Applying criteria for the identification of biblical Hebrew poetry, Jason M. H. Gaines distinguishes a nearly complete poetic Priestly stratum in the Pentateuch ("Poetic P"), coherent in literary, narrative, and ideological terms, from a later prose redaction ("Prosaic P"), which is fragmentary, supplemental, and distinct in thematic and theological concern. Gaines describes the whole of the "Poetic P" source and offers a Hebrew reconstruction of the document. This dramatically innovative understanding of the history of the Priestly composition opens up new vistas in the study of the Pentateuch.

By Jason M. H. Gaines