Documentary hypothesis

The documentary hypothesis is a theory proposed by many historians and academics in the field of linguistics and source criticism that the Five Books of Moses (the Torah) are in fact a combination of documents from different sources rather than authored by one individual. Although the hypothesis is widely accepted, it has a substantial number of critics—especially conservative Bible scholars such as Kenneth Kitchen and Gleason Archer, but also among critical scholars such as R. N. Whybray.

History of the Theory

Traditional Jewish and Christian beliefs

The traditional Jewish view is that God revealed his will to Moses at Mount Sinai in a verbal fashion. This dictation is said to have been exactly transcribed by Moses. Based on the Talmud (Tractate Gittin 60a) some believe that the Torah may have been given piece-by-piece, over the 40 years that the Israelites wandered in the desert.

Related Topics:
God - Moses - Mount Sinai - Talmud

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The Pentateuch itself does not imply as much. The expression "God said to Moses" shows only the Divine origin of the Mosaic laws, but does not prove that Moses himself codified in the Pentateuch the various laws promulgated by him. It does, on the other hand, ascribe to Moses the literary authorship of at least four sections, partly historical, partly legal, partly poetical. The voice of tradition, however, both Jewish and Christian, is so unanimous and constant in proclaiming the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch that down to the 17th century it did not allow the rise of any serious doubt. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11646c.htm

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Rabbinical biblical criticism

However, classical Judaism notes a number of exceptions: Over the millennia scribal errors have crept into the text of the Torah. The Masoretes (7th to 10th centuries CE) compared all extant variations and attempted to create a definitive text. Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra and Joseph Bonfils observed that some phrases in the Torah present information that should only have been known after the time of Moses. Some classical rabbis drew on their observations to postulate that these sections of the Torah were written by Joshua or perhaps some later prophet. Other rabbis would not accept this view.

Related Topics:
Masoretes - 7th - 10th centuries - Abraham ibn Ezra - Rabbi - Joshua

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The Talmud (tractate Shabbat 115b) states that a peculiar section in the book of Numbers 10:35-36, surrounded by inverted Hebrew letter nuns, in fact is a separate book. On this verse a Midrash on the book of Mishle states that "These two verses stem from an independent book which existed, but was suppressed!" Another, possibly earlier midrash, Ta'ame Haserot Viyterot, states that this section actually comes from the book of prophecy of Eldad and Medad. The Talmud says that four books of the Torah were dictated by God, but Deuteronomy was written by Moses in his own words (Talmud Bavli, Megillah 31b). For more information on these issues from an Orthodox Jewish perspective, see Modern Scholarship in the Study of Torah: Contributions and Limitations, edited by Shalom Carmy (Jason Aronson, Inc.) and Handbook of Jewish Thought, Volume I, by Aryeh Kaplan (Moznaim Pub.)

Related Topics:
Talmud - Book of Numbers - Hebrew - Midrash - Aryeh Kaplan

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Individual rabbis and scholars have on occasion pointed out that the Torah showed signs of not being written entirely by Moses.

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• Rabbi Judah ben Ilai held that the final verses of the Torah must have been written by Joshua. (Talmud, Bava Batra 15a and Menachot 30a, and in Midrash Sifrei 357.)
• Parts of the Midrash retain evidence of the redactional period during which Ezra redacted and canonized the text of the Torah as we know it today. A rabbinic tradition states that at this time (440 B.C.E.) the text of the Torah was edited by Ezra, and there were ten places in the Torah where he was uncertain as to how to fix the text; these passages were marked with special punctuation marks called the eser nekudot.
• In the middle ages, Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra and others noted that there were several places in the Torah that apparently could not have been written in Moses's lifetime. For example, see Ibn Ezra's comments on Genesis 12:6, 22:14, Deuteronomy 1:2, 3:11 and 34:1,6. Ibn Ezra's comments were elucidated by Rabbi Joseph Bonfils in his commentary on Ibn Ezra's work.
• In the twelfth century, the commentator R. Joseph ben Isaac, known as the Bekhor Shor, noted that a number of wilderness narratives in Exodus and Numbers are very similar, in particular, the incidents of water from the rock, and the stories about manna and the quail. He theorized that both of these incidents actually happened once, but that parallel traditions about these events eventually developed, both of which made their way into the Torah.
• In the thirteenth century, R. Hezekiah ben Manoah (known as the Hizkuni) noticed the same textual anomalies that Ibn Ezra noted; thus R. Hezekiah's commentary on Genesis 12:6 notes that this section "is written from the perspective of the future.".
• In the fifteenth century, Rabbi Yosef Bonfils while discussing the comments of Ibn Ezra, noted: "Thus it would seem that Moses did not write this word here, but Joshua or some other prophet wrote it. Since we believe in the prophetic tradition, what possible difference can it make whether Moses wrote this or some other prophet did, since the words of all of them are true and prophetic?"
• Martin Buber reports how his friend and co-translator of Scripture Franz Rosenzweig jokingly used to expand the sigil R for the redactor to Rabbenu — Our Master

The Enlightenment

A number of Enlightenment Christian writers expressed doubts about the traditional Christian view. For example, in the 16th century, Carlstadt noticed that the style of the account of the death of Moses was the same as that of the preceding portions of Deuteronomy, suggesting that whoever wrote about the death of Moses also wrote larger portions of the Torah.

