Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Dear Karl,

> The problem with DH is: unless one already 
> possesses the sources, any attempt to 
> reconstruct hypothesized sources from a 
> ”daughter“ document cannot help but be 
> artificial with a high probability of being 
> wrong. The division along postulated differences 
> in theology or style is no less artificial than 
> according to how God is addressed.
>
> For example, years ago when I read a splitting 
> apart of the story of the flood into J and E 
> sources, I was struck by how strange and 
> disjointed the stories were (to use your words). 
> But as a whole, it fits together perfectly, 
> albeit with a certain amount of redundancy not 
> uncommon in other narratives.
>
> In closing, until a copy of one of these sources 
> in Hebrew is found, it seems best to limit our 
> discussion to the documents that we have.

HH: One argument presented to us in seminary was 
a listing of DH schemes for dividing the biblical 
text that have arisen over the years. I believe 
the number was over thirty in the grouping we 
considered, and none of them agreed. The 
Documentary Hypothesis is just something else 
that diverts one's attention from what the Bible 
is saying when it is read correctly in the form 
in which it was intended to be read.

                                Yours,
                                Harold Holmyard