Talk:Documentary hypothesis/Archive 4

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

"rigid, ritualistic world of the priest-dominated"

Surely, many people would see the characterization of later Judaism as "rigid, ritualistic ... priest-dominated" as anti-Semitic. Should that impression be mentioned here? If W. weren't anti-Semitic, isn't unfair to leave that impression? TomS TDotO (talk) 11:44, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

W. was certainly seen as anti-semitic by Jewish scholars, and that should be noted (with the reasons, which you mention).PiCo (talk) 04:35, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Too much information removed

Over the course of a month, User PiCo has removed nearly half of the page, and while plenty of it has been replaced with more concise information, and lots of new sources have been added, some fundamental parts of the page, including the original dates ascribed to the sources, and a chart that displayed the relationships between them have been deleted. I think that the new sources and corrections can be preserved without removing so much of the original material. 66.190.196.35 (talk) 04:32, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for coming to talk (May I suggest you register with a name - it makes things easier). First, yes, I'm re-writing, so material gets deleted. I wrote the original article, so what I delete, I also wrote. Second, the older article is inadequate - it treats Wellhausen's DH as if it were still current, which is not the case. As the re-write makes clear, the consensus on the DH collapsed in the last few decades of the 20th century. With it collapsed any idea that any source dates from the time of the early monarchy - the earliest source is now universally recognised as D, which is still secure. P is also secure, and is still seen as post-exilic. What the article needs to make clear is that there is now no unanimity at all that J and E exist as sources - readers will open books and see talk about P and non-P, and never guess from our article that this means the Priestly source and the J and E sources - which, of course, are no longer viewed in a documentary manner. Yes, there are scholars who still talk about the Pentateuch in documentary terms, but this is Baden's neo-documentary hypothesis, not Wellhausen's. So what I'm trying to do is get the Wellhausen material out of the way quickly and spend more space on current approaches. You are welcome to help.PiCo (talk) 10:59, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

That's the thing, though. Wikipedia is supposed to have all available information, not just the most recent scholarly developments. While I think it's fine to emphasize what's now accepted and what's not, that doesn't mean we should remove all historical developments of the hypothesis and simply display a 5-minute-to-read summary on the modern "neo-documentary hypothesis." This is an encyclopedia, not a brief pamphlet. Also, while there is no consensus on the status of J and E, specifically whether they were complete works or additions made to D, there are still some clear differences between them (such as the binding of Isaac and the corporeal/incorporeal views of Yahweh), but you make it sound like they are universally accepted as being the same source or compilations of random fragments that cannot be divided into two sources. Again, while that is a legitimate hypothesis, it is not universally accepted. Finally, I'm a little confused on your statement: "Readers will open books and see talk about P and non-P, and never guess from our article that this means the Priestly source and the J and E sources". I might be completely off here, but it sounds like you're saying that you want to hide from readers the fact that these two sources are or ever were hypothesized to exist. Anyway, I respect your informal "ownership" of this article and the tremendous work you have put into it, and I will stop reverting your edits and instead preserve a link to the archived version, although I do hope you can address these concerns I mentioned. As for creating a Wikia account, I think I did a few years back, but I have long forgotten the password. Still, though, I will try to either find it or create a new account. Regards, 66.190.196.35 (talk) 21:55, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't claim ownership, just an interest. What I'm trying to do is shift the balance of the article from a focus on Wellhausen's hypothesis to modern ideas - my concern is with balance, not content.PiCo (talk) 04:37, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Who is Jean Astrid ?

It seems that many sites of Wikipedia and its copies have repeated the small sentence according wich a certain Jean Astrid in the XVIIIth century performed a criticism of the Bible.

But no one give additional comments about this person. Who was he, what was his title, etc., what book did he publish, there is no mention at all, not even in the note 14 refering to an external book. Even Google (including Scholars and Books) does not reply as if the name was unknown and not referenced. We can deduce that the name can be wrong or that this person has never existed...

I suggest to remove the name of Jean Astrid and to start with Johann Eichhorn whose work is attested.

Before publishing such data, it is essential that data be cross-checked and validated.-- luxorion — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:7E8:DC0A:6A01:E5D4:C0FF:60EE:1F73 (talk) 13:45, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

The correct spelling is Jean Astruc. TomS TDotO (talk) 14:02, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

The opinion of Dr Richard Friedman

It is wrong to claim that "the documentary hypothesis is no more supported by most exegetes" as you wrote, and maybe based on the opinion on european scholars like Thomas Römer or from what you read in books for a general audience.

On his blog, at http://richardelliottfriedman.com/?p=289, Richard Friedman, biblist and author from Georgia University, reminds the main newest strong evidence (2011) and arguments supporting the documentary hypothesis : (1) linguistic evidence showing that the Hebrew of the texts corresponds to the stages of development of the Hebrew language in the periods in which the hypothesis says those respective texts were composed; (2) evidence that the main source texts (J, E, P, and D) were continuous, i. e. it is possible to divide the texts and find considerable continuity while keeping the characteristic terms and phrases of each consistent; and (3) as this book shows, evidence that the manner of composition that is pictured in the hypothesis was part of the literary practices of the ancient Near East.

