A Jewish scholar with Italian origin held eight lectures in Jerusalem concerning the document hypothesis in the Pentateuch. The text of the Pentateuch is split among different sources, not believing in a single author but in different authors and a redactor who put everything together in the time of the Judaean kings. One argument concerns the name of God, sometimes used Elohim and sometimes the Tetragrammaton YHWH. But there are rules about the use of God's name in Hebrew: whenever the people of Israel is involved and God speaks personally then YHWH is used, if there are other beliefs around or a general instance applying for all mankind, then Elohim is used. So it is natural to use Elohim in the creation story, since that is about all the creation, but when speaking to Adam and Eve, YHWH speaks as a personal God. when giving the law, YHWH is giving it, but when telling Abraham to circumcise his sons, Elohim speaks because all sons God, one can see the rules of Hebrew usage throughout the whole Hebrew Bible.
There are different phrases for seemingly the same thing, for example 'making a covenant': heqim berith (he established a covenant) or karath beritth (he cuts a covenant. So whenever one phrase is used, that verse should belong to source so-and-so, and when the other phrase is used it belongs to another source. But the phrases are not interchangeable. We have here not fragments of various sources but two separate unrelated conceptions. Cassuto: 'When we wish to say , that a promise was given, we use the expression karath berith, and when we wish to state that the assurance was fulfilled, we use the term heqim berith'. He gives more examples where the critics used misconceived Hebrew and so came up with the wrong ideas.
In the Pentateuch the stories are often told in an fascinating way: The narrator starts off till a certain point where he makes an important statement (often about the outcome of the story), then goes on repeating part of it with giving new facts about the story. So Creation is told in the first chapter of Genesis, then in chapter 2 the narrator just tells about the creation of human. It is not a different creation story, it is a closer look at the 6th day. So also the Flood: whenever God talks to Noah he gives him new facts the next time.
When telling about the Matriarchs Sarah (twice) and Rebekah when they both were introduced as a 'sister' to the hosts they fled because of famines, some people take these three instances as a proof of different sources (a J, an E, and a another J). But that cannot be the case. (If these three instances happend 'true' in history, is an altogether different questions and has nothing to do with the authorship). There are many parallels between the going down to Egypt by Abraham and then later when the children of Israel went down to Egypt. So the going down to Egypt, staying there during a difficult time and then coming up with riches, is a very important theme here and is told three times so that everybody will remember that, see the parallels to the people, and believe.

Cassuto basically refutes all five pillars of the so-called document hypothesis on the Hebrew text and shows that there is nothing in these arguments which cannot be shown to be exact as the Hebrew language is structured and every Hebrew author would write. ( )

Wow... "Classic" doesn't do this book justice. With seven swipes of his historical-literary sword, Cassuto beheads the Documentary Hypothesis. As we stare in disgust on the bloody corpse which once was the greatest knight of the realm, we suddenly find ourselves experiencing that historical shift in biblical studies which began here. Short, powerful, and easy to read--Cassuto's lecture series is a tour de force for the layman and scholar alike. ( )