It would
appear that legend from its very nature causes those who deal with
it to strike out variations, that it cannot be represented
objectively at all. Even at the first act of reducing it to
writing the discolouring influences are at work, without any
violence being done to the meaning which dwells in the matter.
We can trace first of all the influence on the tradition of that
specific prophetism which we are able to follow from Amos onwards.
This is least traceable in the old main source of the Jehovist,
in J; and yet it is remarkable that the Asheras never occur in
the worship of the patriarchs. The second Jehovistic source, E,
breathes the air of the prophets much more markedly, and shows a
more advanced and thorough-going religiosity. Significant in this
view are the introduction of Abraham as a Nabi, Jacob's burying the
teraphim, the view taken of the macceba at Shechem (Jos. xxiv.
27), and above all the story of the golden calf. The Deity
appears less primitive than in J, and does not approach men in
bodily form, but calls to them from heaven, or appears to them in
dreams. The religious element has become more refined, but at the
same time more energetic, and has laid hold even of elements
heterogeneous to itself, producing on occasion such strange
mixtures as that in Genesis xxxi.
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