Documentary Hypothesis

[TheAmazingRando]

I'm taking a sequence on western civilization, which focuses on the Bible as literature for the first part of this quarter. The professor spent today's lecture explaining the Documentary Hypothesis on the authorship of the pentateuch, the idea that it was written by four separate authors and later edited and compiled into a single document long after the events it records. I've always heard that it was written by Moses, or at least the vast majority of it was. The Documentary Hypothesis makes perfect sense to me, based on the information I was given, but since it's entirely new to me I'm wondering if it's as widely accepted as my professor made it out to be. He presented it as the only respected opinion on the topic, but since I know little about the professor (this is only the second lecture I've had with him) this seems potentially biased.

A quick google search showed some disagreement over it. I'm wondering if these are just fringe groups, since tradition holds Moses as the author, or if there is a large and legitimate opposition to it in modern Biblical scholarship. Is the Documentary Hypothesis, more or less, universally accepted?

Apologies if this has been discussed before, I did a quick search and couldn't find anything, and I don't recall it ever coming up before.

[Silas Sparkhammer]

As I understand it, the idea that "Moses wrote it" is essentially on the same level as a literal belief in the extinction of mankind via an universal flood. There is no "scholarly" acceptance of it, only acceptance on faith.

(In the same way, the Book of Daniel has been fairly well established to have been written a century or two after the time in which it is said to have been written. It is a work of "historical fiction.")

It is very difficult for the educated faithful to walk the tightrope between literalism and absolute relativism, but many do manage to negotiate it: the Bible can be viewed as divinely inspired while still acknowledging that the stories are of essentially human origin.

The "scholarly" approach has to do with analysis of the actual writing style. When the style of a document jumps abruptly from one tone to another, then it is at least not unreasonable to explore the possibility of two or more writers.

(Or...that it was written by James Fennimore Cooper.)

Silas

[TheAmazingRando]

The way I see it, divine inspiration doesn't necessarily denote factual inerrancy. The moral and purpose of a story is the same regardless of whether or not it actually happened as written, and the Bible has precious little to say on the nature of its inspiration.

I guess a follow up to my question is, if there is no question as to the collaborative nature of the Law, why is Mosaic authorship so commonly retold? I don't see how a variety of authors negates even very conservative views of Biblical inerrancy, since I don't recall those 5 books ever claiming to be written by Moses (to the contrary, they refer to him in the third person, and describe his death).

[callee]

It is almost unanimously accepted, though not in the simple form you were taught. Rather than four authors combining their work, it was much more along the lines of four stages of development wherein mostly oral and some written traditions were gradually brought together, often on a grassroots level.

Most of the criticism of the DH over the years has been religious in nature, fueled by a perceived threat to doctrines of inerrancy or inspiration. Of course, in reality it does not necessarily threaten either (though the former is, in my mind, totally untenable for other reasons).

Some scholars have criticized the DH on a textual level, arguing that most of the pentateuch simply does not bear out the hypothesis of being a composite document, i.e. someone, not necessarily Moses, wrote it.

Probably the most scholarly attempt at this would be duane garrets rethinking genesis. He's a bona fide scholar, and while he doesn't convince me, he makes a good attempt.

Most of the others you find opposing the DH will, however, be quacks.

[BamaRainbow]

Well, the thing about Moses writing the Pentateuch is quite easily put to rest with a close reading of Deuteronomy 34.

5. So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD.
6. And He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor; but no man knows his burial place to this day.
7. Although Moses was one hundred and twenty years old when he died, his eye was not dim, nor his vigor abated.
8. So the sons of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days; then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses came to an end.
9. Now Joshua the son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him; and the sons of Israel listened to him and did as the LORD had commanded Moses.
10. Since that time no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face,

Read again v10: SINCE THAT TIME. Either Moses was a very calm man when writing material about his death AND BEYOND or someone else wrote it.

