The book of Genesis in the Hebraic Bible begins the creation story of
             the world, rather than specifically of the nation of Israel or the Israeli
             people. Unlike the Exodus narrative, which often takes up the bulk of
             Biblical and historical scriptural criticism of the Hebraic Bible, the
             first two books of Exodus detail not a moment of dated time, but indeed
             before such dates' could occur. But even from the beginnings of this
             narrative of origins, Genesis' first two books contain a dual perspective,
             or two dueling authorships that the redactor, or editor, later attempted to
             combine in a seamless whole. (Friedman, 1997)
             The first viewpoint or authorial voice heard in Genesis, as expressed
             along the general lines of the documentary hypothesis of Biblical
             authorship, is that of "E" or Elohim. The author "E" is the epic source
             whose stories always refer to God by the name 'Elohim'. According to
             Richard Friedman, is thought that this author's collection of tales emerged
             from the northern kingdom of Israel. "E" as an author is generally more
             concerned with the philosophical and theological content of the stories he
             relates than the personalities of the individuals involved. (Friedman,
             In contrast, the other of these two epic sources, the name is taken
             from the name of God, that of "J" from "YHVH," (The letter 'J' comes from
             the erroneous German Christian rendering of Yod-He-Vav-He, the name of God,
             as Jehovah, according to the website on the "Documentary Hypothesis.") J'
             as an author was thought to have emerged from Judah, the southern Kingdom,
             after the civil war in which Israel split into two kingdoms, that of Israel
             in the north, and Judea in the south. In contrast to "E" "J" tends to take
             a more personalized, storytelling approach to the tales of the Bible. This
             is why "J", some (like the University of Chicago literary critic Howard
             Bloom) have speculated, wa...