Here is also what Friedman wrote me in 2017:

"It is not really correct to say that the documentary hypothesis has been either rejected or amended. I often hear people claim that, especially a number of scholars in Europe. The majority of scholars in the world still adhere to this hypothesis in some form. No other hypothesis has attracted nearly as many scholars. And the many new hypotheses that are being proposed, including the one by Römer, have never responded to the vast array of evidence that supported the documentary hypothesis in the first place. None of the sources of the Pentateuch can possibly come from the Persian period. They are written in Classical, pre-exilic Hebrew. Scholars who propose dates in the Persian period have simply failed to deal with this evidence." -- luxorion.

PiCo has agreed that while DH is no longer the virtually unanimous consensus, it is still the majority view in US and Israel. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:53, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Also, Wikipedia records changes in the academic consensus, but Wikipedia itself is not a forum for deciding what the academic consensus should be. We simply let scholars decide that and we quote their views. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:57, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

A valid point. It does make it very difficult to write the article when legitimate sources (Friedman, Romer and others) are in such basic disagreement. PiCo (talk) 01:01, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Note that most scholars that I discussed with including Drs Römer and Friedman refuse the concept of "school" to name the theories supported by the different specialists in specific countries or universities. They by far prefer that we speak of "different hypothesis", thesis or opinions. So speaking in terms of euopean, american or isralian school is not only unfounded, but incorrect because it is an arbitrary choice for trying "to label" persons. This abstraction is without interest. For short, it should be useful to reflect the relaity of research to remove all reference to "school" in this article. --luxorion

Alternative titles

I think that this article could be improved if at its very beginning, it says that the Documentary Hypothesis is also sometimes known as the "Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis" or "JEPD hypothesis". I did Religious Studies A level (admittedly, years ago now - back in the 1980s) and these terms were used far more frequently than "Documentary hypothesis".Carltonio (talk) 21:11, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Quite a good website for this is: www.helpmewithbiblestudy.org/5system_moses/notes-dh6.aspx

This website gives the dates of K. Graf and Jullius Wellhausen, and also discusses fore-runners of their theory. Carltonio (talk) 19:23, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

And a good book which I used for my Religious Study "A" level was R.K. Harrison (1969)"An Introduction to the Old Testament." Carltonio (talk) 21:08, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Although other terms used to be used more frequently, the more common name nowadays is the Documentary Hypothesis.--Jcvamp (talk) 04:34, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

BC/BCE

"... and consensus for the change with other editors."

I don't care what convention is used, whether BC or BCE. I do object to someone making a change in violation of standards. I'm not going to give in to the temptation to continuing an edit war. I'm giving you the chance to stand up for your opinion. But if you don't want to gather a "consensus for the change" .... TomS TDotO (talk) 13:25, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

The change wasn't in violation of standards because the article used both BC and BCE dating styles. I chose BC because it was first used and there was need for consistency 66.31.110.254 (talk) 13:44, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I agree that it is preferable to have the article use a uniform style. As the article stands now, however, there are only two places where the BC style is used, under Documentary hypothesis#The beginnings of the documenary hypothesis, where it says, "the reign of Josiah in 621 BC"; and under Documentary hypothesis#After Wellhausen, where it says, "in the first millennium BC". Elsewhere, there are many uses of the BCE style. Just on the basis of numbers, it would superficially seem preferable to change the two cases of BC to BCE. As I said, however, I don't care, but unless there is some reason not to, I suggest that these two instances be so changed. What I do strongly feel about is that we try to keep cool about it, and let's discuss it before acting unilaterally. I realize that some people feel strongly one way or the other, but let's not attribute bad faith to the other side. TomS TDotO (talk) 14:58, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't know why, but I just happened upon this old discussion, and I see that no one is interested in it. The article is still a mix of styles, and it isn't going to change unless someone does something. If no one show any interest in a reasonable time, I'm just going to go ahead and change all the "BC"s to "BCE"s. TomS TDotO (talk) 19:11, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

I should point out that the use of the term "BC" is actually a religious statement on behalf of Christianity (like the useag of the term "AD"). That is why an article about the Bible (unless it is explicitly Christian) sho use BCE/CE rather than BC/AD. Sabba Hillel (talk) 02:43, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

I note that a few BC's remained. According to long-standing MOS:ERA, I changed them to make the usage in this article uniform. TomS TDotO (talk) 06:13, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Linguistic evidence for pre-exilic J, E, P & Court History not addressed?

Have any scholars proposing late-dating addressed the linguistic evidence showing J, E, P, Court History and D were all composed in Classical (pre-exilic) Hebrew?

For example, see the R.E. Friedman chapter "Solomon and the Great Histories", p. 171 in Jerusalem in Bible and Archaeology: The First Temple Period https://books.google.com/books?id=yYS4VEu08h4C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=solomon%20the%20great%20histories&f=false

I didn't see this evidence mentioned on the DH or SH pages Gorkelobb (talk) 17:28, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Criticism Section?

