The Poetic Priestly Source

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.