3. The patriarchs as individuals.—We come, in the last place, to consider the probability that the oral tradition, through its own inherent tenacity of recollection, may have retained some true impression of the events to which it refers. After what has been said, it is vain to expect that a picture true in every detail will be recoverable from popular tales current in the earliest ages of the monarchy. The course of oral tradition has been too long, the disturbing influences to which it has been exposed have been too numerous and varied, and the subsidiary motives which have grafted themselves on to it too clearly discernible, to admit of the supposition that more than a substantial nucleus of historic fact can have been preserved in the national memory of Israel. It is not, however, unreasonable to believe that such a historical nucleus exists; and that with care we may disentangle from the mass of legendary accretions some elements of actual reminiscence of the prehistoric movements which determined the subsequent development of the national life.[1] It is true that in this region we have as a rule only subjective impressions to guide us; but in the absence of external criteria a subjective
- ↑ Cf. Winckler, KAT3, 204: "Es ist nämlich immer wahrscheinlicher, dass ein grosses für die Entwicklung des Volkes massgebend gewordenes Ereigniss in seiner Geschlossenheit dem Gedächtniss besser verhalten blebit als die Einzelheiten seines Herganges."
formed. He hints at a solution, which has been adopted in principle by Meyer (INS, 127 ff., 415, 433), and which if verified would relieve some difficulties, archæological and other. It is that two independent accounts of the origin of the nation are preserved: the Genesis-tradition, carrying the ancestry of the people back to the Aramæans, and the Exodus-tradition, which traces the origin of the nation no further than Moses and the Exodus. There are indications that in an earlier phase of the patriarchal tradition the definitive conquest of Canaan was carried back to Jacob and his sons (chs. 34. 38. 4822); on Meyer's view this does not necessarily imply that the narratives refer to a time subsequent to Joshua. A kernel of history may be recognised in both strands of tradition, on the assumption (not in itself a violent one) that only a section of Israel was in Egypt, and came out under Moses, while the rest remained in Palestine. The extension of the Exodus-tradition to the whole people was a natural effect of the consolidation of the nation; and this again might give rise to the story of Jacob's migration to Egypt, with all his sons.]
