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  • From: Harold Holmyard <hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] how scholars debate controversial issues
  • Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2007 14:54:46 -0500

Dear Bryan,

I gather from Yitzhak that you wrote the following.

(3) Issues of Biblical history. Anyone who brings up a claim that
raises the possibility that the Bible is errant will be target to a
discussion of whether the Bible is historically correct, whether
the Documentary Hypothesis is founded on solid foundations,
etc. A scholar who has to debate the documentary hypothesis
which is generally accepted for a century now, or who has to
debate whether the Patriarchal Narratives are historical, now
discredited for decades, will find this list not a hospitable place
to discuss these issues.

HH: It is really a battle tactic, not neutral moderating, to claim that scholars should hospitably accept the documentary hypothesis. There are many scholars who do not accept the documentary hypothesis. Here is a sampling of thought from a Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis


Most Orthodox Jews and many conservative Christians reject the documentary hypothesis entirely and accept the traditional view that Moses essentially produced the whole Torah. Jewish sources predating the emergence of the documentary hypothesis offer alternative explanations for the stylistic differences and alternative Divine names from which the hypothesis originated. For instance, some regard the Tetragrammaton as an expression of mercifulness (middath ha-rachamim) while Elohim refers to strict judgement (middath ha-din); traditional Jewish literature cites this concept (first found in Mechilta section Beshalach) copiously.

Most Orthodox Jews and many conservative Christians accept the divine origin of the Pentateuch in its entirety as a given. They usually reject the documentary hypothesis as incompatible with their religious view of the Bible. Some religious conservatives believe that Moses wrote much of the text and edited or compiled the rest. Others who reject the hypothesis allow for considerable post-Mosaic editing of the Pentateuch, though not along J.E.D.P. lines. Many conservative scholars argue for the literary unity of the books[1].
Over the last century, an entire literature has developed within conservative scholarship and religious communities dedicated to the refutation of higher biblical criticism in general and of the documentary hypothesis in particular.

R. N. Whybray's The Making of the Pentateuch offers a critique of the hypothesis from a critical perspective.

Biblical archaeologist W.F. Albright stated that even the most ardent proponents of the documentary hypothesis must admit that, like the Book of Jasher, and the Book of the Wars of the Lord, no tangible, external evidence for the existence of the hypothesized J, E, D, P sources exists.

The late Dr. Yohanan Aharoni, in his work Canaanite Israel during the Period of Israeli Occupation (referenced from simpletoremember.com) states that "[r]ecent archaeological discoveries have decisively changed the entire approach of Bible critics" and that later authors or editors could not have put together or invented these stories hundreds of years after they happened.

Some studies claim to show a literary consistency throughout the Pentateuch. For instance, a 1980 computer-based study at Hebrew University in Israel (as summarised at simpletoremember.com) concluded that a single author most likely wrote the Pentateuch. Some Bible scholars have rejected this study for a number of reasons, including the fact that a single later editor can rewrite a text in a uniform voice (see simpletoremember.com).

On the other hand, say critics like James Orr, if one admits that the texts speak with a uniform voice, much of the initial plausibility of the hypothesis evaporates.

Some, perhaps most notably Gleason Archer, have proposed harmonisations of the Torah which allegedly resolve the discrepancies.

Other criticisms arise from several sources:
▪ Axel Olrik's Principles for Oral Narrative Research states that preserving various versions of the same material without regularizing it signals accuracy in transmitting an oral tradition, not a failure of editorship. (§15)
▪ Umberto Cassuto points out an instance of "emendation" which, in modern scientific terms, equates to falsifying the data so that it supports an assertion.[5]
▪ Rabbi Dr. Dovid Gottlieb points out at simpletoremember.com that according to the Documentary Hypothesis, "the editor is supposed to have composed the Torah out of fragmentary documents possessed by a variety of different group, each with its own conception of G-d and its traditions of history, laws etc. the editor somehow convinced all the groups to replace their fragments with his one composite. This occurred at a time when there were Jewish communities in Israel, Babylon, Alexandria, Egypt and elsewhere. Yet this event – the unification of the text – left no historical record at all. No opposition, no hold-outs retaining their fragments, no celebration of the editor and the event of finally achieving the authentic divine text…."

Yours,
Harold Holmyard






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