Talk:Documentary hypothesis/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Revising "Criticisms" section

I'm currently revising the Criticisms section, which I feel is far too long and rambling. I've written a few paragraphs summarising the views of some major scholars, but this is not exhaustive. I've deleted the Evangelical Criticisms subsection as being too unscholarly, but I want to cannibalise the two remaining sections as there's good material in them - the aim is mostly to make this section far tighter and also more informative, linking it to major ideas put forward in recent decades. 203.221.81.154 11:37, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if checking citations for quality is a Wikipedia sort of thing to do, but the 'Criticisms' section of the references seem (mostly, at least the ones I've looked at) to be more apologetic than scholarly, if you get my drift. I'm tempted to remove a few of them, but I've only just joined the discussion and I'd at least prefer to wait until something better came along.

While you're at it, the fourth paragraph in 'Views of Supporters' (which begins `The Heidelberg professor Rolf Rendtorff expresses the view...' exists in the previous section. Moreover, this paragraph isn't complete. However, I'm not sure which section it's supposed to be in. I'm not familiar with Rendtorff, and the little bit I've read here suggests he could belong to either camp! CammoBlammo 05:33, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Java's evangelical criticisms

I just reverted (again) Java's insistent deletion of what he doesn't like and his determination to put his own ideas on biblical criticism into the article. Java, it should be quite clear to you that other editors have rejected your version of what the section should look like. I'm no great fan of the DH myself, but I do want to keep this article high-quality, and your so-called evangelical criticisms are low-quality. The DH has come under a lot of criticism since the 60s, but it all points towards more and more texts and authors, not towards Mosaic authorship. I do wish, since you believe in MA, that you'd write an article on it that could be linked from here - Wiki really needs that article, and it doesn't exist. PiCo 00:44, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

"Criticism" section

I've erduced this very long section to 3 parqagraphs. I'm not entirely happy with the result - it's little more than a list of names - but we shoujld be able to build something on it.

The problem I've found is that while it seems almost nobody now accepts the Wellhausian 4-documents hypothesis, everyoine seems to have taken various bits of it and run off with them. Thus you can have P as the backbone, D as the backbone, even J as the backbone. You can also have no-J, or no-E. You can have multiple authors, or one author, or schools of authors. It looks very like the menu at Starbucks. PiCo 06:51, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Deleting section "Minimalist variant"

I deleted the section headed "A Minimalist Variant", because biblical Minimalism (a.k.a. the Copenhagen School is not, to my mind, a variant on the DH but a challenge to it. Also, the section dwells almost exclusively on Israel Finkelstein, who is (a) an archaeologist, not a textual scholar, and (b) not a biblical minimalist (his opponents often call him a minimalist, but he himself rejects the label). I did, however, take the sentence on Thomas L. Thompson and move it to the "Criticism" section, as Thompson really is a member of theso-called Minimalsit school, and an miportant textual scholar.

The deleted section is:

A Minimalist variant

Israel Finkelstein has criticised Biblical scholars and suggested that the combined Davidic and Solomonic Empires existed only in legend. On the basis of an archaeological exploration of the size of Jerusalem in the 10th century, he suggests that power centred in Samaria until the fall of the Northern Kingdom in 720 BCE, and that following the fall of Israel, Jerusalem expanded by 500% to become a city, rather than a small market town. This expansion Finkelstein sees as due to the enormous number of refugees who fled south to escape from the wrath of Sargon of Assyria.

Interpreting the E source within this political context leads to the suggestion that it reflected the views of Shilohite priests, refugees living in Jerusalem, who criticised the policies and actions of the previous kings of Israel, which they saw as directly responsible for the disastrous collapse of Israel.

The J source in this scenario offers a Judean response to the more sophisticated E account, written possibly in the early part of the reign of Hezekiah (ca. 716–687 BCE), and intended to give the Levitical Aaronite priesthood of Jerusalem priority over the Mushite Shilohite refugees from the north. P then resulted from a gathering of materials following the debacle at the end of Hezekiah's rule, and formed part of a political struggle between the traditionalists and modernisers. The traditionalists (those opposed to Hezekiah's centralism and wishing to return to the pre-Hezekiah situation), made alliance with the pro-Assyrian faction surrounding Hezekiah's successful son, King Manasseh (reigned ca. 687–642 BCE)). The modernisers eventually achieved pre-eminence under Manasseh's grandson, King Josiah (reigned ca. 641–609 BCE).

Finkelstein's Minimalist school allows for much later redaction than in other versions of the documentary hypothesis. For example, on the basis of the Elephantine papyri, it would seem that the Jewish temple remained largely polytheistic as late as 409 BCE during the reign of Darius II. Thomas L. Thompson, for instance, on the basis of chronological synchronism that posits a central role in the Torah for the 480 years between the Exodus and the construction of the Temple, and then down to the rebuilding of the temple and the Maccabean revolt, suggests that a major redaction of the textual material occurred during the early Hasmonean monarchy.

Deleting section "Secondary hypothesis"

I deleted this section also, as it's unsourced, highly schematic, and not clearly relevant (the DH is a hypothesis about the Torah/Pentateuch, not the other books of the bible. This is the deleted section:

Secondary hypothesis

The secondary hypothesis of the documentary hypothesis suggests that two schools of writers put together the biblical text of the Old Testament: the priests of Shiloh and the Aaronid priesthood.

The priests of Shiloh have associations with the following texts:

• E (the Elohist source of the Torah)
• the Deuteronomistic law code (Deuteronomy 12–26)
• the Deuteronomistic history (most of the material in: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, I and II Samuel, I and II Kings; compiled from older sources)
• the Book of Jeremiah

The Aaronid priests have associations with the following texts:

• J (the Jahwist source of the Torah)
• P (the Aaronid rewriting of JE)
• the book of generations (used by R in the Torah)
• the book of journeys (used by R in the Torah)
• the Aaronid law code (Lev)
• the Books of Chronicles (compiled from older sources)
• the Book of Ezekiel

Reorganised sections, re-wrote Criticisms section

I reorganised the sections within the article, as there was a lot of repetition of material. I haven't deleted much, so the repetition is still there, but at least the sections are now together.

I also re-wrote the Criticisms section - my aim was to give a brief overview of 20th century scholarship, concentrating on those ways in which Wellhausen's hypothesis has been questioned and modified, sometimes to the point of becoming unrecognisable. I'm not satisfied that the section I've written is as good as it should be, and I invite others to contribute. PiCo 13:47, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

A lernean hydra

We really need to be more specific concerning the division between Welllhausen's thesis and the modern versions. It appears that modern archeology sent wellhausen packing, but a new theory arose from it's ashes that circumvents these problems. Just like the lernean hydra,, knock one hole in the thesis and another few theories appear.

We also need to consider that according to traditional rabbinic thought, the bible was deliberately written in a fragmented sort of way in order to hint at the oral torah. (It was hinted, not written straight out in order to give the Rabbis a certain amount of leeway in interpetation so that the Torah could remain relavant to all times and situations).

I would love to see more concerning the methods used in deduction. What archeological material is used in determining linguistic shifts? (I guess that may be beyond the scope of this article.)Wolf2191 21:26, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Wolf2191, I moved your addition on attempts to reconcile the DH and Mosaic authorship to the Mosaic authorship article, as it's really more about the MA than about DH. Please feel free to work some more on that article - it needs something on Kenneth Kitchen, for example, probably the most important mainsrteam scholar to continue to uphold the MA tradition today.

As for archaeology and language, if I understand rightly you're asking how scholars date texts by their language. I don't know the answer in detail - it belongs to those who know their Hebrew, not to mention their Old Persian, their Greek, their Assyrian, and a host of other things that are far beyond me. But one thing would be the question of whether a piece contains loan words that can tie it to a specific period - if a Hebrew text uses Old Persian loan-words, for example, then obviously the text was written by someone living after the Persians conquered Babylon. Kitchen uses this method as one of his arguments for dating Exodus to the time of Moses - he sees Egyptian loan-words being used for such things as Moses's bulrushes. PiCo 06:33, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the info! I do think that this article should also have mention of Breuer and Halivni (especially Halivni is another form of the DH). Can't see anything wrong with having the same material in both places. (WP not paper).Wolf2191 12:24, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Wolf2191, I still disagree with your wish to keep this material in this page: it deals not with development of the DH but development of the Mosaic authorship tradition. I see from your talk page that you respect the opinions of Slrubenstein; as I do also, I would like to put this to him for (totally informal) arbitration. That soiunds far too strong - I'm not saying you and I have a major dispute, we don't, but we do disagree over this and I'd like this other opinion. Would you like to contact him for me? PiCo 13:32, 29 July 2007 (UTC) (Incidentally, I'm not all happy with this DH article anyway, and would like his opinion on the broader question of how it can be improved: I've done some work on the Criticisms section, not touched the remainder, not happy with any of it... PiCo 13:32, 29 July 2007 (UTC))

