The JEDP Documentary Hypothesis
From the Apologetics Commentary in "The CASB VOL. IV: The Book of Genesis Chapters 1-11" by Robert Sungenis...
The JEDP Documentary Hypothesis
*Note: audio is not totally complete due to publishing difficulties of a small part of the segment on Julius Wellhausen and a couple of sources at the bottom. Reading, not listening, is suggested, though most of the audio is complete
In the last 150 years, the Documentary Hypothesis has more or less revamped all studies of the Old Testament. When once the authorship of the Pentateuch was undisputed in traditional scholarly circles, little of the first five books of the Hebrew bible are now attributed to Moses. Most of this new thinking began in secular circles, but it slowly seeped into ecclesiastical ranks to the point that today there is hardly an upper echelon university that does not teach and hold the Documentary Hypothesis as the only true understanding of the authorship and meaning of the Pentateuch. As with any such academic endeavor, there are certain things about the Documentary Hypothesis that are beneficial for the study of the Old Testament. Catholic theologian M. J. Lagrange had, in fact, remarked on these benefits. But he, as did many other Catholic theologians, warned against the excesses, exaggerations and unsubstantiated claims of Documentary theologians. We have outlined in other sections of this commentary what those precise dangers are. Be that as it may, a glimpse of the history that led to the Documentary Hypothesis would be valuable for those who seek to understand the nature of its claims. We can start in the year 1660 when philosopher Thomas Hobbes claimed in his book The Leviathan,
We read in the last chapter of Deuteronomy concerning the sepulchre of Moses, “that no man knoweth of his sepulchre to this day,” (Dt 34:6) that is, to the day wherein those words were written. It is therefore manifest that those words were written after his interment. For it were a strange interpretation to say Moses spake of his own sepulchre (though by prophecy), that it was not found to that day wherein he was yet living. But it may perhaps be alleged that the last chapter only, not the whole Pentateuch, was written by some other man, but the rest not. Let us therefore consider that which we find in the Book of Genesis, “And Abraham passed through the land to the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh, and the Canaanite was then in the land” (Gn 12:6) which must needs be the words of one that wrote when the Canaanite was not in the land; and consequently, not of Moses, who died before he came into it. Likewise Nm 21:14, the writer citeth another more ancient book, entitled, The Book of the Wars of the Lord, wherein were registered the acts of Moses, at the Red Sea, and at the brook of Arnon. It is therefore sufficiently evident that the five Books of Moses were written after his time, though how long after it be not so manifest….But though Moses did not compile those books entirely, and in the form we have them; yet he wrote all that which he is there said to have written: as for example, the volume of the law, which is contained, as it seemeth, in the 11th of Deuteronomy, and the following chapters to the 27th, which was also commanded to be written on stones, in their entry into the land of Canaan.317.
Others scholars had taken the que from Hobbes and began to support the conclusion that Moses did not write all of the Pentateuch, such as the Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza, an agnostic who believed in an impersonal deity that could not and did not communicate with mankind. Others such as Isaac de la Peyrère, Richard Simon, and John Hampden promoted the same assessment of the Pentateuch, yet with Spinoza, their works were condemned by the Catholic Church’s Inquisition.
About a century later, Jean Astruc (d. 1766), a Catholic theologian and physician under Louis XV in France, published the anonymous book, Conjectures sur les memoires originaux, dont il parait que Moses s’est servi pour composer le livre de la Genèse (“Conjectures on the original accounts of which it appears Moses availed himself in composing the Book of Genesis”) in order to refute the thesis of Hobbes and Spinoza. He put together what should be understood as a sincere effort to engage academic tools to understand the literary format of the Pentateuch, but Astruc intended to do so in order to defend its Mosaic authorship. Labeling the efforts of Hobbes, et al., as “the sickness of the last century,” Astruc used the techniques of literary analysis that secular scholars had already employed with classical works, such as the Iliad and Odyssey, techniques that claimed to discover the various sources and traditions underneath a work so as to extract the authentic text. Austruc accomplished the task by separating what he understood as the two major identity markers in the opening chapters of Genesis, namely, the appearance of the names for God, “Elohim” and “Yahweh”.
He then catalogued all the verses. He also distinguished between the two accounts of the creation in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, respectively, as well as two accounts of Sarah’s abduction by a foreign king in Genesis 12 and Genesis 20. In all, Austruc made four columns, two for the names of God, and two for the duplicated accounts. The four columns contained were thus composed of two long narratives and two short narratives and Astruc believed that these were the original documents written by Moses. Austruc also believed that Moses had intended for the four parallel accounts were to be read separately. Unfortunatley, a later editor mixed the four columns into one narrative, thus causing the conflations and repetitiveness picked up by Hobbes and Spinoza.
