1. When we interrogate the contents of the former
work (J) for information about the time of its origin, so
much is clear, viz. that in dealing with it we are not
carried up beyond the years of the early monarchy.
Features such as the relation of the twin brothers
Esau and Jacob--which really belong to the substance
and essence of the ancestral legend--could only have
taken shape first during or after the reign of David,
and have been transferred to the historic Israel
respectively, although they were of prehistoric origin:
the mould and form in which the tradition is cast,
agreeing as these do in the shape in which they are
given to us in J and E, cannot possibly be older than
the time of David; and as a certain time for the oral
development of the tradition and its familiarisation
in the consciousness of the people must be allowed
for before it could have found literary embodiment
in works of such classical beauty as J, the oldest
written recitals of the primitive history that have
been preserved to us will not have emanated directly
from the earliest time immediately subsequent to

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