Documentary hypothesis

Abstract: The decades between 1850 and 1930 saw traditional understandings of Christianity subjected to rigorous social, intellectual, and theological criticism across the transatlantic world. Unprecedented urban and industrial expansion drew attention to the shortcomings of established models of church organization while traditional Christian beliefs concerning human origins and the authority of Scripture were assailed by new approaches to science and biblical higher criticism. In contradistinction to lower or textual criticism, higher criticism dealt with the development of the biblical text in broad terms. According to James Strahan, professor of Hebrew at Magee College, Derry, from 1915 to 1926, textual criticism aimed “at ascertaining the genuine text and meaning of an author” while higher “or historical, criticism seeks to answer a series of questions affecting the composition, editing and collection of the Sacred Books.” During the nineteenth century, the controversy over the use of higher critical methods focused for the most part upon the Old Testament. In particular, critics dismissed the Mosaic authorship and unity of the Pentateuch, arguing that it was the compilation of a number of early documentary fragments brought together by priests after the Babylonian Exile in the sixth century B.C. This “documentary hypothesis” is most often associated with the German scholar, Julius Wellhausen. Indeed, higher criticism had been fostered in the extensive university system of the various German states, which encouraged original research and the emergence of a professional intellectual elite. It reflected the desire of liberal theologians to adapt the Christian faith to the needs and values of modern culture, particularly natural science and history.

Abstract: posed by Moses but was the work of several later authors is called “The Documentary Theory,” more accurately, “Hypothesis.” Its origination actually began with the Elohist’s view that terms such as eloahim and el were alternate names for Yahweh. Jews of the Middle Ages had raised these generic terms and titles to the rank of personal names in a bizarre attempt to conceal the sacred name and to use these words as substitutes. As a result, men began to read the books of Moses as if there were multiple names for the almighty. In the 12th century C.E., a Jewish scholar from Spain, named Abraham ibn Ezra, first proposed multiple authorship of the Pentateuch (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, chaps. VIIX). Abraham, faced with specific passages that pointed to a later editor’s hand, concluded that Moses did not write all of the five books attributed to him. His views set in motion a host of other critics who questioned Moses’ authorship. These critics included Jews and even Christians like Martin Luther. Christian humanists and philosophers like Masius (died 1573) and Thomas Hobbes (1651) added fuel to the fire. Isaac de la Peyrere (1655) then suggested that Moses had not even written the five books, but rather several other men had. As the result of Abraham ibn Ezra and some of those who followed him, the developing Documentary Hypothesis gained momentum under the Dutch Jewish philosopher Benedict Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, chap. VII to X). With a backdrop of religious misinterpretation, a lack of understanding of the parable nature of Scriptures, and limited knowledge of Hebrew, Spinoza concluded that all of the Old Testament, from Genesis to Nehemiah, was composed by the scribe Ezra in the 5th century B.C.E. Spinoza was followed by Richard Simon, a French priest who wished to emphasize the importance of the Church over Scriptures. Simon argued that Scriptures were so laden with inconsistency in order and chronology, and with stylistic differences, that it was impossible for Moses to have been the only author. He reasoned, as a result, that Catholic tradition was a more secure basis for faith than Scriptures! Though officially denied by the Church, his sentiments nonetheless reflected the true underlying prejudice of most members of the Judaeo-Christian and Muslim faiths, a fact demonstrated by their actions rather than their words. The debate was now raging, but unfortunately, only false alternatives were presented— the various sides knowing little about which they spoke. Leclerc, a protestant, replied to Simon that he had gone too far but conceded that portions of the Pentateuch were written by scribes later than Moses. Then came the French physician, Jean Astruc, who published a work in 1753 entitled Conjectures About the Original Memoranda It Appears Which Moses Used to Compose the Book of Genesis. Astruc claimed that the deity was known by two different names, Yahve [Yahweh] and Elohim [eloahim] and that these two different names were the products of two different traditions. He suggested that the repetitions, contradictions, and chronological problems that scholars had come to “believe” actually arose as the result of the interweaving of these two different ancient sources. These sources were more ancient than Moses, he noted, but Moses brought them together. After Astruc, there arose men of more considerable skill, like the German scholars Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (Einleitung, 1780–1783) and K. D. Ilgen (Die Urkunden des Jerusalemischen Tempelarchivs in ihrer Urgestat, 1798). Then came Alexander Geddes (Introduction to the Pentateuch and Joshua, 1792), who proposed a fragmentary theory for the origin of the Pentateuch. He held that it was developed during the Solomonic era from many separate fragments dating back to the time of Moses and before. These men were followed by a work published in 1806–1807 by W. M. L. De Wette, entitled Beiträge zur Einleitung in das The Documentary Hypothesis

Abstract: This article analyzes the experiences of students at a pluralistic Jewish high school learning the documentary hypothesis in biblical scholarship as an approach to reading the biblical text. The author examines selected student writings, locating her analysis of student experience in the context of her particular institution. She classifies student experience by type, and argues that for all students, learning the documentary hypothesis is ultimately not only defensible but beneficial to their theological and intellectual growth. The author responds to a number of possible concerns about the risks of this curricular choice.

Abstract: "Sinai pericope" is based on the name of the desert in which Israel is sojourning. The section Exod 19-24 is the first part of the Sinai pericope. A widely held opinion, the so-called "Documentary Hypothesis", claims that Exod 19-24 like large parts of the Pentateuch is a compilation of three formerly independent documents: the Yahwist (j), the Elohist (e), and the priestly source (p). In Exod 18-24 there is a plurality of divine-human relations. The chapter traces how the Mountain-of-God pericope developed into the Sinai periscope. The Deuteronomists incorporate the Exodus-Mountain-of-God narrative into the Deuteronomistic History (DtrH); the former Exodus-Mountain-of-God narrative becomes the initial part of the DtrH. The Moses-centered additions of the Torah composition revoke the priestly degradation of the people and once again introduce a new concept of communal-divine interrelation. Keywords: Deuteronomistic history; Exodus; mountain of God; Sinai; Sinai pericope; Torah composition