees (the question at what time the rest of the
vegetable world was created is left entirely without answer); then, the
determination to create also an assistant to man; next, the creation of
animals; finally, the creation of the woman out {317} of a rib of man."
Now, although it is wholly beyond doubt that the two accounts had different
authors, the question will nevertheless arise, how it was possible that
those who inserted these two accounts in the Holy Scripture, one after the
other, could so harmlessly put side by side and read one after the other
these two accounts, so entirely contradictory, without being obliged to
think that the truth of the one would refute the other. They certainly must
have had in some way the conviction that the one account was consistent
with the other. But such an agreement between the two accounts is only
possible when we either see in them only ideal truths, or when one of the
two shall represent the actual reality of the circumstances of creation,
and the other rather their ideal character. In case we should have to make
such a distinction, it cannot be doubtful which of the two accounts has
more of the real, and which more of the ideal character. In the first
account nothing is related which does not give direct points of connection
in the real process, as we can imagine it. In the second account, we find
many points which hardly permit a direct literal conception, even on the
part of the first readers of the account and of the editors of the canon of
the Old Testament: for instance, besides the different order in which the
first account is given, the creation of the woma