DID YOU KNOW?
The answer
Two names for God. Astruc saw that Genesis calls God Yahweh (printed "the Lord") in some passages and Elohim ("God") in others, and he argued that Moses had copied from two older documents. His book was a defense of Moses as author. Later scholars kept his method but not his defense of Moses.
Why it’s interesting
Astruc was physician to King Louis XV. His 1753 book was titled Conjecture on the Original Documents That Moses Apparently Used in Composing Genesis. Scholars in Germany took the method further and found more sources.
Scholarly consensus
Learn the Bible.
Not just the stories, but the history, authorship, and scholarship behind it.