The J, E and P Texts in Parallel Columns For over a century, many scholars have said that the first four books of the Bible are made up of a number of earlier texts that were edited together. The J text was written by a member of the Judean court, the E text by a priest who believed he was descended from Moses, and the P text by a priest who believed he was descended from Aaron—one of the priests in charge of the Temple in Jerusalem. Now, for the first time, this book arranges these texts in parallel columns. You can read down a column to read one text from beginning to end. You can read across columns to compare the same story in different texts. It also includes an introduction explaining the texts and showing that they are based on the authors’ backgrounds and the events of their times. In cases where scholars disagree, this edition assigns passages in ways that make the texts as consistent and continuous as possible, allowing new insights into the texts. This edition shows that: ■ There is a strong contrast between the J text, which has an anthropomorphic God and an amoral religion, and the E text, which has a much more advanced view of God and a religion that is moral as well as ritualistic. ■ The core of the P text is a coherent whole, unified by a timeline that extends from creation to the arrival in Egypt and focusing on four key events, the creation, the covenant of Noah, the covenant of Abraham, and the covenant of Moses. Both scholars and other readers will appreciate this book’s new insights into the texts, including these major points and many more detailed points. Readers who are new to this theory of how the Bible was written will appreciate this books clear introduction to it, and they will be fascinated to see difficult, hard-to-read and self-contradictory portions of the Bible separated into source texts that are clear and consistent. Siegel has made an important contribution to Biblical scholarship and to the public’s understanding of the Bible.