“I, like many, if not most, specialists working on pentateuchal formation now, do not recognize an 'Elohist' counterpart to the older 'Yahwist.'

Whatever pre-Priestly proto-Pentateuch I would consider would be one that contains texts once assigned to J and E. Furthermore, I am inclined to date any non-P proto-Pentateuch no earlier than the late preexilic or (more likely) exilic period.

My pre-Priestly 'proto-Pentateuch' is close to the older J neither in contents or context. The only way I am a proponent of a 'Yahwist' is if one reduces the definition of such a document as Jan Christian Gertz does to those who posit a 'running strand of pre-Priestly material in the Tetratech.'

That definition, however, makes the term 'Yahwist' so different from the older use of the term as to make it functionally nonusable.

In fact, no one on this panel, so far as I know, advocates a Yahwist recognizably like the J of studies up through the 1970s.

(David Carr essay, p. 160)”