As to these alleged "difficult narratives" Mr. N. is very obscure. One might suppose that the double accounts he alleges to exist are in every case distinguished by the use of Jehovah and Elohim. This is not the case. But I suppose he uses the fact of these names being employed to establish, at least, the existence of two documents, and their use by the author of the book of Genesis, from which they are drawn. But even this is untenable ground; because, if the two documents were distinctively characterized by these two names of God, an account alleged to be drawn from one of the distinct documents would not, as it often does, employ both of these names; nor two accounts, alleged to exist because the writer copied two distinct documents, employ, both of them, only one and the same name. Such accounts cannot be referred to two distinct documents characterized by the distinct employment of each. Mr. N. slips over all this with a convenient looseness habitual with infidel objectors.
However, none of his objections on this ground (rather a favorite one with German discoverers) has the least validity. It was important, in a book addressed to Israel, to show that Jehovah, their God, was the one true supreme Elohim, the Creator, in contrast with the demon gods of the heathen. Hence, in Genesis, where creation and the ante-Israelitish history is given, we have these two names brought in together (the force of which is much lost in our English translation), or so used, as to make it clear that Jehovah is Elohim and Elohim is Jehovah, though this last was taken as a name of relationship only at the Exodus, on which we will say a few words farther on. The very creed, as I may call it, of Israel marks clearly the use of these words: אֶחׇד יְהוׇֹה אֱלחֵיגף יׅהוׇֹה יִשְׂדׇאֵל שְׁמַצ "Hear, O Israel, Jehovah, our God, is one Jehovah." "And what nation is there that hath Elohim," says Moses, "so nigh to them as Jehovah, our Elohim, is in all things that we call upon him for?" "Did ever people hear the voice of Elohim speaking out of the midst of the fire?" "Or hath Elohim assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, &c., as Jehovah, your Elohim, did for you in Egypt before your eyes? Unto thee it was sheaved, that thou mightest know that Jehovah, he is Elohim; there is none else beside him." So the people, when Elijah brought down fire from heaven, cry out, "Jehovah, he is Elohim; Jehovah, he is Elohim."
Having thus the undoubted importance of these words, let us apply this clear principle to that part of the history in which it was necessary to show that Elohim was Jehovah, the Creator, Israel's God.
I have already alluded to the creation. We have there, first, as a general history, Elohim (God) creating everything in succession; and Elohim rests. (Gen. 10:2:1-3.) Then we have Jehovah Elohim, and the particular condition of things under Him, this kind of repetition being universal in scripture history, when subjects are considered in a new light (as, if I give Benjamin's progeny as such, and Saul's royal one for example as such). I am not exactly aware of three accounts, as Mr. N. alleges, of man's creation. We have, besides Adam, a special account of Eve's creation. In this second chapter we have a detailed account of the condition and circumstances of man-the peculiar position he was placed in as lord of the creation his wife's to him-out of what he was formed-how he became a living soul: details as essential all of them, when his relationship with Jehovah Elohim was unfolded, as the historical account of Elohim's creating all things in general (among which man had his place) was in its place too.
In this there is only a perfect communication of divine truth, each thing being perfectly in its place.