Editing Priestly source (section)

==The Priestly work==
The Pentateuch or [[Torah]] (the Greek and Hebrew terms, respectively, for the Bible's books of [[Book of Genesis|Genesis]], [[Book of Exodus|Exodus]], [[Leviticus]], [[Book of Numbers|Numbers]] and [[Deuteronomy]]) describe the [[prehistory]] of the [[Israelites]] from the creation of the world, through the earliest [[biblical patriarchs]] and their wanderings, to [[the Exodus]] from Egypt and the encounter with God in the wilderness. The books contain many inconsistencies, repetitions, different narrative styles, and different names for God.{{sfn|Gooder|2000|pp=11–12}} [[John Van Seters]] notes that within the first four books, the Tetrateuch – that is, omitting Deuteronomy – "there are two accounts of creation, two genealogies of Seth, two genealogies of Shem, two covenants between Abraham and his God, two revelations to Jacob at Bethel, two calls of Moses to rescue his people, two sets of laws given at Sinai, two Tents of Meeting/Tabernacles set up at Sinai."{{sfn|Van Seters|1999|p=23}} The repetitions, styles and names are not random, but follow identifiable patterns, and the study of these patterns led scholars to the conclusion that four separate sources lie behind them.{{sfn|Gooder|2000|pp=11–12}}{{sfn|Campbell|O'Brien|1993}}

The 19th century scholars saw these sources as independent documents which had been edited together, and for most of the 20th century this was the accepted consensus. But in 1973 the American biblical scholar [[Frank Moore Cross]] published an influential work called ''Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic'', in which he argued that P was not an independent document (i.e., a written text telling a coherent story with a beginning, middle and end), but an editorial expansion of another of the four sources, the combined Jahwist/Elohist (called JE).{{sfn|Campbell|O'Brien|1993|pp=1–6}} Cross's study was the beginning of a series of attacks on the documentary hypothesis, continued notably by the work of Hans Heinrich Schmid (''The So-called Jahwist'', 1976, questioning the date of the Jahwistic source), Martin Rose (1981, proposing that the Jahwist was composed as a prologue to the history which begins in Joshua), and Van Seters (''Abraham in History and Tradition'', proposing a 6th-century BCE date for the story of Abraham, and therefore for the Jahwist).{{sfn|Campbell|O'Brien|1993|pp=10–11}} as well as [[Rolf Rendtorff]] (''The Problem of the Process of Transmission in the Pentateuch'', 1989), who argued that neither the Jahwist nor the Elohist had ever existed as sources but instead represented collections of independent fragmentary stories, poems, etc.{{sfn|Campbell|O'Brien|1993|p=11}}

No new consensus has emerged to replace the documentary hypothesis, but since roughly the mid-1980s an influential theory has emerged which relates the emergence of the Pentateuch to the situation in Judah in the 5th century BCE under Persian imperial rule. The central institution in the post-Exilic Persian province of [[Yehud Medinata|Yehud]] (the Persian name for the former kingdom of Judah) was the reconstructed [[Second Temple]], which functioned both as the administrative centre for the province and as the means through which Yehud paid taxes to the central government. The central government was willing to grant autonomy to local communities throughout the empire, but it was first necessary for the would-be autonomous community to present the local laws for imperial authorisation. This provided a powerful incentive for the various groups that constituted the Jewish community in Yehud to come to an agreement. The major groups were the landed families who controlled the main sources of wealth, and the priestly families who controlled the Temple. Each group had its own history of origins that legitimated its prerogatives. The tradition of the landowners was based on the old [[Deuteronomist]]ic tradition, which had existed since at least the 6th century BCE and had its roots even earlier; that of the priestly families was composed to "correct" and "complete" the landowners' composition.{{sfn|Ska|2006|pp=217–218, 226}} In the final document Genesis 1–11 lays the foundations, Genesis 12–50 defines the people of Israel, and the books of Moses define the community's laws and relationship to its God.{{sfn|Ska|2006|p=231}}

Since the second half of the 20th century, views on the relative age of P and the [[Holiness Code]] (H) have undergone major revision. Scholars including {{interlanguage link|Karl Elliger|de}}, [[Israel Knohl]], and Christophe Nihan have argued for the younger age of H compared to P.{{sfn|Elliger|1966}}{{sfn|Knohl|1995}}{{sfn|Nihan|2007}} Together with [[Jacob Milgrom]], Knohl also identifies passages related to H elsewhere in the Pentateuch.{{sfn|Knohl|1995}}{{sfn|Milgrom|2000}} Authors such as [[Bill T. Arnold]] and Paavo N. Tucker have argued that most of the narrative sections traditionally ascribed to P should be connected with H instead.{{sfn|Arnold|2008}}{{sfn|Tucker|2017}}

Many scholars attribute the laws in the P source to the desire to glorify the [[Priesthood (Ancient Israel)|Aaronide priestly]] caste responsible for their composition.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Revelation and Authority: Sinai in Jewish Scripture and Tradition |last=Sommer |first=Benjamin D. |publisher=The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library |pages=18 |date=2015}}</ref>