Footnote 3 – Moses

According to the documentary hypothesis, the Pentateuch consists of at least four discrete textual strands that have been woven together to make one continuous narrative: J, or the Yahwist (German Jahwist), after the personal name of God (YHWH, or Yahweh) that is used in this strand; E, or the Elohist, which uses a more general term (Elohim) for God; P, the Priestly Code, which makes up much of Leviticus; and D, which stands for Deuteronomist and makes up much of the Book of Deuteronomy. While this approach is still used by many scholars, its popularity is waning, and the author of this article has his doubts about whether the documentary hypothesis is of much value for contemporary biblical interpretation.