I. Introduction In his 1988 SBL Seminar Paper, Ellis Rivkin claims that the Torah contains traces of three distinct "authority systems," which he terms prophetic absolutism, power sharing, and priestly absolutism, respectively. (1) The way to understand the literary history of the Torah, in Rivkin's view, is to parse out those distinct systems of authority. Once Rivkin delineates his three strands, he reaches conclusions that are, in broad outline, consistent with Wellhausen's: Rivkin's prophetic stream is represented by the Moses of RJE, power sharing by the levitical priests of D, and priestly authoritarianism by the Aaronids of P.