Sounds good. I'll leave a message on his talk page.Wolf2191 13:35, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I have to say, respectfully, that in this instance I agree ith PiCo. I think Wolf2191 has added valuable content to Wikipedia, but I do not agree with how he represents the views of R. Weiss Halivni and others. They are not reconciling tradition with the DH. They clearly reject the DH. What they are doing is reconciling tradition with certain facts. These facts are used as evidence for the FH but these facts are not in and of themselves the DH. These facts exist independent of the DH. I do not recall whether this article mentions it, but Ibn Ezra commented on certain facts in the Torah that he felt he could not comment on. The DH is one explanation for or interpretation of these facts. R. Hoffman and R. Weiss Halivni are providing another explanation for/interpretation of these facts, or some of them. But what they are doing is providing an alternative to the DH, not a reconciliation with it. Now, I do not think that this article should contain sections on alternative theories. I think it is an article called "The Documentary Hypothesis" and it should be limited to explaining the Documentary Hypothesis, as if was originally formulated and as it is now understood by critical scholars today. I think the hypotheses (if they call them that; ir interpretations) of R. Hoffman, R. Weiss Halivni, and others belongs in another article that expounds their arguments fully, as well as their assumptions (or axioms, what they take for granted) and methods. I would have no objection at all to a set of links to alternative views in this article, including a link to an article expounding the view Wolf2191 has worked on summarizing here. But since that view rejects the DH, it should not be presented as a variation or form of the DH (the essense of the DH is not that Exra or the Masorites or any other sage had a variety of sources, each of which they believed to have been based on and older text revealed by God or written by Moses.

The essence of the DF is that the sources out of which the Torah was composed were originally composed by different humans living at different times but all considerably after the time that tradition claims the Children of Israel were wandering in the desert, and that these sources thus reveal to us something about the history of changes in the religion of Israel - not something about God.

I understood the DH as mainly focusing on the composite nature of the Torah. The way to understand how such a composite nature came about is subject to wide debate (see article) with many varying interpetations. I accept your point though. ThanksWolf2191 14:25, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Reject that, and you reject the DH. Accept that, and you can disagree over whether a particular passage of the Torah was written by E or by P, for example, or whether P is the most recent source, or, say, D, but you still are working within the DH. Clearly, R. Hoffman's and R. Weiss Halivni's alternatives are well outside the DH). Slrubenstein | Talk 14:19, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, the discussion page of Abraham ibn Ezra has a piece on this subject.Wolf2191 14:31, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Supplementary Hypothesis?

Does anyone know about the Supplementary Hypothesis and how it differs from the Documentary Hypothesis? (Just realised this looks as if I've asked and answered my own question. This question was posted by 89.138.144.235, whoever he or she may be).

There's no such thing as the supplementary hypothesis; the idea is that there are three models for looking at the composition of the Torah (or indeed any similar text, e.g. the Odyssey), the documentary model, the supplementary model, and the fragmentary model. The documentary model sees someone - an editor/redactor - sitting down with a number of complete texts in front of him and cutting and pasting them into a final whole - Wellhausen's documentary hypothesis was the last in a series of hypotheses based on this model, and became so well-known and accepted that it was called simply the documentary hypothesis. The fragmentary model is the way modern historians write history: the author (not an editor) facing, not a small number of complete texts, but a host of fragments, which he weaves into a work which is his and his alone. Supplementary models look more like the way Wiki articles get written: someone writes something, someone else adds to it, someone else adds a bit to that and perhaps takes a bit out, until at some point everyone gets tired and they leave it alone (which I think will never happen with Wiki). Whybray, who was perhaps more responsible than anyone for undermining the scholarly consensus on the Wellhausen documentary hypothesis, favoured a fragmentary hpothesis instead, the first edition of the Pentateuch being also the final edition, composed from whatever bits of information - poems, histories, oral traditions, etc. Rendtorff and his student Blum, and I guess Van Seters, favour supplementary hypotheses, but they come to different conclusions. This link gives a good overview although it doesn't use quite the same terminology I've used here; this link is far more detailed (and comes with an extremely irritating ad at the top of the page); this site gives a very brief overview of the developments in biblical study since c.1970, but doesn't approach it from the point of viwe of these three models (which I guess means that the three-model theory is itself a model!) PiCo 01:54, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Re-writing, reorganising

I've started reorganising the artilce. Today I concentrated on reorganising what was already there - not much new writing, mostly moving material around to get a more logical structure, deleting doublets (as befits the subject of the article), and so on. This has involved re-titling some sections. I'll explain here any future work, but please comment on anything that I do. PiCo 16:33, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi PiCo, I've been watching the work you've been doing on this article, and I think it's great. I was tempted to have a crack myself, but you beat me to it, and I think you're doing a better job than I would have done. If I get some time in the next week or two I'll have a closer look and help out a bit. CammoBlammo 01:01, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you CB - it's nice to know that someone's watching. Tonight I finished revising the section "Before Wellhausen" (section 2). A lot of the content has been retained, but with considerable editing. The editing has had two aims: to produce a smoother flow and clearer exposition of ideas, and to reduce non-essential information. "Non-essential" means information which is, or should be, available in linked aricles: this article is quite long enough as it is. I'm not sure about footnotes/references: I used two sources myself, one on-line, the other a book, and I've referenced those, but the material already there when I started I can't reference, as I don't know exactly where it comes from. PiCo 16:09, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Tonight I worked on the Wellhausen section, still not quite finished - I want to expand the subsection on how Wellhausen distinguished between the various sources. A large amount of material from the existing version, relating to the historical setting of the various sources, was deleted, as it comes from Friedman rather than Wellhausen. Comments welcome. PiCo 15:51, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

PiCo, I really don't like the way the image of the Hebrew text breaks up the bulletted list of the four sources. -Acjelen 16:13, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I'll try to fix it. I'll also do something about your comment re Yahwist/Jahwist, but probably not till the entire rewrite is complete. (But feel free to do it yourself if you wish - everyone is entitled to edit). PiCo 16:23, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

The Wellhausen section is now finished, although no doubt it can be improved. I hope that my plan for the structure is clear: an introductory paragraph sumamrising the section, a description of the sources, an explanation of how Wellhausen discriminated between them, and an explanation of how he arrived at his dating. This separation of identification of sources and identification of dates is important, because modern critics frequently accept (either one) one while rejecting the other. Comments? PiCo 03:20, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I've rewritten the final section, "After Wellhausen", but not to my satisfaction. It still seems too much like a tour d'horizon for 20th century biblical studies, not erally a study of the later development of the DH. Perhaps the problem is the way it's so person-centric - concentrating on names instead of themes. Anyway, I'd be grateful for ideas. PiCo 12:51, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

J/Y

I think the article should mention that German uses J instead of Y (as in English) for the Hebrew letter Yod once and then use Jahwist consistently throughout the article. Using Yahwist but the J initial is confusing. -Acjelen 14:10, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

When did the DH come to be seriously questioned?

Julian Morgenstern says it happened in the 1940s (presumably before, as he was writing at that time.) The article says "recent decades", meaning the 70s (this is clear from the section headed Äfter Wellhausen). I believe the existing sentence in the lead is more accurate - i.e., that the consensus really broke down in the 70s, under the influence of, especially, Van Seters, Thompson, and Whybray, although others were involved and the doubts had certainly been building. So why is Morgenstern wrong? Because although questions had been raised (Cassuto and other Jewish scholars especially), the consensus still held. If you read standard texts as late as LaRue (1960s), you'll find the DH advanced as the explanation for the origins of Torah. The questions had not displaced it. After the 70s it eroded more and more, and today you find the terminology used but the Wellhausian DH almost never advanced as the explanation - even Friedman, who remains very close to Wellhausen, changes the order of the sources, which wreaks havoc with Wellhausen's central thesis regarding the development of Israelite religion. So, taking DH to mean Wellhausen's DH, and taking the end of consensus to mean more than just some people raising their doubts, the 70s is the period to look at, not the 40s. I am, of course, open to being told I've got it all wrong. PiCo 06:23, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the main problem here is probably that consensus is a poor choice of word. Consensus is a stronger term than majority. Even a two-thirds majority is less substantial than a consensus. I'm not sure the DH has ever had a two thirds majority among scholars, let alone the broader Judaeo-Christian teaching community, when we bear in mind that conservative Jewish and Christian scholars peppered it with criticism from inception.

Having said that, I think the verifiable fact that there was not consensus among conservatives in rejecting the DH, i.e. that it carried enough plausibility as a hypothesis to win support even among conservatives is particularly notable. It also must be said that many conservative criticisms were advanced purely on dogmatic lines.

