first of all, thanks for keeping the discussion going on this. It’s a great topic.

I pointed to Milgrom because he made the most persuasive attempt I know of at distinguishing between P and H in Leviticus. So I would use his P and H assignments in Leviticus as one starting-point. He builds, of course, on earlier scholarship.

Kevin, if you date H to post-exilic times against Milgrom, how do you explain Ezekiel? Don’t Ezek and H have a lot in common? Perhaps I’m not remembering correctly; I’m away from my books at the moment, and can’t check on it now.

As for J, E, etc., are you familiar with Erhard Blum’s work? I won’t try to summarize it, except to say that in his work on the Jacob cycle, he makes a good case for old (pre-exilic, pre-D) nuclei. In that sense, I take John van Seters to be wrong, insofar as he dates “J” as a whole to post-D. It could be that other “J” material is in fact exilic to early Persian Period. I have a hard time reading Gen 12:1ff., for example, and not thinking of it as worded with the exiles in Babylonia in mind.

At SBL Washington, it was fun to hear Ron Hendel make this confession of faith (he’s working on the new AB commentary to Genesis): “I believe in J, E, D, and P.” What a hoot. If I’m not mistaken, he thinks of E as a distinguishable source.

Another person to read on the topic of the sources is Alessandro Rofe, but I don’t know if he has (re-)examined the specific issues we are broaching.