Searching for the Bible’s Sources

Introduction

Many laymen dispute that the Pentateuch was written by several distinct authors.  Biblical scholars don’t.  But they disagree on who those authors were and what they wrote.  If we stipulate that the authors of the Documentary Hypothesis wrote the Pentateuch, what can we discover about their backgrounds and worldviews?  Let’s see.

The Documentary Hypothesis (DH)

To answer why the Pentateuch contains multiple, sometimes conflicting narratives of the same story (e.g. Creation, Noah loading the animals and details of the flood, Jacob and Esau’s relationship, Moses vs Moses and Aaron, etc.), scholars and theologians in the 19th-century, most notably Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918)[i] theorized in his book[ii] that it was probable that if two stories of the same event, or two details of that event, related two conflicting versions, then it was entirely plausible, if not probable, that more than one author was responsible for the competing versions, not one.  As Schwartz observes[iii]:

“If not for the doublets, contradictions, and narrative discontinuities that make this text” (the Pentateuch) “unintelligible in its given form, scholars would never have imagined that it was anything other than a unity and would never have suggested that the explanation for these features lies in the process by which the text took shape.”

Wellhausen, with the benefit of previous scholars’ analysis (particularly De Wette), documented his conclusions as to what these different authors wrote of the Pentateuch and identified four: the Yahwist (“J”), the Elohist (“E”), the Priestly (“P”), and the Deuteronomist (“D”).  To him, these authors could be identified in the text by their use of a particular vocabulary (initially the predominance of their label/name for God), their repeated points of emphasis, and their embedded prejudices in support of a particular viewpoint and rejection of others, or simply their silence on others.  We’ll look at these characteristics, below.  But keep in mind, not everyone accepts the DH even (or perhaps especially) other scholars[iv], and of course nearly all traditionalists.

More recently, Richard Elliot Friedman has elaborated and refined the basic DH model in his book “Who Wrote the Bible?”[v].  In it, he attempts (as we will here) to characterize the backgrounds and worldviews of the various authors (or ‘schools’ of authors).  One of the tools that aids in discovering these common traits of a particular author is to separate his material from its surrounding material so that you can see only it as a continuum (which, from a literary perspective, it is) as Friedman has done in his “The Bible With Sources Revealed”[vi],[vii].

A portion of the study of these Pentateuchal authors is and has been to postulate the order in which they wrote: e.g. to answer the question “Who wrote first?”  We’ll mostly stay away from this debate here, as a) it is an ongoing debate with no agreement, and b) those engaged in the debate don’t even agree on a methodology that could be applied to analyze the question.  Additionally, the order of composition, whatever it is, seems quite independent of the personal worldviews of the various authors, though from a literary point of view, certainly later authors would have in some way been influenced by their predecessors, knowing their earlier stories.

The DH is by no means the sole theory of the composition of the Torah.  The past thirty years particularly have seen the rise (and currently a fall) in the popularity of something called the “Supplementary Hypothesis” which, in brief, proposes that “the Pentateuch … was derived from a series of direct additions to an existing corpus of work.[1]” One of the key criticisms of the DH is that its critics don’t view assembling preexisting documents into a whole as how any ancient texts were created – so-called “conflation”.  (Rather they assume the modern technique of creating and then editing/redacting.) Other theories are held by scholars. [viii]  It is not our job or interest here to get into these arguments, but there are several sources you can consult that flesh out these arguments. [ix] (Perhaps the largest quantity of criticism vis-à-vis the DH comes from traditionalists, including Christian bible college and seminary students.)

Textual Problems Needing Resolution

Overall, the discrepancies we find in the Torah/Pentateuch that require a rational explanation, either through the DH or some other plausible theory, can be classified[x] as:

  1. Redundancy – Two free-standing and independent versions of the same story/event exist without one acknowledging the other. See e.g. multiple creation & flood stories.
  2. Contradiction – Two (or more) versions of a story or event are presented as independent of one another and contain conflicting, irreconcilable details. (See below discussion of the Creation narrative, or examine the Aaron Vs Moses contradictions in the Exodus narrative (e.g. who’s rod was it?, was just the Nile affected or all water in Egypt?, etc.)
  3. Discontinuity – A story proceeds linearly to a point at which it is suspended, immediately followed by a fundamentally different (possibly contradicting) story only, in some cases, to be followed by the completion of the original narrative. Example Dt 11:29-30 to Dt 27:12-13.
  4. Terminology and Style – The classic example here may be the use of the Tetragrammaton, YHWH, to refer to God vs the more general “Elohim”. Additionally, we have stark discrepancies in the literary style of the D author compared to the pedantic P author.

