As noted in earlier articles in this Continuity series, the first written account of the history of the Hebrew nation was apparently composed in the southern kingdom of Judah, about 850 B.C., dealing with the history of the world from its supposed creation to the conquest of Canaan. Coming from Judah, and using the name Jehovah, or more correctly Yahweh, as its primary name for Deity, it is named the J source of the Pentateuch.
The second basic source, prepared in the northern kingdom of Israel, or Ephraim, about 750 B.C., and employing mainly the term Elohim for God, came to be known as E; while D is the symbol used to designate the original draft of the book of Deuteronomy, "the book of the law" (II Kings 22:8), which appeared in 621 B.C., some thirty-five years before the exile of the Jews in Babylon.
The last of the four chief sources of the Pentateuch, commonly termed "P" to represent the "Priestly Code," appears to date, in its finished form, from about 500 b.c. The first three, J, E, and D, were basically the work of prophetic writers, but P was essentially the work of the priests. Moreover, while J and E are chiefly concerned with history and D with law, in this fourth source, P, we find a combination of history, law, and ritual.
