of a dual or triple unity, and that the Deity was identical in
significance with that of contemporary peoples, the priests have,
as usual, had recourse to a trick to deceive the ignorant or
uninitiated. In reference to this subject Godfrey Higgins says:
"In the second book of Genesis the creation is described not to
have been made by Aleim, or the Aleim, but by a God of a double
name Ieue Aleim; which the priests have translated Lord God. By
using the word Lord, their object evidently is to conceal from
their readers several difficulties which afterward arise
respecting the names of God and this word, and which show clearly
that the books of the Pentateuch are the writings of different
persons."[39]
[39] Anacalypsis, book ii., ch, i.
Upon this subject Bishop Colenso observes:
"And it is especially to be noted that when the Elohistic
passages are all extracted and copied one after another, they
form a complete, connected narrative; from which we infer that
these must have composed the original story, and that the other
passages were afterwards inserted by another writer, who wished
to enlarge or supplement the primary record. And he seems to
have used the compound Jehovah Aleim in the first portion of his
work in order to impress upon the reader that Jehovah, of whom he
goes on to speak in the later portions, is the same Great Being
who is called simply Elohim by the older writer, and notably in
the first account of the creation."[40]
[40] Lectures on the Pentateuch and the Moabite Stone, p. 7.
We are informed by Bunsen that El, or Elohim, comprehends the
true significance of the Deity among all the Aramaic or
Canaanitish races, El representing the abstract principle taken
collectively, Elohim pertaining to the separate elements as
Creator, Preserver, and Regenerator. Each of these Canaanitish
races had inherited these ideas from their fathers, and, although
they had become grossly idolatrous, "Moses knew, and educated
Israelites remained a long time conscious, that they used them
not merely in their real but in their most ancient sense."[41]
Maurice and other writers call attention to the fact that Moses
himself uses this word Elohim with verbs and adjectives in the
plural. That the God worshipped by the more ancient peoples,
namely Aleim, or Elohim, the same who said, "Let us make man in
our image," was not the Lord adored at a later age by the Jews,
