§ 9. Characteristics of J and E—their relation to Literary Prophecy.
It is not the purpose of this section to give an exhaustive characterisation of the literary or general features of the two older documents of Genesis. If J and E are to be regarded as, in the main, recensions of a common body of oral tradition, and if they are the work of schools rather than of individuals, it is obvious that the search for characteristic differences loses much of its interest; and in point of fact the attempt to delineate two well-defined literary types is apt to be defeated by the widely contrasted features which have to find a place in one and the same picture. Our object here is simply to specify some outstanding differences which justify the separation of sources, and which may assist us later to determine the relative ages of the two documents.
J presents, on the whole, a more uniform literary texture than E. It is generally allowed to contain the best examples of pure narrative style in the OT; and in Genesis it rarely, if ever, falls below the highest level. But while E hardly attains the same perfection of form, there are whole passages, especially in the more ample narratives, in which it is difficult to assign to the one a superiority over the other. J excels in picturesque 'objectivity' of description,—in the power to paint a scene with few strokes, and in the delineation of life and character: his dialogues, in particular, are inimitable "for the delicacy and truthfulness with which character and emotions find expression in them" (cf. Gn. 4418ff.).[1] E, on the other hand, frequently strikes a deeper vein of subjective feeling, especially of pathos; as in the account of Isaac's sacrifice (22), of the expulsion of Hagar (218ff.), the dismay of Isaac and the tears of Esau on the discovery of Jacob's fraud (2735ff.), Jacob's lifelong grief for Rachel (487), or his tenderness towards Joseph's children (4814).[2] But here again no absolute distinction can be drawn; in the history of Joseph, e.g., the vein of pathos is perhaps more marked in J than