In addition, I would like to propose a couple of literary discrepancies:

  1. Worship Approach – Throughout the Pentateuch, we find some fundamentally incompatible instructions for carrying out the worship of God/YHWH. No one would claim that loving God with all your heart is the same as bringing a goat to the Temple to be sacrificed (as an Oleh offering) to restore you to good standing with your God.  (With this discrepancy especially, it is important to keep in mind that in the 1st millennium BC, everybody sacrificed animals at temples.  So we shouldn’t be surprised that the Israelites adopted the same practice despite God’s lack of endorsement of the practice.)
  2. God’s Character – The character/nature of God described in one narrative is, if not contradicted, then at least disputed by a different narrative. While different narratives can feature different aspects of the One God, e.g. judgment vs blessing, we should be able to see that both narratives are describing the same God.  If we can’t see that, we should be suspicious that the two narratives originated with two different authors, irrespective of the name by which they address Him.

Searching for Authorial Worldviews

How do we discern the worldview of an author?  We read what he has to say, and how he says it.  If we find repeated points of emphasis (positive or negative) on a particular topic or viewpoint, we are seeing evidence of the author’s political, theological, or even geographical/tribal view of a particular subject that helps us frame his worldview.

And why is understanding an author’s worldview important and therefore worth pursuing?  Understanding an author’s background and perspective on the history he is narrating is key to unlocking why one version of a story differs in fundamental ways from another author’s version.   Knowing these respective viewpoints can substantially enhance our understanding of what (that without this knowledge remains quite obscure) these competing stories (called “doublets”) are intended to convey to us, and why.  For example, Suppose one author relates the controversial events from David’s kingship while another avoids them (silence). In that case, it is reasonable to infer that the 2nd, more favorable reporter had some vested interest in maintaining the perception of David as above reproach. In contrast, the first reporter had no such inhibition, and so related a more “unvarnished” version of the story.

J

How can we get to know the J source?  J is known for, among other narratives,

  • Creation and the Fall
  • The Flood
  • The Tower of Babel
  • The Call of Abram
  • Jacob and Esau
  • Tamar and Judah
  • Moses Revelation of God
Creation of Man and the Fall

J single-handedly (aside from very minor Redactional edits) tells us of the creation (the second version after P’s first in Ge 1), rebellion, and subsequent disposition by God of His humanity on earth in Gen 2-3.  He goes on to relate the murder of Abel by his brother Cain in Gen 4.  These stories establish the foundational bedrock of the Bible’s sagas of human disobedience and sin against God and each other.

The Flood

J provides his version of the story of the flood[xi] interwoven with P’s story.  It was part of the historical tradition of both. (E and D simply don’t mention it.)  And while J’s details don’t match P’s, the differences are incidental.

The Tower of Babel

J uniquely relates the story of the Tower of Babel (Gen 11:1-9).  This would seem to indicate his interest in conveying an explanation for the existence of so many different tribes and languages in his day.  Beyond this purpose, there doesn’t seem to be anything here to reveal more of his worldview.

The Call of Abram

One of the key details of J’s call-of-Abram story is he and Sarai end by settling in Hebron, a southern city.  At the very least, the father of the nation settling in one of your tribe’s towns would have been good for the reputation of the southern kingdom.  The story (Gen 12, 13) features Abram’s faithfulness and resultant obedience, and God’s promise that he will make Abram a great nation and bless it, just before God’s land promise to Abram.

Jacob and Esau

J nearly single-handedly relates the story of Jacob and Esau. He connects Esau to the nation that would later become Israel’s nemesis, Edom, through the “red” (‘Edom’) stew story of Esau’s sold birthright.  His story features both Israel’s initial domination over Esau/(Edom) and Esau’s later breaking of Jacob’s “yoke” from his shoulders, signifying Edom eventually gaining its freedom from Israel (9th century BC).  Why is J uniquely interested in this story?  Friedman claims because he (J) was a Judahite – a southerner, and therefore much more impacted by Judah’s history of conflict with Edom than his northern colleague E.

Judah and Tamar

This story is unique to J.  What is noteworthy about it, and somewhat telling of J’s worldview is the fact that its heroine is a woman.  In it, J emphasizes the justice that Tamar sought from her father-in-law Judah, and ultimately, through her resourcefulness and dedication, received.  No other source narrates a story extolling a woman.  A possible exception is Deborah in Judges if, as some speculate, the Deuteronomist is the author of Judges. 

This feature of J has even led some to speculate that “he” might even be a “she”[xii] – a member of the upper class, perhaps the wife of a southern priest and so both literate and sensitive to the women in Israel’s history.

