Authors Who Wrote First Five Books of the Bible
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Documentary hypothesis says that there were several authors who wrote first five books of the Bible. In my essay I will try to discuss J, P, and E – authors of Genesis, Exodus and Numbers. I must admit that all these authors had lived after the division of the kingdom.
AUTHOR J
This author was identified as J for using word Yahweh or Jehovah for the name of God. Also there is an interesting theory that author J was a woman. Of course, there are statements that prove it. First of all I want pay your attention on the fact that we are speaking about patriarchal society where a man was a head of the family and the role of a woman was to give a birth to children. But in the Bible we can find verses and even whole chapters that tell us about women and sometimes show that these women are smarter than patriarchs. There are several examples.
The first one is creation of the Earth (Gen.2:4b-25). The author tries to show that culmination of the creation was a woman – Eve. J writes that Adam could not find a helper among the animals and birds so God decided to create a woman from his ribs. In Gen.2:7 J plays with the word Adam which is related to the Hebrew word Adamah (ground). She points out that a man, animals and birds were created from a mud while a woman – from a man. In Gen.3 the author indicates that Eve is more intellectually curious than Adam because the serpent speaks with Eve and she makes a decision to taste a fruit.
Second example is Rebekah. The whole chapter (Gen.24:1-67) dedicates to finding Rebekah. Then in Gen.27:5-17 J shows Rebekah as intelligent and sly person. She teaches his beloved son Jacob how to overreach Isaac. One more thing about Js sense of humor: she plays with names of Isaacs sons in Gen.25:25,26,30 – the first one is Esau (may mean hairy) and his second name is Edom (red), and the second is Jacob (he deceives). We can see J does not like Esau/Edom and we can make a conclusion that she is scion of Jacob.
One more example is in Gen.38 – J describes a story about clever and successive woman Tamar, wife of Judahs son Er. She wants to have children but her husbands Er an Onan died and she was not given to Shelah as his wife. So she decided to outwit Judah. At the end of the story she has children, husband and Judah identifies that she was more righteous than he (that is very unusual for patriarchal society).
After reading Js passages we can conclude that she is from southern kingdom Judah. King of Judah was Rehoboam, Davids son. As we know, David was from tribe Judah. Thats why Judah is the main character in all stories of J. For example: in Gen.37:26-27 he proposes to sell Joseph, then in Gen.43:3-10 Judah persuades Israel to send Benjamin with him and guarantees his safety. And one more interesting thing is that although Judah was only the fourth son, in Gen.49:8 Israel says that his brothers “will praise” and “bow down” to him. So in such a way he gets a birthright. Also Jerusalem and Ark of the Covenant (a sign to the people that God is with them) are very important for J (2 Samuel 5,6).
I want to emphasize that political and religious systems were very close in that time: J never mentioned Joshua in her passages because he is from Ephraim (Jeroboam is from Ephraim) and in Num.25:1-5 J writes that men from Israel began to indulge in sexual immorality with Moabite women and God said Moses to kill them. This is political decision because Moabites were enemies of Israel.
Also J author has several “trademarks”. First of all, God in her passages is always anthropomorphic, it means that all action He is doing by His hands. This is shown in creation story: Gen.2:7 – “LORD God formed the man”, in Gen.2:21 – “He took one of the mans ribs” and in Gen.3:8 – “He was walking in the garden in the cool of the day”.
And now Id like to talk about doublets. Besides creation story, we also have two flood stories (J says that rain lasted 40 days), two stories when Abraham says that Sarah is his sister (J – Gen.12:10-20) and one – when Isaak says the same about Rebekah (J – Gen.26:1-11) – so we have triplets here, two Abrahams covenants with God (J – Gen.15:1-21), two names of Mosess father-in-law (J uses name Reuel Ex.2:18).
AUTHOR P
There is the theory that this author was a priest from southern kingdom. In old ages only priests could make a sacrifice. But in the Bible there are a lot of stories that describes how people make sacrifices (for example Gen.4:3-4 – Cain and Abel, Gen.8:20 – Noah, Gen.22:13). But these stories were written by other authors because P author protects rights of priests.
In the Bible there are two stories about creation of the Earth and one of them was written by P (Gen.1:1-2:3). This story is written with many details and the culmination of it is Sabbath. There is a symmetry between days:
1 day – light ~ 4 day – stars, moon and sun
2 day – dome ~ 5 day – animals, fish
3 day – land, plants ~ 6 day – male/female
Passages of P and J authors are parallel while in E passages there are stories that differ from stories these two authors (for example: Gen.21:8-21 – Hagar and Ishmael, Gen.21:22-34 – Abraham and Abimelek, Ex.32:1-33:11 – the golden calf). But there are also contradictions between J and P passages. So in flood story (Gen.7:11) P says that “all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened” and it lasted for 150 days (in J story it was rain that lasted for 40 days). Another contradiction is that P writes (Gen.6:19) that God said “to bring into ark two of all living creatures, male and female” while J writes (Gen.7:2) “seven of every kind of clean animal, and two of every kind of unclean animal”.
P is Levite priest descendant of Aaron, so Aaron in his passages is as important, as Moses. For example in Ex.7:19 Moses has to say Aaron use his (Aarons) staff.
In Ex.20:8 pay attention