A Picture of Julius Wellhausen.
Should Theology, Religious
Studies and Comparative Religion Students Take the
Documentary Hypothesis (JEDP System)
Seriously?
Are the 5 Books of Moses (The Torah), a
hotch-potch of largely unconnected writings by later
writers?
The Intellectual Arrogance of
Julius Wellhausen.
I
recently wrote a letter. Upon reviewing my letter before posting
it, I noticed that my letter was structured in 5 clear sections.
In these sections I covered five different topics so my
vocabulary naturally changed as I moved on to differing topics;
in other words, my letter varied stylistically as I moved
on to a different subject. I was immediately reminded of the
'Documentary Source Hypothesis.' I found myself musing on
the ridiculous possibility that some "higher critic" might
discover my letter in 1,000 years and decide that those five
sections must have been written by five different writers
(possibly at five different times) because of the
stylistic/vocabulary changes as I changed my topic! Ridiculous
you say? Sure it is, but this is exactly what some have done to
parts of the Old Testament (attempts have also been made to
undermine the New Testament in such a manner but far less
successfully).
I want to introduce our readers to a number of links/writings
which expose the sadly flawed Graf/Wellhausen Documentary Source
Hypothesis.
Just what is this system (often known as the 'JEDP'
system)?
The system arose in the 19th century and was the work of certain
scholars who accepted the 'history of religions' school of
thought. This was the application of evolutionary principles to
the Torah (the first 5 books of the Bible). These people were
very accepting of the principle of evolution and rejected any
concept of a God who 'knows the end from the beginning.' They
believed that the earliest form of religion was primitive and
animistic with early man having no concept of One God
(Monotheism). Therefore, they reasoned, the concept of One God
found in the Torah was clearly an anachronism, being
back-projected by much later writers! Their minds were already
made up on this point before they even started their
"research"- Of course, these people were not likely to
accept much within the Torah in any case since they were mostly
quick converts to the (then) fledgling theory of evolution.
These liberal scholars who were committed to Theological
Naturalism - ruling out any possibility of a
supernatural God, set out to deconstruct the Old Testament
and were especially interested in the Torah since it appeared to
contradict much of their dogma. I was exposed to some of this
system when at University but even our 'dyed in the wool' liberal
Old Testament lecturer presented the JEPD system with a mighty
'pinch of salt' - he told us that the system has been regularly
revised by later scholars and that, while the basic schema is
still accepted, much has changed within the overall approach, and
much likely to continue to change. Our lecturer seemed intent on
being postmodernist in approach and so he seemed to have a 'You
can believe whatever you like' attitude. Not necessarily a
helpful approach!
Hermann Gunkel along with others of the "history of religions"
school assumed that many of the stories narrated in the final
text of Genesis, for example, were taken originally from
imaginary stories about pagan gods and were gradually
transformed by Hebrew poets into imaginary stories about
an imaginary Hebrew God in relation to imaginary
patriarchs who were projected as founders of the nation.
So, if we are to believe people like Julius Wellhausen
(1844-1918), Hermann Gunkel (1862-1932), and others of their
school of thought (in fairness, Gunkel, who was more interested
in the Psalms, thought Wellhausen had gone too far in his
literary claims about the Pentateuch), the Old Testament writers
were utterly deceitful people with a complete disdain for the
truth; moreover, we are asked to believe that a succession of
writers over a very long period of time remained utterly
committed to maintaining this deceitful and lying approach about
the origins and history of Israel! But does that not fly in the
face of the wonderful moral teaching (including the commandment
not to bear false witness), which we find within the Old
Testament itself?
Does this theory really 'stack up' ?
Can we really accept the notion that the writers and
compilers of the Old Testament were the biggest historical liars
of all time? Or should we reconsider the credentials of the
Wellhausen/Gunkel gang?
We need to understand that people like Wellhausen, and then
Gunkel, completely rejected any concept of a God who might
inspire every word of Holy Scripture, immediately making the
judgment that this could not possibly be the case, therefore any
other explanation of the Old Testament was bound to be
preferable.
