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Documentary hypothesis Diagram of the Documentary Hypothesis. * includes most of Leviticus † includes most of Deuteronomy ‡ "Deuteronomic history": Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1& 2 Kings The documentary hypothesis (DH) , some- times erroneously called the Wellhausen Hy- pothesis, holds that the writings of the Pentateuch (the Torah, to use its Hebrew name) derive from originally independent narratives. The number of these is usually set at four, but this is not an essential part of the hypothesis. Starting from the simple question of how to reconcile inconsistencies in the biblical text, and refusing to accept forced explana- tions to harmonize them, 18th and 19th cen- tury scholars, most of them German, and us- ing the new tools of source criticism eventu- ally arrived at the theory that the Torah was composed of selections woven together from several, at times inconsistent, sources, each originally a complete and independent docu- ment. The hypothesis developed slowly over the course of the 19th century, by the end of which it was generally agreed that there were four main sources, combined into their final form by a series of redactors (editors). R.[1] These four sources came to be known as the Yahwist, or Jahwist, J (J being the German equivalent of the English letter Y); the Elo- hist, E; the Deuteronomist, D, (the name comes from the Book of Deuteronomy, D’s contribution to the Torah); and the Priestly Writer, P.[2] Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918) is fre- quently treated as though he originated the hypothesis, but in fact his contribution was to order these sources chronologically as JEDP, giving them a coherent setting in the evolving religious history of Israel, which he saw as one of ever-increasing priestly power. Wellhausen’s formulation was: • the Yahwist source: written c. 950 BCE in the southern kingdom of Judah. • the Elohist source: written c. 850 BCE in the northern kingdom of Israel. • the Deuteronomist: written c. 600 BCE in Jerusalem during a period of religious reform. • the Priestly source: written c. 500 BCE by Aaronid priests in exile in Babylon. • The Redactors: first JE, then JED, and finally JEDP, producing the final form of the Torah c.450 BCE. The hypothesis dominated biblical scholar- ship for much of the 20th century, and, al- though increasingly challenged by other models in the last part of the 20th century, its terminology and insights continue to provide the framework for modern theories on the origins of the Torah.[3] Part of a series on The Bible Biblical canon and books Tanakh: Torah · Nevi’im · Ketuvim Old Testament · New Testament · Hebrew Bible Deuterocanon · Antilegomena Chapters & verses Apocrypha: Jewish · OT · NT Development and authorship Jewish Canon Old Testament canon New Testament canon Mosaic authorship Pauline epistles Johannine works From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Documentary hypothesis 1 Translations and manuscripts Septuagint Samaritan Pentateuch Dead Sea scrolls Targums · Peshitta Vetus Latina · Vulgate Masoretic text Gothic Bible · Luther Bible English Bibles Biblical studies Dating the Bible Biblical criticism Higher criticism Textual criticism Novum Testamentum Graece NT textual categories Documentary hypothesis Synoptic problem Historicity (People) Internal Consistency Archeology (artifacts) Science and the Bible Interpretation Hermeneutics · Pesher Midrash · Pardes Allegorical Literalism Prophecy Views Inerrancy Infallibility Criticism Islamic Qur’anic Gnostic Judaism and Christianity Biblical law Outline of the hypothesis (Wellhausen’s formulation) The documentary hypothesis proposes that the Torah was originally four distinct narrat- ives, each complete in itself, each dealing with the same incidents and characters, but with distinctive "messages". The four were combined twice by editors ("redactors") who strove to keep as much as possible of the ori- ginal documents. J, Jahwist source The oldest source, concerned with narratives, making up half of Genesis and half of Exodus, plus fragments of Numbers. J describes a human-like God, called Yahweh (or rather YHWH) throughout, and has a special in- terest in the territory of the Kingdom of Judah and individuals connected with its his- tory. J has an eloquent style. Originally com- posed c. 950 BCE.