Genesis Vol 3.pdf - College Press

2O:l-21:34 GENESIS
dismissal from the land; in the second, an invitation to stay
in the land. We are compelled, therefore, to reverse the
critical verdict: ‘it is impossible to doubt that the two are
variants of the same tradition.’ We have here two distinct,
though similar, events,”
Haley (ADB, 26) : “A favorite exegetical principle
adopted by some of these critics appears to be, that similar
events are necessarily ideniical. Hence, when they read
that Abraham twice equivocated concerning his wife ; that
Isaac imitated his example; that David was twice in peril
in a certain wilderness, and twice spared Saul’s life in a
cave, they instantly assume that in each Case these double
narratives are irreconcilable accounts of one and the same
event. The absurdity of such a canon of criticism is obvi-
ous from the fact that history is ful2 of events which. more
or less closely resemble one another. Take, as a well-known
example the case of the two Presidents Edwards, father and
son. Both were named Jonathan Edwards, and were the
grandsons of clergymen. ‘Both were pious in their youth,
were distinguished scholars, and were tutors for equal
periods in the colleges where they were respectively edu-
cated. Both were settled in the ministry as successors to
their maternal grandfathers, were dismissed on account of
their religious opinions, and again settled in retired country
towns, over congregations singularly attached to them,
where they had leisure to pursue their favorite studies,
and to prepare and publish their valuable works. Both
were removed from these stations to become presidents of
colleges, and both died shortly after their respective in-
augurations; the one in the fifty-sixth, and the other in
the fifty-seventh year of his age; each having preached,
on the first Sabbath of the year of his death, on the-text:
‘This year thou shalt die.’” (From Memoir prefixed to
the Words of Edwards the younger, p. 34. Cf. also 1 Sam.
23:19, 26:l; 1 Sam. 24:6, 26:9, with Gen. 12:19, 20:2,
26:7.) Haley (ibid, 27, n.): “Observe that no one of the
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