rich variety of life and incident which characterises the Yahwistic sections, viz.: 1. The Creation and Fall of Man (24b-324); 2. Cain and Abel (41-16; 3. The Genealogy of Cain (417-24); 4. A fragmentary Sethite Genealogy (425f. . . . 529 . . .); 5. The marriages with divine beings (61-4); 6. An account of the Flood (65-822 *[not FN anchor; see pr. page]); 7. Noah's Curse and Blessing (920-27); 8. A Table of Peoples (10 *); 9. The Tower of Babel (111-9); 10. A fragment of the Genealogy of Terah (1128-30). Here we have a whole gallery of varied and graphic pictures, each complete in itself and essentially independent of the rest, arranged in a loosely chronological order, and with perhaps a certain unity of conception, in so far as they illustrate the increasing wickedness that accompanied the progress of mankind in civilisation. Even the genealogies are not (like those of P) bare lists of names and figures, but preserve incidental notices of new social or religious developments associated with particular personages (417. 20-22. 26 529), besides other allusions to a more ancient mythology from which the names have been drawn (419. 22. 23f.).
Composition of J.—That a narrative composed of so many separate
and originally independent legends should present discrepancies and
discontinuities is not surprising, and is certainly by itself no proof of
literary diversity. At the same time there are many indications that
J is a composite work, based on older collections of Hebrew traditions,
whose outlines can still be dimly traced. (1) The existence of two
parallel genealogies (Cainite and Sethite) at once suggests a conflate
tradition. The impression is raised almost to certainty when we find
that both are derived from a common original (p. 138 f.). (2) The Cainite
genealogy is incompatible with the Deluge tradition. The shepherds,
musicians, and smiths, whose origin is traced to the last three members
of the genealogy, are obviously not those of a bygone race which perished
in the Flood, but those known to the author and his contemporaries
(p. 115 f.). (3) Similarly, the Table of Nations and the story of the
Confusion of Tongues imply mutually exclusive explanations of the
diversities of language and nationality: in one case the division proceeds
slowly and naturally on genealogical lines, in the other it takes place
by a sudden interposition of almighty power. (4) There is evidence
that the story of the Fall was transmitted in two recensions (p. 52 f.).
If Gunkel be right, the same is true of J's Table of Peoples, and of the
account of the Dispersion; but there the analysis is less convincing.
(5) In 426 we read that Enosh introduced the worship of Yahwe. The
analogy of Ex. 62f. (P) affords a certain presumption that the author of
such a statement will have avoided the name (
Hebrew characters) up to this point; and
as a matter of fact (Hebrew characters) occurs immediately before in v.25. It is true
that the usage is observed in no earlier Yahwistic passage except 31-5,
where other explanations might be thought of. But throughout chs. 2
and 3 we find the very unusual compound name (Hebrew characters), and it is a
plausible conjecture that one recension of the Paradise story was distinguished
by the use of Elohim, and that Yahwe was inserted by a
harmonising Yahwistic editor (so Bu. Gu. al.: see p. 53).
To what precise extent these phenomena are due to documentary differences is a question that requires to be handled with the utmost caution and discrimination. It is conceivable that a single author