Moses’ Revelation of God

Reportedly the most quoted verses of the Hebrew Bible occur in J’s Ex 34:6-7:

6 The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

Here J comes as close as any text in the Bible to revealing his perception of the nature of God – His mercy, graciousness, patience, love, and faithfulness.  This is hugely revealing of J’s view of his God, a view that is closely aligned both with E’s as well as D’s (e.g. Dt 7:9).

Geography

Why is J’s location significant?  Before the destruction of the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 722 BC by the Assyrians, those aligned with the northern tribes (“Israel”, “Ephraim”) held more than a little animosity toward the southern, Jerusalem-based tribes stemming from Solomon’s subjugation of them as conscripted laborers for his many building projects, and taxpayers to the United Kingdom’s coffers to obtain the materials for those projects and support its monarchy.

The result, particularly after the split in 931 BC, was a latent animosity between the two peoples.  Southerners looked down on northerners’ idol worship and increasing separation from their Temple cult-based religion.  Northerners looked down on the southerners for co-opting the central worship site, from Gerizim[xiii] to the Jerusalem Temple; for the corruption of their Kings (especially Solomon); for their minimizing of the importance of Moses in Israel’s history, etc.

In this setting, J appears to unabashedly align with Jerusalem, the Temple, and the Judahites.  As mentioned, he has Abram and Sarai settle in Hebron in the south.  He writes Aaron, father of the southern Aaronite priesthood centered in Hebron, into the Exodus narrative sometimes subtly, but always persistently, acting to diminish Moses’ singular role.  Additionally, he interjects himself into E’s description of Moses’ commissioning by God to raise the strange story of God threatening to kill Moses on his way to Egypt, until his wife, Zipporah circumcises Moses’ son.  Not only is this an odd story, but it is at best disparaging of Moses.

What may also be surprising is that some scholars (e.g. Friedman in “The Hidden Book in the Bible”) have found the contributions of J extending into D’s books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings.[xiv]  (At the least, this would muddy the waters on the question of when J wrote, potentially pushing him much later into the monarchic or even exilic periods.)

E

E is known for, among other narratives,

Let’s examine E’s profile based on his handling of these particular stories.

The Aqedah

No other author deals with this narrative.  What might this say of E’s viewpoint?  One possibility is pointed to by Abraham’s obedience to God under his testing in the narrative.  E likely wanted to feature Abraham’s faithfulness to God (and by extension, Isaac’s) as emblematic of Israel’s ancestor’s faith and resulting righteousness (perhaps in contrast to what he was observing all around him in the Israelite leadership or the people themselves.)  It is reasonable to assume that E himself prized these characteristics in men and chose to feature their display in Israel’s ancestors to edify his countrymen and build a degree of pride in their ancestors.  E valued the faithful character of his ancestors.

Jacob’s Dream

Here we find a quirk of E and that is his view of the reality of divine personal manifestations, in this case, a dream/vision given to Jacob.  We’ll see it also, below, in the burning bush story.  J later also describes two of Joseph’s dreams (along with E) involving his brothers – Gen 37:5-10.  Jacob’s dream couldn’t necessarily be called “divination” since the dream doesn’t foretell some future event (as Joseph’s dreams do).

What this story seems to underscore is E’s belief in the immanence of God, the fact that He communicates directly (not via a priest, prophet, or King) with His people.  As we shall see, this is distinctly not a view held by the P author(s).  However, it is a view shared by J as it is he who gives us the story of Abram’s anthropomorphic theophany experience at Mamre (conversation & meal with YHWH Who appears as a man) just before the Sodom and Gomorrah story (Gen 18).

We might also note that E saw his world as filled with the supernatural.  It’s he that has Jacob “wrestling” with an angle of God all night, God speaking to Moses from the burning bush (Ex 3) and throughout the Egypt and Sinai stories, God speaking to Balaam in dreams (Nu 22-24, in the middle of the “H” source’s “Holiness Code” – Nu 17-26) and Balaam’s donkey speaking to him following the appearance of an angel of God (Nu 22). (Of the other sources, only J mentions another talking animal — the Garden’s snake (Ge 3)).

The Call of Moses

Here (Ex 3) we begin to see E’s immanence-of-God viewpoint break through as he relates God’s (YHWH’s) conversation with and calling of Moses from a “burning” bush to free His people from Egypt.  He receives this call at a location he identifies as “Horeb, the Mountain of God”, not (as J) “Sinai”.  We’ll pay attention to whether, and how, this distinction plays into the backgrounds/viewpoints of E and J, if at all.