Currently, there's no Criticism section for this article. It seems that would be appropriate; if there are flaws in DH such that alternative hypotheses have gained favor, it would be useful to have a section explaining some of the inadquacies of DH. This articles is sprinkled, including in the Introduction, with claims that DH is inadquate to explain the evidence. Where's the evidence of this? Gorkelobb (talk) 02:17, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Gorkelobb, I took the liberty of combining these two threads to make it easier to reply.

On using linguistic evidence to date Biblical texts: it's not easy. If it were, there'd be no disagreement about when they were written. SO the answer to your question is that it's not really possible to use language to date the texts. (Incidentally, the Court History is to be found in the Books of Samuel, which are not part of the Torah).

Criticism of the hypothesis: I thought the article did address that to an extent - is it not in the section on the collapse of the consensus? Put simply, the documentary approach can't explain why four authors (of the documents) were happy to invent material, but four redactors never changed a word, although they lived at widely separated points in time. That seems a bit incredible. And of course, there's also the problem of source criticism - does it really work? I think that's mentioned.

Anyway, if you feel the article is inadequate, look for answers to your questions in the sources in the bibliography, and if it still seems inadequate you can raise it again here.PiCo (talk) 06:41, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

PiCo Thanks PiCo. Re: Criticism section: i did notice critique of DH throughout the article, but in many Wiki articles there's a separate section summarizing critiques, with the main bodies of the articles explaining and presenting the evidence for the primary subject.

Linguistics: I'm most familiar with Friedman's work on DH - he charges that DH critics have not responded to the claims he and others have made for dating texts based on linguistic evidence, which he and others have repeatedly made in personal conversations, at seminars and in papers, articles and books. If scholars proposing other models have produced evidence that linguiistic evidence is not reliable for dating, citing these sources would be helpful. Friedman's chapter in Jerusalem in Bible and Archaeology: The First Temple Period edited by Andrew G. Vaughn, Ann E. Killebrew, starting on page 171, cites a number of sources for the linguistic claims: https://books.google.com/books?id=yYS4VEu08h4C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=solomon%20the%20great%20histories&f=false Friedman contends there are distinct differences in the various epochs of Israel's history, and the Wiki article on the Hebrew language explains this is the case. This is unsurprising - languages/writing evolve over time, the exile happened during a time period documented by archeological evidence, with corresponding changes in linguistic patterns - there was a change in geography and immersion in a radically different culture/society.

Court History; yes, it's not part of the Torah; i included it in my comment because the linguistic evidence allegedly shows pre-excilic dating for it, and because of theories that the Deuteronomist used it when creating their contribution to D, Joshua, Judges, 1 + 2 Samuel, 1 + 2 Kings. As of the 2nd ed. of Who Wrote the Bible? Friedman believes Dtr 1 and 2 was Baruch, influenced by Jeremiah, of course. After Josiah's death and while in exile, he rewrote parts of Kings to account for why history didn't work out the way they thought it would, even with Josiah's reforms.

Re: your comment "... the documentary approach can't explain why four authors (of the documents) were happy to invent material, but four redactors never changed a word, although they lived at widely separated points in time." Friedman's theory, as i understand it, has two redactors (individuals or committees, we don't know) - the redactor who combined J + E after the fall of Israel in 722, with P being written later as a response to it, because they wanted a work that advanced the theology and interests of the Aaronid priestly class, which J, E and JE didn't. The 2nd redactor combined JE with P. The JE redaction committee would have been working with already old and respected texts, and would have wanted to preserve essential elements - Friedman notes certain stories/details not preserved, which may have been judged unessential by the J and E sides of that committee. Regarding other stories/details, the J or E side would have demanded their inclusion in return for their support of the final work. By the time of the JEP redactor, these texts were old again and respected, and the redactor preserved as much as possible, inserting text to harmonize and promote continuity. These stories would have been read to public audiences regularly, so the religious authorities would be taking a risk to just invent new things out of whole cloth - but this was done on some occasions - introducing Deuteronomy, then slaughtering those who opposed it - Josiah was king, so he could do much of anything he wanted. And the Feast of Booths, which Ezra may have edited into Leviticus; Nehemiah says the People had previously been unaware of it, that the People knew they hadn't heard of it before. Friedman and other DH supporters don't claim the 4 separate texts were preserved unedited, just largely preserved.

In Who Wrote the Bible, pg. 11 Friedman notes 4 strengths of DH: "1. The convergence of many different lines of evidence. 2. Linguistic evidence for the dates of texts. 3. The narrative continuity of texts that are ascribed to particular authors. 4. How well the texts match the history of the periods from which they come."

Gorkelobb (talk) 19:48, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

This article is no longer about DH. Proposing revert to previous DH version, and this one be moved/retitled: 'Comparison of competing scholarly models on the Torah's origins'

This article is now a comparison and contrast of DH with FH (No article of its own yet, but worthy of repeated reference here as evidence of DH demise?) and SH, written in a way so as to undermine DH, portraying it as an antiquated theory that most scholars have rejected while promoting competing models, namely SH and FH. An article about DH would explain DH and give the evidence and arguments cited in favor of it. It could fairly have a criticism section, which could link to pages on SH and FH, as well as links to those pages in References.

