JE
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- This article is about an element in the documentary hypothesis, concerning the Torah. For other uses, see JE (disambiguation).
JE is an intermediate source text postulated by the documentary hypothesis for the Torah. It is a combination and redaction of the Jahwist (J) and Elohist (E) source texts. For the purpose of this article we accept the documentary hypothesis; see documentary hypothesis for disputes of the theory as a whole.
[edit] Nature of the JE source
JE treats God as a human-like figure, capable of regret, and appearing in person at events. JE also makes use of supernatural creatures such as angels as intermediaries, as well as mystical talking creatures, and supernatural objects. In JE, God is shown as merciful, and capable of being persuaded to change His mind.
[edit] The redactor of JE
JE was created when J and E were combined and edited together. The documentary hypothesis asserts that this occurred shortly after biblical Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians (c. 720 BCE), as a result of trying to assimilate the refugees (whose traditions and religion were asserted by the E source) into the society of Judah (whose traditions and religion were asserted by the J source).
Since the majority of each text was composed of traditions about events and people associated only with one or other nation, combining them would not cause conflict. However, where they differ, (for example one refers to the holy mountain as Sinai, and the other as Horeb), because of the presence in a general audience of both groups, neither text could be suppressed, and the differences had to be kept in order that the resulting text was generally acceptable.
It is generally considered as unknown how much of the two texts (if any) was cut to produce JE.