[4] E, Elohist source E parallels J, often duplicating the narratives. Makes up a third of Genesis and half of Ex- odus, plus fragments of Numbers. E de- scribes a human-like God initially called Elo- him, and Yahweh subsequent to the incident of the burning bush, at which Elohim reveals himself as Yahweh. E focuses on the Kingdom of Israel and on the Shiloh priesthood, has a moderately eloquent style. Originally com- posed c. 850 BCE.[4] D, Deuteronomist source D takes the form of a series of sermons about the Law, and consists of most of Deutero- nomy. Its distinctive term for God is YHWH Elohainu, traditionally translated in English as "The Lord our God." Originally composed c. 650-621 BCE.[4] P, Priestly source Preoccupied with the centrality of the priest- hood, and with lists (especially genealogies), dates, numbers and laws. P describes a dis- tant and unmerciful God, referred to as Elo- him. P partly duplicates J and E, but alters details to stress the importance of the priest- hood. P consists of about a fifth of Genesis, substantial portions of Exodus and Numbers, and almost all of Leviticus. P has a low level of literary style. Composed c. 550-400 BCE.[4] R, Redactor The first redaction of the Torah combined J and E to create JE, c 750. A second redactor combined JE with D and P to put the work in- to its final form c 400. Before Wellhausen Mosaic authorship Prior to the 17th century both Jews and Christians accepted the traditional view that Moses had written down the Torah under the direct inspiration—even dictation—of God. A From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Documentary hypothesis 2 few rabbis and philosophers asked how Moses could have described his own death, or given a list of the kings of Edom before those kings ever lived, but none doubted the truth of the tradition, for the purpose of scholarship "was to underline the antiquity and authority of the teaching in the Pentateuch, not to demonstrate who wrote the books."[5] The beginnings of the docu- mentary hypothesis In 1651 Thomas Hobbes, in chapter 33 of Le- viathan, marshaled a battery of passages such as Deut 34:6 ("no man knoweth of his sepulchre to this day," implying an author liv- ing long after Moses’ death); Gen 12:6 ("and the Canaanite was then in the land," implying an author living in a time when the Canaanite was no longer in the land); and Num 21:14 (referring to a previous book of Moses’ deeds), and concluded that none of these could be by Moses. Others, including Isaac de la Peyrère, Baruch Spinoza, Richard Si- mon, and John Hampden came to the same conclusion, but their works were condemned, several of them were imprisoned and forced to recant, and an attempt was made on Spinoza’s life.[6] In 1753 Jean Astruc printed (anonymously) Conjectures sur les mémoires originaux, dont il paraît que Moïse s’est servi pour composer le livre de la Genèse ("Conjec- tures on the original accounts of which it ap- pears Moses availed himself in composing the Book of Genesis"). Astruc’s motive was to refute Hobbes and Spinoza - "the sickness of the last century," as he called their work. To do this, he applied to Genesis the tools of lit- erary analysis which scholars were already using with Classical texts such as the Iliad to sift variant traditions and arrive at the most authentic text. He began by identifying two markers which seemed to identify consistent variations, the use of "Elohim" or "YHWH" (Yahweh) as the name for God, and the ap- pearance of duplicated stories, or doublets, such as the two accounts of the creation in the first and second chapters of Genesis and the two accounts of Sarah and a foreign king (Gen.12 and Gen.20). He then ruled columns and assigned verses to these, the "Elohim" verses in one column, the "YHWH" verses in another, and the members of the doublets in their own columns beside these. The four parallel columns thus constructed contained two long narratives and two short ones. Astruc suggested that these were the original documents used by Moses, and that Genesis as written by Moses had looked just like this, four parallel accounts meant to be read sep- arately. According to Astruc, a later editor had combined the four columns into a single narrative, creating the confusions and repeti- tions noted by Hobbes and Spinoza.