Cassuto and Morgenstern in the early 40s (during WWII) were making dispassionate academic points, though a political approach had been taken as early as 1903 with Solomon Schechter's 'Higher Criticism — Higher Anti-Semitism'. I think we are robbing readers of some interesting backgound if we exclude this information, and misleading them if we call consensus, something that provoked heresy trials like:

• William Robinson Smith, Scotland, 1875.[1] (For teaching four sources prior to Wellhausen publishing.)
• Charles Augustus Briggs, USA, 1891. (A man I am much in debt to personally.)
• J. E. Davey, Ireland, 1927.[2]
• Samuel Angus, Australia, 1933. (A man I also have an odd relationship to.)

The Documentary Hypothesis was polarizing, perhaps held by a majority, but can we prove this? If there's some criterion I'm not privy to, that renders criticisms inadmissible until the 70s, I guess we could say there was consensus — consensus among all those holding acceptable POVs. But I thought Wiki policy was to admit all notable POVs. Putting the Charles Augustus Briggs on trial for heresy is a pretty notable kind of POV.

Anyway, that's my two cents for the moment. As far as I understand, unsourced text (like that I removed) can be removed any time. Sourced text (like that I provided and has been twice reverted) is not supposed to be removed without consensus at the talk page. It would seem there is perhaps a difference of opinion regarding the meaning of consensus? Alastair Haines 07:33, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

PS I just noticed your edit summary suggests Morgenstern is not a reliable source. I find that just a tad hard to digest — the President of the Society of Biblical Literature, in his presidential address to the members of that scholarly society, printed in its journal and reprinted in later anthologies. Despite being a scholar of immense stature, the context of his comment has peer review in droves! Alastair Haines 07:44, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I'll take that back abt Morgenstern :). But what I guess I mainly object to is that your reference to Morgenstern destroys the argument in the "Äfter Wellhausen" section. Please take a look at that section and work backwards from there, rather than editing into the lead (which needs to reflect what the article as a whole says). PiCo 08:35, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

And that is a point I can take to heart! Yes, it's all well and good me throwing something into the article, but if it's going to alter the general thrust, I should take responsibility for modifying it appropriately. I'm not sure it "spoils the argument" so much as adjusts perspective a little, but I'll see if I can smooth things so there's a consistant refinement. Cheers. Alastair Haines 09:01, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Alastair, I made an edit to your recent edit because I can't accept your reference to the DH as a "method" - source criticism is a method, but the DH is a hypothesis based on that method. Still, I think I see the point you're trying to make: after Wellhausen, the next new direction in biblcial criticism was Gunkel/Alt/Noth and form and tradition criticism in Europe, plus Albright's biblical archaeology school in America. Neither of these are strictly Wellhausian. I wantt o reflect that, but at the same time I don;'t want this article to turn into a survey of the history of biblical scholarship in the last 200 years. Anyway, I'll set out here on the talk page my own understanding of what happened between Wellhausen and the 1970s: First came Gunkel and Alt and form criticism, with Noth continuing this into the middle of the century. The overall thrust was to stress the non-literary origins of the Pentateuch, against W's emphasis on the literary history. More or less contemporaneous with Noth was Albright and the American biblical archaeology school, which criticing both Wellhausen and Noth as being too cerebral and not based in (archaeological) reality. Yet although both Noth and Albright criticised W's schema, they were modifying rather than rejecting it, and the modified DH (not quite any longer the wellhausian version) survived as the framework for discussion. It was only in the 70s that this all came undone, when Van Seters, Thompson and Whybray undermined all three legs of the consensus - Wellhausen's source criticism, Noth's form criticism, and Albright's biblical archaeology. So my question to you is, do you agree with this brief precis? PiCo 03:07, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

PiCo, in the text you edited, I had put Wellhausen's method not the DH method. What you say sounds great to me, and it's there in the first class source you quote. Wenham seems to say opposition to the DH ended around 1950, until everything went sideways in the 70s. I wouldn't want to argue with Wenham until I'd done a lot of research and got a peer review on my side. ;) In this case, I wouldn't even want to argue. :D Alastair Haines 07:38, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

DH is still the most influential single hypothesis in Torah-origin scholarship, right? If not, what is? Leadwind 04:07, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

• If you want a single phrase to replace documentary hypothesis it is final form. [3]

I can answer your question from a conservative Christian perspective, Leadwind. The conservative Christian position accepts the Torah as 1st century Judaism knew it, on the basis of Jesus of Nazareth's use and defence of the text he knew, which is consistant with Qumran (see Tanakh at Qumran) and Septuagint (LXX).

Many now argue that the text acheived a final form at a point we may never be able to date precisely, but certainly before Alexandrian Jewish translators put together the LXX. This final form appears to have been reproduced very closely between the Qumran mss of the Tanakh and those of the Masoretes. Both Jewish and Christian official positions regarding canonicity of books were based on this final form of the text.

Many also consider that resolving exegetical and interpretive difficulties can be done more fruitfully by reference to parallels in ancient near eastern documents that are known (Code of Hammurabi and many, many more), than by reference to hypothetical proto-ketuvim. In other words, hypothetical documents like JEPD are not often required to resolve issues, the documentary hypothesis debate is frequently moot. However, in some cases, some cautious speculation of this nature can be proposed, because we know Torah and Tanakh drew on the Book of Jasher, the Annals of the Kings of Judah, Davidic psalms and Solomonic proverbs that have not survived.

I suspect the view above would probably be too conservative for most progressive Jewish scholars, and not sufficiently conservative for many orthodox Jewish scholars.Alastair Haines 07:15, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

PS This looks like a good Jewish source: Brooks Schramm, Review of The Torah's Vision of Worship, Theology Today (2000). Alastair Haines (talk 07:28, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Leadwind, I suggest you look at iTanakh, a portal to enough reading to keep you busy for many a rainy afternoon. It's run by Prof Christopher Heard of Pepperdine University, a liberal prof at a conservative university, who also runs the fascinating Higgaion blog. My own answer to your question on the place of the DH in contemporary scholarship is that everyone agrees it has tremendous problems, but no-one has been able to replace it. PiCo 07:46, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Alastair, thanks, that's really interesting. But I'm looking for a scholarly perspective, not a sectarian one. Leadwind 13:20, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

PiCo, brief answer, yes, the DH is still the most influential hypothesis out there. Leadwind 13:20, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Leadwind, brief answer, no. I thought I was answering a scholarly question, not a sectarian one.

If you want to put your faith in four documents no-one has ever seen, go ahead. You certainly won't be sectarian that way, you'll simply be on your own.

Clearly you can't have read the sources I provided, or you'd realise none were actually conservative Christian sources. Nor do you seem to have understood the points I made about the physical textual evidence we have either. You'll find it very hard to know where things are at unless you read, and know what evidence people comment on.

You are certainly wrong about the DH "still being the most influential". I think you'd would be hard-pressed to find many contemporary scholars who believe in four documents. Not only that, you would find there would be few who would disagree with the views I presented above. There's nothing particularly Christian or conservative about them. The only reason I phrased it that way is because I'm considerably more familiar with what is said in those circles. I was being courteous and cautious.

Historically, the DH is extremely important, especially for conservatives, because they moved from convicting people for heresy regarding one particular view, to accepting the questions as legitimate. Don't be deceived, however, there has been movement the other way also, the whole debate demonstrated to outsiders that Bible scholars take the reliability of sources seriously on the basis of reason, not irrational faith. You'd have to have pretty irrational faith to believe in four documents that have not been found, and whose specific traces within existing texts were never a matter of consensus.

If you're interested in understanding the actual text of the Bible, scholarship has probably returned to basic literary analysis. If you're interested in the reliability of textual transmission of the Bible, for the part of its history that we do know, thanks to the DSS, copying was extraordinarily precise over a period of 1,000 years. Maybe it was just as good before that, but we can't say for sure, cause we just don't have much evidence. Alastair Haines 14:24, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

"bible-related" template

I removed this template because it doesn't fit into the top of the article - it forces the lead illustration down into the next section and just looks ugly. Plus I don't think it contains really important enough information to overlook its drawbacks. Do we really need this template? PiCo 00:05, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree.

Most links in the template exist in the article already, those that don't do not bear on the topic. From the perspective of this article, the template was neither helpful, nor appropriately placed.

However, in the long term, a navigation tool does make sense. The issue will always be that it is ideal to have a discriptive illustration top right of an article. It is also ideal to have a nav tool top right. The two priorities are in conflict in many articles across Wiki, and always will be. Collapsed nav tools seem to be a partial solution.

Expanding the length of the lead to accomodate a collapsed nav tool may be a good option at some point in the future. Alastair Haines 01:02, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Problems with this paragraph

I have problems with this paragraph from the After Wellhausen section:

There are some who still consider there to have been an identifiable P source, and date it similarly to Wellhausen, though by P they mean a collection of documents preserved by the priests, some thought to be as old as 1000 BCE. According to Friedman, the P redactor wrote during or just after the Babylonian exile, and is responsible for I and II Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, and numerous insertions in the earlier books. In this view, Wellhausen was actually dating Ezra. J also has its defenders, Kenneth W. Shafer presents evidence for Michal (daughter of Saul and estranged wife of David) as final redactor of J.

