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  • From: Moshe Shulman <mshulman AT ix.netcom.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Wellhausen
  • Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 15:26:59 -0500

At 01:43 AM 12/24/2007, you wrote:
Dear Edward,
Please don't missunderstand; no-one here has claimed that it is "not
permitted" to question the Documenary Hypothesis. Quite the contrary -
Yitzhak has mentioned the many changes and ammendments that have been
proposed over time, as our understanding of the archaeological,
geographical, historical, literary and linguistic background of the biblical
world has evolved. In any kind of science, a theory/hypothesis (and that
really IS all we are discussing here) is only valid as long as it is the
most reasonable way to understand the evidence as it is known at the time.
As new evidence comes in, the theory must be either updated or abandoned. In
the field of biblical studeis, the past 150 years have produced more
evidence than did the previous 1500 years, and yet the basic methodology
behind the DH has proven to be sound. So that while present-day renderings
of the DH are as similar to the "original" Graf-Wellhausen theory as
present-day biology is to Darwin's original theory of evolution, it can
certainly be said that (in both cases) the "original" still stands. Of
course, an astonishingly new discovery this afternoon may force all of us to
eat our hats, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

You are also correct, that in all sciences (not just "hard science") someone
does occasioally come along and revolutionalize the field. Even if a
person's "radical new" ideas eventually turn out to be wrong, "rocking the
boat" and frosing everyone to re-think their positions is a good thing.
However, the difference between humanistic studies, especially biblical
studies, and the "hard sciences" is that no-one would dare claim that the
accepted theories that guide physics are wrong, without first aquiring a
proper education and the approprate degrees in those theories. In the case
of biblical studies, many people feel free to criticize without first really
studying what they propose to knock down. Of course, this is met with
antagonism from the "professionals". Now it is still possible that someone
from "left field" might actually be right - but for every persecuted
Galileo, there are a hundred more would-be wanna-be's who just do not get
it.

The main part of your message claimed that the Graf-Wellhausen theory should
be discounted because its propnants were anti-semites, predecesors of the
Nazis. While it is true that every scholar is a product of his or her
society and generation, and some of them may have actually been despicable
human beings, the scientific meathod that I was taught says that one should
evaluate a theory by what it says, not by who said it.
Yigal Levin

Yigal until it is reproducible it is just a fantasy and not even a scientific theory. Anyone coming from a Scientific/Mathematical background as I do, will tell you that. To be reproducible the same theory needs to be applied to other works of literature where we KNOW that there are multiple authors and single authors with multiple styles and work. It does not. (Try doing it with Tolkein and you see the failure of it. LOTR is by a single author and Silmirilian was edited and has additions from his son. It cannot be done.) While DH does give some interesting insights into the text, if it were true that it is a revised, combined text, there is no way of knowing how many hands were involved in it.

BTW with todays computers one can easily take any text and program for various grammatical or other factors and see it they divide as DH would 'predict'.

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Moshe Shulman outreach AT judaismsanswer.com 718-436-7705
Judaism's Answer: http://www.judaismsanswer.com/





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