Documentary Hypothesis

The Documentary hypothesis, also known as the Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis, is best known from Julius Wellhausen's 1876 work, Die Komposition Des Hexateuch in Der Jungsten Diskussion, although a number of authors in the 17th and 18th centuries also developed the idea. The hypothesis derives from the belief that the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Christian Bible and Jewish Tanakh) is inconsistent in its writing, and shows signs of multiple authors, rather than one, Moses. This has in turn led to the theory that the Pentateuch is the result of four different authors, who supposedly wrote the book centuries later than the Biblical Moses, and were compiled by a later redactor. As a general framework, the proposed authors are:


 * J: Jehovist/Yahwist source - Claimed to be written in the 9th or 10th century B.C.
 * E: Elohist source - Claimed to be composed shortly after J in Israel's north, when both were combined into a 'JE' source.
 * D: Deuteronomist source - Claimed to be written in 8th century B.C.
 * P: Priestly source - Claimed to be written in 6th century B.C. by combining other 3 sources.

Oxford scholarship has repeatedly declared the Documentary Hypothesis as authoritatively recognized since the 19th century, and while recognizing recent challenges deny its former place as the consensus view, asserts no other theory has gained widespread support in its stead. The topic has become one of the most "hotly debated" in the field of Biblical scholarship, and the details of the hypothesis strongly debated even among those who support it, with younger scholars abandoning it in recent years for other approaches.

Traditional views
Traditionally, Moses was considered the author of the Pentateuch. Jewish tradition held that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch. In Deuteronomy 31:24-26 it says Moses wrote the words of the Law in a book, that was then put in the Ark of the Covenant. In 2 Chronicles 34:14 it says Hilkiah found a book of the Law of the Lord given by Moses and the book of Nehemiah says the Law was given by Moses, a claim repeated in the New Testament's Gospels of Mark and John.

Start of criticism
In the 18th century, Jean Astruc, J.G. Eichhorn, and H.B. Witter questioned the commonly held belief in Mosaic authorship, considering that the Pentateuch came from two sources, originating what is known as the Two-source hypothesis. In the 19th century W.M.L. DeWette originated the theory of a D source. At this time the Hegelian theory on the development of civilization was in vogue in 19th century Germany, influencing Karl Heinrich Graf and Wilhelm Vatke, as they further refined the theory by dating the sources. Despite strong opposition to the late dating by De Wette and others, the compiling of prior research by Graf and earlier theorists into a unified whole by Julius Welhausen established the dates proposed.

Established theory
From the 19th century on, the Documentary Hypothesis rapidly grew in popularity, and for many years was considered an unchallengeable bedrock of Biblical criticism. However, while criticism in recent decades has called into question many of its principles, no alternative theory has yet achieved broad support.

German influence
Like the Q Source hypothesis claimed by critical scholars to have been used as a basis by the authors of the Mark and Luke Gospels, (see Johannes Weiss, Christian Hermann Weisse and Friedrich Schleiermacher), the Documentary Hypothesis found its roots in 19th century Germany, where it would ultimately be popularized by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust, as noted by Ken Collins:

"The Nazis, borrowing from the growing scholarly consensus that the Torah consisted of myth and legend, used this scholarly climate to invalidate both Judaism and the Old Testament. The Nazis promoted a revised form of Christianity called Deutsches Christentum, in which they replaced the Old Testament with Germanic myths and legends. Deutsches Christentum never caught on with the public, but since it epitomized the beliefs of the leadership of the Nazi party, it contributed to the martyrdom of a number of famous German Christians."

Proofs
The hypothesis first claims inconsistencies in the Bible as its basis for assuming multiple authorship. This includes the use of doublets.

It then points to the following proofs for multiple authors:

Doublets
A doublet, also called a 'double narrative' or 'variant' in textual criticism is, loosely defined, multiple accounts of the same event. As noted by Aulikki Nahkola, though the terms are recognizable to those in the field of Old Testament scholarship, no universal definitions exist for such terms, or even consensus on what constitutes the duplication involved by them. Some commonly cited examples as addressed in the Alleged inconsistencies section include the Genesis Creation accounts in Genesis chapters 1 and 2 and flood account in Genesis chapters 6 through 9.

