Literary Unity

A. Literary Unity

Table 1.3 displays that the Yahwist supplies the bulk of the Primeval Story--almost everything except for the first creation story, parts of the flood story, and the covenant with Noah. For these, the Priestly writer had his own traditions, which supplement the Yahwist core narrative.

Table 1.3 Literary Sources of the Primeval Story

Genesis 1-11	Yahwist (J)	Priestly (P)
1:1-2:4a		World creation
2:4b-25	Creation of humanity
3:1-24	Garden of Eden
4:1-16	Cain and Abel
4:17-26	Cain's generations
5		Adam's genealogy
6:1-4	Sons of God
6:5-8	Reason for flood-1
6:9-13		Reason for flood-2
6:14-7:24	Flood (J + P)	Flood (J + P)
8	Re-Creation (J + P)	Re-Creation (J + P)
9:1-17		God's covenant with Noah
9:18-27	Noah's insobriety
10	Table of Nations (J + P)	Table of Nations (J + P)
11:1-9	Tower of Babel
11:10-26		Shem's genealogy
11:27-32		Terah's genealogy

Table 1.L is a content outline of Genesis 1-11. For a comprehensive literary source analysis see Table 1.M The sources of the Primeval Story.

    The Yahwist source contributed the core of the Primeval Story, which details human failings. The Priestly source contributed its own versions of the creation and flood stories, as well as most of the genealogical material, but had a different agenda in his primeval stories. His creation and flood stories do not deal with the problem of sin but present the gift of divine blessing. The Elohist source, found elsewhere in Genesis through Numbers, is not present here at all. An exilic Priestly editor skillfully combined the Yahwist and Priestly sources and used genealogical material to give the chain of stories historical connectedness, inserting a variety of transitional phrases and sentences.