After Astruc, the tools he used were greatly enhanced by later scholars, especially those from the German schools. Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (c. 1780) expanded Astruc’s methodology to the entire Pentateuch, concluding in 1823 that Moses had not authored any of the first five books traditionally attributed to him. Adding to Austruc’s Elohim and Yahweh, Wilhelm de Wette concluded in 1805 that Deuteronomy provided a third source of authorship. In 1822, Friedrich Bleek claimed that Joshua was the continuation of the Pentateuch after Deuteronomy, and still others imagined they saw the author of Deuteronomy in the books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings. In 1853 Hermann Hupfeld asserted that Austruc’s Elohist was in fact two separate sources, the second called the Priestly source. Hupfeld also believed that the final version of the Pentateuch was the product of a supreme redactor who combined all four sources into one.
Most important in the analysis was the dating of the various sources and why they were written at a specific juncture in history. De Wette, for example, held that no part of the Pentateuch was composed before the time of David. Spinoza connected Deuteronomy with the priests of the Temple in Jerusalem during the reign of Josiah in the seventh century B.C., but there was much argumentation back and forth about the correct placement of the various epochs of literature.
In 1876, Julius Wellhausen published his work, Die Komposition des Hexateuch (“The Composition of the Hexateuch”). Here he put together what he believed to be the correct four-source theory for the origin of the Pentateuch. Two years later he published Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (“Prolegomena to the History of Israel”), which, following in line with the eradication of divine intervention and miraculous activity in the German theological schools, looked at the history of Israel the samw as he would the Illiad and the Odyssy.
Although Wellhausen did not contribute any new theories, he summarized and categorized all the previous scholarship into one comprehensive theory on the origins of the Pentateuch and Judaism, and remained the authority on the subject for the next century.
The Purported Sources of the Pentateuch
J : the Jahwist, originally written about 950 B.C., it is the oldest among the four sources. It consists of half of Genesis and half of Exodus, with portions in Numbers. The Jahwist incorporates a personal God by the name of Yahweh or Jehovah based on the Hebrew tetragrammaton. Of the twelve tribes, the Jahwist is said to concentrate on Judah, and does so in a narrative format and sophisticated literary style.
E : the Elohist, originally written about 850 B.C., consists of a third of Genesis and half of Exodus, plus fragments of Numbers. It often duplicates the narratives found in the Jahwist, incorporating the same personal God but under the name Elohim. Elohim is said to reveal himself as “Yahweh” during the incident when Moses is before the burning bush (Exodus 3). Whereas the Jahwist focuses on Judah, the Elohist focuses on Israel and the priesthood.
D : the Deuteronomist, originally written about 650 to 621 B.C. consists of all of the book of Deuteronomy. Its main topic concerns the Mosaid Law. It is said to add the term Yahweh Elohim (“The Lord our God”) to the names of God (yet the first instance of Yahweh Elohim appears in Genesis 3:8, 9, 13, 14).
P : the Priestly, originally written about 550 to 400 B.C. consists of a fifth of Genesis, greater portions of Exodus and Numbers, and almost the entire book of Leviticus. As the name suggests, the Priestly source was concerned mainly with the temple cult. Many sections parallel the Jahwist and Elohist but with emphasis on the priesthood. It contains many genealogies, dates, numbers, lists and laws of every sort. The Priestly God is said to be withdrawn and harsh, thus adopting the name “Elohim” as opposed to “Yahweh.”
Wellhausen’s attempt to distinguish between these four sources was based mostly on the criteria he acquired from previous scholars. Among the distinctive characteristics are said to be:
• style of writing and choice of vocabulary
• the use of the divine names (e.g., Elohim, Yahweh)
• duplicated or triplicated narratives or other formats
The Jahwist was said to be written in a sophisticated narrative style, while the Elohist was a little less eloquent. The Deuteronimist and the Priestly were considered much less sophisticated, and in fact were dry and legalistic. Much is made of the fact that certain vocabulary words or the use of Mount Horeb in the Elohist or Deuteronomist but the appearance of Mount Sinai in the Jahwist or the Priestly, excentuate the distinctions between the four sources. Likewise, reverered objects such as the ark of the covenant, are said to appear frequently in the Jahwist but never in the Elohist. Such issues as the rank of the Judges is not mentioned in the Priestly, whereas the prophets are mentioned only in the Elohist and the Deuteronomist. There is also said to be a difference between the way God communicates with man. In the Jahwist, God frequently meets man in person (e.g., as is the case with Adam and Abraham), but the Elohist communicates mainly through dreams. The Priestly God is distant and can only be approached by means of the priesthood. Although they might seem impressive, all these critieria are rather arbitrary and self-serving.
