Priestly source
[1] It is considered by most scholars as the latest of all sources, and “meant to be a kind of redactional layer to hold the entirety of the Pentateuch together,”[2] It includes a set of claims that are contradicted by non-Priestly passages and therefore uniquely characteristic: no sacrifice before the institution is ordained by Yahweh (God) at Sinai, the exalted status of Aaron and the priesthood, and the use of the divine title El Shaddai before God reveals his name to Moses, to name a few.
[6] The history of exilic and post-exilic Judah is little known, but a summary of current theories can be made as follows:[7] The Pentateuch or Torah (the Greek and Hebrew terms, respectively, for the Bible's books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, 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.
[13] 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.
[23] The Priestly source begins with the narrative of the creation of the world and ends at the edge of the Promised Land, telling the story of the Israelites and their relationship with their god, Yahweh,[24] encompassing, though not continuously, the first four books of the Pentateuch, (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers).
The Priestly source makes evident four covenants, to Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses, as God reveals Himself progressively as Elohim, El Shaddai, and Yahweh.
Fragments belonging to the Priestly source known as the P texts, whose number and extent have achieved a certain consensus among scholars (e.g. Jenson 1992, Knohl 2007, Römer 2014, and Faust 2019).
[25] Recently Axel Buhler et al. (2023), to apply an algorithm, considered the 'priestly base text' (Priesterliche Grundschrift), as running, though not continually, from Genesis 1 to Exodus 40, and "characterized by an inclusive monotheism, with the deity gradually revealing itself to humanity and to the people of Israel in particular,"[26] beginning in Genesis 1-11, where God is called Elohim,[27] and ending "with the construction of the tent of meeting (Exodus 25–31*; 35–40*)," reflecting, along with cult, "a progressive revelation of YHWH."
[31] Julius Wellhausen, the 19th century German scholar who formulated the documentary hypothesis, fixed the chronological order of its sources as the Yahwist and Elohist, followed by the Deuteronomist, and last the Priestly.
[39] Avi Hurvitz, for example, has forcefully argued on linguistic grounds that P represents an earlier form of the Hebrew language than what is found in both Ezekiel and Deuteronomy, and therefore pre-dates both of them.
[40][41] These scholars often claim that the late-dating of P is due in large part to a Protestant bias in biblical studies which assumes that "priestly" and "ritualistic" material must represent a late degeneration of an earlier, "purer" faith.
[38] While most scholars agree on the identification of Priestly texts in Genesis through Exodus, opinions are divided concerning the original ending of the separate P document.
[48] According to Nihan, the purification ritual of Leviticus 16 formed the conclusion of the original Priestly document; in this and similar views, all P-like texts after this point are post-Priestly additions.