We also begin to see E’s reverence for and esteem of Moses (which will contrast with both J and P’s more measured treatment of the Prophet) as he features him as the hero (though human and flawed) of the greatest story of Israel’s history – the Exodus.  E references Moses 181 times in his portion of the Torah (while J mentions him 56 times, less than 1/3 as many).  So, E sees Moses as uniquely called by God (i.e. not Moses and Aaron) to free His enslaved people.  E substantially tells the Exodus and Sinai stories and Moses’ supernatural interactions with YHWH, with lesser contributions from J, and P (who is mostly concerned with injecting Aaron into the Moses story and with the objects and procedures used in worship/sacrifice following the giving of the tablets).

The Golden Calf

E is the reporter of the molten (golden) calf blasphemy.  The D source mentions it in passing while J and P are silent on it.  One of the things scholars read into this narrative is E’s disdain for Aaron, reported to be Moses’ brother, as a result of his intimate involvement in reportedly carrying out the blasphemy while Moses is dutifully on the mountain with God.  Now Aaron is later identified by other sources (i.e. P) as the father of the sole clan of priests authorized to sacrifice on behalf of Israel both at the Tabernacle and later the Temple.  So, something about the exclusivity of this arrangement and its overt demotion of the non-Aaronite Levites is objectionable to E (as well as, to a lesser degree, J.  D is silent on the subject.)

But it gets more intriguing. Friedman claims E was a priest – a northern priest (i.e. of the line of Shiloh priests, not a southern (Aaronic) priest, like P).  Between the two lines of the priesthood, there was apparently some animosity pervading each’s veneration (or lack thereof) of Moses, veneration (or lack thereof) of Aaron, esteem for the site of Gerizim in the north as the initial, God-ordained worship site[xv] rather than Jerusalem, etc., etc.  In this capacity, E is from the tradition that was expelled from Solomon’s Temple in the person of Abiathar (likely E’s ancestor), the last non-Aaronite High Priest, in favor of his co-High Priest, the Aaronite Zadok.

Not only that but his priestly/Levitical line was further spurned by the Northern Kingdom’s King Jeroboam in his shrines at Beth-El and Dan.  At those shrines, Jeroboam had made two golden calves as representations of the gods who “brought you up out of the land of Egypt” (1 Kings 12:28) and placed his own (non-Levitical?) “priests” in charge of their operation rather than Shiloh-descended Levites.  (We must note, however, that these calves weren’t representations of gods other than YHWH, but rather representations of Him.  The calf/bull was a common image of gods of that time.)  The problem with them was that they were idols (צֶלֶם ṣelem) which the first “Word”/instruction of the ten seems to prohibit.) It is speculated that it was this act by Jeroboam that led E to accuse Aaron of making the same type of false idol at Sinai/Horeb, thus attacking two blasphemies in one story — Aaron’s usurpation of Temple authority and Jeroboam’s crafting of golden idols.

But I find it fascinating that in the other significant challenge to Aaron – the story either of “Korah’s” rebellion against Moses and Aaron’s overstepping of their commission (P), or the companion story of Dathan and Abiram’s punishment for their “grumbling” against Moses (J in Nu 16 and a passing reference by D in Dt 11), E is silent. I would have thought that E would have featured this story as documenting the injustice against those two descendants of Reuben (a northern tribe).  But he does not.  Perhaps by the time E wrote, J’s story of the injustice against the two and their families (losing their lives for their complaining), reportedly by God’s hand, was already written and known from his source so that E didn’t feel compelled to weigh in?  Possibly.

But clearly, E had a kind of animus toward the P camp and their elevation (essentially out of ‘whole cloth’, as I have written elsewhere) of Aaron and his descendants when initially the entire tribe of Levi was indiscriminately declared to be God’s perpetual servants, and before that, all Israel was to “be holy, as I am holy” (as recorded throughout the “H” source in Lev 19-27) which would have precluded the need for any priests.  It is telling that E is the sole source of the vignette (Gen 12) in which Miriam and Aaron criticize Moses for his marriage to a “Cushite” woman, God’s displeasure with them for doing so, and Miriam’s subsequent (though temporary) contraction of “leprosy”.  It’s crystal clear that E venerated Moses and so opposed the camp of those that attempted to demean him.

Geography

E writes about northern locations i.e. the northern kingdom of Israel.  For example, as previously noted, we read his narration of Jacob’s dream, and his later construction of an altar purportedly at Beth-el (a location in the north just above the boundary with the southern area of Benjamin, one of the two southern tribes (Ex 28:10-22)).  Additionally, E is unique in his narration involving the northern city of Shechem where Jacob erects another altar/standing stone (Gen 33:20) on his return from Paddan-Haram.

We’ll try to distill and consolidate this information into a profile for both J & E below.

J & E In Common

When we examine the literary styles and grand historical themes of J and E, there is far more they have in common than in distinction.  Because of their silence on the Assyrian exile, it is assumed that they both lived and wrote before that event in 722 BC.  Of course, it’s possible they wrote after it, but that the period they wrote about didn’t encompass it.