The DH is worthy of an article: "The [DH] once held (and maybe still holds) the agreement of the majority of scholars. ... None of the alternatives has replaced it, not only because they have not won over a majority of the field, but because they remain insufficiently defended and because they have not dealt with the evidence that made the [DH} the standard for a century." (Friedman 2017 pp. 244-45) A DH article could have a lengthy section just on the history and evolution of the DH, referencing many different significant scholars and archaeologists whose work has contributed to the public body of evidence and arguments, developing our understanding of how and why the Bible was put together as it was. In Who Wrote the Bible, Friedman notes that there were questioners and critics of the Mosaic-authorship hypothesis even in ancient times - their observations paved the way for Wellshausen and others to look deeper. In modern times scholars who find DH the most compelling have spent a great deal of pages defending it and addressing evidence and arguments presented by DH critics, which has served to strengthen DH. Gorkelobb (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:27, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Antiquated is not the right word: as PiCo stated, in the US scholarship, DH still reigns supreme, not longer so in European scholarship. If you need a more authoritative view, see [1], there Peter Enns gives in a quite short text the needed nuance for understanding the role of DH: still the basic approach in universities, but in some aspects it has been superseded by newer views. Also, as our article claims, the various hypotheses are not mutually exclusive. Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:21, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

I don't think DH is 'antiquated'; i think this article, as it's written, portrays it that way. This article is demonstrably slanted against DH, which may still hold the majority view among scholars. It would be interesting to see a poll and a literature survey worth citing. This article currently does somewhat explain DH, but i see very little laying out the arguments and evidence in favor of it, with critical/alternative views noted and cited. Rather, the article spends more text promoting the idea of debate, with DH losing/having lost. It repeatedly states that different scholars believe all manner of different things about authors and time periods, but there's relatively little of substance on actual evidence, lines of evidence and arguments. "in some aspects it has been superseded by newer views." - Tgeorgescu. Some scholars might believe this; it would be useful to know in what ways/why in the article. The lines of evidence cited by Friedman exclude a hard FH/SH, by the definitions of these hypotheses given in the article. These lines of evidence need to be addressed by DH critics. The linguistic evidence is particularly problematic for the late-daters, who form a great deal of the DH critics. As Friedman, has repeatedly pointed out, there simply isn't much response to the linguistic evidence by DH critics; it's surprisingly ignored in their publishing.

Gorkelobb (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:32, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Imho, the article has to say that for most of the 20th century DH was the mainstream view, and it still is a major view among scholars. As stated, the fact that other hypotheses may be valid does not contradict that DH is valid. But before suggesting radical rewriting of the article, I think you should try stuff like "change X to Y" and see if that works. Tgeorgescu (talk) 05:27, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

I'd agree with splitting the article, this on DH and a new one on Origins of the Torah of some such. Lot of work to change the redirects. Lot of work to write the articles, too. Gorkelobb, I think you're giving Friedman more importance than he actually has - his book didn't create much of an impact in scholarly circles. PiCo (talk) 12:11, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

PiCo - Origins of the Torah - please elaborate, this could be a useful article. It's a fact that there are competing explanations in scholarship (DH, SH, FH, etc) of the origins and debate over the evidence and arguments; such an article would be devoted to documenting evidence and what the differing views are, or what? Re: Friedman's written many books; i assume you're referring to Who Wrote the Bible, 1987, 2nd ed. published in 1997, scholar.google.com says it's been cited 653 times. I quoted him on this page from his 2017 book stating that there may still be a majority of scholars who accept the premises of DH - this is a falsifiable statement. Again, a literature survey would be useful, if anyone's got a link, please post. Also in that book he listed 9 lines of evidence supporting DH which stand on their own merit; see below. Gorkelobb (talk)

It doesn't matter if this very morning there was found indisputable proof that invalidates the DH — according to Wikipedia practice, DH (a notable topic) would still have its own article where it is the center of its own topic, not be removed or sidelined. DH, on its own, is a topic of interest, and should be treated, in its article, as it is, and not have all the weight in its article shifted toward the superiority of whatever hypothetically proven valid situation. In other words, Wikipedia isn't a collection of only currently known to be true topics, but all notable topics regardless whether they are known/believed to be true, known/believed to be false, or anywhere in between. If the weight of the content in the DH article is shifting toward other hypotheses, some of that should be trimmed down and moved to their own article so they can have an article of their own instead of parasitically leaching-on and smothering another. tl;dr: the above arguments about whether DH is now outdated, or valid, or whether other hypotheses are more accepted or not, does not matter, at all. — al-Shimoni (talk) 09:38, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Imeriki al-Shimoni - I agree. Gorkelobb (talk • contribs) 16:46, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Tgeorgescu - I agree that it would be useful for an article on DH to show how the hypothesis has evolved and developed, and the state of current thinking in scholarship, including noting that not all scholars accept the basic premises of the hypothesis, let alone the details. I agree with Imeriki on how a DH article should be written. Please see my proposal for DH table of contents below - what do you think? Gorkelobb (talk)

Lines of evidence for DH

R.E. Friedman (2017, p245) assembled this summary of the individually compelling lines of evidence, which, as he notes, converge together in support of DH. This evidence cannot be accounted for by SH and FH; Friedman has repeatedly observed the failure of FH and SH supporting scholars to address this evidence in publication.

