# Documentary Hypothesis



## Dan....

What are some good refutations of the documentary hypothesis?


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## Bladestunner316

I dont understand what you mean by documentary hypothosis?

blade


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## Plimoth Thom

> _Originally posted by Bladestunner316_
> I dont understand what you mean by documentary hypothosis?
> 
> blade



Documentary Hypothesis


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## BrianBowman

Documentary Hypothesis is a component of "higher criticism" that supposes (imposes) multiple authorship of the Pentateuch and other poritions of our sacred Biblical texts. It took root and developed throughout the 18th and 19th centuries culminating in the "JEDP" theory of Karl Graf & Julius Wellhausen.


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## Puritan Sailor

> _Originally posted by Dan...._
> What are some good refutations of the documentary hypothesis?



Just ask them to prove it  That will be proof enough for you. It's all presuppositions (mostly, history of religions nonsense). They have no external evidence to suggest the theory, just the presupposition that Moses couldn't have written it because something that unified could not have simply been the work of one man but had to develop over time. It also doesn't fit their paradigm of evolution (animis-> polytheism-> monotheism...).


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## Dan....

> _Originally posted by puritansailor_
> 
> 
> 
> _Originally posted by Dan...._
> What are some good refutations of the documentary hypothesis?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Just ask them to prove it  That will be proof enough for you. It's all presuppositions (mostly, history of religions nonsense). They have no external evidence to suggest the theory, just the presupposition that Moses couldn't have written it because something that unified could not have simply been the work of one man but had to develop over time. It also doesn't fit their paradigm of evolution (animis-> polytheism-> monotheism...).
Click to expand...


The subjective nature of the theory is obvious.

I was reading Wikipedia on Creation, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_(theology)



> *Mainstream Biblical scholarship* maintains that the creation story found in Genesis 2 is the earlier of the two Genesis accounts. Filled with ancient and rich mythological imagery, it is believed that the basic story once circulated among the early nomadic Hebrews....
> 
> *Most Biblical scholars* believe that the Genesis 1 account can be attributed to the so-called "priestly" writer(s)/editor(s) (known in academic circles as "P") who was responsible for a fair portion of the Pentateuch.



Who are these "Mainstream Biblical scholarship", or "Most Biblical scholars"? How can it be that _such vast numbers_ (I doubt the vastness) of "scholars" have bought into this speculative bologna???

I follwed the link to "documentary hypothesis" and read the following:



> The documentary hypothesis is a theory proposed by *many historians and academics* in the field of linguistics and source criticism that the Five Books of Moses (the Torah) are in fact a combination of documents from different sources rather than authored by one individual. *Although the hypothesis is widely accepted,* it has a substantial number of critics"”especially conservative Bible scholars such as Kenneth Kitchen and Gleason Archer, but also among critical scholars such as R. N. Whybray.



Many historians and academics??? Widely accepted??? (I'd post a  icon, but the thought of what depravity has done to these "scholars" ability to reason is more like this icon:  )

I was just wondering if any apologists have written any articles that really blasted this theory.


[Edited on 10-11-2005 by Dan....]


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## fredtgreco

Dan,

One thing that you may want to do is a little bit of digging into the DH advocates themselves. Apparently, they are pretty savage with each other, and it is very passe to refer to just 4 parts/authors. They have been dividing and subdividing the Pentateuch like crazy. 

I also find it helpful just to look at various portions of the text and see their comments. Often it is so ridiculous that it makes you laugh. For example, Durham in his commentary (Word) on Exodus 7:7 makes a big deal about how the ages of Aaron and Moses were inserted by a later priestly commentator in order to puff up Aaron by having him be older (84, as opposed to Moses 80). And why _must_ it be a later insertion? Why of course because Exodus 2:1-2 "although they do not report as much, the impression is that Moses was the first child born." Now that does cause a "difficulty" since both Aaron and Miriam are described in several places as being older, and since Moses' age in Exodus 7:7 is confirmed by Deut 34:7, but these are cast aside by being inauthentic.

