An Introduction Source Criticism

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An Introduction Source Criticism History of
Traditions

• ATPS-BIB509

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Source Critical Studies

• 1. Older Documentary Hypothesis Witter (1711)
  Astruc (1756) Eichhorn (1780)
• J and E Source based on the two divine names in
  Genesis. This was then applied to the whole
  Pentateuch.

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Source Critical Studies

• 2. The Fragmentary/Story-Cycle/Block Model
  (Geddes, Vater, De Witte )
• "The work might have been compiled by a single
  editor who joined together into a single but
  somewhat jumbled whole a mass of quite
  independent short written pieces." Whybray, The
  Making of the Pentateuch, 17

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Source Critical Studies

• The Fragmentary/Story-Cycle/Block Model (R.
  Rendtorff Blum)
• In this model the basic component of composition
  is the individual narrative that may have been
  brought together by one or more collectors or
  editors, or which may have come together as
  story-cycles, or developed over time as blocks of
  tradition that were combined on in the final
  stages of the Pentateuch's 'redaction'. The same
  could apply to the laws as well with each 'code'
  having it own history of development before its
  combination with the narrative framework.
  Inconsistencies, lack of coherence between
  smaller or larger units and lack of cohesion in
  the process of redaction could be accounted for
  by this model. van Seters, 28

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Source Critical Studies

• 3. The Supplementation or Expansion of a Basic
  Text Model (Ewald, Bleek)
• One basic source with numerous expansions.
• ". . . there might originally have been a single,
  consistent, unified account composed by a single
  author, to which, for various reasons, later
  writers made additions, so distorting the
  original unity of the composition." Whybray, The
  Making of the Pentateuch, 17

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Source Critical Studies

• 3. The Supplementation or Expansion of a Basic
  Text Model (John van Seters)
• This compositional model suggests that one can
  recover a basic Pentateuchal or Tetrateuchal text
  that was supplemented and expanded from time to
  time and that it was primarily the additions that
  created inconsistencies and destroyed the
  coherence and cohesiveness of the earlier text.
  van Seters, 28-9

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Source Critical Studies

• 4. Newer Documentary Hypothesis
• Hupfeld, 1853 the independent sources of P, J, E,
  D.
• Reuss, Graf, Kuenen, and Wellhausen place P at
  the end and dated it post-exilic and therefore
  JEDP.

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Documentary Hypothesis

• 1. Main Features
• . . . the Pentateuch took shape in a series of
  stages in which, during the space of several
  centuries, four originally distinct books
  (documents), each written at a different time,
  were dovetailed together by a series of
  redactors to form a single work.

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Documentary Hypothesis

• 2. This was achieved in the following ways
• The earliest of these works was that of the a
  Yahwist (J). It began with what is now Gen
  2.4b, and its various parts are now found in
  Genesis, Exodus and Numbers, together with a few
  short passages in Deuteronomy. Whether it ended
  at this point or continued into the book of
  Joshua or beyond was disputed. It is not
  represented in Leviticus.

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Documentary Hypothesis

• The Elohist work (E) began with the story of
  Abraham in Gen 15 and then followed the same
  general course as J.
• J and E were subsequently combined to form JE
  by a redactor (RJE). The process of redaction
  involved the omission of parts of J and E,
  especially of the latter.
• The third document, Deuteronomy (D), consists
  mainly of the book of that name.

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Documentary Hypothesis

• D was subsequently appended to JE by a second
  redactor (RD), who also inserted a few passages
  into JE and incorporated a few passages from JE
  into D.
• The final work, the Priestly document (P),
  began with what is now Gen 1.1 and followed the
  same chronological scheme as J. Material from P
  predominates in Exodus and Numbers, and is the
  sole source of Exod 25-31 35-40 and of Leviticus.

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Documentary Hypothesis

• P was subsequently combined with JED by a third
  redactor (RJED) to form the present Pentateuch.
• A few passages (e.g. Gen 14) are not derived from
  any of the main four documents but must be
  regarded as independent fragments. It is not
  possible to determine at what point in the above
  scheme they were inserted, but a late date for
  this is probable. A few other

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Documentary Hypothesis

• passages were added after the bulk of the
  Pentateuch was completed. Both Fragment and
  Supplement Hypotheses therefore, retained a minor
  place in the scheme of the Documentary
  Hypothesis. Whybray, The Making of the
  Pentateuch, 20-21

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Cassutos Summary

• The use of Different Names for the Deity
• Variations of Language and Style
• Contradictions and Divergences of Views
• Repetition, Parallel Accounts (Doublets), and
  Redundancy Conflations
• Theological Unity of Each Document

