Chapters from the Biblical Law. Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shall not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. Thereafter, the Lord God determined to make a help-meet for the man, and for this purpose he took one of the man's ribs, and of it he made a woman. To this woman came a serpent and tempted her to eat of the fruit of the forbidden tree, and for this pur pose the serpent said to the woman, mis quoting the command, "Yea, hath God said, тс shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" The woman, likewise misquoting the com mand which she had never heard, because it had been given to the man before she was created, replied to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall yc touch it, lest yc die." Listening, however, to the tempting plea of the serpent, the woman ate of the fruit, "and gave also unto her husband with her." The record says nothing about any objections that he raised before breaking the command that had been laid upon him, but simply records the fact that "he did eat." Then the Lord God appears unto them and says to the man "Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat?" The man admitted it, and added that the woman had given it to him; and she, being asked for her reason said "The ser pent beguiled me, and I did eat." There upon the Lord God, without inquiring of the serpent and without hearing anything that it might say in its defence, punished it by decreeing "Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life; and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Then, turning to the woman, the Lord God pronounces
199
judgment against her in these words: "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy concep tion, in sorrow thou shalt bring forth chil dren; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." Then turning to the man, the Lord God said "Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I com manded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it; cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sor row shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou re turn." In these words the case is recorded. The lawyer, looking at the record from the twentieth century point of view, cannot fail to be impressed with many peculiarities and obvious differences between the method of procedure there followed and that which obtains in these days. These peculiarities are not merely to be accounted for by the fact that the story recorded is poetry of folk lore, and not a case at law : and that therefore the plea of poetic license will explain any faults in the statement of the law, applicable to the case, or in the manner in which the law is said to have been applied. The essential differences between the procedure in this case and the procedure in our own days, lies in the fact that the former reflects the administration of justice by an oriental patriarch who is Ixnmd by no law other than that which he himself creates; and who may change even the law that he him self makes according to his own will and caprice. In every age and among every people, peculiar conceptions of the Deity have arisen, each influenced by the actual condi tions of life and society prevailing. In the story of Adam and Eve, the Lord God is pictured as doing justice in the free-handed manner of the oriental patriarch; in the story of Job, written at a much later time and
