and the first three verses of the second, at which
point the other commences. These two records belong to different periods
of Jewish history. The older one is the Elohistic, so called because the
creator is designated by the plural term _Elohim_, which in our version
is translated _God_. The more modern one is the Jehovistic, in which
Elohim is combined with the singular term _Jehovah_, translated in
our-version _the Lord God_. The Elohistic and Jehovistic accounts both
relate the creation of man, but instead of agreeing they widely differ.
The former makes God create man in his own image; the latter does not
even allude to this important circumstance. The former represents man as
created male and female at the outset; the latter represents the male
as created first, and the female for a special reason afterwards. In
the former God enjoins the primal pair to "be fruitful and multiply and
replenish the earth;" in the latter there is no such injunction, but on
the contrary, the bringing forth of children in sorrow is imposed upon
the woman as a punishment for her sin, and she does not appear to have
borne any offspring until after the expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
Lastly, the Elohistic record makes no mention of this Paradise, in
which, according to the Jehovistic record, the drama of the Fall was
enacted, but represents man as immediately commissioned to subdue
and populate the world. Such discrepancies are enough to stagger the
blindest credulity.

We now proceed to examine the Jehovistic account of Creation in detail.
We read that the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, the
Hebrew word for which is _adamah_. The word Adam means "be red," and
_adamah_ may be referred to the red soil of Palestine. Kalisch also
observes that man may have been originally called Adam on account of the
red color of his skin. The Chinese represent man as kneaded of _yellow_
earth, and the _red_ Indians of _red_ clay. The belief that man was
formed of earth was not confined to the Jews, but has been almost
universal, and undoubtedly arose from the fact that our bodies after
death return to the earth and resolve into the elements. The Lord God
placed this forlorn first man in the Garden of Eden with the command to
till it, and permission to eat of the fruit of all its trees except "the
tree of knowledge of good and evil." How Adam trespassed and fell, and
brought a curse upon himself and all his innocent posterity, we shall
con