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Jewish Scholarship

• The Jewish community did not respond positively
  to Wellhausens thesis due to the negative
  depiction of the Priestly-Second Temple-Early
  Judaism religion.
• U. Cassuto and others exemplify this stance.
• Yehezhel Kaufmann re-dated the sources,
  especially the P source so that it was more
  acceptable. Kaufmann, The Religion of Israel,
  175-200
• . . . they tend to accept the basic source
  division of the documentary hypothesis, but
  maintain that P is not the latest source but that
  it antedates Deuteronomy and reflects the worship
  of Solomon's temple. P may therefore come from
  much the same period as J. Some of the more
  important works from this school of thought have
  come from A. Hurvitz, M. Haran, J. Milgrom, and
  M. Weinfeld. Wenham

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Adjustments

• 1. Noth, Martin
• "G (Grundlage a common basis) underlying J and
  E according to Noth "The situation at hand
  cannot be explain very well except by postulating
  a common basis (Grundlage) for the two sources,
  for which both - independently of each other -
  have drawn the nucleus of their content. In those
  elements of the tradition where J and E run
  parallel, they concur to such an extent that
  their common Grundlage already must have existed
  in a fixed form, either one

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Adjustments

• fixed in writing or one which had already been
  quite distinctly formed according to structure
  and content in oral transmission. The question as
  to whether this Grundlage was written or oral can
  hardly be answered with any certainty but then,
  traditio-historically this is not of great
  consequence. . . . Every thing which J and E
  concur can be attributed to G." Noth, A History
  of Pentateuchal Traditions, 39

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Adjustments

• 2. Rad, Gerhard von
• 2.1 The Form-Critical Problem of the Hexateuch
• 2.2 The Hexateuch was simply an expansion of the
  historical creed(s) found in Deut 620-24,
  265b-9 and Josh 242-3.
• 2.3 The Exodus and the Sinai Tradition was
  separate from the Creedal tradition.

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Adjustments

• 3. Cross, Frank Moore
• Cross school claims that J and E cannot really be
  separated positively therefore the "Epic
  Sources."
• "By "Epic" we mean JE and the epic of which J and
  E were, in origin, oral variants." Cross,
  Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 6
• P is the final editor

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Recent Developments

• 1. Questioned Material
• 1.1 "First, historical scholars have questioned a
  number of its basic aspects the dating of the
  earliest pentateuchal stratum (J) to the ninth
  or tenth centuries, the existence of an
  independent elohistic document (E) or
  identifiable elohistic supplementary layer, the
  limitation of deuteronomistic and
  post-deuteronomistic elements to the book of
  Deuteronomy, and the idea that the priestly
  material ever existed separately as a priestly
  document." Carr, "Controversy and Convergence .
  . .", 22

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Recent Developments

• 1.2 "Second, biblical scholars attuned to debates
  in literary theory outside of biblical studies
  have increasingly asked whether we can say
  anything meaningful about the formation of the
  Bible. Some have drawn heavily on the new
  literary criticism or more directive types of
  reader-response criticism to argue that the text
  is actually far more unified than we previously
  supposed, that it is seamless where we once
  mistakenly saw indicators of sources or
  redactions. Alternatively, other scholars more
  influenced by postmodern literary theory have
  argued that the text is far more complex than we
  supposed." Carr, "Controversy and Convergence .
  . .", 22

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Recent Developments

• 2. John Van Seters
• 2.1 Abraham in History and Tradition (1975)
  Prologue to History (1992) The Life of Moses
  (1994) The Pentateuch A Social-Science
  Commentary (1999)
• 2.2 ". . . crucial parts of the Abraham story
  conventionally assigned to the tenth century
  Yahwist were actually part of a
  post-deuteronomistic Yahwhist." Carr, 23
• 2.3 ". . . non-priestly pentateuchal texts show
  signs of dependence on deuteronomistic and
  prophetic traditions." Carr, 23
• 2.4 ". . . the historiographic form of the
  non-priestly Pentateuch is best understood as
  part of a broader sixth-fifth-century
  historiographic movement in the Mediterranean, a
  movement also seen in the works of early Greek
  historians." Carr, 23

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Israel Knohl

• 1. The process starts in the premonarchic time
  with the oral composition of poems now embodied
  in the Torah.
• 2. The writing of the Priestly Torah takes place
  in Jerusalem, between the tenth and the eight
  centuries B.C.E.
• 3. The composition of the E source and the
  Covenant Code (Exod 2019-2333) in the northern
  kingdom of Israel occurs in the first half of the
  eighth century B.C.E.

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Israel Knohl

• 4. In the second half of the eighth century
  B.C.E., the stage moves back to Jerusalem, where
  the Holiness Code (Lev. 17-26) and the J source
  are composed and the E is redacted by the J
  circle.
• 5. In 622 B.C.E., the Book of Deuteronomy is
  published by Josiah in Jerusalem.
• 6. After the exile in 586 B.C.E., the activity
  moves to Babylon, where the final redaction of
  the Torah takes place.
• 7. The last act is the publication of the Torah
  by Ezra in Jerusalem in the middle of the fifth
  century B.C.E.