At some point there was a desire to separate, and in that process of identity formation, a polemic began to develop that created Yahweh in a distinct way, differentiated from the Canaanite deities.

某些时候，有非常强烈的分离的愿望，在这个过程中，也就形成了他们自己的身份，塑造截然不同的耶和华这一理论便开始发展，要与迦南的众神有所差别。

耶鲁公开课 - 旧约导论课程节选

But they also serve another very important function, and that was the formation and maintenance of a differentiated ethnic identity or in Priestly parlance, the formation and maintenance of a holy peoples separated out from other nations by rules that mark her as God's people.

但是它们也有另外一个很重要的功能，这个功能形成并维护了,一个分化的种族身份，或者用神职人员的说法，这些规则促使了神圣民族的形成和保持,这个民族和其他的城邦区别开来，被标记为上帝的子民。

耶鲁公开课 - 旧约导论课程节选