[7] The tools adapted by Astruc for biblical source criticism were vastly developed by subsequent scholars, most of them German. From 1780 onwards Johann Gottfried Eich- horn extended Astruc’s analysis beyond Gen- esis to the entire Pentateuch, and by 1823 he had concluded that Moses had had no part in writing any of it. In 1805 Wilhelm de Wette concluded that Deuteronomy represented a third independent source. About 1822 Friedrich Bleek identified Joshua as a con- tinuation of the Pentateuch via Deuteronomy, while others identified signs of the Deutero- nomist in Judges, Samuel, and Kings. In 1853 Hermann Hupfeld suggested that the Elohist was really two sources and should be split, thus isolating the Priestly source; Hupfeld also emphasized the importance of the Re- dactor, or final editor, in producing the Torah from the four sources. Not all the Pentateuch was traced to one or other of the four sources: numerous smaller sections were identified, such as the Holiness Code con- tained in Leviticus 17 to 26.[8] Scholars also attempted to identify the se- quence and dates of the four sources, and to propose who might have produced them, and why. De Wette had concluded in 1805 that none of the Pentateuch was composed before the time of David; since Spinoza, D was con- nected with the priests of the Temple in Jeru- salem during the reign of Josiah in 621 BC; beyond this, scholars argued variously for composition in the order PEJD, or EJDP, or JEDP: the subject was far from settled.[9] The Wellhausen (or Graf- Wellhausen) hypothesis In 1876/77 Julius Wellhausen published Die Composition des Hexateuch ("The Composi- tion of the Hexateuch", i.e. including the book of Joshua), in which he set out the four- source hypothesis of Pentateuchal origins; this was followed in 1878 by Prolegomena From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Documentary hypothesis 3 zur Geschichte Israels ("Prolegomena to the History of Israel"), a work which traced the development of the religion of the ancient Is- raelites from an entirely secular, non-super- natural standpoint. Wellhausen contributed little that was new, but sifted and combined the previous century of scholarship into a co- herent, comprehensive theory on the origins of the Torah and of Judaism, one so persuas- ive that it dominated scholarly debate on the subject for the next hundred years.[10] Distinguishing the sources Wellhausen’s criteria for distinguishing between sources were those developed by his predecessors over the previous century: style (including but not exclusively the choice of vocabulary); divine names; doublets and oc- casionally triplets. J was identified with a rich narrative style, E was somewhat less elo- quent, P’s language was dry and legalistic. Vocabulary items such as the names of God, or the use of Horeb (E and D) or Sinai (J and P) for God’s mountain; ritual objects such as the ark, mentioned frequently in J but never in E; the status of judges (never mentioned in P) and prophets (mentioned only in E and D); the means of communication between God and humanity (J’s God meets in person with Adam and Abraham, E’s God communicates through dreams, P’s can only be approached through the priesthood): all these and more formed the toolkit for discriminating between sources and allocating verses to them.[11] Dating the sources Wellhausen’s starting point for dating the sources was the event described in 2 Kings 22:8–20: a "scroll of Torah" (which can be translated "instruction" or "law") is dis- covered in the Temple in Jerusalem by the High Priest Hilkiah in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, who had ascended the throne as a child of eight. What Josiah reads there causes him to embark on a campaign of reli- gious reform, destroying all altars except that in the Temple, prohibiting all sacrifice except at the Temple, and insisting on the exclusive worship of Yahweh. In the 4th century Jerome had speculated that the scroll may have been Deuteronomy; de Wette in 1805 suggested that it might have been only the law-code at Deuteronomy 12-26 that Hilkiah found, and that he might have written it him- self, alone or in collaboration with Josiah. The 11th century manuscript of the Hebrew Bible with Targum Deuteronomistic