The [first five books of the OT] ... could not have been ... composed by one author:

1. They are written in the Hebrew of several different periods ...
2. They can be separated into sections that each use distinct terminology; words that the other sections rarely or never use. There are some five hundred of these unique occurrences of words.
3. The sections with the different terminology also each consistently have their own particular depictions of the revelation of the name Yahweh, of the role of priests and of Levites, and of various sacred objects such as the ark, the Tabernacle, and the cherubs.
4. There are stories that are told twice, called doublets.
5. There are texts that contradict each other on events, on numbers, and on names of persons and places.
6. When we separate the texts according to their distinct terminology, the doublets and contradictions 'disappear'. That is, they comfortably and consistently fit into one section or another.
7. When we separate the texts along the lines of all these consistent points of evidence, the sections each flow naturally. That is: if one section interrupts another, then the next time that we find the one that was interupted, it picks up naturally where it left off before the intrusion.
8. Each of these continuous, consistently worded, consistently depicted, noncontradicting, nonrepeated texts, which relate to the specific periods of Hebrew in which they are respectively written, also have unique connections to other parts of the Bible. ...
9. We can trace each of these sections to particular times and events in Israel's history. We can see how those particular times and events influenced the respective authors to tell the story as they did.

Gorkelobb (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:48, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Proposal: Table of Contents for DH article

1. Introduction
2. Explanation of the hypothesis with evidence and arguments for it, sub-sections for J, E, P, D and Court History, and debate/criticism noted/addressed/referenced as appropriate
3. History of the hypothesis - including ancient skepticism of Mosaic authorship, Wellshausen, Noth, etc.
4. Criticism of the hypothesis
5. See Also - should have links to the J, E, P, D, Court History and other relevant pages
6. Notes
7. Refs
8. Bib
9. Links

Gorkelobb (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:18, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

I don't disagree with that, however, I think that we should preserve the information from the current version or move it to a new article. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:12, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

There are a few issues with capitalization per MOS:HEADING.

The see also section should not link to content already linked in the article and since we plan to discussed JEPD, etc, linking it again is not appropriate per MOS:SEEALSO.

Any content in this article that directly relates to DH should be kept, and only brief mentions of other theories should me made. Instead, elaboration of those theories should be made either in the linked articles or in the references. I agree that we should stick to the content of this subject and not go into other subjects. Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:24, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Walter. The outline looks basically alright, although it would make your job easier if you just used what's already there and refined it. A few points: the Court History has no connection to the DH; Noth isn't connected to it either (his fame is from his work on the Deuteronomistic History); there's no need to go into the rejection of Mosaic authorship, a simple sentence mentioning its demise would be enough. Anyway, good luck :) PiCo (talk) 05:36, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Reply to TgeorgescuWalter GörlitzPiCoI see this issue's come up before, on this talk page. It looks like there's basic agreement between four users here:

1. Preserve the current article as a new page/article, to be developed (PiCo has suggested Origins of the Torah now and before; i think that would be a useful article, needs it's own table of contents - such an article could document the history and evolution of research as well as the current status of knowledge and debate)
2. Rework the DH article on this page into one focused on DH, with a correctly formatted table of contents and article. There was an article on DH awhile back that PiCo had written, which I found useful when I was first learning about DH; reverting to that and editing it would be a simple way to start?

As you can see from my history, i'm mostly an occasional editor and not well-versed in the formatting rules. I've been visiting this DH article periodically as I research, and may contribute edits to the updated DH article and the new Origins of the Torah (or other name). Frankly, I was hoping some experienced wikipedians would be able to do this in a few clicks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gorkelobb (talk • contribs) 01:05, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

This is what Brittanica and Encyclopedia.com have to say about DH:

1. The Formation of the Canonical Torah https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/torah
2. https://www.britannica.com/topic/biblical-literature/Old-Testament-literature#ref73239

Gorkelobb (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:42, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Don't use those two - the Britannica in particular is very poor-quality. Begin with this book, which you'll have to get from a library: Gertz, Jan C.; Levinson, Bernard M.; Rom-Shiloni, Dalit. The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America. Mohr Siebeck, 2017.PiCo (talk) 09:42, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Moses wiklink

In "According to tradition they were dictated by God to [[Moses]]" the last stable version of the article links to Moses. Walter Görlitz, you piped the link to Mosaic authorship, which I reverted stating: "MOS:EGG, keep the target at Moses or wl entire 'dictated by God to Moses'". I agree with your reply "but mosaic authorship isn't 'dictation'". So, let's revert back to the latest stable version that links to Moses, shall we? The other option is to rephrase. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 16:02, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

No, you removed the pipe was removed by @PiCo: recently. I agree that EASTER should be honoured, but the last stable version was to Mosaic authorship. I suggest a change in wording to "According to tradition they were dictated by God and [[:Mosaic authorship|written by Moses]]". Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:45, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