There is no agreement on which came first.  But it seems logical that whoever the first was, the second, knowing of the first’s text, chose to pattern his narrative after it, using the same style/tone of narration while using different grammar and featuring different details of their common historical story.

It is for this reason that documentary hypothesis scholars tend to treat the two as a conflated whole (“JE”), rather than distinct authors.  They had different geographical, political, and religious allegiances.  But they both seemingly came from the same era in Israel’s history and both shared an understanding of Israel’s early history (the YHWH-as-Creator story, its Fathers, the Exodus, and their subsequent move into the land) from either very ancient scrolls, or simply through oral histories passed down to them.

P

The material from this source is fundamentally different in kind from the others.  P is known for, among other portions of the Pentateuch:

  • The first Creation story (Ge 1:1-2:3)
  • Various genealogies (e.g. Ge 5, 11)
  • Abrahamic Covenant (Ge 17)
  • Instructions for the Tabernacle (Ex 25-31, 35-40)
  • Most of Leviticus
  • Census and Camp Arrangements (Nu 1-10)
The First Creation Story

From a purely literary perspective, Ge 1 is the pinnacle of P’s material and perhaps of the entire Hebrew Bible.  Perhaps no other piece of literature in the Tanakh can approach the profound beauty, simplicity, and grandeur of this Creation poem.  As an expression of the nature and grandeur of the One God, P completely dismisses all of the competing polytheistic cultures surrounding him (and Israel) in just 33 brief (but immensely powerful) verses.

Certainly, this poem exposes P’s extreme awe and reverence of the One God.  It’s also worth noting that of all of P’s otherwise pedantic material on genealogies, worship materials, and processes, this chapter is unique in its absence of any of this other material. (Makes one wonder if its author really was the same as the author of the other P material.)

Various Genealogies

P as the source of the genealogies in Ge 5 and 11 is disputed. The author of Ge 5 wanted to show the descendants of Adam down to Noah and his son Shem (from whom Abram came).  And Ge 11 takes us from Shem down to Abram, Israel’s “father”.  Whoever the author of these chapters was, he was a bit more analytical than J or E and dedicated to founding Israel’s lineage and distinguishing it from that of Ham (and his son Canaan) and Japheth, the fathers of surrounding polytheists.

Abrahamic Covenant

The portion of the Abrahamic Covenant P covers in Ge 17 is that of the circumcision of all males on the 8th day, and the promise of a son, Isaac.

Instructions for the Tabernacle

It has been argued, and seems self-evident, that the portions of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers having to do with the Tabernacle only serve to separate the people of Israel from their God but otherwise do not directly affect them.  These are instructions for priests and Levites.

Leviticus

This book is also intended for principally the Levitical class, not the common Israelite.  Theories as to why it was important to have it written down abound.

One believable theory is that it was written during or just after the Babylonian exile to document the written “law” of the nation of Israel, a key criterion for a nation in that day to be considered “civilized”.  So, in this scenario, the sacrificial Temple cult stepped out of their normal roles to help establish the credibility of their about-to-be-rebuilt nation.

A little earlier, Hezekiah instituted reforms in Judah to thoroughly eradicate sacrifice at sites other than the Temple.  Having a corpus like Leviticus would have documented for all those involved in the Temple’s operation just what those operations looked like and when they were to occur[xvi].  It is therefore assumed by many that P’s material was developed as a result of Hezekiah’s reforms in the 9th century.

The Ten Commandments

P is not unique in presenting a version of the Ten Commandments (Ex 20). D does so as well (Dt 5:6-21) while interestingly, E and J do not.  In both the P and D sources we find Moses featured as the God-chosen intermediary and “letter carrier” conveying the words written by God on the tablets to Israel.  P is unique in his discussion of the Ark of the Covenant and its place in the Tabernacle as the ultimate repository for the tablets.  P is known for his interjection of Aaron into his version of the Exodus narratives, likely to validate his pedigree and position as an Aaronic priest.

Census and Camp Arrangements

The passages in Num 1-10 seem to expose the P author’s interest in having a well-organized society and one in which God (thought to be in His Tabernacle) was the central focus, positioned as He was in the center of the surrounding camp.

In discussing P’s contribution to the book of Numbers, we need to also point out a crucial aspect of P’s worldview and that is Aaron’s exclusive, God-attested warrant with his descendants as the sole priests to sacrifice in the Tabernacle/Temple and serve as the High Priest.  Nu 16 is designed to be P’s certification of his claim of Temple sacrifice exclusivity for the Aaronites.  (However, as I’ve previously pointed out, God is completely silent on the rationale for Aaron’s exclusive mandate.  It just happens inexplicably.)

