What are the Four Sources in the Hebrew scriptures?

Answer

The authorship of the Pentateuch has traditionally been attributed to Moses. However, by the nineteenth century, scholars were beginning to recognise that it was actually written over a period of some centuries by several anonymous authors. Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918) identified four separate authors, known as the Yahwist or J-source (probably ninth or tenth century BCE), the Elohist or E-source (probably eighth or ninth century BCE), the Deuteronomist or D-source (probably seventh century BCE), and the Priestly source or P-source (believed to have written during or after the Babylonian Exile).

Each source had his own distinctive style, and can even be identified by the use of archaic or modern Hebrew. Each had his own way of referring to God and his own sectoral and regional interests. Many of the stories in the first five books of the Bible are written in duplicate, known as doublets, with significant differences between one version and the other, reflecting the different views or theology of each author.