As listed by renowned Bible scholar,
Richard Elliott Friedman, in
his book
The Bible With Sources Revealed, HarperOne, New York, NY, 2003
the actual writers of the “Five Books of Moses” were:
J – “For two centuries (from 922 to 722 BCE) the biblical promised-land
was divided into two kingdoms: the kingdom of Israel in the north and the
kingdom of Judah in the south. A text known as J
was composed during this period. It is called J because, from its very first
sentence, it refers to God by the proper name of YHWH (“Jahwe” in German, which
was the language of many of the founding works in this field). … J was composed by an author living in
the southern kingdom of Judah.”
(Friedman, p 3).
E – “A second text, know as E,
was composed during this same period.” (from 922 to 722 BCE) “E was composed by a priest living in
the northern kingdom of Israel. It is called E because it refers to the deity simply as God, which in the original
Hebrew is Elohim, or by the divine name El in its stories until the time of
Moses.” “…the E text developed the idea that the proper name of
God, YHWH, was not known on earth until God chose to reveal it to Moses.”
(Friedman, p. 4).
RJE – “In the year 722 BCE, the Assyrian
empire destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel. J
and E were then no longer separated by a border. These two
versions of the people’s history now existed side by side in the kingdom of
Judah. In the years that followed, someone assembled a history that used both J and E as sources. The
editor/historian who combine J and E
into a single work is known as the Redactor of JE
or RJE, for short.” (Friedman, p. 4)
P – “The third main source
is known as P because one of its central concerns is the
priesthood.” It is most likely “…that P was composed not long
after J and E were
combined—specifically, that it was produced by the Jerusalem priesthood as an
alternative to the history told in JE.
(Friedman, p. 4)
Dtn – “The final main source is known as D because it takes up most of the book of Deuteronomy. More
specifically, Deuteronomy comprises: (1) a law code that takes up chapters
12-26 known as Dtn. (Friedman, p. 5)
Dtr1 – The original, Josianic edition of the
Deuteronomistic history is called, Dtr1. (Friedman, p. 5)
Dtr2 –
The second, exilic
edition of the Deuteronomistic history is called Dtr2. (Friedman, p. 5)
R – All original sources and modifying editions were put together by an
editor into the final five-book work. This final editor is known as the
Redactor, or for short: R. (Friedman, p. 5)
Other – e.g. Other independent texts, e.g. Book of records used by R (Friedman, p. 32)