Geography

P was unmistakably from the southern kingdom and one of its priests from the Hebron line.  This conclusion is supported by his dedication to a single place of worship for the nation (the Jerusalem Temple likely stemming from Hezekiah’s reforms), his reverence for Aaron (Ex 28:1), and the exclusive line of Aaronic priests.

In sum, P was a southern Aaronic priest who may have written as early as the 9th century BC or as late as the 6th-5th centuries in response to the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the Second Temple.  His focus was on the grandeur and sanctity of the Tabernacle/Temple, and the exclusivity of the Aaronites as priests.

D

The material attributed to the D source is very distinctive in its narrative and the worldview it presents.  It transcends the Pentateuch (unlike the other sources).  D or the Deuteronomic Historian (Dh) is credited with the authorship of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. From a literary and religious perspective, D is kindred with the J source, and nearly to the same degree with the E source.  Here are some of its most distinctive passages:

The Shema

The Hebrew word Shema translates in English as “Hear”.  The entire admonition reads:

Dt 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

Here we find perhaps the most prominent instance of D’s signature exhortation to “love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all of your soul and with all your might” which he repeats in various forms regularly throughout his material.

What this brief verse reveals is D’s heart for the LORD (YHWH) and his desire to exhort his countrymen to share in his zeal to reverence and love of their God.  None of the other sources so much as mention loving God, or the love of God.  (P, however, does contain the admonition to love one’s neighbor (Lev 19:18b) and the stranger among you (Lev 19:34)).

This single fact should alert us that in dealing with D we’re dealing with a completely different worldview than we have yet encountered in the other sources.

Blessings and Curses

The time of the writing of Dt 28 is inferred to be at Moab, just before Israel’s entrance into Canaan, and has everything to do with the interpretation of its blessings and curses for keeping or violating the covenant YHWH made with Israel before they entered the land.

The blessings in the chapter comprise v1-14.  The curses, on the other hand, comprise v15-64 (3.5 times as many!)  Why is this?

Some scholars explain this imbalance by claiming that D wrote (or was redacted) late – following the Babylonian exile, so that, knowing the curses that had been played out, D took it upon himself to explain to Judah, leaving no doubt why the exile had happened – Judah had disobeyed YHWH’s covenant commands to love Him, to obey His law[xvii] as He had commanded them.  Friedman is in this camp assigning a warning of the impending exile (Dt 28:36-37) and the later exilic judgment by YHWH (Dt 28:63-68, Dt 29:22-28) along with an offer of subsequent mercy (Dt 30:1-10) to a later redactor of Deuteronomy he labels “DTR 2”, sequentially the second redactor following DTR 1’s attempt to explain the division of the United Kingdom into Israel and Judah.

If D wrote before the exile, it may well be that he simply observed what had earlier become of the northern kingdom of Israel and their destruction and exile, and drew logical conclusions as to what Judah’s exile by the Babylonians would bring.

Covenant Renewal

Following Israel’s entry into Canaan, the Bible relates that Joshua honored God’s earlier command to Moses to assemble the people by tribe divided between Mt. Ebal and Mt. Gerizim and recite to each other the (contingent) blessings and curses they could expect.  D carries the story of Israel’s fulfillment of this scene (Jos 8:33-35 as a fulfillment of Dt 11:29, Dt 27:12-26).

One takeaway from this narrative is that D took the gravity of Israel’s obedience to their God probably more seriously than did the other sources (though E was similarly concerned with obedience, e.g. Ex 23:22).

Cycle of Judges

The Dh source lays out in painful detail the lawlessness and apostasy that pervaded pre-monarchic Israel.  No other source condemns the people of Israel as does Dh.  The signature phrase of the book of Judges is:

25 In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

United Monarchy

Dh, writing of Israel’s eventual monarchy, alone relates the story of David’s ascendency, Saul’s demise and death, and David’s coronation, sin, victimization by his son Absalom, eventual death, and Solomon’s apostatic reign, followed by the split of the northern tribes into the kingdom of “Israel” leaving Solomon’s son Rehoboam with the southern Judah kingdom.  Needless to say, all of these events post-date the other sources’ so they do not write of them.

Geography

D seems to be focused at least as much on northern sites (e.g. Gerizim and Ebal) as he is on the Judahite sites.  D, like E, fully venerates Moses, unlike our Southerners. So D is most likely from Ephraim, the once-kingdom of Israel.  Additionally, D advocates (along with J, E, and P) the establishment of a single site for the worship of YHWH “at the place that the LORD will choose” (e.g. Dt 12:14), although he’s silent on what that site should be.

