An introduction to the Old Testament

The Deuteronomist, abbreviated as either Dtr or simply D, may refer either to the source document underlying the core chapters (12–26) of the Book of Deuteronomy, or to the broader "school" that produced all of Deuteronomy as well as the Deuteronomistic history of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, and also the Book of Jeremiah. The adjectives "Deuteronomic" and "Deuteronomistic" are sometimes used interchangeably; if they are distinguished, then the first refers to the core of Deuteronomy and the second to all of Deuteronomy and the history. The Deuteronomist is one of the sources identified through source criticism as underlying much of the Hebrew Bible. Among source-critical scholars, it is generally agreed that the Deuteronomistic history originated independently of the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers (based on the Priestly source and the Jahwist), and independently of the historical Books of Chronicles. Most scholars trace all or most of Deuteronomistic history to the Babylonian captivity (6th century BCE), and associate it with editorial reworking of both the Tetrateuch and Jeremiah.