Friedman claims that separate parallel narratives for Genesis emerge when extracting each of the separate sources, based on the names used in relation to God, whether "Yahweh"/"Jehovah" or "Elohim". and that this was proof "someone had taken two different old source documents, cut them up, and woven them together to form the continuous story in the Five Books of Moses." The first major proof of this Friedman cites is The Flood (see Alleged inconsistencies and Criticism).

Northern origin bias
Friedman repeatedly interprets the separate doublets as indicating bias towards Israel's northern or southern tribes, namely Israel and Judah respectively, and presents this interpretation as evidence for the theory. Friedman cites as primary examples the origins of Israel's tribes (Genesis chs. 30-50), account of Jacob and Esau (Genesis chs. 25-33), God's discussion with Moses (Exodus ch. 3), story of the golden calf (Exodus ch. 32), giving of the commandments to Moses (Exodus chs. 31 and 34), and Miriam's leprosy (Numbers ch. 12).

Third person
Moses rarely speaks in 1st person, but in 3rd person, which Michael Coogan suggests indicates another author writing about him. This is also noted by Encyclopaedia Biblica.

Impossible/unlikely mentions
Richard Friedman in "Who Wrote the Bible?" questions how Moses could be the humblest/meekest person in the world if stating this of himself (Numbers 12:3), how he could have written about his own death and later events in Deuteronomy 34:4-12, and the use of phrases like "to this day" and "across the Jordan".

Alleged inconsistencies
As the basis for the hypothesizing, and upon which the assumption is made that the Pentateuch could not be of Mosaic authorship, are a number of alleged inconsistencies, as referenced by supporters of the Documentary Hypothesis like John Barton and Richard Friedman.

Criticism
"'Rarely have such grandiose theories of origination been built and revised and pitted against one another on the evidential equivalent of the head of a pin; rarely have so many worked so long and so hard with so little to show for their trouble.' -Meir Stenberg on the Documentary Hypothesis"

Presuppositions
Duane Garrett has accused the Documentary Hypothesis of resting on the following presuppositions:

'Cut and Paste'
Garrett notes that according to the hypothesis the redactors simply merged all the documents together via a "scissors and paste" method into a continuous narrative, concluding "No true analogy to this somewhat bizarre editorial procedure is available."

Able to Divide by Style
Garrett questions the belief held by early supporters of the Documentary Hypothesis that they could easily separate texts from each merely on the basis of style, when the whole Pentateuch is written in standard Biblical Hebrew. Garrett suggests the only way this would be possible is if each "monotonously and rigorously maintained a highly idiosyncratic style."

Based on debunked philosphy
Calling attention to the hypothesis' roots in the now discredited theory of Hegelianism, Garrett admits this is not enough to prove the theory wrong, but at the same time says it is certain Israelite religion can't be presented in the simple and very evolutionary pattern Wellhausen believed it could at the time.

Easy determination of purposes and methods
Questioning why the early founders of the Documentary Hypothesis believed they could easily interpret the purposes and methods of the redactors, given the vast cultural differences existing between themselves and the redactors, Garrett also points out their odd views that each writer sought to create a single, continuous history void of inconsistencies, narrative digressions, and repetitions, yet the redactors when joining said histories were utterly oblivious to all such inconsistencies, narrative digressions, and repetitions.

Interpretive and un-evidenced
According to R.A. Brace, the hypothesis is entirely interpretive, and has no historical evidence supporting claims for sourcing from multiple documents, apart from the analysis of the Bible undertaken by the hypothesis.

Section to be completed with possible sources: Dr. William F. Campbell Glenn Giles, James P. Holding 

Doublets
One of the strongest arguments against doublets, that there cannot be multiple accounts behind a book's section, is evidence of a perfectly correlated structure underlying the section. Just such a structure exists in the Pentateuch, and is known as a chiasmus. Chiasms are simple literary structures such as that in Genesis 9:6:

____A) Whoever sheds

_____B) the blood

______C) of man

______C) by man shall

_____B) his blood

____A) be shed.

However, the account of the Flood that Friedman and others have asserted is a cut and paste job of multiple sources actually contains one of the most complex chiasms in scripture.