Related Topics:
Enlightenment - 16th century

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By the 17th century, some commentators argued outright that Moses did not write most of the Pentateuch. For instance, in 1651, Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan, ch. 33, argued that the Pentateuch was written after Moses's day on account of Deut. 34:6 ("no man knoweth of his sepulchre to this day"), Gen. 12:6 ("and the Canaanite was then in the land"), and Num. 21:14 (referring to a previous book of Moses's deeds). Others include Isaac de la Peyrère, Spinoza, Richard Simon, and John Hampden. Nevertheless, these people found their works condemned and even banned, and de la Peyrère and Hampden were forced to recant, whereas an attempt was made on Spinoza's life.

Related Topics:
17th century - 1651 - Thomas Hobbes - Canaan - Spinoza - Richard Simon - John Hampden

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The famous French scholar and physician Jean Astruc first introduced the terms Elohist and Jehovist or Elohistic and Jehovistic, in a little book titled Conjectures... sur Genèse ("Conjectures on the original documents that Moses appears to have used in composing the Book of Genesis"), anonymously printed in 1753, noting that the first chapter of Genesis uses only the word "Elohim" for God, while in other sections the word "Jehovah" is used. In the second and third chapters, the title and name are combined, giving rise to a new conception of the Deity as Jehovah Elohim ("Lord—God" as commonly translated in many English Bibles today). He speculated that Moses may have compiled the Genesis account from earlier documents, some perhaps dating back to Abraham, and that these had been combined into a single account. So, he began to explore the possibility of detecting and separating these documents and assigning them to their original sources. He did this, taking as axiomatic that scriptural documents could be analyzed in the same manner as secular ones and the assumption that the varying use of terms indicated different writers.

Related Topics:
French - Jean Astruc - Elohist - Jehovist - 1753 - Genesis - God - Separating these documents

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Using "Elohim" and "Yahweh" as a criterion, Astruc used columns titled respectively "A" and "B", and also set other pieces apart. The A and B narratives he regarded as originally complete and independent narratives. From this was born the practice of Biblical textual criticism that came to be known as higher criticism.

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J. G. Eichhorn brought Astruc's book to Germany and further differentiated the two chief documents through their linguistic peculiarities in 1787. However, neither he nor Astruc denied Mosaic authorship, nor analyzed beyond the book of Exodus.

Related Topics:
J. G. Eichhorn - 1787

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H. Ewald recognized that the documents that later came to be known as "P" and "J" could be seen in other books. F. Tuch showed that they were also recognizable in Joshua.

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W. M. L. de Wette (1780 - 1849) joined this theory to one asserted by 17th century commentators by stating that the Book of Deuteronomy was not written by the author(s) of the first four books of the Pentateuch. In 1805 he attributed Deuteronomy to the time of Josiah (ca 621 BC). Soon other writers also began considering the idea. By 1823 Eichhorn abandoned claiming Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch.

Related Topics:
W. M. L. de Wette - 1780 - 1849 - 17th century - Deuteronomy - 1805 - Josiah - 621 BC - 1823

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19th Century Theories

About 1822, F. Bleek commented about the original relationship of Joshua to the Pentateuch in its continuation of the narrative in Deuteronomy, of which it formed the conclusion. The letters "J" for Jahwist and "E" Elohist were then designated for the documents.

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H. Hupfeld followed K. D. Ilgen in identifying two separate documents that used "Elohim". In 1853, Hupfeld set forth Genesis chapters 1-19 and 20 - 50 as being the two separate Elohistic source documents . He also emphasized the importance of the redactor of these documents. The arrangement of the documents that he followed was: First Elohist, Second Elohist, Jehovist, Deuteronomist: J, E, and D.

Related Topics:
1853 - Genesis

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K. H. Graf showed that Leviticus chapters 17 to 26 were to be discriminated by many individualities from the priestly document, and suggested a fifth document (to which the name "Holiness Code" was attached by A. Klostermann because this body of laws was marked by the declaration of God's holiness, and Israel's duty to be holy as his people.