Friedman speculates[xviii] that D was a Levite, in the line of Levites that once served at the Tabernacle at Shiloh (for 350 or so years of Israel’s early history in the land.)  Once D progresses into the Dh material (i.e. 2 Samuel and 1 Kings), he is unabashed in portraying David’s sins (while simultaneously highlighting his heart for God) and Solomon’s apostacies (wealth, wives, horses, worship of foreign gods, ill-treatment of the northern tribes, etc.), further distancing himself from the southern priests (who allowed these things to go unjudged).

How to Understand These Sources

I think it would be helpful to reduce all of the above characterizations to a single comparative view that can be used as a tool by the student of the Bible to better appreciate where particular statements and narratives that they encounter are “coming from”.

The following table attempts to present the key qualities of each source that we can glean from the previous descriptions and the references those descriptions relied on[xix].

CharacteristicJ (Yahwist)E (Elohist)P (Priestly)D (Deuteronomist)
Geographic FocusJudahNorthern IsraelJudahBalanced, but northern affinity
Key Feature  of WorshipOnly at the Jerusalem TempleReverence for Moses, his Law, and YHWHAdministered exclusively by Aaronic priests Central worship site, and total, heartfelt love of and devotion to God
Likely HeritageSouthern Aaronic priestShiloh (northern) priestly lineSouthern Aaronic priestShiloh Levitical line
Primary message to IsraelGod’s faithfulness, righteousness, and mercyFaithfulness to the Ten CommandmentsObedience to the rules of the Temple CultBlessings for obedience to God’s Law and curses for disobedience
God’s relationship to His peopleBlesses, judges/disciplines, restoresImmanently interacts with (us) personally and corporatelyHoly and separate; only approached by Aaronic priestLoves us and wants our love and obedience, but interacts with us as viewed by J & E.
God’s Interaction With UsWalks and talks with us.Speaks in (some) people’s dreams.Served via cultic procedures.God interacts with us based on His righteousness.
Style of Speech re: GodAnthropomorphic speech about GodReverential speech about GodMajestic speech about GodSpeech emphasizing devotion to God, and God’s work
Address of GodYHWHElohimElohimYHWH
Literary “signature”Uses “Sinai”Uses “Horeb”Genealogies and listsLong sermons; “with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your everything”
Source Viewpoints

If the Documentary Hypothesis is correct as articulated first by Wellhausen and elaborated by Friedman, this table represents a shorthand way to recognize some of the distinguishing features of each author/school.  These are not universally the case, but simply generally (more often than not) the case.  Having a model in mind of each author’s literary profile and worldview helps us understand the basis for the discrepancies (“dublets/triplets”, discontinuities, contradictions, and language) we find throughout the Pentateuch.

Takeaways

What can we take away from these findings of scholars?  That depends entirely on a couple of things.

First, if we are dedicated traditionalists (Jew or Christian), we take nothing away from these findings because we’re dedicated to the tradition that Moses wrote the Pentateuch.  Full stop.

If we’re not traditionalists but rather open to considering the results of lifetimes of scholarly investigations into the text of the Bible, we can evaluate their findings in terms of whether or not they make sense to us.  Most of us aren’t equipped, by training and technical knowledge, to critically evaluate these findings.  However, we can consult the work of others who are qualified to critique these findings and similarly evaluate their arguments against the competing interpretations.

But there is yet another way we can deal with these “source-critical” findings and that is to ask ourselves: “If these findings are essentially correct, what other conclusions might they imply?”  I have dabbled a bit in this line of thinking and have drawn some preliminary conclusions for which I find supportive evidence.  Not to prejudice the conclusions you may come to, I’ll share some here:

