William Robertson Smith and Thomas Kelly Cheyne

“ His interpretation of the creation of Eve is, as has been already observed, plainly suggested by a Platonic myth. The longing for reunion which love implants in the divided halves of the original dual man is the source of sensual pleasure (symbolized by the serpent) , which in turn is the beginning of all transgression. Eve represents the sensuous or perceptive part of man’s nature, Adam the reason. The serpent, therefore, does not venture to attack Adam directly. It is sense which yields to pleasure, and in turn enslaves the reason and destroys its immortal virtue. ”

“ In the book of Joel there are only scanty allusions to Phoenicians, Philistines, Egypt and Edom, couched in terms applicable to very different ages, while the prophet’s own people are exhorted to repentance without specific reference to any of those national sins of which other prophets speak. The occasion of the prophecy, described with great force of rhetoric, is no known historical event, but a plague of locusts, perhaps repeated in successive seasons; and even here there are features in the description which have led many expositors to seek an allegorical interpretation. ”

“ The king is not mentioned—which on Credner’s view is explained by assuming that the plague fell in the minority of Joash, when the priest Jehoiada held the reins of power—and the princes, councillors and warriors necessary to an independent state, and so often referred to by the prophets before the exile, are altogether lacking. The nation has only a municipal organization with a priestly aristocracy, precisely the state of things that prevailed under the Persian empire. That the Persians do not appear as enemies of Yahweh and his people is perfectly natural. ”

“ How is it, he asks, that a man is so irresistibly drawn towards a woman? And he answers: Because the first woman was built up out of a rib of the first man. At the same time it is plain that the already existing tendency towards monogamy must have been powerfully assisted by this presentation of Eve’s story as well as by the prophetic descriptions of Yahweh’s relation to Israel under the figure of a monogamous union. ”

“ Such a theory does no justice to a narrative which embodies profound truths peculiar to the religion of revelation. Other forms of the so-called mythical interpretation are little more than abstract allegory in a new guise, ignoring the fact that the biblical story does not teach general truths which repeat themselves in every individual, but gives a view of the purpose of man’s creation, and of the origin of sin, in connexion with the divine plan of redemption. ”

“ In the first the prophet speaks in his own name, addressing himself to the people in a lively description of a present calamity caused by a terrible plague of locusts which threatens the entire destruction of the country, and appears to be the vehicle of a final consuming judgment (the day of Yahweh) . There is no hope save in repentance and prayer; and in ch. ii. 12 the prophet, speaking now for the first time in Yahweh’s name, calls the people to a solemn fast at the sanctuary, and invites the intercession of the priests. ”

“ In Joel the enemies of Israel are the nations collectively, and among those specified by name neither Assyria nor Chaldaea finds a place. This circumstance might, if it stood alone, be explained by placing Joel with Zephaniah in the brief interval between the decline of the empire of Nineveh and the advance of the Babylonians. But it is further obvious that Joel has no part in the internal struggle between spiritual Yahweh-worship and idolatry which occupied all the prophets from Amos to the captivity. ”

“ In the time of Amos the slaves collected by Philistines and Tyrians were sold en masse to Edom, and presumably went to Egypt or Arabia. Joel complains that they were sold to the Grecians (Javan, Ionians) . [2] It is probable that some Hebrew and Syrian slaves were exported to the Mediterranean coasts from a very early date, and Isa. xi. 11 already speaks of Israelites captive in these districts as well as in Egypt, Ethiopia and the East. ”

“ Those who recognize this fact ought not to call themselves or be called by others adherents of the mythical theory, although they also recognize that in the nature of things the divine truths brought out in the history of the creation and fall could not have been expressed either in the form of literal history or in the shape of abstract metaphysical doctrine ”

“ With this the whole standpoint of the prophecy agrees. To Joel Judah and the people of Yahweh are synonyms; northern Israel has disappeared. Now it is true that those who take their view of the history from Chronicles, where the kingdom of Ephraim is always treated as a sect outside the true religion, can reconcile this fact with an early date. But in ancient times it was not so; and under Joash, the contemporary of Elisha, such a limitation of the people of Yahweh is wholly inconceivable. The earliest prophetic books have a quite different standpoint ”

“ The last argument might be inverted with much greater probability, and numerous points of contact between Joel and other parts of the Old Testament (e.g. Joel ii. 2, Exod. x. 14; Joel ii. 3, Ezek. xxxvi. 35; Joel iii. 10, Mic. iv. 3) make it not incredible that the purity of his style—which is rather elegant than original and strongly marked—is in large measure the fruit of literary culture. The absence of allusion to a hostile or oppressing empire may be fairly taken in connexion with the fact that the prophecy gives no indication of political life at Jerusalem. ”

“ And he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its stead, and the rib which Yahweh-Elohim had taken from the man he built up into a Creation
of Eve.woman, and he brought her to the man.” Enchanted at the sight, the man now burst out into elevated, rhythmic speech: “This one,” he said, “at length is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh,” &c.; to which the narrator adds the comment, “Therefore doth a man forsake his father and his mother, and cleave to his wife, and they become one flesh (body) .” ”

“ The worshippers of Yahweh on Zion shall be delivered (cf. Obad. v. 17, whose words Joel expressly quotes in ch. ii. 32) , and it is their heathen enemies, assembled before Jerusalem to war against Yahweh, who shall be mowed down in the valley of Jehoshaphat (“Yahweh judgeth”) by no human arm, but by heavenly warriors. ”

“ Again, the significant fact that there is no mention of a king and princes, but only of sheikhs and priests, has a force not to be invalidated by the ingenious reference of the book to the time of Joash’s minority and the supposed regency of Jehoiada. ”

“ There is an analogous Iranian legend of the true man, which parted into man and woman in the Bundahish [4] (the Parsí Genesis) , and an Indian legend, which, according to Spiegel, has presumably an Iranian source. ”