____A) Noah and his family are the only righteous people on earth (6:9–10)

_____B) God says he will destroy the earth and its inhabitants with a global Flood (6:11–22)

______C) God tells Noah, Noah's family, and the animals to enter the Ark (7:1–10)

_______D) The flood waters comes on the earth (7:11–16)

________E) The flood waters rise and cover the earth (7:17–24)

_________F) God remembers Noah (8:1)

________E) The flood waters recede from the earth (8:1–5)

_______D) The flood waters go away and the earth is dry (8:6–14)

______C) God tells Noah, his family and the animals to leave the Ark and fill the earth (8:15–9:7)

_____B) God promises never again to destroy the earth and its inhabitants with a global flood (9:8–17)

____A) Noah and his family are the only people on earth (9:18–19)

Though supposedly having two separate accounts running through this, that have been, according to Friedman and others, rather carelessly cut-and-pasted together, it shows signs of being perfectly structured, similar to a poem or sonnet. Similar chiasms actually run all through the book of Genesis despite claims by Friedman et. al. that it is a patchwork quilt of different sources.

Third person
Yoram Bogacz points out it is common practice throughout the Bible, not just the Pentateuch, for authors to speak of themselves in the third person, citing Exodus 19:11, 24:1, Joshua 1:9, and 12:11 as examples.

Impossible/unlikely mentions
Concerning Moses' seeming reference to himself as humble, Dovid Gottfield points out that according to the traditional view of the Bible, accepting what it claims, it is God telling the story through Moses, and thus God who designates Moses as humble, not Moses himself.

In Deuteronomy 34:10 it is said, "And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face..." However, as a prophet, with visions of the future, it is A) possible Moses was given insight to make such a claim, and B) that God speaking through him had knowledge of the future to make it. Gottfield points out that such instances of the phrase "to this day" are often addressing future readers, and that God is speaking to all future generations with such phrases through Moses, the traditional view.

Alternate theories
P.J. Wiseman first presented the "Tablet Theory", also called the Wiseman Hypothesis, in his 1936 book, New discoveries in Babylonia about Genesis. Most recently Curt Sewell has refined the hypothesis. Wiseman first noticed that many of the ancient Mesopotamian clay tablets we're discovering use "colophon phrases" naming the tablet's writer or owner, as well as some method of dating the tablet; and often relate to family histories and origins. Wiseman also noted their similarity to the book of Genesis, which scholars have long recognized is sub-divided into sections via the phrase "these are the generations of..." Such a phrase is translated from the Hebrew word "toledoth", defined by Strong's dictionary as 'generations' as related to family history or descent.

Sewell hypothesizes that each of these subsections divides into differing individual accounts separated by the Hebrew word "toledoth", God's account of Creation (Genesis 1:1-2:4), Adam's genealogy/personal history (2:4-5:1), Noah's genealogy/personal history (5:1-6:9), Shem/Ham/Japheth's (6:9-10:1), Shem's specifically (10:1-11:10), Terah's (11:10-11:27), Isaac's (11:27-25:19), Ishmael's (25:12-18), Jacob's (25:19-37:2), Esau's (36:1-36:43), and Jacob's 12 sons (37:2-Exodus 1:6).

Since each of these sub-sections is separated by the Hebrew word "toledoth", Sewell considers that Genesis is actually a grouping of the family genealogical tablets, per Mesopotamian style, and thus very much is a compilation of accounts, but not in the way Wellhausen envisioned, since it would make Genesis' origins far older than Moses, rather than younger; with Moses himself the likely compiler/redactor of the tablets' accounts. Given that Moses was a highly-educated Egyptian prince (Exodus 2:10) he would have had the scholarly education to undertake such a task that few people of the time period and region would have possessed. The theory has also been supported by R.K. Harrison and Russell Grigg.