Also, the multiple authors explain the numerous discrepencies in several points in the Pentateuch, the three most notable being
1--The Garden of Eden. Chapters 1 and 2 have contradictory accounts of the creation of man. Chapter 1 clearly states that God created man and woman, while Chapter 2 gives us the rib story.
2--Noah's Ark. Genesis 6 indicates very clearly that Noah was to bring "two of every kind" of animal and bird while Chapter 7 modifies that for Noah to bring SEVEN of every kind of CLEAN animal (and bird) but only TWO of every kind of UNCLEAN animal. (This point seems to have been introduced during the Babylonian Captivity, in order to show that Noah kept kosher. There was concern that the Captive Jews were becoming too assimilated and forgetting the dietary laws under the tale that Noah--a major patriarch--wasn't restricted from eating anything. In fact, Genesis 6 has been used as additional evidence, with the Garden of Eden stories, that God intended humans to be vegetarians. Up to Genesis 7, there's nothing that clearly indicates that humans raised animals as food, only sacrifices.)
3--The Ten Commandments. There are at least THREE notably different readings of the Ten Commandments in Exodus alone.
Also, the fact that Deuteronomy is largely the "Reader's Digest" version of the previous 4 books suggests that someone inserted a reiteration as a sort of memory aide (or "Cliff's Notes").
Additionally, there was a piece on one of the History Channels sometime ago that mentioned that, following the break-up of the Kingdom of Israel into two rival kingdoms, each kingdom wanted to have the Official Word as their own, and some of the Bible's History Books (Kings, Chronicles, etc) have some contradictory material, reflecting the biases of each kingdom. (It should also be noted here that most REAL Biblical scholars tend to be of the opinion that the Bible is NOT the inerrant, infallible Word of God but rather a collection of morality tales and oral traditions. A large number are willing to side with the idea of "divinely inspired" but that it's ultimately been written with the biases and prejudices of the era and shouldn't be relied on as a literal source for contemporary existence.)

[TheAmazingRando]

I knew Deuteronomy contained Moses' death, which was why I was surprised when I searched on the topic to see that there were still people who held to his authorship of it. It was obvious my professor was giving a condensed version of the whole thing, I figured it was more along the lines of the gradual recording of oral tradition, because that's how many of the stories in that part of the Bible read (that is, the details themselves are simple, and they seem very heavily focused on relaying a particular moral message).

[KingDavid8]

AFAICT, the idea that Moses wrote the Pentateuch comes from Israelite tradition, and is probably correct for the most part. I'd at least call him the most likely author for the bulk of it.

Saying Moses wrote it is a little like saying Victor Fleming directed "The Wizard of Oz". He's credited with directing it, and directed most of it, though actually parts of it (the black and white parts, IIRC) were directed by someone else who wasn't given credit. Yet if someone asked me who directed "Wizard Of Oz", my short answer would be that Victor Fleming did.

Moses probably didn't single-handedly come up with the early stuff in Genesis. If he was the one who originally put it to parchment, it was probably based on stories passed down from other sources (though I'm a Christian, I don't believe that those stories are literal, btw). And he certainly didn't write his death scene or the stuff after. Some say he had foreknowledge of his death, but you'd think he would have mentioned that in his text, or at least written it in a more prophetic style, not so matter-of-factly.

David

[Silas Sparkhammer]

Just to play devil's advocate, the bit about Moses' death might be the only part added afterward. As KingDavid8 notes, this, in itself, doesn't mean that Moses didn't write the bulk of it.

To me, the notion of the divergent prose styles would be all but conclusive. Have you ever tried to write in someone else's style? Have you read (I have!) a lot of Sherlock Holmes stories by writers other than Sir Doyle, or Shakespearean plays by people other than Shakespeare (hush, Oxfordians, hush!) When a style alters suddenly, that's a gigantic red warning flag as to authorship.

Silas (ayup, 's'wadd'I'masayin', y'know. like.)

[RivkahChaya]

http://www.amazon.com/Who-Wrote-Bibl.../dp/0060630353

This is a book by Richard E. Friedman on the authorship question of the "Five Books of Moses." It's probably the best book written for non-scholars on the authorship question. Friedman writes biblical scholarship for the laity the way Stephen Jay Gould wrote Natural History for the non-scholar, assuming the reader is intelligent, has good general knowledge, and lacks mainly just the special vocabulary and love of statistical analysis of the professional scholar.

The books are said to be written by Moses, because this was the Jewish tradition for a very long time, probably originally fabricated to give the books credence to a community that needed unity, but agreed on very little other than that Moses was a great man. It became a necessary article of faith among Jews to the extent that when Baruch Spinoza first suggested (in public and in print) that maybe Moses didn't actually write everything, he was excommunicated in 1656.