This is misleading on so many points. First, it seems to confuse documentary models with non-documentary - the documentary model sees P as a single document, not "a collection of documents": it's quite legitimate to discuss the use of DH language outside a DH context, but this paragraph doesn't seem aware of the issues involved. Second, if you date P to 1000 BC then you're certainly not dating it "similarly to Wellhausen", for whom the dating was central to his argument about the history of Jewish religion. Then the next sentence says that according to Friedman the P redactor wrote during during or just after the Babylonian exile": a quick check with Friedman will show that he believes P to be a document, not a redaction, and that it was written in the time of Hezekiah, more than a century before the Babylonian exile began. (Nor, for that matter, does Friedman suggest that his P was responsible for all those post-exilic books, and I don't think anyone has ever suggested that the Pentateuch and Chronicles share the same author). Then there's the sentence, "In this view, Wellhausen was actually dating Ezra." I'm not sure what "this view"means - presumably it's meant to be the supposed view of Friedman as outlined in the preceding sentence. If so, it's seems to suggest that Wellhausen identifies P with Ezra, which is false - Wellhausen saw P as a late exilic documentary source, Ezra as an even later redactor. Then there's the last sentence, which identifies a redactor (not author) of J - again, this glosses over the difference between documentary and non-documentary approaches. As for the reference to Kenneth W. Shafer, I've never come across his name in the literature and he appears not to be cited by any major figures, in fact not even to have been reviewed, so I'd be wary of using him until his notability as a source can be established. PiCo 02:12, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

The new section was added by User:Kenneth W. Shafer.

Oh. PiCo 10:24, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I made a couple of attempts to copy edit what I thought to be obvious POV style. I didn't attempt to interact with content, internal logic, or flow with the rest of the section.

Personally, I don't think the paragraphs contribute anything but confusion to the article.

I concur with deletion on the grounds of irrelevance, inaccuracy and original research.

Response to PiCo and Alistair Haines. Thank you for

your interest in my contribution. I agree with deleting it.

My book has been reviewed by the American Journal of

Biblical Theology. Google on: "Searching for J" Shafer

Any suggestions on how to make my book more notable?

kwshafer (talk) 03:15, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Hello Kenneth - I almost overlooked this post entirely. I think the problem with citing your book in this article is this: Does it add anything not already covered? Perhaps it does - I'm thinking of the contention that the author of J is female and identifiable. But if we do want to add this, I think the appropriate sources we would cite would be Friedman, who I think was the first to propose it, and Bloom, who popularised it in a best-selling book. How to make your book more notable: well, I guess it could be added to the "References" section, or whatever it's called - the section that lists suggested extra reading (as distinct from the References section, which is for sources actually used in writing the article). PiCo (talk) 12:19, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

P.S. returning to a minor matter, I do think the article should avoid suggesting the DH to be a consensus position. We know various notable challenges continued until at least the mid 40s. The article itself suggests precursors to the major criticisms of the 70s were already mooted in the 60s. That only leaves a maximum of twenty years of "consensus". Frankly, an "uneasy cease-fire during the 50s" seems a more realistic description. We can't use that specific language, obviously, but as I've mentioned before, consensus is a strong term, and led one reader to an unrealistic impression of the current status of the idea. Alastair Haines 10:08, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I see your point - perhaps "dominant view"? But what word or wording does Wenham use? Could also check other notable people like Larue, whose book seems to be available on-line in its entirety. I'll have a look around and see what new wording we can come up with based on what the experts say. PiCo 10:33, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Dominant is fair for a very long period, I agree. We can avert disputations by using the language of a respected author, I also agree.

Clines I like. Pooh I like even more. Nice work. :D Alastair Haines 13:05, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I know it has been nearly two years since this discussion took place, but back to (part of) PiCo's original point: there is no recognition (at the time I write) in this article of R. E. Friedman's redating of the P source to Hezekiah's time. The mistake in attributing the P source (the last half of Exodus, all of Leviticus, much of early Genesis, etc) to postexilic times has made hash of much of the secular (history-minded) Torah-interpretation that I grew up with, and I am grateful to Friedman for helping me set matters straight. I'd like to see this article provide just a little more help to others who might be similarly grateful. --arkuat (talk) 06:23, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Confusing statement

I had read Ernest Nicholson's Pentateuch in the 20th Century some years ago and recently re-read it. Here's something that really puzzles me. At one point he says that the second list of animals that go into the ark is from J, however I notice that in Hebrew, the commandment comes from Elohim, and the list of animals are designated "clean." I was not aware of any designation of animals as "clean" or "unclean" before D (ch 14 Deuteronomy) so if D comes later than J, why would this be identified as part of J? And why does this commandment come from Elohim and not from the Tetragrammaton? Nicholson does not evaluate the statement (pro or con), he just passes it on. Thanks 4.249.198.50 (talk) 22:09, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

That is only one of many such observations. Advocates of the hypothesis consider some of these cases in detail, and provide a range of plausible possibilities like superimposition of edits on top of material content provided predominantly by another source. The DH is not just about "cut and paste", but about "erase and rephrase" also.

I'm not a fan of the DH, few are these days, but I don't think editorial process is fundamentally contrary to divine inspiration. Kings is explicit about using sources, as is Luke-Acts. My dissatisfaction with the DH is logical not doctrinal.

It'd be great for you to enter a heading, quote and cite Nicholson. Examples are really helpful to anchor theory in reality don't you think? Alastair Haines (talk) 04:09, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I've just checked Friedman's "Sources Revealed" version: he has the first version (Gen. 7:2-3) as J, and the second (7:8-9) as P. This arrangement makes sense in DH terms - 7:2-3 is YHWH and has seven pairs of clean animals (to allow for sacrifices?) and two pairs of unclean, while 7:8-9 is Elohim and has two pairs of all animals (no sacrifices). In fact this seems so neat I can't understand why Nicholson said something so at odds with the traditional DH markers.PiCo (talk) 08:43, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I thought Elohim marked E, not P, and the Web site you provide a link to that shows the divisions of the first part of Genesis mirrors Nicholson. If that web site is at odds with traditional markers then why link to the site? 4.249.198.146 (talk) 21:58, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

First, an apology and correction: the passage I said was first (Gen. 7:2-3) isn't first at all; the real first passage is 6:13-22. This makes 7:2-3 and 7:8-9 the second passage. According to Friedman it's a combination of two separate sources, one J and the other P. Friedman's analysis is consistent with the DH and presents no problems. If this is the linked site you're referring to, it follows Friedman. In other words, it's not at odds with the traditional markers as these relate to the Ark story - but I see you specify the early part of Genesis, so are you referring to some other passage? I'm afraid I don't have access to Nicholson.

As for the Elohim/YHWH marker, the concept (according to the DH) is that both E and P were following the idea of the "secret name of God" - God hid his name (YHWH) from men until he was ready to reveal it to Moses (at Exodus 3:15 for E, and at Exodus 6:2-3 for P). E and P therefore don't use the name YHWH before these points (i.e., nowhere in Genesis). J, however, wasn't preoccupied with Moses, and so uses the name YHWH freely throughout Genesis. PiCo (talk) 01:26, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Two cited statements removed

Leadwind, I can see your point, about the two quotes seeming to contradict one another, but I think they are both true, and both helpful for conservative Christianity. We really shouldn't delete them anyway, because they are sourced statements.

They are not contradictory

1. the first says, scholars do not agree about which particular sources are behind particular bits of the Bible;
2. the second says, most scholars believe pre-existing sources were used in composition of the Bible.

The Book of Kings says it used the Annals of the Kings of Judah, for example. It is strict literal reading of the Bible to believe pre-existing sources were used here. Paul refers to a Cretan poet in Titus, and to pagan philosophers in Acts.

More subtly, the tithe is mentioned in Leviticus 27 as though Israel already new about it, Genesis supports this because Abraham tithed to Melchizedek. It seems, reading the Bible literally, that God spoke more often to Moses and the priests and prophets than we have recorded in the Bible. This oral tradition worked alongside the Bible up to, and including the apostolic age.

I'm a Sola Scriptura man. I believe the canon is closed. However, it was not always like that. God gave instructions to his people that were not recorded. He no longer does this. It makes things a little tricky at times. What matters is that the only things we need to know are the ones that are in the Bible. And that these are precisely what God wants us to have, irrespective of where they came from or when.

I am so sure of the truth of the Bible (having read every word several times over, and lot in the original languages), that even if we could prove that certain parts were edited at various points, I would only be shaken were it shown that it was impossible to accept some things the Bible claims about itself. Moses didn't write about his own death in Deuteronomy. This later addition doesn't undermine my trust in the claim that Moses is effectively responsible for the Pentateuch.