  1. The Deuteronomist seems to me to be the most “in tune” with the nature of YHWH. To him, the God-man relation is intended to be mutual love, and, as a result, we are to yield ourselves to obedience to His will.  I’ve written about the dichotomy between the Deuteronomic God and the Levitical God in God’s Issues With the Temple Cult – A Pilgrim’s Search.  This is a personal judgment.  You may not agree.
  2. I have concluded after looking at some of the important data that the book of Deuteronomy is a version of an original scroll that was known of in monarchic Israel (and later), but was essentially ignored, at least until possibly King Hezekiah but likely not until his grandson Josiah. We may have a version of this original scroll in a document known as the Moses Scroll, about which I have written in Moses’ Real Words? – A Pilgrim’s Search.  If true, this would not only lend credence to my first conclusion but completely revolutionize Western religion (IMHO).
  3. If the first conclusion is true, it throws into doubt the credibility of the P source material, not so much as to whether or not God wanted it represented in His Law (for His own reasons), but whether it accurately reflects God’s will for the nature of the relationship between Him and us, and our practice of His worship. I believe it’s nearly impossible for P’s view of God and D’s view of God to both be informed views of the same God.  So, my unsubstantiated conclusion is that P’s Law insinuated itself into Israel’s corporate memory and tradition not to glorify God, per se, but rather to set the stage for the later conclusion that it is futile for humans to attempt to adhere faithfully to the moral (and procedural) Law (Ro 7:9-13), so setting the stage for God’s New Covenant.
  4. If the Pentateuch is a multi-authored composite work, how should that fact affect our thinking about the veracity of the Bible itself, our reverence for its words, and our thinking about the God it portrays? I can only answer for myself.  For me, my reverence for the brilliant composition that is the Pentateuch (and for the entire Tanakh, in fact) has grown dramatically once I began to see the genius that was applied to its creation, both the individual authors’ writings, but much more their integration (“redaction”, by “R”) into the canonical form we have today.  And, as if it needed a boost, my understanding of the symphonic orchestration of its authors and redactors, potentially over many centuries, under YHWH’s direction resulting in our canonical version solicits only reverent awe.

Conclusion

We haven’t looked here at the detailed data that leads to the conclusion of multiple authorship of the Pentateuch.  In summarizing Friedman, I wrote a bit about that data in Who Wrote the Hebrew Bible? – A Pilgrim’s Search.  Taking the conclusion of some scholars on faith that they know what they’re doing, we are confronted with the proposition that the Pentateuch isn’t a one-author monolith (with inexplicable integrity problems), but the work of several inspired authors over potentially several centuries.  What do we do with that?  I think it boils down to how committed we are to knowing the truth that the Bible has to give us, and the truth of why it reads as it does.

[i] The multiple-author theory and analysis actually dates to the 18th-century and Jean Astruc (1684-1766), followed by Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (1752-1827), Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette (1780-1849) and Karl Heinrich Graf (1815-1869)

[ii] Wellhausen, Julias, Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels, Independently Published 9/3/2020, (1883, first published in 1878 as Geschichte Israels)

[iii] Schwartz, Baruch J., Does Recent Scholarship’s Critique of the Documentary Hypothesis Constitute Grounds for Its Rejection?, The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, 2011, pp 3-16

[iv] Ibrahim, Philemon, Pentateuchal Authorship: A Critical Analysis of Existing Imaginations, The American Journal of Biblical Theology, Vol 2(2), January 12, 2020)

[v] Friedman, Richard Elliot, Who Wrote the Bible? (“Friedman”), Simon and Schuster, 1997

[vi] Friedman, Richard Elliot, The Bible With Sources Revealed, Harper One, August 16, 2005

[vii] Not everyone agrees with Friedman.  For a critical review of his “The Bible With Sources Revealed”, have a look at Christof Levin’s review here.

[viii] The so-called “Fragmentary Hypothesis” posits that:

“the Torah was compiled from various independent fragments or sources, rather than being the work of a single author or a cohesive narrative.”

See Philemon, for a brief discussion of this analysis and others, such as Form Criticism.

[ix] Tigay, Jeffery H., Ed., Conflation as a Redactional Technique, Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism, 1985, pp 53-95

[x] Schwartz, Baruch J., The Documentary Hypothesis, The Oxford Handbook of the Pentateuch, 2021

[xi] Details differ between J’s flood story and P’s; the saving of 7 of every kind of animal vs P’s two; the rain for 40 days vs P’s 150; sending out a dove vs P’s raven, etc.  All are incidental differences but point clearly to the authorship of at least two different hands.

[xii] Friedman, pp 59

[xiii] It was news to me (and may be to you) that the northern Samaritan Pentateuch identifies Gerizim as the place God has chosen (past tense – not “will choose” as in the Hebrew Bible) for His worship.

[xiv] Goldman, Howard, Documentary Hypothesis Presentation

[xv] The Samaritan Pentateuch identifies this Gerizim location as the place for God’s “Name”.  To them, worship in Jerusalem and its temple was a corruption of the Law.

[xvi] An unknown author has made the point that the Levitical laws themselves did not need to be written down for the benefit of the priests and Levites themselves because they all knew them, even when exiled to and sitting in Babylon.  But writing them down may have been a kind of preservative so that the next generation of Aaronites and Levites could pick up without missing a beat once the Temple was rebuilt.

[xvii] What comprised “the Law” (of God; of Moses) at the time of their exile to the Judeans is a matter of debate.  Many scholars feel it was by then substantially the Deuteronomy that we now have, including chapters 12-26.  I discuss this issue here.

[xviii] Friedman, pp103-106

[xix] Unknown, Documentary Hypothesis