Introduction

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the Bible was subjected to increased scrutiny by the power of reason, biblical scholars were becoming more willing to make critical judgments about the Bible as a collection of religious literary works. They began to recognize differences in literary style, words for the deity, and viewpoints. They also observed repetitions and contradictions, evident even within a few verses in the book of Genesis and certainly in other writings in the OT, as well.

Already in the first half of the eighteenth century a French doctor, Jean Astruc, detected the occurrence and reoccurrence in Genesis of two Hebrew words for God, Yahweh and Elohim, which are not used interchangeably. Sometimes the one occurs more frequently and sometimes the other does. Although Astruc still believed that Moses wrote the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), he concluded that the words represented two different sources used by Moses. Astruc designated the sources A and B. This marked the beginning of the study of sources or source criticism.

Most OT scholars today continue to subscribe to a basic theory of OT source criticism that identifies four main sources of the Pentateuch: J, E, D, and P. Each one of these has special local, national, and religious interests and particular literary styles, as well. The theory has been modified and expanded, for example, by the elimination of one source and the addition of others, and applied to books beyond the Pentateuch.