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Julius Wellhausen

In 1886 the German historian Julius Wellhausen published Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (Prolegomena to the History of Israel). In this book he stated: "according to the historical and prophetical books of the Old Testament the priestly legislation of the middle books of the Pentateuch was unknown in pre-exilic time, and that this legislation must therefore be a late development."(2) The letter "P", for priestly, became associated with this view.

Related Topics:
1886 - German - Julius Wellhausen

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Wellhausen argued that the Bible is an important source for historians, but cannot be taken literally. He argued that the "hexateuch," (including the Torah or Pentateuch, and the book of Joshua) was written by a number of people over a long period. Specifically, he narrowed the field to four distinct narratives, which he identified by the aforementioned Jahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist and Priestly accounts. He also proposed a Redactor, who edited the four accounts into one text. (Some argue the redactor was Ezra the scribe). Using earlier propositions he argued that each of these sources has its own vocabulary, its own approach and concerns, and that the passages originally belonging to each account can be distinguished by differences in style (especially the name used for God, the grammar and word usage, the political assumptions implicit in the text, and the interests of the author).

Related Topics:
Torah - Pentateuch - Joshua

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• The "J" source: In this source God's name is always presented as YHVH, which scholars transliterated in modern times as Yahveh (German spelling: Jahwe; the previous transliteration was Jehovah).
• The "E" source: In this source God's name is always presented as Elohim (Hebrew for God, or Power) until the revelation of God's name to Moses, after which God is referred to as YHVH.
• The "D" or "Dtr" source: The source that wrote the book of Deuteronomy, and the books of Joshua, Judges, I and II Samuel and I and II Kings.
• The "P" source: The priestly material. Uses Elohim and El Shaddai as names of God.

Wellhausen argued that from the style and point of view of each source, one could draw inferences about the times in which the source was written (in other words, the historical value of the Bible is not that it reveals things about the events it describes, but rather that it reveals things about the people who wrote it). He argued that the progression evident in these four sources, from a relatively informal and decentralized relationship between people and God in the J account, to the relatively formal and centralized practices of the P account, one could see the development of institutionalized Israelite religion.

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A number of Wellhausen's specific interpretations, including his reconstruction of the order of the accounts as J-E-D-P has been questioned, and to a large degree rejected. Biblical scholars today suggest that he organized the narrative to culminate with P because he believed that the New Testament followed logically in this progression. In the 1950s the Israeli historian, Yehezkel Kaufmann, published The Religion of Israel, from Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile, in which he argued that the order of the sources would be J, E, P, and D.

Related Topics:
New Testament - 1950s

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Wellhausen resigned his post as professor of biblical studies stating that his theories were causing his students (who were training to be Evangelical Priests) to be unsuitable for the priesthood.

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Richard Elliot Friedman

In recent years attempts have been made to separate the J, E, D, and P portions. Richard Elliott Friedman's Who Wrote The Bible? is a very reader-friendly and yet comprehensive argument explaining Friedman's opinions as to the possible identity of each of those authors, and, more important, why they wrote what they wrote. Harold Bloom then wrote "The Book of J", in which he claims to have reconstructed the book that J wrote (though, certainly, some of J's original contribution could have been lost in the consolidation, if one believes the four-author theory). Bloom (picking up on Friedman's earlier speculation) also indicates that he believes that J was a woman, but this is not accepted by other scholars.

Related Topics:
Richard Elliott Friedman - Harold Bloom

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More recently, Friedman came out with The Hidden Book in the Bible, in which he makes a comprehensive argument for his theory that J wrote not only the portions of the Torah commonly attributed to J, but also sections of Judges, Joshua and 1&2 Samuel (which Bloom and earlier Biblical scholars attributed to another source, the Court History of David), which contained the bulk of the accounts of the life of King David, with a close thematic interrelationship between the earlier and later portions of what Friedman argues is a single united work by one author of Shakespearean literary ability.

Related Topics:
Court History of David - David - Shakespeare

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The modern era

The documentary understanding of the origin of the five books of Moses was immediately seized upon by other scholars, and within a few years became the predominant theory. While many of Wellhausen's specific claims have since been dismissed, the general idea that the five books of Moses had a composite origin is still accepted by some historians.

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Note that the documentary hypothesis is not one specific theory. Rather, this name is given to any understanding of the origin of the Torah that recognizes that there are basically four sources that were somehow redacted together into a final version. One could claim that one redactor wove together four specific texts, or one could hold that the entire nation of Israel slowly created a consensus work based on various strands of the Israelite tradition, or anything in between. Gerald A. Larue writes "Back of each of the four sources lie traditions that may have been both oral and written. Some may have been preserved in the songs, ballads, and folktales of different tribal groups, some in written form in sanctuaries. The so-called 'documents' should not be considered as mutually exclusive writings, completely independent of one another, but rather as a continual stream of literature representing a pattern of progressive interpretation of traditions and history." (Old Testament Life and Literature 1968)

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