The Basis for the JEDP’s Theory of Dating the Sources
The foundation place and time for the dating of the JEDP theory is the event described in 2 Kings 22:8-20 concerning the rediscovery of the written law or “scroll of Torah” in the Temple in Jerusalem by the high priest Hilkiah in the reign of Josiah. Josiah’s reading of the Torah gives him the impetus to orchestrate a total religious reform in Judah, which results in the destruction of all pagan altars in the country. All sacrifice was to be done in the Temple and only for Yahweh. As to the exact identity of Josiah’s “Torah,” St. Jerome suggested that it was from Deuteronomy, the second law. De Wette claimed that it consisted of Deuteronomy 12-26 but that Hilkiah and Josiah collaborated to write the document and then attribute it to the original. Hence, the Deuteronomist is, one might say, the cornerstone for the dating of JEDP.
Logically, Wellhausen then dated the other sources (JEP) around the remaining openings of the Deuteronomist. Having already accepted Karl Graf’s thesis that the four sources were written chronologically as (1) J, (2) E, (3) D, (4) P, his conclusion raised arguments from other scholars who understood P as the earliest source. Based on his own work in the Prolegomena, Wellhausen insisted on a late P of around 500 B.C. in the post-exilic period. He believed his chronology flowed from the natural evolution of religious practice. In the monarchial society of Genesis through Judges and Samuel, Wellhausen understood the altars erected as tributes to the Patriarchs or warriors such as Joshua. In these instances, anyone could offer sacrifice to God and only small portions were offered to priests (e.g., Melchizedek). In the late monarchy, sacrifice was more centralized and controlled by the priests, while all-inclusive feasts, such as Passover, were instituted to tie the populace to the monarchy in national celebration. In post-Exilic times, the temple in Jerusalem was considered the only sanctuary and only Aaron’s descendants could offer sacrifices.
In the final anysis, Wellhausen claimed that the four sources were combined by a long series of redactors. First, J combined with E to form JE. Second, JE combinded with D to form JED. Third, JED combined with P to form JEDP, the final Torah. Following Hobbes and Spinoza, Wellhausen said Ezra, leading Judah back from captivity in Babylon, was the final redactor.
… Archaeologists such as Kenneth Kitchen have criticized any approach that starts with presuppositions rather than the evidence gathered from archaeology and the interpretation of ancient written records.321 Other recent scholarship has stated that Wellhausen’s dating of the hypothetical ‘P’ (Priestly) document as post-exilic cannot explain the demonstration that the Jubilee and Sabbatical legislation, an essential part of the ‘priestly’ laws, was known all the time that Israel was in its land, starting in 1406 BC.322 Wellhausen’s statements that the priestly portions of the Pentateuch necessarily were composed after Ezekiel’s writings323 has been challenged by Risa Levitt Kohn,324 John Bergsma,325 and other scholars who maintain that a comparison of similar passages in Ezekiel and Leviticus shows that it is impossible that the Ezekiel passages could have been written before the parallel passages in Leviticus. Gordon Wenham’s analysis of the chiastic structure of Genesis 6:10 to 9:19—probably the finest example of chiasm in the entire Bible—has been presented as an argument in favor of the artistic unity of the Bible’s Flood narrative, in contradiction to its division by Wellhausen (and others) into “J” and “P” sources.326 The ancient literary device of the chiasm was unknown to Wellhausen, as were the later archaeological findings from Ugarit and Egypt that showed that inscriptions from the ancient world used, in the same original document, more than one name for their deity.327 The Quran, which unquestionably had but one author, also uses different names for God. Therefore the basic assumption of Wellhausen that different names for God necessarily imply different source documents can no longer be held. Kenneth Kitchen has stated that it is not only these and other post-Wellhausen findings by archaeologists and historians that have refuted Wellhausen’s ideas, but even such discoveries from Egypt and Assyria that were being made in Wellhausen’s day were ignored by him because they conflicted with his deductive (presupposition-based) approach to history.328 Despite such criticisms, the deductive method espoused by Wellhausen continues to find support among a few scholars. Examples using Wellhausen’s deductive approach are the fairly recent studies of the history of Israel’s divided kingdom period by Christine Tetley and Jeremy Hughes.329 Hughes in particular (ibid., p. 2) recognizes his debt to the earlier scholarship of Wellhausen.
