I know, I know, this seems like a lot of introductory material. Don't worry, Asimov has a little meat to chew on towards the end of this installment. In any event, when we last left you, we were still introducing this book, perhaps the most famous and influential one in the history of mankind, as if it were some obscure document you never heard of. This is more of the same.
This section is an overview of the contents of the OT: the history, law, lives of the rich and poor, poetry and prose literature. It's all in there. More discussion of the various versions of the OT over time and again, it bored me. Take a class if you would like more information.
Asimov talks about the term "Lord God", which first appears in Genesis 2, which is a second version of the creation. In there first version in Genesis 1, the Creator was referred to as "God", now why "Lord God"? The Creator in Genesis is "YHVH", which many pronounce as "Yahweh", who is the specific Deity name in Genesis 2. The ancients considered the ability to pronounce a name as giving one power over the one name, so the Jews may have avoided ever referringdirectly to the Creator as YHVH.
As Genesis appears to be an edited work from several sources, the difference in how the Creator is named in Genesis 1 and 2 may reflect how different groups of Jews may have referred to the Creator. Since the editor could have reasonably assumed that his reader would know to who he is referring to, he did not see a need to use one consistent term for YHVH when compiling Genesis. Sounds reasonable to me.
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