This revolutionary change was brought about by a comparison of the layers of legislation in the later Pent. books with one another, and with the stages of Israel's religious history as revealed in the earlier historical books; from which it appeared that the laws belonging to P were later than Deut., and that their codification took place during and after, and their promulgation after, the Exile. There was hesitation at first in extending this conclusion to the narratives of P, especially those of them in Genesis and Ex. 1-11. But when the problem was fairly faced, it was perceived, not only that P in Genesis presented no obstacle to the theory, but that in many respects its narrative was more intelligible as the latest than as the oldest stratum of the book.
The chief positions at which literary criticism has arrived
with regard to Genesis are, therefore, briefly these: (1) The
oldest sources are J and E, closely parallel documents, both
dating from the best period of Hebrew literature, but distinguished
from each other by their use of the divine name,
by slight idiosyncrasies of style, and by quite perceptible
differences of representation. (2) These sources were combined
into a composite narrative (JE) by a redactor (RJE),
whose hand can be detected in several patches of a literary
complexion differing from either of his authorities. He has
done his work so deftly that it is frequently difficult, and
sometimes impossible, to sunder the documents. It is
generally held that this redaction took place before the composition
of Deut., so that a third stage in the history of the
Pent. would be represented by the symbols JE + D. (3) The
remaining source P is a product of the Exilic or post-Exilic
age, though it embodies older material. Originally an
independent work, its formal and schematic character fitted
it to be the framework of the Pentateuchal narrative; and
this has determined the procedure of the final redactor
(RJEP), by whom excerpts from JE have been used to fill up
the skeleton outline which P gave of the primitive and
patriarchal history.
The above statement will, it is hoped, suffice to put the reader in possession of the main points of the critical position occupied in the Commentary. The evidence by which they are supported will partly be given in the next four §§; but, for a full discussion of the numerous questions involved,
