WHO WROTE THE
TORAH?
The Documentary
Hypothesis
Bluethread feels that it is important for amateur Torah scholars to have a basic understanding of the documentary hypothesis in order to be able to evaluate the positions of commentors who are grounded in it.
Our tradition is that Moses wrote (or received) the entire Torah. However, scholars going back to the 2nd century CE, or for an example in medieval times, Ibn Ezra in the 12th century, found troubling evidence that Moses did not in fact write the Torah. For example, there are references in the Torah to Moses in the third person, such as his being modest, or naming Edomite kings (Gen. 36) that were known to have lived after Moses died.[Friedman, p. 19.] Subsequent scholars found more and more problems that suggested more than one source. Early in Exodus, for instance, 6:3 (P) and 3:14 (E), it is stated that the personal name of Yod-He-Vav-He was not employed prior to Moses. [Speiser, Genesis p. xxiii], even though that name permeates the book of Genesis.
Starting with Spinoza in the 17th cent, and flourishing with German scholarship in the mid-19th century, analysis grew to the point where, as Speiser says in his introduction to the Anchor Bible Genesis, "the conclusion which virtually all modern scholars are willing to accept, is that the Pentateuch was in reality a composite work, the product of many hands and periods." [Speiser, Genesis p. xxiii] As with any theory, its acceptance rests on its ability to explain various problems and discrepancies in the text. Although today many points remain in dispute within this school of thought, those disputes are about which source is responsible for a given passage and what were the influences on that source, and are not about whether or not there were different sources or what were the principal characteristics and concerns of each source.
As a gross oversimplification of that perspective, analysis of the Torah reveals four separate strands or sources, each with its own vocabulary, its own approach and concerns. Those four sources are:
- The "J" source, from "Jahweh," the German Christian rendering of Yod-He-Vav-He, the word for God used almost exclusively by that source, and which generally presents humans in various situations in which their actions and words convey the meaning.
- The "E" source, for "Elohim," the word for God most commonly used in that source, in which the focus is on events more than on the individuals involved.
- The "P" source, for "Priestly," which focusses on the formal relations between God and society, including the genealogies which document the chain of transmission of God's message and authority from Creation to Moses. "P" uses both Elohim and El Shaddai.
- The "D" or "Dtr" source, for the Deuteronomist, source of the book of Deuteronomy and likely in addition the books of Joshua, Judges, I and II Samuel and I and II Kings. Generally speaking, the Deuteronimist emphasizes centralization of worship and governance in Jerusalem.
The documentary hypothesis also uses the shorthand "R" for the Redactor or editor who brought together the J, E, P and Dtr material into a single set of writings we know as the Torah.
It should be noted that the use of each of these alphabetical shorthand letters does not necessarily imply that there was a single individual who wrote all of any given strand of material, but rather there was a like-minded group that existed over time with shared perspectives and traditions.
The abandonment of Mosaic authorship does not require a denial of divine content in the Torah. It is not difficult to believe that the sources were divinely inspired, notwithstanding that they often had other agendas as well.
For further reading, Bluethread suggests two good introductions. One is the first 50 pages of the introductory material to the Anchor Bible Genesis, by E. A. Speiser. The other is Richard Friedman's popularly written presentation, Who Wrote the Bible?.
An Example
A ready example of this analysis is provided by Baruch Halpern, on p. 198 of his The First Historians, using the story of the brothers putting Joseph into the pit, from Parashat Va-Yeshev. In the table following, the left-hand column is the "J" source, the right-hand column the "E" source, and the middle column reflects how the Redactor (or editor) conflated or combined the two sources into the account that has come down to us in the Torah. The "J" and "E" columns include the verses in Chap. 37 where the respective sources are preserved.
Conflation in the sale of
Joseph
|
J |
Conflate Account |
E |
|---|---|---|
|
1 Brothers decide to kill
Joseph |
Brothers decide to kill Joseph |
1 Brothers decide to kill
Joseph |
|
2 ----- |
Reuben persuades them to cast Joseph into pit and they do |
2 Reuben persuades them to |
|
3 ----- |
Brothers go eat |
3 Brothers go to eat |
|
4 Ishmaelites appear |
Ishmaelites appear |
4 ----- |
|
5 Judah persuades brothers |
Judah persuades brothers to sell Joseph |
5 ----- |
|
6 ----- |
Midianites steal Joseph from pit |
6 Meanwhile, Midianites sneak |
|
7 They (brothers) sell Joseph |
They (Midianites) sell Joseph to Ishmaelites |
7 ----- |
|
8 ----- |
Reuben returns to find Joseph missing |
8 Reuben returns to pit, Joseph |
|
9 Ishmaelites sell Joseph in |
Midianites sell Joseph to Egypt; Ishmaelites take him there |
9 Midianites sell Joseph into |
-b
Halpern [p.197] says that in the combined account in the Tanakh, the "R[edactor] tried to preserve the flow of the received [J and E] materials, while avoiding contradictions; he took the sources as complementary reflections on events."
The events that are central to both traditions' versions of the Joseph story, are that Joseph is cast into the pit by his brothers, is taken from the pit and carried to Egypt and sold as a slave, and that his subsequent actions ultimately account for the twelve tribes residing in Egypt. The Torah comes to us with that story intact, demonstrating the hand of God in bringing us to the point at which we are ready to observe the plagues that demonstrate God's power and for the eventual revelation at Sinai.
GENERAL REFERENCES
Friedman, Richard, Who Wrote the Bible?
Halpern, Baruch, The First Historians
Speiser, E.A., Genesis
9/1/97
© 1997, Rosemarie E. Falanga, Cy H. Silver