quote:
But J&E were not creating new material. They were recording older oral tales and those tales form the basis for much of the OT.
You assume. You have no way of knowing how much was folk tale and how much was their own creation.
Then when J&E were merged, again you don't know how much was from each and how much was the creation of the author.
quote:
Much of Genesis could be retitled "Tales of the Founding Fathers". It is a history of defining a people.
The completed work that we see today was trying to define a people, bringing all the exiles together.
At a time when J&E were separate, I don't feel that the purpose of the stories were used to define a people, it was just their oral stories as passed down and changed with each teller of the tale. You would need to show me that the intent of individual folk tales are to define a people.
During and after the exile, the author needed to bring the remnants back together. After the exile is when the combined product was given authority by King Artaxerxes (Ezra 7:21-26). Thisis when they truly needed to define themselves as a people.
"The average man does not know what to do with this life, yet wants another one which lasts forever." --Anatole France