But back to the quotes, I think the second quote needs investigation. It sounds like an exaggeration to me. Most biblical scholars are conservative Christians. Conservative Christians invest a lot more in biblical scholarship. It is not the majority view among them that the DH is basically true. However, I think it would be fair to say that most of them, especially when others are included, accept that it may have taken some time for the final form of the OT books to take shape, that some sequential editing may have ocurred, at least this possibility cannot be ruled out. The point that modern conservatives make a stand is regarding the form of the text known from the Dead Sea Scrolls and LXX. It is this "final form" that has endured, and which conservatives assess to be logically consistant with divine inspiration.

It is quite surprising how much room there is to engage with non-conservatives on this point. Most realize the credibility of the position. The text of the Bible looks largely unified (and unbelievers admit it), yet shows traces of progressive editing (and believers admit it). Neither side can prove the other wrong, issues other than the text decide which camp people fall into.

Anyway, I hope you'll be happy to restore the quotes. I think the second quote should get a {{dubious}} tag, though. Alastair Haines (talk) 07:55, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Quick search for sources

I'll try to do this properly some time. Mark A. McNeil - United Penticostal / Assemblies of God minister (use "Find on page" for name at http://www.triumphoftruth.com/) says "this position is no longer tenable in light of various discoveries over the last century" (find "no longer" in text at http://home.flash.net). Mark McNeil now teaches theology at Strake Jesuit College Preparatory in Houston. He previously taught college-level philosophy according to http://www.diogh.org. He converted to Catholicism from Pentacostalism. Obviously an open minded kind of man, and certainly not the Sola Scriptura type. I'll keep scouting when I have time (could take months), Sola Scriptura people of my aquaintance have little time for the DH, there are dozens of seminaries in the US alone that would publish contra the DH now, I would think. Alastair Haines 13:08, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Do you honestly think that McNeil is a good source? Leadwind 01:11, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

He's not where I'd go to check facts personally, but Wiki is not about recommending one source over another, but rather giving a fair and verifiable overview, as I know you know. McNeil is just the first hit on a long list of hits I got regarding text related to the passing of the DH. He's valuable, not as a representative of secular orthodoxy, nor Christian orthodoxy, but for us as we need encouragment to trawl the sources for educated opinion regarding the current state of the DH. Even people who are not Sola Scriptura types view the DH as defunct. Mind you, it lasted and even gained ground over almost 100 years. I trust the assessment in the article that it basically died during the course of the 70s, however, people did not return to Mosaic authorship.

I think this page will always have a subtext of pro or con Mosaic authorship. For a long time the DH was the main form of the non-Mosaic view. But, since its passing, no consensus form of a non-Mosaic theory has been proposed. This doesn't prove the Mosaic theory, nor does it disprove the non-Mosaic POV. It may be that the history of the text (if any) prior to what we now have may be unrecoverable, in which case there will always be room for either Mosaic or non-Mosaic explanation, decided by other issues, like commitment to no appeal to divine intervention or the opposite, commitment to doctrines of revelation unless demonstrated otherwise.

Now, I am sure someone will have written this somewhere, because it's a fairly obvious description of things. It is just a matter of finding it. I suspect there'd be a dozen or so sources in my own college library when I get time to check. (Got a fair few other priorities for my library time atm.) Cheers. Alastair Haines 02:10, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. We can use McNeil for now, especially stuff that's in line with other information we already haved. Leadwind 02:31, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Proper name?

Is "documentary hypothesis" a proper name and should it be capitalized? The article title does not capitalize "hypothesis," but does capitalize "documentary," which as the first word of the article title would be capitalized anyway. The first sentence of the article capitalizes both, as does one of the section headings.

I just looked at the first five articles that link here and they consistently use lower case. That was my first inclination as well, so I'm downcasing here. This leaves only a slight quandary about the abbreviation (DH). Has anyone ever seen this abbreviation in print, and if so was it upper case, no periods? --Steven J. Anderson 03:08, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I downcased throughout the article with the exception of some external links. Since the words are capitalized in those titles, our citation of those titles should follow what the authors used. --Steven J. Anderson 03:57, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Harris, in the most-widely-used (US) nonsectarian, university-level textbook on the Bible, capitalizes it. But in general, English professional style is moving away from caps to lowercase. You did the legwork. Lowercase seems right. I don't know about "DH." Leadwind 15:25, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

External link

On a somewhat related note, examine this external link: Teaching Bible using the Documentary Hypothesis It goes to a pdf file called LEARNING BIBLE TODAY from Creation to the Conquest of Canaan by Michael J. Prival. It doesn't seem to me to contain any information on the documentary hypothesis. It looks like a Jewish bible lesson for children. Delete it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Steven J. Anderson (talk • contribs) 04:14, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

If you go to the trouble of actually checking the links, you can be bold about deleting the bad ones. I've deleted it. Thanks for doing all this legwork. Controversial topics need help. Leadwind 15:28, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Clines

The Clines quote is an excellent example of where current thinking is at. Reliable scholar, reliable journal. I can accept that it may help to interpret his point for unimaginative readers, but it is a nice light hearted way of demonstrating how people would not accept the methodology of the DH were it applied to modern literature. It is a reminder of the limits of reasonable speculation. It is probably worth discussing how we can summarise his points. Alastair Haines 05:38, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

A scholar, yes, but not a scholarly work. Deserves to be in external links. Two editors have decided it doesn't belong in the body. I wonder if there's a second who believes it does. Leadwind (talk) 05:51, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

User:PiCo added Clines, User:Alastair Haines concurred. Now a new editor has reverted, and you second him. That makes it 2-2. But this is not a vote. We need to work at a consensus for removal. Clines is now a "Publisher and Director of Sheffield Academic Press", but we are agreed he is a scholar (and of wide international repute in the discipline).

I find the suggestion that JSOTSS would publish something not scholarly a little odd.

My own postgrad research in the OT is being supervised by a scholar whose dissertation was recently published in that series. When doing research on anything in the OT, if something has been published in JSOTSS I read the whole work cover to cover, if I can get hold of it! Books in the series are very expensive specialist works in the field. Frankly, between you and me, it would be my ultimate scholastic ambition to write something acceptable for publication in JSOTSS.

Not only is Clines' article published in this series, it was reprinted for that particular volume. It had previously been published and was selected for this particular collection of essays deemed most pertinent, definitive and of a quality considered suitable for a "best of" publication.

JSOTSS volumes are generally dissertations or reprints from JSOT itself. They are intensively peer reviewed.

I think the way we handle Clines is a difficult question, but he addresses the topic of the article head-on, is recent and reliable to a gold standard of peer review. Alastair Haines 08:51, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

2-2. Fair. Would you like to propose a version that doesn't opinionate on the article as perhaps best summing up the issue, etc? Leadwind 14:31, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Current text says: "The contemporary scene has perhaps been best summed up by David Clines' tounge-in-cheek source criticism of A. A. Milne."

I removed the previous bit that said "ground breaking", which sounded sarcastic to me. There is nothing "ground breaking" in Clines' article, except perhaps for a willingness to address it light heartedly. Technically, it's an appeal to common sense, by analogy.

Three things can be challenged in the text I provided:

1. who says the contemporary scene is best summed up by Clines?
2. who says it is tounge in cheek?
3. who says it is source criticism of A. A. Milne?

I have three answers:

1. the reader can see it is tounge in cheek and source criticism, it is so obvious, I don't expect this to have been "discussed" in any literature.
2. Clines is obviously contemporary, obviously against the DH, and clearly he doesn't think further detailed criticism of the DH is necessary.
3. This fits all the other reported comments and general drift of the article. The DH was possibly at its peak in the 50s and 60s. The tide swung so far against it over the 70s that Clines almost mocks it in his article -- and got reprinted for doing so!

The article as it stands doesn't clearly state the DH is an outdated, rare theory now. It might be a bit extreme to say it that plainly, but we do need some kind of reliable sources reflecting where things are at now. There aren't many, because dead theories kind of go out of common conversation. It would be hard to find a journal article saying "21st century scientists no longer believe the Earth is flat, because sattelite photographs show it isn't."

What I can say is that at two different conservative Bible colleges I've attended, the DH is taught in detail, pretty much to prove Mosaic authorship. That is, it is used as a reductio ad absurdum. In other words, let's imagine the Torah was not an original work of one author, ie it was compiled by one or more editors from pre-existing sources. What's the best possible evidence for this, and the best possible explanation of that evidence. Enter DH stage left. Now, does this seem reasonable or likely? Enter stage right 1970s criticisms of DH and many others, depending on the lecturer. Answer: No, this doesn't seem reasonable or likely. The best efforts of about 100 years of scholarship have failed to provide a viable alternative to Mosaic authorship. Conclusion (depending on lecturer): Moses wrote the Torah quad erat demonstrandum. OR (the lecturers I like best) The Torah is probably ancient and probably mainly comprised of the work of one author, however, many other plausible speculations are possible and cannot be ruled out a priori.

