Each of his narratives may be understood by itself apart from
the rest; the genealogy serves merely to string them together;
their interest and significance is not derived from the connection
in which they stand. Many of them have a local colour which
bespeaks a local origin; and how many of them are in substance
inconsistent with each other, and stand side by side only by
compulsion! The whole literary character and loose connection of
the Jehovist story of the patriarchs reveals how gradually its
different elements were brought together, and how little they
have coalesced to a unity. In this point the patriarchal history
of the Jehovist, stands quite on the same footing with his legend
of the origins of the human race, the nature of which we have
already demonstrated.
VIII.II.2. It is from the Jehovistic form of the legends that we
derive our picture of the patriarchs, that picture which children
learn at school and which they find it easy to retain. To compare
the parallel of the Priestly Code it is necessary to restore it as
a whole, for few are aware of the impression it produces.
"And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed out of
Haran.
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