historian certainly held Josi- ah in high regard: 1 Kings 13 names him as one who will be sent by Yahweh to slaughter the apostate priests of Beth-el, in a prophecy allegedly made 300 years before his birth. [12] With D anchored in history, Wellhausen proceeded to place the remaining sources around it. He accepted Karl Heinrich Graf’s conclusion that the sources were written in the order J-E-D-P. This was contrary to the general opinion of scholars at the time, who saw P as the earliest of the sources, "the offi- cial guide to approved divine worship", and Wellhausen’s sustained argument for a late P was the great innovation of the Prolegom- ena.[13] J and E he ascribed to the early mon- archy, approximately 950 BCE for J and 850 BCE for E; P he placed in the early Persian post-Exilic period, around 500 BCE. His argu- ment for these dates was based on what was seen in his day as the natural evolution of re- ligious practice: in the pre-and early mon- archic society described in Genesis and Judges and Samuel, altars were erected wherever the Patriarchs or heroes such as Joshua chose, anyone could offer the sacri- fice, and portions were offered to priests as the one offering the sacrifice chose; by the late monarchy sacrifice was beginning to be centralized and controlled by the priesthood, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Documentary hypothesis 4 while pan-Israelite festivals such as Passover were instituted to tie the people to the mon- arch in a joint celebration of national history; in post-Exilic times the temple in Jerusalem was firmly established as the only sanctuary, only the descendants of Aaron could offer sacrifices, festivals were linked to the calen- dar instead of to the seasons, and the sched- ule of priestly entitlements was strictly man- dated.[14] The four were combined by a series of Re- dactors (editors), first J with E to form a com- bined JE, then JE with D to form a JED text, and finally JED with P to form JEDP, the final Torah. Taking up a scholarly tradition stretching back to Spinoza and Hobbes, Well- hausen named Ezra, the post-Exilic leader who re-established the Jewish community in Jerusalem at the behest of the Persian emper- or Artaxerxes I in 458 BCE, as the final redactor After Wellhausen For much of the 20th century Wellhausen’s hypothesis formed the framework within which the origins of the Pentateuch were dis- cussed, and even the Vatican came to urge that "light derived from recent research" not be "neglected", listing specifically "the sources written or oral" and "the forms of ex- pression".[15] Some important modifications were introduced, notably by Albrecht Alt and Martin Noth, who argued for the oral trans- mission of ancient core beliefs—guidance out of Egypt, conquest of the Promised Land, covenants, revelation at Sinai/Horeb, etc.[16] Simultaneously, the work of the American Biblical archaeology school under William F. Albright seemed to confirm that even if Gen- esis and Exodus were only given their final form in the first millennium BC, they were still firmly grounded in the material reality of the second millennium.[17] The overall effect of such refinements was to aid the wider ac- ceptance of the basic hypothesis by reassur- ing believers that even if the final form of the Pentateuch was late and not due to Moses himself, and it was nevertheless possible to recover a credible picture of the period of Moses and of the patriarchal age. Hence op- position to the documentary hypothesis gradually waned, and by the mid-twentieth century it was almost universally accep- ted.[18] Mid-century challenges to the hypothesis such as that of the Italian Jewish scholar Um- berto Cassuto, had little impact at the time, but R. N. Whybray in the 1970s restated al- most identical arguments with far greater consequences. Whybray pointed out, inter alia, that of the various possible models for the composition of the Pentateuch—docu- mentary, supplemental and fragmentary—the documentary was the most difficult to demonstrate, for while the supplemental and fragmentary models propose relatively simple, logical processes and can account for the unevenness of the final text, the process envisaged by the DH is both complex and ex- tremely specific in its assumptions about an- cient Israel and the development of its reli- gion. Whybray went on to assert that these assumptions were illogical and contradictory, and did not offer real explanatory power: why, for example, should the authors of the separate sources avoid duplication, while the final redactor accepted it? "Thus the hypo- thesis can only be maintained on the assump- tion that, while consistency was the hallmark of the various [source] documents, inconsist- ency was the hallmark of the redactors!"