I edited the Mosaic authorship link because it was in there twice in two successive sentences - "According to tradition they were dictated by God to Moses ... As a result, the Mosaic authorship of the Torah..." What I did was change the first Mosaic authorship link to a Moses link, and leave the second. As for Mosaic authorship being dictation, could someone please check this - I think the rabbinic tradition had at least two versions, in one of which God wrote the Torah in fire prior to creation, in the other he dictated it to Moses. Not a big deal either way, let's not spend too many words on it.PiCo (talk) 18:33, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

I see now that the tradition was that God wrote the Torah before creation and then dictated it to Moses. The article is fine on that. But we do still have two links to Mosaic authorship in close proximity, which I think is not desirable.PiCo (talk) 18:49, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Excellent point. I just removed the text since there's no need to link Moses anyhow and removing the WP:REPEATLINK was appropriate, although done in an unusual way (we usually leave the first entry, not the second, but in this case, it was an EASTER egg). Walter Görlitz (talk) 19:01, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

@PiCo: to answer your question, JasonWikis (talk · contribs), included the traditional view of Mosaic authorship to the lede in a series of edits on November 11. To state that "Mosaic authorship has zero support" is not entirely true, but it's not supported in academic circles. With that said, the addition should be discussed from both sides. Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:22, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

The article itself discusses three models, so it would be natural for the lede to summarize that. There's nothing in the sources cited here that justify treating "some variant of Mosaic authorship" as a "model" on par with the other three. The unexplained edits from back in November take the lede away from both it's essential function of summarizing the article, and they move it away from the sources cited. Alephb (talk) 00:42, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

That makes sense. Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:01, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Editor2020 (talk · contribs) made a modification after you @Alephb:. Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:07, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

So I see. Now we're in the awkward position of having an article where the first paragraph is about the "four models", followed by a second paragraph that starts with "All three agree". Clearly more work of some kind is still needed. Alephb (talk) 01:10, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

If you wish to apply a rollback which removes my edit please proceed. Editor2020 (talk) 01:14, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Oh, no. I'm sort of confused at the moment, and I will need to put on my thinking cap for a bit to figure out what's going on here before making any changes. Alephb (talk) 01:16, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

I apologise for not joining the discussion earlier. My problem with the mention of the Mosaic "model" is that it's not on a par with the other three in terms of academic acceptance. Nor is it mentioned (at all) in the two sources given. But there's a deeper problem, which is that this article is supposedly about the Documentary hypothesis, but then discusses two others. There really needs to be another article on current approaches to the composition of the Torah, but I'm certainly not up to writing it.PiCo (talk) 00:26, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Re-write and new article needed

Frankly I find this article unsatisfactory. It says it's about the documentary hypothesis, but then it goes on to discuss two other hypotheses at length. A new article is needed . PiCo (talk)on the current state of Pentateuchal studies/origins of the Torah.PiCo (talk) 10:11, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

I agree. I raised this concern myself. Even if the consensus of DH has 'collapsed', it's still a noteworthy part of textual criticism. I think that there should be an article on textual criticism of the Pentateuch that links to this one and discusses the various models, and that this article should focus on the Documentary Hypothesis itself. --Jcvamp (talk) 17:49, 15 April 2019 (UTC)It's still fair to talk about criticism of DH and even

I agree that "Even if the consensus of DH has 'collapsed', it's still a noteworthy part of textual criticism." AIUI, there is no consensus replacing the DH, so, for all of its flaws, it remains an important achievement of intellectual history. There is no going back to pre-DH assumptons. That being said, there is a need for an article on "The Current State of Pentateuchal Studies". I would vote against "Origins of the Torah" for several reasons: the Torah is a religious concept, it includes the "Oral Torah" also, and the current understanding of the Pentateuch goes beyond the five books. TomS TDotO (talk) 23:29, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

I agree we need a new article, but "Current State of Pentateuchal Studies" sounds way too abstract and meta to me. I would probably go for something like "Composition of the Pentateuch," or honestly just "Composition of the Torah," given the WP:COMMONNAME guidelines. I understand @TomS TDotO:'s concerns about that, but most people don't know what the hell the "Pentateuch" is, and we can have a hat-note disambiguation at the top of the article if necessary. Montgolfière (talk) 02:56, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. How many Christians know what the Torah is, other than something of Judaism?

Actually I would vote against the wording "Current state of ... studies". Better would be "Biblical philology" with a hatnote "About the composition of Genesis through Deuteronomy and beyond", or some such. How about something like, "Following the Documentary Hypothesis"?

Let's not let this die for lack of a perfect title. TomS TDotO (talk) 03:48, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

I definitely don't want to let this die, but article titles do matter. "Biblical philology" is too broad. This article would specifically be on the topic of how the first five books of Moses were written and compiled together (and where/when this happened). We already have articles on Development of the Hebrew Bible canon and Development of the Old Testament canon, as well as on Torah and Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The article title needs to be clearly distinct from all these other articles.

