Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Bill Rea <bill.rea AT canterbury.ac.nz>]

Karl wrote:-

> One possibility that has not been addressed here is that the name YHWH was
> known to Adam while yet in the Garden of Eden. This is the way the text as
> written indicates, rather than as artificially divided to satisfy the
> demands of the Documentary Hypothesis.

I expect you actually know better but you have got this back to front. The
idea that the text was composed from a number of sources long preceded what
is now call the Documentary Hypothesis. By a number of centuries in fact. I
think it needs a better name because it seems every man and his dog has some
theory which could justifiably be called a documentary hypothesis. The
division of the text into sources, however tentative and uncertain, came
from careful study of the text and only later were these observations
codified into some sort of coherent theory which we now call the Documentary
Hypothesis. Jim's regular ebooklets could be seen as advancing the case for
his own private documentary hypothesis. I think he'd be better off
self-publishing his speculations in a hardcopy book, but that's just my
opinion.


Bill Rea Ph.D., ICT Services, University of Canterbury \_
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