Boston University - HUB Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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ALL ROADS' LEAD T0 TIIULE. 23 first f'ather of the Hebrew stock. The description preserved to us in the second chapter of' Genesis is only a fragment of a di- dactic poem, written, it may be, in the days ot' Solomon, possi- bly in the days of Isaiah, by some great religious genius whose name nobody knows? To all appearance, it has, in our an- thor's mind, as little weight toward settling the question as to the primitive seat of the human race, as the Rime of the Ancient Mariner might have in settling the question ol' the tirst dis- coverer of the .Pacific Ocean? To all but the unbeliever-at-any-price, this H Solution ot' the Paradise Question will be very disappointing. Its interpreta- tion of Hebrew is arbitrariness itself. It nowhere alludes to the fact that traditions or myths of the Happy Garden are found in the religions of all the other ancient peoples. It no- where makes tributary to its argument the facts and theories 1 Die geographisehen und hydrograpliischen Angaben, well-he die Para- diesfrage hervorgerufen hahen, sind ein wesentlieher Bestandtheil dieser Quellensehrift. Ihr Verfasser, der Salolnonisehen Zeit angehiirig. vielleieht Saloino selhst, ist der erste Jalnvist. Das kunstvoll hineinverwobene Lelirgedicht, oder Theologumenon, die Siindenfallgesvliiehte, ist einem andern Verfnsser, dem zweiten Jahwist zuzuweisen, der unch Geist und Bqhandlungsweise der Prophet Jesain sein kann fp. G-D. Aber das ist es nicht allein und nicht hanpisiiehlicli, was den Garten in Eden beriilnnt gemacht hat. Anch das nicht, dass er als zeitweiliger Ursitz des Stainmvaters der hebriiisehen Viillcerfamilie in der Ueberlle- fernng feststand. Erst seitdmnn einst ein grosser religiijser Genius den Sehanplatz seiner tiefsinnegen Lelirdiehtnng dorthin verlegt hat, ist er hierdnreh liocli iiber Alles verkliirt Worden und hat fiir die Folgezeit in der Vorstellungswelt aller Bilmelviilker eine Weihe und eine Bedeutung empfangen, der kein auderes Land und kein anderer Ort auf Erden gleieh- komint fp. 825. 2 U We were the flrst thnt ever burst Into that silent Sen. 3 We mustleave the reader to consult Dr. Engel's hook, in order to dis- cover how Eden becomes Harra, and by what kind of torture Assnr is identified with the Hauran, not to speak of the wild theory of' the four rivers in Harra which 'formed the river,' or, as Dr. Engel translates, 'the wa.ters,' which 'went out of Eden to water the garden! Dr Engel is so little acquainted with Hebrew grammar and idioms as to translate Gen. ii- 10 : ,',And it fthe Nahar River, which is rendered by ' waters ' quite ad- missiblyl will separate itselffrom within, and it belonged tufourwell-1'ive:'s.' The AIhen.w1Lvn, London, June 27, 1885, p. 818. Not more respectful is the verdict of his own eonntrylnan, Professor ,Qttg,Ziiek.ler, as appears from his review of the work in Luthardtfs Zeit- schr-U2 jiir christliche Wisscnschqfl for 1886, pp. 7, 8.