For Christians, it is relavant that the belief in Mosaic authorship was dogma at the time of Jesus, and Jesus no doubt believed in it.

The Documentary Hypothesis is pretty generally accepted among scholars, though they might quibble over details. For example, everyone believes in the P, E, J & D authors, though there might be debate over whether a particular line belongs to E or J. It's like the way pretty might every biologist believes in evolution, though the details may be debated.

Since the Talmud states that Moses wrote the Torah, most Orthodox Jews continue to assert this belief, but most non-Orthodox Jews, whether scholars or not, don't believe this.

[Silas Sparkhammer]

Originally Posted by RivkahChaya

This is a book by Richard E. Friedman on the authorship question of the "Five Books of Moses." It's probably the best book written for non-scholars on the authorship question. Friedman writes biblical scholarship for the laity the way Stephen Jay Gould wrote Natural History for the non-scholar . . .

Now that's high praise! I've just sent off for a copy! Thank you!

Silas

[Flyer22]

Originally Posted by BamaRainbow

Also, the multiple authors explain the numerous discrepencies in several points in the Pentateuch, the three most notable being
1--The Garden of Eden. Chapters 1 and 2 have contradictory accounts of the creation of man. Chapter 1 clearly states that God created man and woman, while Chapter 2 gives us the rib story.
2--Noah's Ark. Genesis 6 indicates very clearly that Noah was to bring "two of every kind" of animal and bird while Chapter 7 modifies that for Noah to bring SEVEN of every kind of CLEAN animal (and bird) but only TWO of every kind of UNCLEAN animal. (This point seems to have been introduced during the Babylonian Captivity, in order to show that Noah kept kosher. There was concern that the Captive Jews were becoming too assimilated and forgetting the dietary laws under the tale that Noah--a major patriarch--wasn't restricted from eating anything. In fact, Genesis 6 has been used as additional evidence, with the Garden of Eden stories, that God intended humans to be vegetarians. Up to Genesis 7, there's nothing that clearly indicates that humans raised animals as food, only sacrifices.)
3--The Ten Commandments. There are at least THREE notably different readings of the Ten Commandments in Exodus alone.
Also, the fact that Deuteronomy is largely the "Reader's Digest" version of the previous 4 books suggests that someone inserted a reiteration as a sort of memory aide (or "Cliff's Notes").

I fully realize that most people on this board do not agree with me, but some things need to be said.
One of the most basic, elementary principles of Bible study is that if two passages seem to contradict each other, it is because one or both is not fully understood. Once both passages are completely understood, the apparent (and it is always apparent, NEVER real) contradiction disappears.

Point 1: Chapter 1 of Genesis merely reports the fact of mankind's creation. Chapter 2 reports the method of mankind's creation.
Point 2: Chapters 6 and 7 occur at different times. 6 is before the Ark is built. Witness the last verse: "Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he." Compare that with the first verse of 7 (emphasis added): "And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation." According to Usher's Chronology, there's a 99-year gap between the chapters. We have no way of knowing exactly what happened during that time to change things.
Point 3: There is only one complete list of the Ten Commandments in Exodus, in chapter 20. Some of the Commandments are repeated at different points, and a very superficial, careless reading might give the impression that it's a different list.

[RivkahChaya]

That may be a principle of Bible study, as in, "my church is having a Bible study on Wednesday night." It is NOT a principle of biblical scholarship, as in "I'm writing my dissertation on discrepancies in Genesis and recent archeological evidence."

And there are discrepancies between the version of the commandments in Exodus, and the commandments in Deuteronomy. I've read them in Hebrew. The actual wording is different. One says "shmor," "guard" Shabbes, and the other says "zakor," "remember." Only readings like G-d's miraculous ability to speak two words at the same instance allow them to be reconciled.

[Ali Infree]

This is not short, but reading all five parts is worth the time. From the straightdope.com :
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mbible1.html

Ali "cross checking" Infree

[Silas Sparkhammer]

Ali Infree: excellent cite! I remember reading those essays as they appeared on the Straight Dope BBS. If I'd had my mind straight, I'd have cited that. Definitely readable, and "Fair and Balanced" in my (opinionated) opinion.

Silas