Anything with the phrase "Hebrew Bible" or "biblical" in the title is too broad, since we are specifically talking about the first five books of Moses. "Pentateuch" isn't good both because of WP:COMMONNAME and because, as it stands now, Pentateuch just redirects you to Torah. So we've already decided that we're using the word "Torah" in article titles to refer to the books of Moses. "Following the Documentary Hypothesis" is way too abstract and meta. Most people aren't going to search for articles on the "documentary hypothesis," as if they already know what that is, they're going to search for "Torah" or "Bible" or "Tanakh" or "Pentateuch" or something like that. Of course the article will talk about the DH but it shouldn't be in the title. I would vote for either "Composition of the Torah" or "Origins of the Torah." Montgolfière (talk) 12:09, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

I admit that I don't have any better title. As long as there are other articles "Compositon of ..." I would vote for "Composition of the Torah" as keeping with the pattern. (Also, "origins of" sounds rather presumptive.) I wish that there were more interest shown from others. TomS TDotO (talk) 14:11, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Sounds like we have an agreement on the article title. I went ahead and started a draft at User:Montgolfière/sandbox/Composition of the Torah, just by copying the wikitext over from Documentary hypothesis and giving it a different intro paragraph. If you'd like to help out with it, by all means go ahead and start editing it. I was thinking the article should sort of start out by laying out the baseline facts on which there is consensus, and then have a few different sections discussing different theories. As long is there is no objection, I'd like to make sure there is a section specifically on the dating of the Torah (i.e. mentioning the oldest extant manuscripts and external references to the Pentateuch and how they establish a terminus ante quem, then discussing historical/linguistic/etc. reasons for possibly dating it earlier than that), as well as a modest section at the end on recent theories (by Russell Gmirkin, Niels Peter Lemche, Philippe Wajdenbaum, etc.) proposing a Hellenistic origin of the Torah. Montgolfière (talk) 15:28, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

@PiCo: If you'd like to help out with the drafting, by all means take a look at User:Montgolfière/sandbox/Composition of the Torah and make some edits. :) Montgolfière (talk) 11:44, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Duplicate ref defs

I made a corrective edit to this page which seems to be controversial. The error I corrected was a duplicate reference definition, created when an editor modified some footnotes to use dashes while leaving some other footnotes to use hyphens. This is a pretty common problem when using templates like {{sfn}}, which rely on being able to create redundant definitions of the same name with identical content.

The other editor left a comment that he reverted my edit, but actually didn't do so. I posted a note to them about the problem to their talk page, but they removed it -- twice, in fact. Hopefully, this is really an unncessary tempest in a teacup as the addition of the mismatching definitions is clearly an error that needs to be fixed. -- Mikeblas (talk) 00:25, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

First, thank you for fixing the error.

Second, I left no comments, I left an edit summary.

Third, the error was introduced by the editor before I applied correct MOS:DASH usage. The content used hyphens and en-dashes. It was simply not visible until all the incorrectly used hyphens were replaced with en-dashes.

Fourth, it's your tempest.

Fifth, by singling me out as the perpetrator of the the error you violated WP:NPA which clearly states, "comment on content, not on the contributor."

Sixth, I am a person, not a collective. Using a second person pronoun(they) to describe me is wrong. There is an edit notice on my talk page that reads in part, "If you're here to tell me about an edit of yours that I reverted, please explain why it should be included on the article's talk page. I likely have the article on my watchlist and will see it eventually." If you don't want to read it, and leave the comment, feel free to expect me to delete it. Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:30, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Creating new "Composition of the Torah" article

In line with suggestions by User:PiCo, User:Jcvamp, User:TomS TDotO and others, I've made a draft of a new article titled "Composition of the Torah," which surveys all the major pieces of evidence and viewpoints in modern scholarship concerning the writing and compilation of the Pentateuch. You can check it out (and edit it) here: User:Montgolfière/sandbox/Composition of the Torah. It includes a lot of material copied over from this article, plus a good amount of new stuff. The idea is to remove the material concerning hypotheses other than the documentary hypothesis from Documentary hypothesis and have it link to the new article. My draft is nearing completion, although I'd like someone to review it and add info about the fragmentary hypothesis. We should probably also add more info about different views on the dating of the sources. Montgolfière (talk) 14:52, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

New article Composition of the Torah is now up in the mainspace. Montgolfière (talk) 13:26, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, I think this is the best way to keep this article focused on the topic whilst retaining the useful information on Wikipedia.--Jcvamp (talk) 12:32, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Clunky titles and deletion of information about contemporary proponents

The title 'Contemporary approaches: end of the documentary consensus and revival of supplementary and fragmentary models' isn't really the type of heading used on Wikipedia. Also, why is it that all the information about modern proponents of the Documentary Hypothesis has been removed? There are still books and articles being published on it, and replacing all that with the idea that idea that consensus has 'collapsed' based on citing one author hardly seems conclusive.

The article jumps from Wellhausen to a supposed state in which the Documentary Hypothesis has been abandoned, and misses out any intermediate development. Yes, there are other theories, but as editors we're supposed to be balanced.