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I 22 BOSTON 'UNIVERSITY YEAR BOOK. season, run down from the adjacent slopes, and empty them- selves upon this oasis, but which dry up Htoward the end of May or the first of June. This interpretation of the river which 4' went out of' Eden to water the garden, and from thence was parted, and became four heads, is the very apple of our author's eye. The 4' river is the entire mass of water, which, from rain or springs, finds its way during the wet season down the various slopes oi' the surrounding basin into thc oasis. Here it is all absorbed or evaporatedg but this is only a modern and Occidental way of looking at it. If we are good Orientalists we shall be able to turn our inner eye around, and, looking up at the surrounding water-sheds and at the two pairs of' chief to1'- rents, we shall say, U And from hence this all-surrounding and concentrated waterflow was parted, and became four heads. Pages on pages are expended upon this felicitous interpreta- tion of tl1e Paradise rivers, and upon the demonstration oi' the falsity of every other cxplanation.1 And does, then, our author actually believe that this deep swale in the heart of' the North Syrian desert, this depression which is sometimes fur weeks together under water, 4and which in the hot season is so singeing hot that all 'velrdtiiie dies, and the very stones around it explode with a loud 1'eport,,2+- does Mr. Engel actually believe that this was the cradle of the human race? W A Oh, no! at least he does not say so. It is simply the earliest seat of' the earliest ancestor oi' the Hebrews. Indeed, it is hardly that. It is rather the spot where some great religious poet belonging to the Hebrew people, and writing ages after Abraham, -if' there ever was an Abraham, - located the first scat of the 1 Thus he speaks of its strictly textual character : Dicser Textsinn ist gewonnen durch eine genetische Behandlung der Sache. Keiueriei Text- iinderung glebt es hier, keinerlei NVortsinnverdrehung, keinerlei Wider- sprueh zwischen Textworten und ihrer Wiedergabeg Wohl aber sind nun die durch Uebersetzer und Ausleger ansgerenkteu Glieder des Textes so wiedorcingerenkt, dass sie wieder riehtig functioniren kiiwnnen fp, 571, But from p. 60 to 67 one can see that this wonderful reverence for the sacred- ness of the text does not at all stand in his way when he desires tb make up a QuelZenschrU'l, omitting here and transposing there t0iSllll2'llilS'6Wl1 fancy. ' 'f f 2 Int Sommer wird die Glnth so stark dass die schwarzdxrSteine'mit lautem Knalle zersprengen tp. 773. A ' L X ' WMV 'NW

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24 BOSTON 'UNIVERSITY YEAR BOOK. and speculations of ethnologists and zoiilogists as to the begin- nings of human life? It nowhere even attempts to connect NVest-Shemitie thought and tradition with that oi' the East- Shemitie Assyrians and Babylonians. He denies the probabil- ity that the writer of the H didactic poem had ever heard of the Euphrates oi' Mesopotamia. He not only rationalizes away supernatural features by reducing the Edenic Cherubim to I-Iauranie volcanoes, but also docs all manner of arbitrary violence to those portions ot' the sacred text which relate to natural things. Cain is, in his view, the same as Adam. The story oi' the clothing of the first pair with skins, grew out ol' the habit of' a North Syrian tribe oi' gazelle hunters, who, to this day, wear skins. The two wives oi' Lamach, Adah and Zillah, were two rocky ridges of hills, whose modern names are Adscha and Selma. Enoch, who walked with God, was a figment of the imagination, - an abstraction :representing one-quarter part of the Egyptian Sothis period. I-lis H translation to heaven was simply the snpersession oi' the Egyptian time-reckoning by a new system? The open flowers in the ornamenta- tion of the interior of Solomon's temple were symbolieal of the open craters of' volcanoes. So the palm-trees in the same 1 Once he makes n hasty allusion to what we may call The VVarfare of Science, in its own camp, using Karl Vogt to dispose of Hneckel's Limurin : Karl Vogt verspoitet Haeekel, und Andere, dass sie ans Mada- gaskar den Rest eines weitcn Continents maehen, der, wahrseheinlleh zur Strafe fiir die Erzeugung des Menschen, griisstuntheils vom Meere ersaiift wurde, wiihrend doch die bis jetzt konstatirten Thatsuchen geniigen, um den nnwiderlegichen Beweis zu liefern dass alle jene Hypothesen iiber die Existcnz elnes Continents, do-r in den neueren Erdepochen Madagaskar mit dem iihrigen Festlande verhunden und sogar dem Menschengnschlechte als Wiege gedient hahen sell. eben nur Triinmereien ohne irgendwelehe thatsiichllehe Bcgriinilung sind, und dass das herrliche Lemnria. mit seinen Wiilmlern und den darln ulnherkletternden Almen des Menschen nicnmls eine andere Existenz gehabt haben kann als die es noch hente auf dem Boden des Meeres hat, Madagaskar aber blieb an der Schwelle der Miueenpcriode stehen und vermochte dieselbe nicht zu tibersehrelten, es hat seit der Eoeenzeit eine unahhiinglge geographische Region fpp, 5, fp, 2 Der Zusatz der Scthitentafel zu Hanok ' er wandclte mit Elohim und war nicht mehr' lasst sich recht wohl auch so ausdeuten : Der fabelhafte Vogel Phijnix, der die friihere Zeitrechnung rcpriisentirt und dann als ersehienen gedacht wurde, wenu dieselbe Gestirnung nach Verlauf von bcstimmteu Jahresreihen wieder eintraf, wandelt nach Einfiihrung der neuen Zeitrechnung mit Gott und war nicht mehr OJ p. 106.