Another favorite of mine is dealt with by Alec Motyer in his excellent commentary. Exodus 19:22 is seen as a later insertion because it refers to "priests." No matter that priests are elsewhere seen in prior chapters (Abraham, Melchizedek, Jethro, etc), it of course _must_ be an addition to the text. Motyer says, "Hyatt thinks it is an addition to the text to deal with a question that arose later about whether priests were included in the prohibitions. he does not explain who would be so stupid as to ask such questions."

That is it in a nutshell. Godless people asking stupid questions no one would ask in order to denigrate the Bible.


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## Canadian _Shawn

Howdy,

Well, the most comprehensive reply to the Documentary Hypothesis that I've found from an evangelical perspective is Duane A. Garrett's book, "Rethinking Genesis : the Sources and Authorship of the First Book of the Bible." In it, he argues that there are a number of sources behind the Genesis text, but given certain internal clues, its entirely plausible that Moses collected, edited, and authored the final text himself. I would also look at Whybray's books "Introduction to the Pentateuch" and "Making of the Pentateuch" for some highly regarded criticism of the Documentary theory. And you may get some more critical ammunition from the works of Emanuel Tov, Professor of Bible at Hebrew University, Jerusalem. He came to deliver a lecture at McGill University a couple of years ago, and much to the surprise of my friends who heard the lecture, he compared believing JEPD with believing in Santa Claus (that's especially funny because he's Jewish). I can't say I heard or read his comment first hand, but if any indication of where his own studies have led him, it may be worth it to examine his books.

Cheers,
Shawn


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## Poimen

Two great resources we used in seminary were:

K.A. Kitchen: Ancient Orient and the Old Testament

O.T. Allis: The Five Books of Moses


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## MurrayA

The Documentary Hypothesis remains what it always was:

JEoParDy!!

Jeopardy of the whole integrity of the Scriptures. The German Higher Critics of the C19th dismembered the OT: the Pentateuch was not Mosaic but a mosaic, the historical books were not the "Former Prophets" but the historical contrivances of a mythical "Deuteronomist", Isaiah was not from the prophet of Hezekiah's time but a mini-anthology of "Hebrew thought"... and so on.

However, their successors soon found that they could not stop there: the New Testament had to go through the same Critical mincing machine. So we had a documentary hypothesis of the Gospels, a "Johannine problem" (which they never solved), a Paulinist (for the Pastorals), and generally a "Canon within the Canon" of the New Testament. 

One thing led to another! Once rationalism had its foot in the door the Bible was inexorably mutilated. Well did the saintly old Methodist scholar of my country, Dr. W.H. Fitchett, complain of the new theories in his book, "A Tattered Bible and a Mutilated Christ" (publ. c.1924)

So forget the "faceless four" (JEDP), and with them the three Isaiahs (I, II, & III), the two Zechariahs, the pseudonymous "Daniel" (of C2nd B.C. vintage), Q, the Paulinist, the Johannine circle, etc., etc.

The best refutations remain:
O.T. Allis, The Five Books of Moses
A.H. Finn, Unity of the Pentateuch
On specialist passages:
A. Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic and OT Parallels, pp.245-7 (on the Flood story)
D. Kidner, Genesis (Tyndale), pp.16-25, 97-100, 184-186
et al

I like Kidner's concluding comment on the Documentary analysis of Gen.37:
"A theory which insists on altering its primary datum the text, repeatedly, drastically, and without the support of a single ancient version, may be well intentioned; it can hardly be true."

[Edited on 20-3-2006 by MurrayA]

[Edited on 20-3-2006 by MurrayA]


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## RamistThomist

Garret's book and Gleason Archers' Intro Survey of the Old Testament.


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## Scott

As the saying goes, a page of history can be worth a volume of logic. I found Strimple's The Modern Search for the Real Jesus: An Introductory Survey of the Historical Roots of Gospels Criticism  useful.


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