An influential school of modern critics has come to conclusions which are difficult to reconcile with this external testimony. Instead of the Pentateuch it offers us a Hexateuch, the Book of Joshua being added to those of Moses, and of the origin and growth of this Hexateuch it professes to be able to give a minute and mathematically exact account. Very little, if any of it, we are told, goes back to the period of Moses, the larger part of the work having been composed or compiled in the age of the Exile. It is true, the theories of criticism have changed from time to time; what was formerly held, for instance, to be the oldest portion of the Hexateuch being now regarded as the latest; but each generation of critics has been equally confident that its own literary analysis was mathematically correct. At present the hypothetical scheme most in favour is as follows. The earliest part of the Hexateuch, at all events in its existing form, is a document distinguished by the use of the name Yahveh, and sometimes therefore termed Yahvistic or Jehovistic, but more usually designated by the symbol J. The Yahvist is supposed to have been a Jew who made use of older materials, and lived in the ninth century B.C. His work begins with ‘the second’ account of the Creation, in the middle of the fourth verse of the second chapter of Genesis, and the last trace of it is to be found in the story of the death and burial of Moses at the end of Deuteronomy. His style is said to be naïve and lively, and his conceptions of the Deity grossly anthropomorphic. Next in order to the Yahvist comes the Second Elohist (symbolised by the letter E), whose title is derived from the period, not very far distant, in the history of criticism, when what is now known as the Priestly Code was assigned to a First Elohist. The Elohist is characterised by the use of the word Elohim, ‘God,’ rather than Yahveh, and the critics have discovered in him a native of the northern kingdom. To him belong the ‘Ten Words’ which represent the original form of the Ten Commandments, as well as the history of Joseph. He is said to have written with a certain theological tendency, to which is due his predilection for introducing dreams and angels into his narrative. His date is ascribed to the eighth century B.C., and the combination of his narrative with that of the Yahvist (J.E.) produced a composite work to which the name of Prophetic or Pre-Deuteronomic Redaction has been applied. The Redactor endeavoured to reconcile the contradictions between the two narratives by various harmonistic expedients; his success was not great, and the nineteenth century critic accordingly believes himself able not only to separate the two original documents, but to point out the additions of the Redactor as well.