[19] Since Whybray there has been a prolifera- tion of theories and models regarding the ori- gins of the Torah, many of them radically dif- ferent from Wellhausen’s model. Thus, to mention some of the major figures from the last decades of the 20th century, H. H. Sch- mid almost completely eliminated J, allowing only a late Deuteronomical redactor.[20] With the idea of identifiable sources disappearing, the question of dating also changes its terms. Additionally, some scholars have abandoned the Documentary hypothesis entirely in fa- vour of alternative models which see the Pentateuch as the product of a single author, or as the end-point of a process of creation by the entire community. Rolf Rendtorff and Erhard Blum saw the Pentateuch developing from the gradual accretion of small units into larger and larger works, a process which re- moves both J and E, and, significantly, im- plied a fragmentary rather than a document- ary model for Old Testament origins;[21] and John Van Seters, using a different model, en- visaged an ongoing process of supplementa- tion in which later authors modified earlier compositions and changed the focus of the narratives.[22] The most radical contempor- ary proposal has come from Thomas L. Thompson, who suggests that the final From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Documentary hypothesis 5 redaction of the Torah occurred as late as the early Hasmonean monarchy. The documentary hypothesis still has many supporters, especially in the United States, where William H. Propp has com- pleted a two-volume translation and com- mentary on Exodus for the prestigious An- chor Bible Series from within a DH frame- work,[23] and Antony F. Campbell and Mark A. O’Brien have published a "Sources of the Pentateuch" presenting the Torah sorted into continuous sources following the divisions of Martin Noth. Richard Elliott Friedman’s "Who Wrote the Bible?" (1987) and "The Bible with Sources Revealed" (2003) were in essence an extended response to Whybray, explaining, in terms based on the history of ancient Israel, how the redactors could have tolerated inconsistency, contradiction and re- petition, indeed had it forced upon them by the historical setting in which they worked. Friedman’s classic four-source division differed from Wellhausen in accepting Ye- hezkel Kaufmann’s dating of P to the reign of Hezekiah;[24] this in itself is no small modific- ation of Wellhausen, for whom a late dating of P was essential to his model of the historic- al development of Israelite religion. Fried- man argued that J appeared a little before 722 BCE, followed by E, and a combined JE soon after that. P was written as a rebuttal of JE (c. 715–687 BCE), and D was the last to appear, at the time of Josiah (c. 622 BCE), before the Redactor, whom Friedman identi- fies as Ezra, collated the final Torah. While the terminology and insights of the documentary hypothesis—notably its recogni- tion that the Pentateuch is the work of many hands and many centuries, and that its final form belongs to the middle of the 1st millen- nium BC—continue to inform scholarly de- bate about the origins of the Pentateuch, it no longer dominates that debate as it did for the first two thirds of the 20th century. "The verities enshrined in older introductions [to the subject of the origins of the Pentateuch] have disappeared, and in their place scholars are confronted by competing theories which are discouragingly numerous, exceedingly complex, and often couched in an expository style that is (to quote John van Seter’s de- scription of one seminal work) ’not for the faint-hearted.’"