I acknowledge that a lot of work has gone into this re-write, but this shouldn't be a single person's pet project. When I edited this article, it was to showcase opposing viewpoints, even though I personally disagree with some of them. That's because it's not up to me to decide which is more valid.--Jcvamp (talk) 15:05, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

--- I'm seconding Jcvamp's concerns; there are models competing in scholarship with DH, but it doesn't seem the claim that DH has been discredited/abandoned is supported. Why is there no Criticism section for the DH page? It seems there's a lot of this or that scholar believes this or that, and very little citing of evidence, or of arguments that can be tested. Gorkelobb (talk) 17:35, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree. Also, there is a need for an article on the Fragmentary Hypothesis. TomS TDotO (talk) 20:08, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

If you feel the article is inadequate then edit it. Just some comments:

(1) The article jumps from Wellhausen to the contemporary situation because that's how history moved - Wellhausen was almost universally accepted until the 1970s and then the consensus quite suddenly collapsed. There were no intermediary developments.
(2) Basing the statement that the consensus has collapsed on one author is quite acceptable in Wikipedia - it's a reliable source giving a piece of information. If you wish to oppose it you need to find another reliable source, of the same date or later, saying that the DH is still a consensus.
(3) Saying that the consensus has collapsed is not at all the same as saying that nobody still follows the DH. It's probably the majority view in AMerica and Israel. But in Europe it has few followers. I hope this is clear from the article.
(4) Information about modern proposents of the DH has not been removed. There's a subsection on the current version of the DH - but it's not exactly the same as Wellhausen's DH, e.g. it doesn't hold to his version of the dates of the four documents, and has different priorities when applying source criticism.
(5) As for the absence of the reasons why various scholars have reached various conclusion, that's probably a valid criticism, but feel free to fill in the gaps yourself.
(6) Re the fragmentary hypothesis, there's nothing on it because it doesn't exist. It did once, back in the very early 19th century, but not today.

Finally, please, edit the article. I do honestly thank you for allowing me so much freedom in the re-write, but I've finished, it's now common property. Go for it.PiCo (talk) 06:57, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

This article begins with the observation that there are three hypotheses, Documentary, Supplemental, Fragmentary. DH has its article here. SH has its article which is linked to. FH is nowhere. Later on, there are a couple of mentions of a revival of interest in the FH. TomS TDotO (talk) 09:51, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

The root of the problem is that the article has the wrong title. It should be Origins of the Torah or Pentatuech or some such, but at some point in the Wikipedian Dark Ages someone, under the impression that the documentary hypothesis was the last word on the subject, started this article with this title. They were wrong, even back when Wikipedia was a baby the DH was already outmoded, but Wiki does tend to lag. Anyway, my suggestion, for what it's worth, is to retitle this as Origins of the Pentateuch]] and do redirects from separate articles on the documentary, fragmentary, and supplementary hypotheses. But I don't think there's much point in having articles on the supplementary and fragmentary hypotheses because, in modern scholarship, they don't exist. In America people still follow either a quite rigorous version of the Wellhausen hypothesis (that's Friedman) or the reformed version mentioned in our article. In Europe they follow the "block" model, which is quite different and melds fragmentary and supplementary approaches. The division between Europe and America is the reason we have people coming on here and complaining that the documentary hypothesis is still alive -they're American, and in America it is. But in Europe it isn't. PiCo (talk) 10:14, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Or one could look on this as: that there was an article on the DH, which is an important topic, whatever one thinks of the its present status; and there was a need for an article on the modern European Hypothesis. That need was filled by rewriting the article on the DH to be on EH: and that leaves the present situation with there being a need for an article on DH (and maybe even articles on other hypotheses of historical importance only, like FH). TomS TDotO (talk) 20:38, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Something like that. But DH is a sub-topic to the subject, which is the composition of the Pentateuch. Unfortunately, everyone knows that phrase (documentary hypothesis) and everyone thinks that's where it's at, when it's not.PiCo (talk) 06:14, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

One can add a hatnote on the article on the DH which directs one "this article is on the 19th century hypothesis of Wellhausen and its later developments. For the general topic of the formation of the Pentateuch, see Recent Pentateuch Hypotheses". Or something like that which can be informative to those who think that DH is where it's at today, rather than just leaving them perplexed about what is the DH. TomS TDotO (talk) 12:31, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

In regards to the invitation to edit the article, I did, and most of my work was undone. I'm not the type to claim ownership of an article, so, rather than just going and re-writing the article, I started this discussion.

Documentary Hypothesis is a sub-topic of 'origins of the Pentateuch', but enough can be said about it to constitute its own article. It's probably the most well-known of the hypothesis, there have been countless models based on it, and it was hypothesis that kick-started textual criticism of the Pentateuch. Regardless of anyone's opinion on it, the article should reflect the subject matter. I think that there can be other articles exploring other hypotheses (or even a single one if the resulting articles ended up being stubs), and a possibly article on the composition of the Pentateuch that gives a brief description of each and links to the corresponding articles (if the subject is too lengthy to be covered in the Biblical criticism article).--Jcvamp (talk) 04:32, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

To cut the craps: the Documentary Hypothesis has not been "discredited". It is just that it no longer is the only game in the town (i.e. in mainstream Bible scholarship). tgeorgescu (talk) 13:31, 24 June 2022 (UTC)