Old Testament – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, book of Numbers and Deuteronomy – reached their present form in the Persian period (538–332 BC), and their authors were the elite of exilic returnees who controlled the Temple at that time. The books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings follow, forming a history of Israel from the Conquest of Canaan to the Siege of Jerusalem c. 587 BC. There is a broad consensus among scholars that these originated as a single work (the so-called "Deuteronomistic history") during the Babylonian exile of the 6th century BC. The two Books of Chronicles cover much the same material
August Dillmann ihrer politischen Wirksamkeit" (1868). In 1869 appeared his commentary on "Hiob", (4th edition 1891) which stamped him as one of the foremost Old Testament exegetes. His renown as a theologian was mainly founded on the series of commentaries, based on those of August Wilhelm Knobel's "Die Genesis" (Leipzig, 1875); "Die Bücher Exodus und Leviticus", 1880; "Die Bücher Numeri, Deuteronomium und Josua", with a dissertation on the origin of the Hexateuch, 1886; "Der Prophet Jesaja", 1890. In 1877 he published the "Ascension of Isaiah" in Ethiopian and Latin. He was also a contributor to Daniel Schenkel's "Bibellexikon", Brockhaus's "Conversationslexikon", and Johann