[25] See also • Pentateuchal criticism • Biblical criticism • Source criticism • The Bible and history • Mosaic authorship • Dating the Bible • The Amber Witch (19th century literary hoax with bearing on the DH) Notes [1] Jeffrey Tigay, JPS Torah Commentary on Deuteronomy, p. 502, quoted in Judaism FAQs [2] [http://www.wfu.edu/~horton/r102/ ho1.html A Basic Vocabulary of Biblical Studies For Beginning Students: A Work in Progress, Fred L. Horton, Kenneth G. Hoglund, and Mary F. Foskett, Wake Forest University, 2007 [3] Wenham, Gordon. "Pentateuchal Studies Today", Themelios 22.1 (October 1996) [4] ^ Harris, Stephen L., Understanding the Bible. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985. [5] Gordon Wenham. "Exploring the Old Testament: Vol. 1, the Pentateuch," p160 (2003). [6] For a brief overview of the Enlightenment struggle between scholarship and authority, see Richard Elliott Friedman, "Who Wrote the Bible?", pp.20-21 (hardback original 1987, paperback HarperCollins edition 1989). [7] Gordon Wenham, "Exploring the Old Testament: Volume 1, the Pentateuch", (2003), PP.162-163. [8] Don Closson (Probe Ministries), "Did Moses Write the Pentateuch?", and Richard Elliott Friedman, "Who Wrote the Bible?", pp.22-24. [9] Richard Elliott Friedman, "Who Wrote the Bible?", p.25., and Alexander Rofe, "Introduction to the Composition of the Pentateuch", (1999), ch.2. See also Raymond F. Surberg, "Wellhausianism Evaluated After a Century of Influence", section II, The Contribution of the Prolegomena from a Critical Viewpoint. [10] [http://www.wfu.edu/~horton/r102/ ho1.html A Basic Vocabulary of Biblical Studies For Beginning Students: A Work in Progress, Fred L. Horton, Kenneth G. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Documentary hypothesis 6 Hoglund, and Mary F. Foskett, Wake Forest University, 2007 [11]Richard Elliott Friedman, "The Bible with Sources Revealed", 2003; and Reading the Old Testament: Source Criticism. [12]Richard Elliott Friedman, "Who Wrote the Bible?" esp. p.188 ff. [13]Gordon Wenham, "Exploring the Old Testament", p.171. [14]This is a highly schematised account of a complex argument: see Gordon Wenham, "Exploring the Old Testament", pp.167-171. [15] "Let the interpreter then, with all care and without neglecting any light derived from recent research, endeavor to determine the peculiar character and circumstances of the sacred writer, the age in which he lived, the sources written or oral to which he had recourse and the forms of expression he employed." Encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu, 1943. [16]Albecht Alt, "The God of the Fathers", 1929, and Martin Noth, "A History of Pentateuchal Traditions", 1948. [17] "Archaeology and the Patriarchs", an overview of archaeology and the Patriarchal period. [18]Gordon Wenham, "Pentateuchal Studies Today", Themelios 22.1 (October 1996) [19]R.N. Whybray, "The Making of the Pentateuch", 1987, quoted in Gordon Wenham, "Exploring the Old Testament", 2003, pp.173-174. [20]H. H. Schmid, "Der sogenannte Jahwist" ("The So-called Yahwist"), 1976. [21]Rolf Rendtdorff, The Problem of the Process of Transmission in the Pentateuch, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement 89, 1990. [22] John Van Seters, "Abraham in History and Tradition", 1975. [23]William H.C. Propp, "Exodus 1-18: A New Translation with Notes and Comments", Anchor Bible, 1999, and "Exodus 19-40: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary", 2006, both published by Anchor Bible. [24]Yehezkel Kaufmann, "The Religion of Israel, from Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile", 1961. [25]Benjamin Sommer, review of Ernest Nicholson’s "The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Julius Wellhausen", Review of Biblical Literature, 30 September 2000 Further reading • Blenkinsopp, Joseph The Pentateuch : an introduction to the first five books of the Bible, Doubleday, NY, USA 1992. ISBN 038541207X • Bloom, Harold and Rosenberg, David The Book of J, Random House, NY, USA 1990. ISBN 0-8021-4191-9. • Campbell, Antony F., and O’Brien, Mark A. Sources of the Pentateuch, Fortress, Minneapolis, 1993. • Friedman, Richard E. Who Wrote The Bible?, Harper and Row, NY, USA, 1987. ISBN 0-06-063035-3. This work does not constitute a standard reference for the documentary hypothesis, as Friedman in part describes his own theory of the origin of one of the sources. Rather, it offers an excellent introduction for the layman. • Friedman, Richard E. The Bible with Sources Revealed, HarperSanFrancisco, 2003. ISBN 