Since this article is about the DH and not about Mosaic authorship, I don't think the last paragraph is relevant or necessary. It is relevant at Mosaic authorship, however. Here, I think a cautious suggestion that currently the DH is not receiving much active support or development, and doesn't serve as a basis for much research is a more reasonable place to conclude. The DH and arguments for and against are not only history worth reporting, they are part of serious objective study of the reliability of the Bible. The result is that the reliability of the Bible has not been disproven by the DH, nor proven by the failure of the DH.

Finally, by all means change the final sentence to "David Clines recently presented a source critical analysis of the works of A A Milne, accepted by JSOT as an analogy of the method of the DH applied to a modern writer." That way the reader will infer what I have put in the text, and we can't be accused of making our own, unsourced evaluation. But actually, it still does do this, only less obviously. The only way to avoid editorial judgement altogether is to produce all text in full from a published bibliography. Ultimately we must make judgements, just keep them to a minimum.

Hope this helps. Cheers. Alastair Haines 04:46, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Let's not opinionate one way or another: 'David Clines parodies the documentary hypothesis in his essay "New Directions in Pooh Studies."' True, without interpretation. Honestly, this isn't encyclopedic any way, but no big deal as long as we don't interpret it. Leadwind 05:11, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Who says the DH has failed? Please find a source. McNeil says most scholars accept it. You consider McNeil reliable. Does that mean you now agree that most scholars accept DH? Leadwind 05:13, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Parody is as good a word as any in some ways. It can be taken somewhat negatively and dismissively, however. But I'm not too fussed about what word we use, some other editors may be though. Tongue in cheek, parody, whatever. I think analogy is much more neutral, and less open to being read as expressing an opinion. But I wouldn't fight over the word.

McNeil says most scholars accept it? I should have read more of what he said. He certainly said certain aspects were no longer tenable. I don't think McNeil is particularly reliable, but he's reliable enough. In fact, if he thinks most scholars accept the DH, I think he's wrong, but he'll have good reasons for thinking it. It also makes his testimony about parts of the hypothesis being untenable all the more telling.

Anyway, here's something in black and white, that covers some, but not all of the details. Raymond F Surberg, 'Wellhausen evaluated after a century of influence', Concordia Theological Quarterly 43 (1979): 78–95.

Plenty it seems proclaimed the DH dead at the end of the 70s, as PiCo accurately reported. I don't have time for this now, as I think I've mentioned a few times. But I will get back to it. There's plenty out there. However, as I said, the DH is now more conspicuous by its absence than anything else, though I think I may have seen some papers from certain types of institution that still toy with it. I'll try to find those too. ... eventually. Alastair Haines 15:52, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I've been away for 2 weeks and so haven't been following this debate. Let me just say that when I added the sentence about Clines I was being light-hearted and expected it to be speedily deleted. It's funny, but I don't think even Clines expected it to be treated as a serious contribution to scholarship. If Pooh Studies is to be kept, then it belongs in the External Links section. My own impression of the current status of the DH is that the Wellhausian version is dead, and has been so ever since Van Seters, Thompson and Whybray - these three are the names you keep meeting. Friedman tried out a neo-Wellhausian DH, but it failed to make an impression in scholarly circles. So it seems fair to say that since the 70s the Wellhausian DH has been abandoned. On the other hand, the terminology of the sources - JEDP - is still in common use, because they do describe differences in theme in various parts 0of the Torah - the D source really is fond of certain phrases, such as loving God with all your heart and all your might, and the P source really is preoccupied with the privileges of the priesthood, and so on and so forth. The question of what these differences can tell us about Torah origins is, however, far from settled. Alastair, if you can hold of the Alexander Rofe book, it would probably help us here. You might also like to buttonhole George Athas - I assume you have coffee with him - and see what he can advise. PiCo (talk) 04:31, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

He, he, good for you. Last I heard, George was in Canberra. Unfortunately I never did get to his annual Hebrew intro course, despite years of intending it. I ended up full time at a college before I could get along. I've always regretted it, because I've heard second hand some nicely subtle thinking from him. But you do remind me, I should get back on B-Hebrew. George is still one of the mods?

If you're happy for Clines to go to the external links section, I am too. Cheers. Alastair Haines (talk) 06:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll put Pooh into the external links. Alastair, I gather that you can't get to Athas at present. A pity, but maybe if you can get to Canberra one day, or he's in Sydney... Leadwind, here's an article abt Blinksopp's views on Torah origins - Blenkinsopp isn't the towering contemporary figure on the subject, but that's exactly the problem - there's no towering figure a la Wellhausen these days. Blenkinsopp at least has some interesting points to make. Note that this Catholic scholar argues for (in fact assumes) a Persian-period date for Genesis - a far cry from Wellhausen's 10th-century date for J, and hence for Genesis 2. I'd really love to sit down with Athas over a coffee. PiCo (talk) 14:20, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Later: The link to Blenkinsopp doesn't work. It's a review of a 1992 book of his called "The Pentateuch: An Introduction...". Here's the main part of it (note how Blenkinsopp uses the laguage of the DH while departing radically from practically everything Wellhausen proposed - this is pretty much the pattern these days): Blenkinsopp, a well-known Catholic biblical scholar at the University of Notre Dame, provides a rich, reliable, and up-to-date critical introduction. He surveys two centuries of Pentateuchal scholarship, studies the overall structure and chronology of the Pentateuch, and notes problems and tentative solutions in the major blocks of Genesis through Deuteronomy. For example, he argues that the final form of the Pentateuch represents a compromise between two different post-exilic interest groups-Deuteronomistic and Priestly. These two groups worked in response to the Persian imperial demand that each subject nation standardize its local law through a consensual process. J (the Yahwist) and E (the Elohist) do not exist as continuous narrative strands. D (the Deuteronomist) edited significant parts of Genesis-Numbers (for example, Genesis 15 and Exodus 19-34). Genesis 2-4 is a relatively late wisdom reflection on the problem of evil. The ritual law of Leviticus is the center of the Pentateuch. While not the last word, these and other "provisional conclusions" will challenge the reader to rethink our critical understanding of the Pentateuch. PiCo (talk) 12:06, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Little red riding hood

I am going to show you why source criticism is a theoretical and inaccurate system that only proves the formulator of the hypothesis' views. For example, if you read the story of the little red riding hood you read how she met a wolf in the woods and how she later met a wolf in her grandmother's house one could argue originally there was two stories story a in which the wolf ate little red riding hood in the woods and story b in which little red riding hood never met the wolf in the woods and instead when straight to her grandmother's house where she met the wolf. As one can see this is a futile issue especially since it is common phenomenon in a text. Foreshadowing, is all the reader is seeing in this text little red riding hood seeing the wolf in the woods to hint that the wolf shall interfere with little red riding hood's proposed meeting with her grandmother.--Java7837 (talk) 06:39, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Rather than the clearly POV word "alleged," how about if we substitute the word "hypothesized" or "proposed." I don't completely understand User:PiCo revision of the edit as POV (unless he takes the word alleged to have a pejorative connotation) since I'm pretty sure no one is claiming that those are the factual, that is factually known or proven, sources of the Torah. I think adding a word such as suggested above or even alleged is certainly in keeping with current scholarship which certainly keeps source identification in the realm of theorization rather than calling them factual claims as to sources.--Markisgreen (talk) 07:24, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I reverted because the edit is unnecessary: to say that the documentary hypothesis is hypothetical seems a little tautologous. My attitude to Java7837's general approach to editing of biblical scholarship articles is this: surprisingly, perhaps,I tend to agree with his general position: the DH doesn't seem terribly convincing to me, just as it doesn't to him (her?). But unlike Java, I try to describe the DH, and other positions that I don't agree with (such as [[Mosaic authorship) dispassionately. Java, in contrast, is extremely passionate, and his passion tends to get in the way of his ability to carry out neutral editing. His proposal to change the section title from "Sources" to "Alleged sources" is a case in point - of course the sources are hypothetical - the DH is a theoretical construct, like any other intellectual position. We don't need a sledgehammer to crack this particular peanut of a problem. PiCo (talk) 08:04, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I've got put my vote in with Java7837 on this one. I've had to edit out pretentious references to Deuteronomic and Priestly sources on Wikipedia more then once. I think its worth emphasizing that this is all very speculative stuff.Wolf2191 (talk) 03:21, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, I've got to put mine in with PiCo, though I am personally very open to the Torah being mainly Mosaic. But, one thing we are all agreed on is, yes, the DH is very unappealing, it even seems bizarre that people gave it so much credence for so long. So, yes, edits in other articles, that suggest the DH is current, and provides a scholastic perspective on the Bible, are not just irritating, they need to be presented as an historical perspective only. But that historical perspective is real and notable.

