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The documentary hypothesis (DH) is a model used by biblical scholars to explain the origins and composition of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). Others are the supplementary hypothesis and the fragmentary hypothesis; all agree that the Torah is not a unified work from a single author, but is made up of sources combined over many centuries by many hands. They differ on the nature of these sources and how they were combined. According to the documentary hypothesis there were four sources, each originally a separate and independent book (a "document"), joined together at various points in time by a series of editors ("redactors"). Fragmentary hypotheses see the Torah as a collection of small fragments, and supplementary hypotheses as a single core document supplemented by fragments taken from many sources.

A version of the documentary hypothesis, frequently identified with the German scholar Julius Wellhausen, was almost universally accepted for most of the 20th century, but the consensus has now collapsed. As a result, there has been a revival of interest in fragmentary and supplementary approaches, frequently in combination with each other and with a documentary model, making it difficult to classify contemporary theories as strictly one or another.

Modern scholars increasingly see the completed Torah as a product of the time of the Achaemenid Empire (probably 450–350 BCE), although some would place its production in the Hellenistic period (333–164 BCE) or even the Hasmonean dynasty (140–37 BCE). Of its constituent sources, Deuteronomy is generally dated between the 7th and 5th centuries; there is much discussion of the unity, extent, nature, and date of the Priestly material. Deuteronomy continues to be seen as having had a history separate from the first four books, and that this historigraphic tradition is continued with the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings as Deuteronomistic history. There is a growing recognition that Genesis developed apart from the Exodus stories until joined to it by the Priestly writer.

Basic approaches: documentary, fragmentary and supplementary hypotheses

The Torah (or Pentateuch) is collectively the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. According to tradition they were dictated by God to Moses, but when modern critical scholarship began to be applied to the Bible it was discovered that the Pentateuch was not the unified text one would expect from a single author. As a result, the Mosaic authorship of the Torah had been largely rejected by leading scholars by the 17th century, and the modern consensus is that it is the product of a long evolutionary process.

In the mid-18th century, some scholars started a critical study of doublets (parallel accounts of the same incidents), inconsistencies, and changes in style and vocabulary in the Torah. In 1780 Johann Eichhorn, building on the work of the French doctor and exegete Jean Astruc's "Conjectures" and others, formulated the "older documentary hypothesis": the idea that Genesis was composed by combining two identifiable sources, the Jehovist ("J"; also called the Yahwist) and the Elohist ("E"). These sources were subsequently found to run through the first four books of the Torah, and the number was later expanded to three when Wilhelm de Wette identified the Deuteronomist as an additional source found only in Deuteronomy ("D"). Later still the Elohist was split into Elohist and Priestly ("P") sources, increasing the number to four. JE was used in the uncorrupted Paleo-Hebrew. YHVH/YHWH did not appear in the original scriptures. Moses did not write them. They are NOT Paleo-Hebrew. Even the Encyclopedia Britannica 1958 edition, Volume 12, I page 996 says “...Yah/Yahweh are not Hebrew names".

“THE SACRED NAME” So what did God The Father say to Moses in 1446 B.C.? In Exodus 3:14 He said “EHJEH ASHER EHJEH.” THUS SHALL YOU SAY TO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL: “EHJEH ASHER EHJEH.” “I  JE.” JESUS HAS  SENT ME TO YOU.” (I am Jesus-by rule the h is silent so it's pronounced JEE) “The beginning, The self-existing, The eternal JE. I am JE, The Alpha & The Omega, The Beginning and The End, The Eternal, JE with us, God with us.” He spoke the same way in Exodus 6:3 “EHJEH ASHER EHJEH.” In the uncorrupted Hebrew Old Testament, God The Father was known as JE, I JE, JEH, EHJEH ASHER EHJEH. In early and modern versions of The New Testament, God The Father was known as JE, JESE, JEUE, JESUE, and of course Jesus or “JESUS.”(Jesus Christ). The book of Moses 7:11 And The LORD God gave unto Enoch a commandment that he should baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, which is full of grace and truth, and of the Holy Ghost, which beareth record of the Father and the Son. 35 Behold, I am God; Man of Holiness is My name; Man of Counsel is My name; and Endless and Eternal is My name, also. “MY NAME IS JE.”

