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Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918). Synthesizing the work of early documentary critics, this influential German Bible scholar reconstructed the history of Israelite religious practice based on the development of what he considered the four basic authorial sources of the Pentateuch. For Wellhausen, J (the Yahwist or, in German, Jahwist source) and E (the Elohist source) reflected a primitive religion attuned to natural cycles; D (the Deuteronomic source), which he dated to the end of the Israelite monarchy in the late seventh century B.C.E., ended the old freedom of worship by instituting a written law and establishing a central sanctuary in Jerusalem; and P (the Priestly source), with its highly refined cultic regulations, marked the emergence of Judaism in the post-Exilic period (post-539 B.C.E.). Although Wellhausen’s reconstruction of Israel’s cult is still widely accepted, scholars have challenged his neat depiction of the literary sources of the Pentateuch. P, for example, is no longer considered a unified source, but an amalgamation of several texts; and part of Wellhausen’s original P has been reclassified as a fifth strand known as H (the Holiness code), which focuses on matters relating to the people as a whole, not just cultic issues.