0-06-053069-3. • Garrett, Duane A. Rethinking Genesis: The Sources and Authorship of the First Book of the Bible, Mentor, 2003. ISBN 1-85792-576-9. • Kaufmann, Yehezkel, The Religion of Israel, from Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile, University of Chicago Press, 1960. (Translated by Moishe Greenberg) • Kugel, James L., How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now, Free Press, 2008. • Mendenhall, George E. The Tenth Generation: The Origins of the Biblical Tradition, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973. • Mendenhall, George E. Ancient Israel’s Faith and History: An Introduction to the Bible in Context, Westminster John Knox Press, 2001. ISBN 0-664-22313-3 • Nicholson, Ernest Wilson. The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Julius Wellhausen, Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN 0198269587. This book is partially available on Google Books [1]. • Rofe, Alexander. Introduction to the Composition of the Pentateuch, Sheffield Academic Press, 1999. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Documentary hypothesis 7 • Rogerson, J. Old Testament Criticism in the Nineteenth Century: England and Germany, SPCK/Fortress, 1985. • Shafer, Kenneth W. Searching for J, Gateway Press, Baltimore, 2003, ISBN 0-9747457-1-5, (Amazon) • Spinoza, Benedict de A Theologico- Political Treatise Dover, New York, USA, 1951, Chapter 8. • Tigay, Jeffrey H. "An Empirical Basis for the Documentary Hypothesis" Journal of Biblical Literature Vol.94, No.3 Sept. 1975, pages 329–342. • Tigay, Jeffrey H., (ed.) Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA, USA 1986. ISBN 081227976X • Van Seters, John. Abraham in History and Tradition Yale University Press, 1975. • Van Seters, John. In Search of History: Historiography in the Ancient World and the Origins of Biblical History Yale University Press, 1983. • Van Seters, John. Prologue to History: The Yahwist as Historian in Genesis Westminster/John Knox, Louisville, Kentucky, 1992. ISBN 0664219675 • Van Seters, John. The Life of Moses: The Yahwist as Historian in Exodus–Numbers Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox, 1994. ISBN 0-664-22363-X • Wellhausen, Julius, "Prolegomena to the History of Israel", (the first English edition, with William Robertson Smith’s Preface, from Project Guttenberg) • Wenham, Gordon. "Pentateuchal Studies Today", Themelios 22.1 (October 1996): 3–13. • Whybray, R. N. The Making of the Pentateuch: A Methodological Study JSOTSup 53. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1987. External links • Documentary Hypothesis (University of Maryland). Explanation of the DH, based on the Anchor Bible Dictionary entry on source criticism. • Development of the Documentary Hypothesis (University of Maryland). A brief overview of the history of the DH, concentrating on the work of major scholars. • Redaction Theory (documents hypothesis) • "On Bible Criticism and Its Counterarguments: A Short History" — from SimpleToRemember.com Judaism Online website: a conservative Jewish Orthodox analysis of the DH. • A Summary of the Documentary Hypothesis • Reading the Old Testament • Smith, Colin: "A Critical Assessment of the Graf-Wellhausen Documentary Hypothesis", June 2002. Retrieved from the Alpha and Omega Ministries website on 26 July 2006. • Review of Bloom’s "Book of J" with overview of current trends in biblical scholarship and DH • The Documentary Hypothesis on the identity of the Pentateuch’s authors on Religioustolerance.org, with the first ten chapters of Genesis color-coded by source • A teaching guide for Bible education based on the documentary hypothesis • New Directions in Pooh Studies. "New Directions in Pooh Stiudies". A humorous look at the pitfalls of various critical methodologies, including source criticism and its most famous offspring, the documentary hypothesis. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis" Categories: Documentary hypothesis, Jewish history, Hypotheses, Biblical criticism, 19th-cen- tury Christianity This page was last modified on 19 May 2009, at 11:30 (UTC). All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.) Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) tax- deductible nonprofit charity. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Documentary hypothesis 8
