DID YOU KNOW?
The answer
Disagree. J, E, D and P are labels for four source documents that scholars think lie behind the first five books of the Bible. Nobody has ever found a copy of any of them, among the Dead Sea Scrolls or anywhere else. Scholars rebuilt them from places where the books repeat themselves or do not fit together.
Why it’s interesting
The theory was challenged from the start, and Catholic scholars were banned from teaching it until the mid-1900s. Today some scholars name only two sources: P, the priestly writing, and everything else, which they call non-P. Almost all agree that distinct sources from different periods lie under the text.
Scholarly consensus
Learn the Bible.
Not just the stories, but the history, authorship, and scholarship behind it.