Between these limits, there is little to guide us to a more precise determination. General considerations, such as the tone of political feeling, the advanced conception of God, and traces of the influence of 9th-century prophecy, seem to us to point to the later part of the period, and in particular to the brilliant reign of Jeroboam II. (785-745), as the most likely time of composition.[1] In J there is no unequivocal allusion to the divided kingdom; and nothing absolutely prevents us from putting its date as early as the reign of Solomon. The sense of national solidarity and of confidence in Israel's destiny is even more marked than in E; and it has been questioned, not without reason, whether such feelings could have animated the breast of a Judæan in the dark days that followed the dissolution of Solomon's empire.[2] That argument is not greatly to be trusted: although the loss of the northern provinces was keenly felt in Judah (Is. 717), yet the writings of Isaiah show that there was plenty of flamboyant patriotism there in the 8th cent., and we cannot tell how far in the intervening period religious idealism was able to overcome the depression natural to a feeble and dependent state, and keep alive the sense of unity and the hope of reunion with the larger Israel of the north. In any case, it is improbable that J and E are separated by an interval of two centuries; if E belongs to the first half of the 8th cent., J will hardly be earlier than the 9th.[3]
Specific historical allusions which have been thought to indicate a
more definite date for J (or E) prove on examination to be unreliable.
If 3144ff. 4923ff. contained references to the wars between Israel and Aram
under Omri and his successors, it would be necessary to bring the date
of both documents down to that time; but Gunkel has shown that interpretation
to be improbable.—2740b presupposes the revolt of Edom from
Judah (c. 840); but that prosaic half-verse is probably an addition to
the poetic passage in which it occurs, and therefore goes to show that
the blessing itself is earlier, instead of later, than the middle of the
9th cent.—The curse on Canaan (925ff.) does not necessarily assume
the definite subjugation of the Canaanites by Israel; and if it did, would
