And so it goes on...
And so it goes on. The two entire creation texts (Genesis 1:1-2:4a and 2:4b-25) balance one another over and over, but the second keeps moving down to earth. In the first text, humankind is transcendent, in God’s image; in the second, is made of clay. The relationship between the panels is sometimes tense, deeply dialogical. The dialogue is not an afterthought. Both elements are indispensable.
This tension can be perplexing. Jean Astruc, a prestigious medical man who studied the Bible, misdiagnosed it disastrously. He read the variation in the naming of God (“God”, and “Yahweh God”) as a reflection of two diverse sources, and he read other tensions as confirming his diagnosis.
Astruc was guarded in his conclusions---he called his book Conjectures (1753) ---but the effect was serious. The biblical books began to be divided into imaginary diverse sources; and the positive aspect of tension---the power and purpose of dialogical writing---became obscured or sometimes lost.
The division into imaginary sources, especially into the main four (indicated by the letters J, E, D and P), corresponded to real features of the text, but while the features are real and important, the imaginary sources have caused great confusion. They have caused far more problems than they have solved. One of the negative side-effects of dwelling on imaginary sources is that the possible relationship to existing texts sources has been neglected.
There is initial evidence that what is true of Genesis---composition in paired panels---is true also of other biblical books. For details and references see Thomas L. Brodie, Genesis as Dialogue (Oxford University Press, 2001).