that "Elohim created man, in the likeness of Elohim made he
him," it is said that Adam begat Seth "in his own likeness,
after his image." Does this mean that Seth resembled Adam only
in a spiritual and figurative sense? And if that interpretation
of the third verse of the fifth chapter of Genesis is absurd,
why does it become reasonable in the first verse of the
same chapter?

But let us go further. Is not the Jahveh who "walks in the
garden in the cool of the day"; from whom one may hope to "hide
oneself among the trees"; of whom it is expressly said that
"Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of
Israel," saw the Elohim of Israel (Exod. xxiv. 9-11); and that,
although the seeing Jahveh was understood to be a high crime and
misdemeanour, worthy of death, under ordinary circumstances,
yet, for this once, he "laid not his hand on the nobles of
Israel"; "that they beheld Elohim and did eat and drink";
and that afterwards Moses saw his back (Exod. xxxiii. 23)--is
not this Deity conceived as manlike in form? Again, is not the
Jahveh who eats with Abraham under the oaks at Mamre, who is
pleased with the "sweet savour" of Noah's sacrifice, to whom
sacrifices are said to be "food"<6>--is not this Deity depicted
as possessed of human appetites? If this were not the current
Israelitish idea of Jahveh even in the eighth century B.C.,
where is the point of Isaiah's scathing admonitions to his
countrymen: "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices
unto me? saith Jahveh: I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams
and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of
bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats" (Isa. i. 11). Or of
Micah's inquiry, "Will Jahveh be pleased with thousands of rams