These documentary approaches were in competition with two other models, the fragmentary and the supplementary. The fragmentary hypothesis argued that fragments of varying lengths, rather than continuous documents, lay behind the Torah; this approach accounted for the Torah's diversity but could not account for its structural consistency, particularly regarding chronology. The supplementary hypothesis was better able to explain this unity: it maintained that the Torah was made up of a central core document, the Elohist, supplemented by fragments taken from many sources. The supplementary approach was dominant by the early 1860s, but it was challenged by an important book published by Hermann Hupfeld in 1853, who argued that the Pentateuch was made up of four documentary sources, the Priestly, Yahwist, and Elohist intertwined in Genesis-Exodus-Leviticus-Numbers, and the stand-alone source of Deuteronomy. At around the same period Karl Heinrich Graf argued that the Yahwist and Elohist were the earliest sources and the Priestly source the latest, while Wilhelm Vatke linked the four to an evolutionary framework, the Yahwist and Elohist to a time of primitive nature and fertility cults, the Deuteronomist to the ethical religion of the Hebrew prophets, and the Priestly source to a form of religion dominated by ritual, sacrifice and law.

Table: documentary, fragmentary and supplementary hypotheses

The table is based on that in Walter Houston's "The Pentateuch", with expansions as indicated. Note that the three hypotheses are not mutually exclusive.

Julius Wellhausen and the new documentary hypothesis

In 1878 Julius Wellhausen published Geschichte Israels, Bd 1 ("History of Israel, Vol 1"); the second edition he printed as Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels ("Prolegomena to the History of Israel"), in 1883, and the work is better known under that name. (The second volume, a synthetic history titled Israelitische und jüdische Geschichte , did not appear until 1894 and remains untranslated.) Crucially, this historical portrait was based upon two earlier works of his technical analysis: "Die Composition des Hexateuchs" ("The Composition of the Hexateuch") of 1876/77 and sections on the "historical books" (Judges–Kings) in his 1878 edition of Friedrich Bleek's Einleitung in das Alte Testament ("Introduction to the Old Testament").

Wellhausen's documentary hypothesis owed little to Wellhausen himself but was mainly the work of Hupfeld, Eduard Eugène Reuss, Graf, and others, who in turn had built on earlier scholarship. He accepted Hupfeld's four sources and, in agreement with Graf, placed the Priestly work last. J was the earliest document, a product of the 900s and the court of Solomon; E was from the 8th century BCE in the northern Kingdom of Israel, and had been combined by a redactor (editor) with J to form a document JE; D, the third source, was a product of the 7th century BC, by 620 BCE, during the reign of King Josiah; P (what Wellhausen first named "Q") was a product of the priest-and-temple dominated world of the 6th century; and the final redaction, when P was combined with JED to produce the Torah as we now know it.

Wellhausen's explanation of the formation of the Torah was also an explanation of the religious history of Israel. The Yahwist and Elohist described a primitive, spontaneous and personal world, in keeping with the earliest stage of Israel's history; in Deuteronomy he saw the influence of the prophets and the development of an ethical outlook, which he felt represented the pinnacle of Jewish religion; and the Priestly source reflected the rigid, ritualistic world of the priest-dominated post-exilic period. His work, notable for its detailed and wide-ranging scholarship and close argument, entrenched the "new documentary hypothesis" as the dominant explanation of Pentateuchal origins from the late 19th to the late 20th centuries.

Collapse of the documentary consensus

The consensus around the documentary hypothesis collapsed in the last decades of the 20th century. The groundwork was laid with the investigation of the origins of the written sources in oral compositions, implying that the creators of J and E were collectors and editors and not authors and historians. Rolf Rendtorff (1925–2014), building on this insight, argued that the basis of the Pentateuch lay in short, independent narratives, gradually formed into larger units and brought together in two editorial phases, the first Deuteronomic, the second Priestly. This led to the current position which sees only two major sources in the Pentateuch, the Deuteronomist (confined to the Book of Deuteronomy) and the Priestly (confined to the books Genesis-Exodus-Leviticus-Numbers).

The majority of scholars today continue to recognise Deuteronomy as a source, with its origin in the law-code produced at the court of Josiah as described by De Wette, subsequently given a frame during the exile (the speeches and descriptions at the front and back of the code) to identify it as the words of Moses. Most scholars also agree that some form of Priestly source existed, although its extent, especially its end-point, is uncertain. The remainder is called collectively non-Priestly, a grouping which includes both pre-Priestly and post-Priestly material. The final Torah is increasingly seen as a product of the Persian period (539–333 BCE, probably 450–350 BCE), possibly as a product of the Persian imperial practice of authorizing local, autonomous law codes for conquered populations. Some scholars would place the final formation of the Pentateuch somewhat later, in the Hellenistic (333–164 BCE) or even Hasmonean (140–37 BCE) periods. This latter dating remains a minority view, but the Elephantine papyri, the records of a Jewish colony in Egypt dating from the last quarter of the 5th century BCE, show no knowledge of a Torah or of an exodus. There is also a growing recognition that Genesis developed separately from Exodus-Leviticus-Numbers, and was joined to the story of Moses by the Priestly writer.