But, in this article, we need to treat the DH with respect and present the strongest possible case for it, only then followed by criticisms. In fact, the better the case made, and the better the sources, then the more telling the criticisms, and the less information needs to be copied across to other articles!

Apart from the ten commandments, and the writing on the wall, the Bible doesn't claim God used anything but human authors. A few claim to have received visions, but described them in their own words. In other cases, the Bible quotes external sources.

Who wrote Jonah? I'm not sure it was Jonah himself.

Thinking about these things is rational, not wilful dishonouring to the Bible. That's my opinion anyway.

It's funny, in another article, I wrote up an author's hypothesis that men will dominate socially in any society. Not surprisingly, people keep coming along and accusing this of bias and insisting it be clearly marked as a theory. Just like here, it is marked as a theory. And, just like here, there is no bias, it simply reports a published opinion. Intriguingly, I doubt those who criticise our male-dominance theoretician would check to make sure that feminism is clearly marked as being largely theoretical.

Repeated marking of theories as theories is just plain weasling, and nagging a reader that this is not the opinion of the editors. But this is an encyclopedia, we have no opinion, so we don't need disclaimers. We only need to say theory once and it's enough. It's not like saying "I love you." ;) Alastair Haines (talk) 04:03, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

"In other cases, the Bible quotes external sources. Who wrote Jonah? I'm not sure it was Jonah himself."

This from the Talmud (Rodkinson- inaccurate but convenient) Tractate Bava Basra (15a)

The order of the Hagiographa is as follows: Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Lamentations, Daniel, Book of Esther, Book of Ezra, and Chronicles. 1 And who wrote all the books? Moses wrote his book and a portion of Bil'am [Numbers, xxii.], and Job. Jehoshua wrote his book and the last eight verses of the Pentateuch beginning: "And Moses, the servant of the Lord, died." Samuel wrote his book, Judges, and Ruth. David wrote Psalms, with the assistance of ten elders, viz.: Adam the First, Malachi Zedek, Abraham, Moses, Hyman, Jeduthun, Asaph, and the three sons of Korach. Jeremiah wrote his book, Kings, and Lamentations. King Hezekiah and his company wrote Isaiah, Proverbs, Songs, and Ecclesiastes. The men of the great assembly wrote Ezekiel, the Twelve Prophets, Daniel, and the Book of Esther. Ezra wrote his book, and Chronicles--the order of all generations down to himself. [This may be a support to Rabh's theory, as to which, R. Jehudah said in his name, that Ezra had not ascended from Babylon to Palestine until he wrote his genealogy.] And who finished Ezra's book? Nehemiah ben Chachalyah.

There is a Boraitha in accordance with him who said that the last eight verses of the Torah were written by Joshua; namely: "It is written [Deut. xxxvi. 5]: 'And Moses the servant of the Lord died,' etc. Is it possible that Moses himself should have written 'and he died'? Therefore it must be said that up to this verse Moses wrote, and from this verse forward Joshua wrote. So said R. Joshua, according to others R. Nehemiah." Said R. Simeon to him: Is it possible that the Holy Scrolls should not have been complete to the last letter, and nevertheless it should read [ibid., xxxi. 26]: "Take this book of the law," etc. Therefore, we must say that up to this verse the Holy One, blessed be He, dictated, and Moses repeated and wrote it down; and from this verse forward He dictated, and Moses with tears in his eyes wrote it down; as thus it is read [Jer. xxxvi. 18]: "Then said Baruch unto them, With his mouth did he utter clearly all these words unto me, and I wrote them in the book with ink." (I disagree with that last translation- דמעה is not ink according to any opinion.)

As far as your main argument, I still think that it is worth clarifying the hypothetical nature of the hypothesis ;) for the cognitavely challenged. We need a tiebreaker. BestWolf2191 (talk) 04:10, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposed Path Forward=

Having read the article, and relatively recent discussion, I see good information, and a lot of cogent points raised; but I don’t see any convergence.

How about dividing this topic into two articles?

• 1. History, definition, and current status of the Documentary Hypothesis.
• 2. Arguments for and against the DH.

The first part, at least, should stabilize into a consensus position of what the DH is. It may also provide a better foundation for associated arguments in the second part. kwshafer (talk) 21:31, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Difficulty with number two is that it means many different things. You need to clarify if your argument is against Wellhausens version of the hypothesis (with P last) which has been soundly trounced and Y. Kaufmanns formulation which put P first or R. E Friedmans version ,etc.Wolf2191 (talk) 23:08, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Arguments for and against the DH will be difficult to be sure, but the point is if we can get consensus on the DH definition, that will clarify things.

At any rate, the two article approach would be easier to deal with than the existing single article. kwshafer (talk) 02:23, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I think we need to find some good criticisms such as the discovery of a torah fragment at Ketef Hinnom dating to at least 600BC--Java7837 (talk) 21:57, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I think that this is already mentioned on the Mosaic authorship page.Wolf2191 (talk) 23:08, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Many early scholars accepted Mosaic authorship Ben Sira, Philo, Josephus,

Also this is significant

It has been alleged that Wellhausen's scholarship had an antisemitic (and anti-Catholic) component. Wellhausen openly expressed his hostility to the legal (i.e., Jewish) and priestly (i.e., Catholic) portions of the Torah. In his introduction he stated that when he learned of Graf 's hypothesis that the law was a late addition to the original spiritual religion of the prophets, he was ready to accept it "almost before I heard his reasons."

I've already added that in to the Wellhausen page.Wolf2191 (talk) 23:08, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I think Wolf2191 has put his finger on the problem with kwshafer's suggestion: there are two overlapping usages of the term documentary hypothesis, one meaning any theory which sees the origin of the Torah in complete documents - this covers the non-Wellhausian theories of Austruc and Friedman and many other scholars - and the specific hypothesis of Wellhausen. Criticism has to be criticism of the general theory, not the specific Wellhausian one. The article already attempts to do that, but seems not to go into enough detail to satisfy many editors. I'm willing to re-write it with this in mind - more on Gunkel (at the moment completely omitted), Whybray and others. Perhaps a mention of the Higher Criticm=Higher Antisemitism quip could be made, although I wouldn't want to make too much of it - I'm not familiar with the context, but I think the same would have been said of any critical theory that questioned Mosaic authorship. More also on the work of Jewish scholars. Just a note: Java7837's mention of the amulet with the Blessing (c.600BC) as proof of the weakness of the dh is way off the mark - all it proves is that the Blessing existed at that time, not that the entire Torah did.PiCo (talk) 01:26, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

The priestly blessing were originally thought to have been made of different sources is the point--Java7837 (talk) 05:17, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Also if fragments of say the Quran were found no idiot would date only the parts of the fragments to the time of the discovery doing so is giving a hypothesis more weight than basic logic if fragments of the Quran were found it is basic knowledge to conclude that most of the Quran existed in about its current form during that time--Java7837 (talk) 05:23, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

There is a trend among scholars to view the Pentateuch as a literary unit again. Scholars are admitting that the way the books use common words, phrases and motifs, parallel narrative structure, and deliberate theological arrangement of literary units for teaching and memorization support viewing the five books as a literary whole.

"In addition, a considerable amount of internal evidence for the Egyptian provenance of the Pentateuch, together with the Pentateuch's accurate portrayal of second-millennium legal and social customs and its tendency to use some archaic Hebrew forms, suggests that its origin antedates the Israelite monarchies. In fact, certain forms in standard Biblical Hebrew are borrowed from second-millennium Egyptian. One may infer that these forms were adopted during the sojourn and were made a permanent part of standard Hebrew by their inclusion in the Pentateuch."

The tribal associations in Genesis do not accord with later history--Reuben's position as first-born, Levi's role as warrior, and Simeon's geographic tie to Shechem

"Turning to the Exodus narrative itself, several points are worth noting. First, for those who doubt the historicity of the story completely, or who suggest that it was created only in the sixth to fifth century B.C.E. post-exilic era, a question must be asked regarding Ramesses and Pithom, the cities on which the Hebrews labored, according to Exodus. Why did the biblical editors or redactors refer specifically to Ramesses, when in their own era and for some three centuries earlier the capital of Egypt had been Tanis, a city well known and often referred to in the Old Testament? From the Book of Judges onwards, Tanis is consistently referred to as Egypt's capital. Why would a biblical editor insert Ramesses into a newly composed story when that city no longer existed in Egypt and had not been Pharaoh's residence or the capital for the previous four or five centuries? ...Tanis had been the Egyptian capital throughout nearly the entire span of Israel's monarchic period. What sense would it make for Jews familiar with Saite Egypt to invent a story about an oppressive pharaoh who had compelled their ancestors to labor on his cities, and why fix on Ramesses for this role? In Dynasty XXVI Pharaoh's capital was Sais, and even more pointedly, Jewish exiles in Egypt were valued for their mercenary skills and not consigned to compulsory brick making."

