R 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.
R may have not have written a single word. R is short for "
redactor" (editor). Around 400 BC, R spliced together the Pentateuch from the work of J, E, D, and P, which accounts for the contradictions in these books and why parts of each one were written by different people. This explains why there are two creation stories, two accounts of
the Ten Commandments, and why
God is referred to by different names in different parts of the same book, among other inconsistencies. What R redacted
out of the Bible, if anything, remains a mystery.