Okay. So how did the 'JEDP' system work?
Essentially, attempts were made to find different authors who had
contributed to the Torah; this led to the breaking up of the 5
books into four sections, J, E, D, and P.
How were the lines drawn? Differences of writing style and
vocabulary were looked for (even though all of us change
style/vocabulary whenever we change our topic in any written
work).
J (from the divine name Yahweh -- in German, Jahweh); it was said
to have originated in Judah between 950 and 850 B.C. and pieces
of it are scattered in sections from Genesis through
Numbers.
E (the Elohistic source, from the prevalence of the word Elohim);
it was said to have originated in the northern kingdom of Israel
between 850 and 750 BC. It too, is scattered from Genesis through
Numbers.
P (the Priestly source, so called because it seems most concerned
with aspects of the formal worship in the temple); it was said to
come from the exile or shortly thereafter -- sixth to fifth
centuries B.C. Mostly made up of the genealogies and priestly
ritual described in Genesis through Numbers.
D (the Deuteronomic source, so called because it includes mostly
just the book of Deuteronomy); the author or editor of this
section was assumed to be responsible for the framework of the
historical account that runs from Joshua through 2 Kings. D was
regarded as having reached its final form during the reign of
Josiah, when the priests "found" the book of the law (2 Kings
22:3-23:25).
But not all agreed with all of the components, some thought 'E'
was the oldest part but others thought 'J' the older part.
Various redactors (editors) came along and added bits throughout
an amazingly long period of time (according to the theory). Some
even thought that there were two Elohist writers, but the work
was so closely intermeshed with 'J' that attempts to separate the
authors were deemed problematic. It apparently did not bother
these Bible critics that sometimes violence was done to the
natural flow of a passage, where a particular letter 'source' was
thought to give way to another.
I could go on and on... But there is really little point; some of
the theories became quite extreme and bizarre and it is almost
surprising that much of it ever won acceptance!!
But we have to keep reminding ourselves that not one iota of
real, hard evidence exists for any of it!! Moreover, indications
of real unity within the first 5 books of the Old Testament are
actually abundant, but - like the theory of evolution which
it was largely based upon - it was the right theory at the right
time for a group of godless and materialistic pseudo-intellectual
'scholars' who wanted to set up a wholly materialistic model of
religious history, without any reference to the supernatural,
and, yes, undoubtedly also wanted to make a name for themselves
in the new academic world of 'higher biblical criticism.'
In 1966 Professor Kenneth Kitchen wrote,
' . . . Even the most ardent advocate of the documentary theory must admit that we have as yet no single scrap of external, objective evidence for either the existence or the history of J, E, or any other alleged source-document..' (p. 23, Kitchen, K.A. (1966), Ancient Orient and Old Testament. London: Tyndale).
That was written in 1966, but about 40 years later the situation is even more bleak since it is now obvious that no evidence to support Wellhausen's theory will ever be found.
The documentary hypothesis has a number of problems - some of which, the original documentary theoryists could not have been aware of in the century in which they wrote; Kenneth Collins points one out in his essay, 'The Torah in Modern Scholarship' (find link to the full essay lower on this page),
'The documentary hypothesis was originally based on the supposition that the events in the Torah preceded the invention of writing, or at least its use among the Hebrews. This is because Julius Wellhausen lived in the nineteenth-century, but nineteenth-century notions about ancient literacy have been completely refuted by archaeological evidence. The documentarians have not updated the documentary hypothesis to take this into account, so we still find them assigning very late dates to their hypothetical sources of the Torah....
Archaeology has shown that writing was common during the time in which the events of the Torah were to have taken place.'
My Old Testament lecturer was either ignorant of the much
greater knowledge of the ancient world which we now have, or he
was being disingenuous when he stated that the theory has been
greatly revised, and will continue to be, but still stands.
The truth is that the very foundation which the history of
religions school was based upon (the concept that the earliest
forms of religion were simple, naive and animistic, and that
belief in one all-powerful God was a late arrival), has now
largely been demolished! We know much more about the religion
of the ancients than the devisers of the 'JEDP' system ever did.