One good example of this shows up in archaic Hebrew poetry. Some of the poetic material preserved in the Pent. is incredibly ancient, and reflects syntax and semantic usages that disappeared later in the OT historical period.

"The poetry of the Bible, like that of other Northwest Semitic literaruters, employs a language which differs in various ways form the language of prose, reflecting, in general, an earlier stage of Hebrew and with a closer affinity in language, style, and content with neighboring dialects, especially those to the north.

Notable among the biblical passages that best reflect Archaic Hebrew are the Song of Moses (Ex 15), the Blessings of Jacob (Gn 49) and of Moses (Dt 33), the Oracles of Balaam (Nm 23-24), and the Poem of Moses (Dt 32).

widespread use of the third person pronominal suffix -mo (e.g. Ex 15.5,7) the second person feminine suffix -ky the third person singular masculine suffix -h instead of -w (e.g. Gen 49.11) infinitive absolute with temporal value (e.g. Ex 15.6) zo and zu used as relative particles (Ex 15.13; Jg 5.5) use of the negative bal instead of lo the verbal suffix -t in the third person feminine (e.g. Dt 32.36) traces of the old case endings in nouns suffixed by -i or -o in the construct state (e.g. Gen 49.11; Nm 23.18) Specialized vocabulary:

"Expressions used almost exclusively in poetry include hapax legomena and other rare words, which tend to be concentrated in the oldest biblical texts. Generally it may be said that these items existed during the archaic period of the language, later disappearing from normal use...The occurrence of so many lexical items of this kind in a single passage is evidence of its antiquity."

Genesis has a common 3rd person singular pronoun form -hw; Joshua and later works breaks this into masculine and feminine forms.

Similarly, the legal and cultural patterns present in the Patriarchal narratives simply no longer existed in exilic or post-exilic times. The customs manifested by Abraham & Co. are most closely matched by the society illustrated in the Nuzi tablets (of a Hurrian background peoples), dated in the first half of the 2nd millennium BC

The travelogue accounts in Numbers 33 makes sense as a real geographic guide; the use of landmarks such as mountains, valleys, streams, and springs would assist a traveler.

The Torah uses phrases which are of egyptian origin in which the words are translated verbatim —Preceding unsigned comment added by Java7837 (talk • contribs) 05:54, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

The birth narratives about Moses are full of words of Egyptian origin (instead of Hebrew origin): basket, bulrushes, pitch, reeds, river, river-bank found in the torah about the birth of Moses are all egyptian words

The word "Goshen" is only used in the pre-monarchy texts (the latest ref is in Josh 15); all subsequent biblical references to the area do not refer to this.

The word 'magician' in Gen 41.8;24 is recognizably Egyptian

The 20 shekels price for Joseph was the going price for a slave during the first half of the 2nd millennium, whereas in the 2nd half of that millennium the price had gone up to 30 shekels

Java and the documentary hypothesis: is there a connection?

Here's what Java put into the Mosiac tradition article about the Blessing amulets:

In 1979, two silver scrolls that were used as amulets, inscribed with portions of the well-known Priestly Blessing of the Book of Numbers were discovered in a burial cave near Jerusalem. These scrolls have been dated to close to 600 BCE based on late Iron Age artifacts found in the undisturbed area of the tomb where they were located. Also based on paleographic evidence Erik Waaler, in his book "A revised date for Pentateuchal texts?" published in 2002, dates the amulets somewhat earlier than the other artifacts in the cave (725-650 BCE). Should these datings be correct than the dating of Torah to the time of Ezra would be incorrect and the date of the Torah would be much older than what most Biblical critics think it is, it would also mean it would be more likely for the Torah to have been written by Moses because of this earlier date.

This is a truly curious misunderstanding of the hypothesis - Java seems to believe the idea is that the Torah didn't exist before Ezra! PiCo (talk) 07:57, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Many people identify the redactor with Ezra --Java7837 (talk) 16:02, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

But not many think a redactor is the same thing as an author. PiCo (talk) 01:07, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

The finding of fragments of a text is usually intrepreted to mean that most or all of the text existed during the time of the found fragments--Java7837 (talk) 13:33, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes it is (e.g., when fragments of Gospel texts are found), sometimes not - it all depends on context. In the case of the amulets, the Blessing forms a little poem, and therefore can be (and is) seen as having an existence independent of its current location in the Torah. PiCo (talk) 15:14, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

PiCo's right about elements of the Torah predating it, and about composition being different from redaction. The poem doesn't mean what Java suggests it might mean. Leadwind (talk) 15:06, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

My deletions from the lead

I deleted some sentences from the end of the lead - they were ercent additions that had been added in an incoherent fashion (i.e., not integrated with the existing text) and thus tended to add nothing to the overall thrust of the paragraph. Plus they largely repeated points already made. The exiting last para of the lead now ends without a erference, but the ref would be the Wenham quote.PiCo (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 01:18, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Looks like you deleted referenced reliable sources. That's too bad. Leadwind (talk) 04:55, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I've rewritten the lead to include some of your material, as well as trying to make it a little more comprehensive. A major problem is the sheer vagueness of the languiage used by scholarship - "documentary hypothesis"seems to mean everything from Wellhausen alone to, to my shock and horror, Van Seters, who I doubt would use that description himself for his views - I think he calls his approach a "fragmentary" model. This brings us to the problem of "hypotheses" and "models" it's a distinction which I think was drawn first by Wenham, though I might well be wrong on that, but it seems a very useful one: Wellhausen wrote a hypothesis with the documentary "model", and other documentary hypotheses are possible (Astruc has quite a different one, with only 2 sources, for example). Wellhausen's enduring legacy is his popularisation of the language and idea of the sources - even those who think the Pentateuch was written all at one time in the Persian period (Fried come to mind, and his followers - they're probably the most influential current of thought today) still talk about P and D. I deleted this: "Many scholars expanded the documentary hypothesis by examining the oral traditions behind it" (referencing Noth and Von Rad and form criticism) - it's too inaccurate and old-fashioned, even tho it's Frank Cross who says it, and in 2005. PiCo (talk) 11:06, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

PiCo, thanks for taking it to talk and trying to work with the cited material. As to the material you deleted, I don't know what to do. It's cited to an RS. Do you have an RS that disagrees? I don't pretend to know enough to second-guess the experts. Since this information comes from an RS, how about I put it back in until someone finds contradictory information. Maybe you have some at hand? Leadwind (talk) 03:01, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Deleting Ketef Hinnom addition

I've deleted this recent addition to the article (it was under a new heading, "Critism"). I'm sure it was added in good faith, but the author apparently hasn't understood the fullnature of the debate surrounding the Ketef Hinnom amulets. Anyway, here's the deleted material: The trend of Old Testament scholarship is to date Pentateuchal texts to exilic or post-exilic times. The silver amulets from Ketef Hinnom may challenge this conclusion. Based on archaeological and palaeographic studies, the amulets are dated between 725 and 650 BC. The amulets contain material attributed to the hypothetical Priestly source as well as from the Deuteronomist. It is argued that the person who inscribed the silver plates is likely to have used a single source for these two quotations, a source that probably included more Pentateuchal material. Thus if the supposed sources of the Torah existed they were conjoined prior to the reform of Josiah. If it is reasonable to posit a lapse of time for this early version to become influential and the accidental inscription of the amulets to occur, the extended source text must be yet earlier.[4]

The referenced source is a 2002 article by Erik Waaler, who argues that the script of the verses (i.e. the letter-forms) belongs to 725-650 BC. The problem is that no-one agrees with him. The archaeological team which discovered the amulets dates them to around 600BC, and this date was confirmed in a report published in BASOR in 2004 - which is 2 years after Waaler, which indicates that Waaler hasn't convinced the people who matter. An NYT report on the report (!) can be found here - it's probably more useful than the BASOR report for the general reader, as it gives a summing-up of opinion from a number of leading scholars - there's no support at all for Waaler. PiCo (talk) 02:25, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

You are right nobody seems to be accepting his view, I will look at the New York Times article perhaps tomorrow and make a section on the Documentary hypothesis article, and edit the section on Mosaic authorship--Java7837 (talk) 04:26, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Removed line

I'm not sure what the folowing adds to the paragraph. 'Literally indicated' is unclear.

Yes the creation story(ies) can be taken to support the hypothesis but, if this is significantly above the arguments put forward in the rest of the article then I suggest it could be worded less ambiguously - although I'm not sure how.

"In addition the document P hypothesis source can be literally indicated in the first creation story in Genesis."

Any comments johnmark† 19:49, 5 February 2008 (UTC)