The two narratives, Elohistic and Jehovistic, distinguished both by the different names of God, and by a number of other peculiarities, run almost side by side through a great part of the earlier portion of the Old Testament, presenting often flagrant contradictions. Thus Lamech, the father of Noah, is represented in one as a descendant of Cain, in the other of Seth. Canaan is in one the grandson of Adam, in the other the grandson of Noah. The Elohist says that Noah took two of each sort of living things, a male and a female, into the ark; the Jehovist that he took seven pairs of clean, and single pairs of unclean animals. The difference between these narratives, the Elohistic and Jehovistic, is, however, only the first and most obvious instance of the composite character of the Pentateuch. These narratives are distinguished from one another by a number of minute peculiarities of language and expressions, and they are both embedded in a much larger mass of matter which relates mainly to the sacrificial and ceremonial system of the Israelites, and to the position, privileges, and functions of the priests and priestly caste of Levites. This is commonly known as the "Priests' Code," and a great deal of it is obviously of late date, having relation to practices and ceremonies which had gradually grown up after the foundation of the Temple at Jerusalem. A vast amount of erudition has been expended in the minute analysis of these different documents by learned scholars who have devoted their lives to the subject. I shall not attempt to enter upon it, but content myself with taking the main results from Canon Driver, both because he is thoroughly competent from his knowledge of the latest foreign criticism and from his position as Professor of Hebrew, and because he cannot be suspected of any adverse leaning to the old orthodox views. In fact he is a strenuous advocate of the inspiration of the Bible, taken in the larger sense of a religious and moral purpose underlying the often mistaken and conflicting statements of fallible writers. The conclusions at which he arrives, in common with a great majority of competent critics in all countries, are-- 1. That the old orthodox belief that the Pentateuch is one work written by Moses is quite untenable. 2. That the Pentateuch and Book of Joshua have been formed by the combination of different _layers_ of narrative, each marked by characteristic features of its own. 3. That the Elohistic and Jehovistic narratives, which are the oldest portion of the collection, have nothing archaic in their style, but belong to the golden period of Hebrew literature, the date assigned to them by most critics being not earlier than the eighth or ninth century B.C., though of course they may be founded partly on older legends and traditions; and, on the other hand, they contain many passages which could only have been introduced by some post-exilic editor.