Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Harold Holmyard <hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net>]

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