Stories of this kind compel
attention because they set forth the peculiarities of different
peoples as historically and really related to each other, not
according to an empty embryological relation. It is the temper
displayed by different races, not the stem of their relationship,
that makes the point of the stories; their charm and their very
life depend on their being transparent and reflecting the historic
attitude of the time which gave them birth. The clearer the traces
they display of love and hatred, jealousy of rivals and joy in
their fall, the nearer are we to the forces which originated the
tradition about early times. In the Priestly Code all those
stories are absent in which there is anything morally objectionable,--
those for example in which the cowardice of the patriarchs
endangers the honour of their wives, those of Sarah's cruel
jealousy of Hagar, and of the unlovely contention of Leah and
Rachel for husband and children, of the incest of Lot's
daughters, of the violation of Dinah. All hatred, and strife,
and deceit in the patriarchal family disappear: Lot and Abraham,
Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, agree to separate: of the
tricks of Laban and Jacob to each other, of the treachery of
Simeon and Levi to Shechem, of the enmity Joseph's brethren bore
to him, there is not a word in the Priestly Code.
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