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  • From: peter_kirk AT sil.org
  • To: <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re[2]: JEPD Evidence
  • Date: Sun, 19 Dec 1999 00:37:28 -0500


Let the "one author" supporters speak for themselves rather than put
words into their mouths! See comments below.

Peter Kirk


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Subject: Re: JEPD Evidence
Author: <nor AT iol.ie> at Internet
Date: 18/12/1999 11:28


The one author supporters would have us believe that

1. The author was able to switch at will from one style of writing to
another, and many of these switches last for entire narrative tracts before
he switches back. E.g. gen. 1:-2:4a,- 2:4b-4:26

This of course implies that the author was conscious of this switch, so what
possible reason would he have had for doing this? Not very conducive for
writing a continuos combined history.

PK: Probably the one author, if there was one, was at least in part
aware of changing style. But why should he (or even she!) not change
style? Many authors, ancient and modern, have switched style in their
works e.g. incorporating their own poems. It might not go down well in
a modern work of history, but who said the Pentateuch was that?

2. The author was either so weak that he did not notice doublets or
contradictions or he left them in deliberately

PK: This argument applies just as much to a final redactor.

If you believe this then the view that the Pentateuch is a brilliant
literary work has to be jettisoned
To conclude that he left them in deliberately is to conclude that he was
using sources.

PK: No, he may have had all sorts of good reasons for including
apparently repeated episodes which he has deliberately written in.
After all, it is well known that history repeats itself. Or the
reasons could be more literary, as part of the brilliant literary
work.

3. You must conclude that all the material comes from his own mind, for
to acknowledge more than one tradition is in effect to acknowledge more than
one source. From more than one source it is not that much of a leap to more
than one author.

PK: Now you are setting up a straw man to shoot down! No-one as far as
I know ever claimed that there was a single author who used no
reminiscences or traditions from others - unless there are those who
claim the whole thing was a Hasmonean novel. What is doubted is that
large chunks of pre-existing written sources were incorporated
unchanged into the surviving text.

4. That the Pentateuch was written in its entirety very late in the post
exilic period

PK: Many of the one author supporters would rather make that one
author Moses at a date a millennium earlier.

This causes problems for the development of tradition in 'Israel' For
example why do the 'P' texts reflect a different tradition to the 'D' texts,
i.e. different conceptions of the position of the priesthood and Law etc

PK: Now at last we have some evidence to be working with! But we need
to reexamine this too: are the traditions really that different, when
we stop looking at them through the discredited spectacles of
Wellhausen etc?

5. Oh I haven't got time for a 5, have to go do the Christmas shopping

PK: I hope you found some good presents. Have a good holiday season.

Best regards

Noel O Riordan





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