A Tank of Tetra(grammaton)

I’m confused: Why can’t E, not P, be credited with writing the first creation story?

The word Yahweh (יהוה) first appears in the Hebrew Bible in Genesis 2.4, where it is translated in the NSRV as “LORD God.” This is the second creation story. The tetragrammaton Yahweh is said to appear in the Hebrew Bible almost 7,000 times. 

The preceding reference to a divine creator, in the first creation story, is the word Elohim (אלהים), which the NSRV translates simply as “God.”

The rather enigmatic word Yahweh was introduced to Moses in Exodus 3.13-15. Ironically, however, Genesis 4.26 tells us that the word Yahweh came into popular parlance around the time of Adam’s great grandson Enosh.

The Exodus itself may have happened in the 15^th century BCE, well later than the 41^st century BCE when the Earth may have been created by God, according to Coogan’s biblical chronology. [It’s worth noting that other estimates for the age of Earth by biblical standards range quite widely.]

The idea the word Yahweh was not known to humans before the time of Moses implies the second creation story in Genesis 2.4b-24 could not have been written before the 15th century BCE and most probably was written in the 5^th century BCE, about the time Exodus was written. [At least that's what some scholars contend.]

What does this say about the so-called first creation story in Genesis 1.1-2.4a?

We understand from Coogan and other sources that the J source, identified in part by its use of the word Yahweh, dates back to the mid 10^th century BCE while the E source, identified in part by its use of the word Elohim, dates back to the mid 9^th century. Their respective attractions to the words Yahweh and Elohim would seem to indicate that E wrote the first creation story and J wrote the second creation story. So far, so good.

But the P source, also known for using the word Elohim and which also dates to the time of Exile, is credited by Coogan and others with crafting the first creation story. On what basis does P get credit and not E?

God is a remote character for both P and E. The argument that northern E source material was truncated when it was merged with southern J material also does not explain why E cannot be credited with authorship of the first creation story.

The following statement by Coogan does nothing to answer the question: “Because P was the final editor of the already existing sources, the first chapter of the Pentateuch (Gen 1) is P, and its last chapter (Deut 34) is also largely P; P has thus framed the Torah.” This statement takes a priori P's authorship.

It has been noted that one difference between P and E is that P uses other words for God, especially words compounded with El such as El Shadday, El Elyon, El Olam, El Roi and El Bethel. But, yet again, that observation is not applicable to the creation stories.

Somewhere I’m missing a piece. There must be something about the first creation story that necessarily links it to the Priestly source and not the Elohim source, but I don’t see what it is.