disappear, but the opening stories in the book of Samuel, regarding the
great prophet whose name was given to the book, apparently come from the
pen of later disciples of this same Ephraimite group of prophets.

[Sidenote: _Later editorial supplementing and combination of the two
histories_]

The eighth and seventh centuries before Christ were periods of intense
prophetic activity both in the North and the South. It was natural,
therefore, that these early prophetic histories should be supplemented
by the disciples of the original historians. Traditions that possessed a
permanent historical or religious value, as, for example, the familiar
story of Cain and Abel (Gen. iv. 2-16), and the earlier of the two
accounts of the flood, were thus added. Also when in 722 B.C. the
northern kingdom fell and its literary heritage passed to Judah, it was
most natural that a prophetic editor, recognizing the valuable elements
in each, and the difficulties presented by the existence of the two
variant versions of the same events, should combine the two, and
furthermore that, in the days of few manuscripts, the older originals
should be lost and only the combined history survive. To-day we find
this in turn incorporated in the still later composite history extending
from Genesis through Samuel.

[Sidenote: _Method of combining_]

The later editor's method of uniting his sources is exceedingly
interesting, and is analogous in many ways to the methods followed
in the citations in Matthew and Luke from their common sources, the
original Mark and Matthew's _Sayings of Jesus_. Where the two versions
were closely parallel, as in the account of Jacob's deception of