We now know that the belief in one all-powerful God is very,
very old - just as Genesis claims! Many obscure and ancient
peoples and tribes have now been able to put their side of the
case, and the concept of one all-powerful God as an original
belief is to be found everywhere. Some of these tribes have even
explained how various 'holy men' within their tribes tried very
hard to hold on to Monotheism, as more corrupt strains of
religious belief - such as animism - later arose!
Today, in the face of evidence from archaeology, the Dead Sea
scrolls, and much more available information about the languages
of the ancient world, dependence on the Wellhausen theory is
looking increasingly unfeasible and, indeed, inexcusable. We now
have thousands of Old Testament texts and fragments to
compare and in every single case the format found in our Old
Testaments is validated - if the documentary theory were really
correct surely some manuscript evidence would have been
discovered somewhere to reveal the work of these dishonest men
and their literary conspiracy? Is not the fact that conspiracies
and plotters are always discovered one of the strongest lessons
of human history? Let us remind ourselves once more that the
documentary theorists never produced a single shred of real
evidence for their literary theory! Happily now at last there is
a welcome and growing trend among scholars to view the Pentateuch
as a literary unit again.
Despite this, there are still websites around which present the
Documentary Theory as though it was the very latest learning,
apparently unaware that many of the points which they make have
long since been disproven/overturned.
The tragedy of all this is that for over a hundred years many
Theology and Religious Studies students have been indoctrinated
in a system which wholly discredits the claims of the Old
Testament to be the inspired Word of God. We have to keep
reminding ourselves that Jesus fully backed up the truth and
authenticity of Moses and of the 'Law, Prophets and Writings'
(the Old Testament), by frequently quoting from it. He based His
authority and credentials upon the Old Testament! And yet some
who claim to be followers of Jesus have gone along with the
practise of breaking the Old Testament up into these (purely
imaginary) divisions and sections, even pontificating on whether
or not Moses actually existed. There is now no need for such
scepticism! How odd that a system can continue to enjoy some
kind of existence long after its very foundations have
crumbled!!
The following links will take you to several articles outlining
the serious inadequecies of the JEDP schema.
Robin A. Brace
2003
(Find my article Bibliography right at the bottom of this page).
THE TORAH
IN MODERN SCHOLARSHIP
By Kenneth W. Collins
THE
DOCUMENTARY HYPOTHESIS
(Unsigned, but an excellent analysis of the problems)
HISTORICAL
CRITICISM OF THE BIBLE - METHODOLOGY OR IDEOLOGY?
THE
DOCUMENTARY HYPOTHESIS
By Mark A. McNeil
DESTRUCTIVE
CRITICISM AND THE OLD TESTAMENT
By Wayne Jackson M.A.
HOW RELIABLE IS GENESIS 1-4?
ARE THERE
TWO CREATION ACCOUNTS IN GENESIS?
By Wayne Jackson M.A.
ESSAYS ON
JEDP
A BRIEF
NOTE ABOUT THE DOCUMENTARY HYPOTHESIS
DID
MOSES WRITE THE PENTATEUCH?
By Don Closson
THE
GENUINENESS OF GENESIS (PDF)
By Timothy Lin Ph.D.
(PLEASE NOTE: This is a PDF file which has to be
downloaded).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Albright, William F. The Israelite Conquest of Canaan in the Light of Archaeology, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 1939. Vol. 74..
Archer, Gleason Jr. A Survey of Old Testament Introduction. Chicago: Moody Press, c1964.
Blenkinsopp, Joseph. Wisdom and Law in the Old Testament. London: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Harrison, R.K. Introduction to the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing company, 1970.
Free, J. P. Archaeology and Bible History. Wheaton, Illinois: Scripture Press, 1969.
Kitchen, K. Ancient Orient and Old Testament. London: Tyndale, 1966.
Morris, Henry M. The Genesis Record. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1976
P.J. Wiseman, Ancient Records and the Structure of Genesis: A Case for Literary Unity, Nashville, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1985.
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