According to , the Genesis account is meant to present certain principles of faith that set the Israelite religion apart from the paganism of neighboring nations.
This is Sarna's view as well on the Israelite religion as a whole.
External influences on the Israelite religion occurred solely prior to the time of Moses.
Kaufmann summed up his position in these words: "Israelite religion was an original creation of the people of Israel.
Kaufmann regards the non-prophetic parts of scripture as reflecting an earlier stage of the Israelite religion.
These writings depict Israelite religion from its beginnings to about the 2nd Century BC.
It was thus a counterbalance to the idolatrous nature of Israelite religion.
As a result, the Jebusite cult exerted considerable influence on Israelite religion.
A contribution to the prehistory of Israelite religion'.
By the 1930s, historians who accepted the basic premises of multiple authorship had come to reject the idea of an orderly evolution of Israelite religion.
