I must here refer to a very ingenious theory concerning the matter in hand, which was propounded not long ago by A. Bernstein.[685] He imagines the differentiation of the mass of Hebrew stories to have been such that the story of Abraham, the Patriarch of Hebron, belongs to the Southern kingdom, whilst that of Jacob, the Patriarch of Beth-el, was produced by the political tendencies of the Northern realm. Before these more recent stories he supposes the oldest of the Patriarchal stories, which was connected with the worship at Beer-sheba, to have existed, but to have been afterwards obscured by the later legend about Abraham. Bernstein leaves these stories of political tendency to fight it out together, and entangles them in the antagonism between North and South, until at last after the disappearance of the opposition they become common property and are blended together. Although from what has been said there appears to be no question but that in the treatment of the legendary matter, the political situation was no insignificant factor, yet it is impossible to set up the three Patriarchs as products of mere political tendencies. For we have proved that the origin of their names goes back to the very earliest age when myths were first created. No doubt this or that feature in the _tout ensemble_ of the story took a different character according as it was handed down by the inhabitants of the Northern or of the Southern kingdom; and sensible interpreters have long paid particular attention to these differences. But the names are not later _inventions_ or fictions; they are primeval, and among the oldest elements of the Hebrew language; and, similarly, the most prominent features of the stories, derived from the ancient myth, are free from all that national or political tendency which attached itself in much later times to the ancient material.