If human thought is
regarded as fundamentally qualitative and valuational, if it involves a grasp of meaning and significance that can not be completely formalized, then it may not be possible to
duplicate human technical reason in a purely mechanical system.
It has been aptly remarked that, for example, the Yahwist's «editing» is hardly more than the placing of accents of refinement on the story in the use, say of the name Yahweh where earlier some amorphous term for deity stood in the story.8 And in the formation of JP it is obvious that editors
regard it
as essential that the distinctive forms of both existent flood accounts, for example, be retained, a fact accounting for present «discrepancies» in the tale in the form of
duplicates and contradictions.9