A revised neo-documentary hypothesis still has adherents, especially in North America and Israel. This distinguishes sources by means of plot and continuity rather than stylistic and linguistic concerns, and does not tie them to stages in the evolution of Israel's religious history. Its resurrection of an E source is probably the element most often criticised by other scholars, as it is rarely distinguishable from the classical J source and European scholars have largely rejected it as fragmentary or non-existent.

The Torah and the history of Israel's religion

Wellhausen used the sources of the Torah as evidence of changes in the history of Israelite religion as it moved (in his opinion) from free, simple and natural to fixed, formal and institutional. Modern scholars of Israel's religion have become much more circumspect in how they use the Old Testament, not least because many have concluded that the Bible is not a reliable witness to the religion of ancient Israel and Judah, representing instead the beliefs of only a small segment of the ancient Israelite community centred in Jerusalem and devoted to the exclusive worship of the god Yahweh.

See also

• Authorship of the Bible
• Biblical criticism
• Books of the Bible
• Dating the Bible
• Mosaic authorship

Notes

1. The reasons behind the rejection are covered in more detail in the article on Mosaic authorship.
2. The two-source hypothesis of Eichorn was the "older" documentary hypothesis, and the four-source hypothesis adopted by Wellhausen was the "newer".

References

1. Patzia & Petrotta 2010, p. 37.
2. ^ Viviano 1999, pp. 38–39. Cite error: The named reference "FOOTNOTEViviano199938–39" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
3. Van Seters 2015, p. viii.
4. ^ Viviano 1999, p. 38.
5. ^ Carr 2014, p. 434.
6. Van Seters 2015, p. 12.
7. ^ Greifenhagen 2003, pp. 206–207, 224 fn.49. Cite error: The named reference "FOOTNOTEGreifenhagen2003206–207, 224 fn.49" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
8. Bos 2013, p. 133.
9. Gaines 2015, p. 273.
10. ^ Ska 2006, p. viii.
11. McDermott 2002, p. 1.
12. Kugel 2008, p. 6.
13. Campbell & O'Brien 1993, p. 1.
14. ^ Berlin 1994, p. 113.
15. Baden 2012, p. 13.
16. Ruddick 1990, p. 246.
17. Patrick 2013, p. 31.
18. ^ Barton & Muddiman 2010, p. 19.
19. Barton & Muddiman 2010, p. 18–19.
20. Friedman 1997, p. 24–25.
21. Houston 2013, p. 93.
22. Houston 2013, p. 95.
23. Van Seters 2015, p. 23.
24. Kugel 2008, p. 41.
25. Barton & Muddiman 2010, p. 20.
26. Viviano 1999, p. 40–41.
27. ^ Gaines 2015, p. 260.
28. Viviano 1999, p. 51.
29. Thompson 2000, p. 8.
30. Ska 2015, pp. 133–135. sfn error: no target: CITEREFSka2015 (help)
31. ^ Otto 2014, p. 609.
32. Otto 2015, p. 605. sfn error: no target: CITEREFOtto2015 (help)
33. Carr 2015, p. 457. sfn error: no target: CITEREFCarr2015 (help)
34. Frei 2001, p. 6.
35. Gmirkin 2006, p. 32.
36. ^ Gaines 2015, p. 271.
37. Gaines 2015, p. 272.
38. Miller 2000, p. 182.
39. Stackert 2014, p. 24.
40. Wright 2002, p. 52.

