Scholarly argument disputing the traditional claim that the Pentateuch was authored by Moses and holding instead that it was originally composed as at least four separate documents and later redacted (Lat., "reduced to order"). The four documentary strands are labeled for its use of the tetragrammaton Yhvh (spelled with a J in German); for its use of Elohim; for the priestly literature; and for the Deuteronomic history.
A theory first proposed during the nineteenth century that refuted the notion of Mosaic authorship of the Torah. It argued that the Torah is composed of four basic levels or documents developed over a long period of time, much later than when Moses was thought to have lived.
The modern scholarly hypothesis that the Torah was written by four distinct authors, identified as J (for "Jehovah"), E (for "Elohim"), P (for "Priestly"), and D (for "Deuternomist"). A fifth, believed to be the editor of the other authors' works, is known as the "Redactor."
The hypothesis that the Pentateuch was constructed out of four independent and complete documents: J (the “Yahwist”), E (the “Elohist”), P (the “Priestly” source), and D (the core of Deuteronomy).
Scholarly hypothesis suggesting that the Torah/Pentateuch was not the work one author, such as Moses, but is a composition based on four documents from different periods: J (the Yahwist) from about 950 B.C.E., E (the Elohist) from about 850, D (Deuteronomy) from about 620, and P (the Priestly document) from about 550.450 J and E were combined around 720, D was added about a century later, and P about a century after that, giving final shape to the Torah. See Part 1.
developed by German Biblical scholar Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918), a theory that the Torah is a composite of material that was assembled and edited over a considerable length of time into the form that we know today as the Pentateuch or Torah. According to the hypothesis, the material comes from four independent literary sources (each with a distinctive style) that are identified as ("Yahwist"), ("Elohist"), ("Deuteronomist") and ("Priestly"). See these individual entries for further details.
The documentary hypothesis proposes that the Five Books of Moses (the Torah, or first five books of the Old Testament) represent a combination of documents from four major identifiable sources dating from various periods between the early 8th and late 5th centuries BC.