reporting of similar events in fixed ways, however loosely or tightly prescribed those might be.25 The self-understood composite character of the biblical text does not affect our identification of motifs. The overarching nature of motifs, used by writers at various stages and in various strata of a composition, can all have been drawn out of this fund of commonly known literary patterns. The existence of such conventions does not preclude instances of one author’s borrowing from another or the existence