From publisher's description: The Priestly tradition (P) has been recognized for more than a century by Old Testament scholars as one of the major literary strata in the formation of the Pentateuch. Its nature, namely its original literary character, is significant to understand the formation history of the Pentateuch, but remains also one of its major problems. The present study investigates the nature of P by taking the flood narrative (Gn 6,5‒9,17), one of the important texts in the Old Testament, as a test case. On the basis of serious methodological reflections on the relationship between redaction criticism and source criticism on the one hand, and between redaction criticism and textual criticism on the other, followed by a comprehensive survey of the history of research on the nature of P in the Pentateuch and in the flood narrative, the author offers her own detailed redaction-historical and text-critical study of the flood narrative, with a specific focus on the nature of P therein. The study leads to a critical conclusion on the nature of P in the flood narrative, which further serves as a good case for the study of the nature of P in the Pentateuch.