E is one of the five authors (
J,
E,
D,
P, and
R) of the
Pentateuch or
Torah, the first five books of the
Bible, theorized by Biblical scholars. S/he probably lived around 850 or 800 BC, though some place the date contemporaneously with or earlier than
J.
E is short for the Elohist, so named because E consistently refers to
God by the name
Elohim, though E is not the only author to do so. By comparison, J consistently uses the name
Yahweh.
E is credited with the story of
Abraham in
Genesis 12 and may have written the prose version of the story of the warrior woman
Deborah in the book of
Judges.