It has been alleged that Wellhausen’s scholarship had an antisemitic330 (and anti-Catholic) component. Wellhausen openly expressed his hostility to the legal (i.e., Jewish) and priestly (i.e., Catholic) portions of the Torah. On learning of Karl Heinrich Graf’s hypothesis of the Mosaical law as a late addition to the original spiritual religion of the prophets, Wellhausen was ready to accept Graf’s hypothesis “almost before I heard his reasons.”331
After Wellhausen
For much of the 20th century Wellhausen’s hypothesis formed the framework within which the origins of the Pentateuch were discussed, and even the Vatican came to urge that “light derived from recent research” not be “neglected,” listing specifically “the sources written or oral” and “the forms of expression.”332 Some important modifications were introduced, notably by Albrecht Alt and Martin Noth, who argued for the oral transmission of ancient core beliefs – guidance out of Egypt, conquest of the Promised Land, covenants, revelation at Sinai/Horeb, etc.333 Simultaneously, the work of the American school of biblical archaeologists such as William F. Albright and Cyrus Gordon seemed to confirm that even if Genesis and Exodus were only given their final form in the first millennium BC, they were still firmly grounded in the material reality of the second millennium.334 The overall effect of such refinements was to aid the wider acceptance of the basic hypothesis by reassuring believers that even if the final form of the Pentateuch was late and not due to Moses himself, and it was nevertheless possible to recover a credible picture of the period of Moses and of the patriarchal age.
Hence opposition to the documentary hypothesis gradually waned, and by the mid-twentieth century it was almost universally accepted.335
Mid-century challenges to the hypothesis such as that of the Italian Jewish scholar Umberto Cassuto, had little impact at the time, but R. N.
Whybray in the 1970s restated almost identical arguments with far greater consequences. Whybray pointed out, inter alia, that of the various possible models for the composition of the Pentateuch - documentary, supplemental and fragmentary - the documentary was the most difficult to demonstrate, for while the supplemental and fragmentary models propose relatively simple, logical processes and can account for the unevenness of the final text, the process envisaged by the DH is both complex and extremely specific in its assumptions about ancient Israel and the development of its religion. Whybray went on to assert that these assumptions were illogical and contradictory, and did not offer real explanatory power: why, for example, should the authors of the separate sources avoid duplication, while the final redactor accepted it? “Thus the hypothesis can only be maintained on the assumption that, while consistency was the hallmark of the various [source] documents, inconsistency was the hallmark of the redactors!”336 Since Whybray there has been a proliferation of theories and models regarding the origins of the Torah, many of them radically different from Wellhausen’s model. Thus, to mention some of the major figures from the last decades of the 20th century, H. H. Schmid almost completely eliminated J, allowing only a late Deuteronomical redactor.337 With the idea of identifiable sources disappearing, the question of dating also changes its terms. Additionally, some scholars have abandoned the Documentary hypothesis entirely in favour of alternative models which see the Pentateuch as the product of a single author, or as the end-point of a process of creation by the entire community. Rolf Rendtorff and Erhard Blum saw the Pentateuch developing from the gradual accretion of small units into larger and larger works, a process which removes both J and E, and, significantly, implied a fragmentary rather than a documentary model for Old Testament origins;338 and John Van Seters, using a different model, envisaged an ongoing process of supplementation in which later authors modified earlier compositions and changed the focus of the narratives.339 The most radical contemporary proposal has come from Thomas L. Thompson, who suggests that the final redaction of the Torah occurred as late as the early Hasmonean monarchy.
The documentary hypothesis still has many supporters, especially in the United States, where William H. Propp has completed a two-volume translation and commentary on Exodus for the prestigious Anchor Bible Series from within a DH framework,340 and Antony F. Campbell and Mark A. O’Brien have published a “Sources of the Pentateuch” presenting the Torah sorted into continuous sources following the divisions of Martin Noth. Richard Elliott Friedman’s “Who Wrote the Bible?” (1987) and “The Bible with Sources Revealed” (2003) were in essence an extended response to Whybray, explaining, in terms based on the history of ancient Israel, how the redactors could have tolerated inconsistency, contradiction and repetition, indeed had it forced upon them by the historical setting in which they worked. Friedman’s classic four-source division differed from Wellhausen in accepting Yehezkel Kaufmann’s dating of P to the reign of Hezekiah;341 this in itself is no small modification of Wellhausen, for whom a late dating of P was essential to his model of the historical development of Israelite religion.
Friedman argued that J appeared a little before 722 BC, followed by E, and a combined JE soon after that. P was written as a rebuttal of JE (c.
715-687 BC), and D was the last to appear, at the time of Josiah (c. 622 BC), before the Redactor, whom Friedman identifies as Ezra, collated the final Torah.
The terminology and insights of the documentary hypothesis – notably its recognition that the Pentateuch is the work of many hands and many centuries, and that its final form belongs to the middle of the 1st millennium BC - continue to inform scholarly debate about the origins of the Pentateuch, it no longer dominates that debate as it did for the first two thirds of the 20th century. “The verities enshrined in older introductions [to the subject of the origins of the Pentateuch] have disappeared, and in their place scholars are confronted by competing theories which are discouragingly numerous, exceedingly complex, and often couched in an expository style that is (to quote John van Seter’s description of one seminal work) ‘not for the faint-hearted.’”342
317 Specifically, chapter 33, titled: “Of the Number, Antiquity, Scope, Authority and Interpreters of the Books of Holy Scripture”
