********************************************* 1.  Some isolated statements there are here also to which the historical standard may be applied.  We may call it a more accurate representation that Hebron was inhabited in the time of Abraham by the, Canaanites and Perizzites, than that the Hittites dwelt there at that time.  The latter, according to 2Samuel xxiv. 6 (Bleek, Einleitung, 4th edition, pp. 228, 597), dwelt in Coele-Syria, and according to 2Kings vii. 6, in the neihbourhood of the Aramaeans of Damascus.  The statement that the Israelites received from Pharaoh because they were shepherds the pasture-land of Goshen on the north-east frontier of Egypt and there dwelt by themselves, is to be preferred to the statement that they were settled among the Egyptians in the best part of the land, **********************************************

Our last result is still the same:  whether tried by the standard of poetry or by that of history, the Priestly Code stands both in value and in time far below the Jehovist.

VIII.III.3.  In rough strokes I have sought to place before the reader’s view the contrast between the beginning and the end of the tradition of the Hexateuch.  It would not be impossible to trace the inner development of the tradition in the intermediate stages between the two extremities.  To do this we should have to make use of the more delicate results of the process of source-sifting, and to call to our aid the hints, not numerous indeed, but important, which are to be found in Deuteronomy and in the historical and prophetical books, especially Hosea.  It would appear that legend from its very nature causes those who deal with it to strike out variations, that it cannot be represented objectively at all.  Even at the first act of reducing it to writing the discolouring influences are at work, without any violence being done to the meaning which dwells in the matter.  We can trace first of all the influence on the tradition of that specific prophetism which we are able to follow from Amos onwards.  This is least traceable in the old main source of the Jehovist, in J; and yet it is remarkable that the Asheras never occur in the worship of the patriarchs.  The second Jehovistic source, E, breathes the air of the prophets much more markedly, and shows a more advanced and thorough-going religiosity.  Significant in this view are the introduction of Abraham as a Nabi, Jacob’s burying the teraphim, the view taken of the macceba at Shechem (Jos. xxiv. 27), and above all the story of the golden calf.  The Deity appears less primitive than in J, and does not approach men in bodily form, but calls to them from heaven, or appears to them in dreams.  The religious element has become more refined, but at the same time more energetic, and has laid hold even of elements heterogeneous to itself, producing on occasion such strange mixtures as that in Genesis xxxi. 10-13.  Then the law comes in and leavens the Jehovistic