face of the waters." Here we have the opening of a polytheistic fable
of creation, but, so strongly convinced were the English translators
that the ancient Hebrews must have been originally monotheistic that
they rendered the above, as follows: "In the beginning God created the
heaven and the earth. . . . And the spirit of God (!) moved upon the
face of the waters."

It is now generally conceded that some one (nobody pretends to know
who) at some time (nobody pretends to know exactly when), copied two
creation myths on the same leather roll, one immediately following the
other. About one hundred years ago, it was discovered by Dr. Astruc, of
France, that from Genesis ch. i, v. 1 to Genesis ch. ii, v. 4, is given
one complete account of creation, by an author who always used the term
"the gods" (Elohim), in speaking of the fashioning of the universe,
mentioning it altogether thirty-four times, while, in Genesis ch. ii,
v. 4, to the end of chapter iii, we have a totally different narrative,
by an author of unmistakably different style, who uses the term "Iahveh
of the gods" twenty times, but "Elohim" only three times. The first
author, evidently, attributes creation to a council of gods, acting in
concert, and seems never to have heard of Iahveh. The second attributes
creation to Iahveh, a tribal god of ancient Israel, but represents
Iahveh as one of two or more gods, conferring with them (in Genesis ch.
xiii, V. 22) as to the danger of man's acquiring immortality.

Modern theologians have, for convenience sake, entitled these two
fables, respectively, the Elohistic and the Iahoistic stories. They
differ, not only in the point I have mentioned above, but in the order
of the "creative acts;" in regard to the mutual attitude of man and
woman, and in regard to human freedom from prohibitions imposed by
deity. In order to exhibit their striking contradictions, I will place