Bibliography

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• Barton, John (2014). "Biblical Scholarship on the European Continent, in the UK, and Ireland". In Saeboe, Magne; Ska, Jean Louis; Machinist, Peter (eds.). Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. III: From Modernism to Post-Modernism. Part II: The Twentieth Century – From Modernism to Post-Modernism. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN 978-3-525-54022-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Barton, John; Muddiman, John (2010). The Pentateuch. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-958024-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Berlin, Adele (1994). Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative. Eisenbrauns. ISBN 978-1-57506-002-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Bos, James M. (2013). Reconsidering the Date and Provenance of the Book of Hosea. Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-0-567-06889-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Brettler, Marc Zvi (2004). "Torah: Introduction". In Berlin, Adele; Brettler, Marc Zvi (eds.). The Jewish Study Bible. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-529751-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Campbell, Antony F.; O'Brien, Mark A. (1993). Sources of the Pentateuch: Texts, Introductions, Annotations. Fortress Press. ISBN 978-1-4514-1367-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Carr, David M. (2007). "Genesis". In Coogan, Michael David; Brettler, Marc Zvi; Newsom, Carol Ann (eds.). The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-528880-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Carr, David M. (2014). "Changes in Pentateuchal Criticism". In Saeboe, Magne; Ska, Jean Louis; Machinist, Peter (eds.). Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. III: From Modernism to Post-Modernism. Part II: The Twentieth Century – From Modernism to Post-Modernism. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN 978-3-525-54022-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Enns, Peter (2013). "3 Things I Would Like to See Evangelical Leaders Stop Saying about Biblical Scholarship". patheos.com. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Frei, Peter (2001). "Persian Imperial Authorization: A Summary". In Watts, James (ed.). Persia and Torah: The Theory of Imperial Authorization of the Pentateuch. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. p. 6. ISBN 9781589830158.
• Friedman, Richard Elliott (1997). Who Wrote the Bible?. HarperOne.
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• Gertz, Jan C.; Levinson, Bernard M.; Rom-Shiloni, Dalit (2017). "Convergence and Divergence in Pentateuchal Theory". In Gertz, Jan C.; Levinson, Bernard M.; Rom-Shiloni, Dalit (eds.). The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America. Mohr Siebeck. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Gmirkin, Russell (2006). Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus. Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-0-567-13439-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Greifenhagen, Franz V. (2003). Egypt on the Pentateuch's Ideological Map. Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-0-567-39136-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Houston, Walter (2013). The Pentateuch. SCM Press. ISBN 978-0-334-04385-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Kawashima, Robert S. (2010). "Sources and Redaction". In Hendel, Ronald (ed.). Reading Genesis. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-139-49278-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
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• Kurtz, Paul Michael (2018). Kaiser, Christ, and Canaan: The Religion of Israel in Protestant Germany, 1871–1918. Mohr Siebeck. ISBN 978-3-16-155496-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Levin, Christoph (2013). Re-Reading the Scriptures. Mohr Siebeck. ISBN 978-3-16-152207-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• McDermott, John J. (2002). Reading the Pentateuch: A Historical Introduction. Pauline Press. ISBN 978-0-8091-4082-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• McEntire, Mark (2008). Struggling with God: An Introduction to the Pentateuch. Mercer University Press. ISBN 978-0-88146-101-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• McKim, Donald K. (1996). Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms. Westminster John Knox. ISBN 978-0-664-25511-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Miller, Patrick D. (2000). Israelite Religion and Biblical Theology: Collected Essays. A&C Black. ISBN 978-1-84127-142-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Monroe, Lauren A.S. (2011). Josiah's Reform and the Dynamics of Defilement. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-977536-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Moore, Megan Bishop; Kelle, Brad E. (2011). Biblical History and Israel's Past. Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-6260-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Nicholson, Ernest Wilson (2003). The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-925783-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Otto, Eckart (2014). "The Study of Law and Ethics in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament". In Saeboe, Magne; Ska, Jean Louis; Machinist, Peter (eds.). Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. III: From Modernism to Post-Modernism. Part II: The Twentieth Century – From Modernism to Post-Modernism. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN 978-3-525-54022-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Patrick, Dale (2013). Deuteronomy. Chalice Press. ISBN 978-0-8272-0566-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Patzia, Arthur G.; Petrotta, Anthony J. (2010). Pocket Dictionary of Biblical Studies. InterVarsity Press. ISBN 978-0-8308-6702-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Ruddick, Eddie L. (1990). "Elohist". In Mills, Watson E.; Bullard, Roger Aubrey (eds.). Mercer Dictionary of the Bible. Mercer University Press. ISBN 978-0-86554-373-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Sharpes, Donald K. (2005). Lords of the Scrolls. Peter Lang. ISBN 0-300-15263-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Ska, Jean-Louis (2006). Introduction to reading the Pentateuch. Eisenbrauns. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Ska, Jean Louis (2014). "Questions of the 'History of Israel' in Recent Research". In Saeboe, Magne; Ska, Jean Louis; Machinist, Peter (eds.). Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. III: From Modernism to Post-Modernism. Part II: The Twentieth Century – From Modernism to Post-Modernism. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN 978-3-525-54022-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Stackert, Jeffrey (2014). A Prophet Like Moses: Prophecy, Law, and Israelite Religion. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-933645-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Thompson, Thomas L. (2000). Early History of the Israelite People: From the Written & Archaeological Sources. BRILL. ISBN 9004119434. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Van Seters, John (2015). The Pentateuch: A Social-Science Commentary. Bloomsbury T&T Clark. ISBN 978-0-567-65880-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Viviano, Pauline A. (1999). "Source Criticism". In Haynes, Stephen R.; McKenzie, Steven L. (eds.). To Each Its Own Meaning: An Introduction to Biblical Criticisms and Their Application. Westminster John Knox. ISBN 978-0-664-25784-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Wright, J. Edward (2002). The Early History of Heaven. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-534849-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

External links

• Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel by Julius Wellhausen full text at sacred-texts.com
• Wikiversity – The King James Version according to the documentary hypothesis

• Use dmy dates from July 2013
• Documentary hypothesis
• Hypotheses
• Biblical criticism
• Torah