For many centuries, both the Jewish and Christian communities subscribed to the belief that the first five books of the Bible (known to many of us as the Pentateuch), i.e. Genesis, Exodus,Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, were written by Moses, the leader that God raised to take the Hebrew people out of bondage in Egypt, and eventually form the nation of Israel. They were known in both communities as "the five books of Moses," or as "the Law of Moses." This assumption was held for a long time and then came under attack in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Certain biblical scholars and theologians who took a literary approach to Scripture, i.e. treating the Bible as any other form of literature, discarded that notion and replaced it with a theory that is known as the "Documentary Hypothesis." Of the various people that began to subscribe to the new theory, were two men, Karl Heinrich Graf, and Julius Wellhausen. Eventually, the theory became known as the Graf-Wellhausen theory.
Simply stated, this hypothesis or theory was that the first five books of the Bible were written by at least four different persons over a period of time in Israel's history. The theory also states that there were at least four strands that were eventually weaved into one volume, each strand representing representing a different name for God or reflecting the agenda of certain groups in the Hebrew/Jewish community. These four alleged documents or strands were as follows:
J- This document was allegedly written by someone who preferred the name Yahweh (or Jehovah) for God.
E- This document was allegedly written by someone who preferred the name Elohim for God.
D- This document was supposedly written by someone who wanted to emphasize the second writing of the law, Deuteronomy, supposedly edited and put into final form after the Babylonian Exile.
P- This document was supposedly written by someone who wanted to promote the interests of the priestly class in Israel.
Debates for and against have been held about this hypothesis over the last two centuries. Many of the so-called "liberal" scholars have given it their full-hearted support, while most the "conservative" scholars and believers continue to hold on to the Mosaic authorship of these books.
The questions for us are the following:
1. Does it make any difference, in the long run, whether the Pentateuch was written by Moses or by various authors?
2. Is denying the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch tantamount to denying the divine inspiration of the Bible, especially the Pentateuch?
3. Does our faith depend on who the particular authors of the Pentateuch, and for that matter, other books of the Bible, were?
4. What is the relevance, if any, of this to life in general?
Please tell us what you think.
Grace and peace,
Dr. Juan A. Ayala-Carmona
The authorship debates concerning the Pentateuch and Isaiah are interesting, but the real question for me is not who the writers were but how we can be certain that the books selected for inclusion in the Bible are divine inspired. Authors can have many motivations when writing. Could the early leaders of the church that selected the books for inclusion have made mistakes?
ReplyDeleteThe books of the Old Testament predate the time of Jesus by centuries. Did Jesus accept all of the Old Testament as sacred?
In Christ,
Gary Dudley
Bro. Gary: Thank you so much for your input once again. You pose some very important and interesting questions. The issue of the certainty of the books being "divinely inspired" has been going, as you know, for centuries. A related question, would be, of course, what do we mean by the term "inspired?" There are at least three definitions which I will address in subsequent essays on the inspiration and canonicity of the Bible.Your question as to whether Jesus Himself accepted all the books of the OT as canonical is a very interesting one. He quoted from a few of them, but we do not know for sure what His own views on canonicity were. It is only by faith that we can assume that He acknowledged and accepted "the whole enchilada." Other than that, we have no real objective basis to say that He did or didn't. Thanks for making this discourse a lively one. Grace and peace.
ReplyDeleteYou know brother Juan,
ReplyDeleteThe documentary hypothesis is based on evidence.
The most powerful categories of evidence are:
"1. The convergence of many different lines of evidence.
2.linguistic evidence for the dates of the texts.
3.the narrative continuity of texts that are ascribed to different authors.
4. How well the texts match the history of the periods from which they come. "
As such, it really is not a liberal or conservative issue , but rather, of those who are willing to confront the evidence and those that are not.
Advanced linguistic, literary, and historical research is admittedly not for everyone, but there are many books out there that do a fine job of presenting the evidence in layman's terms. I would recommend, Who Wrote The Bible by Richard Elliot Friedman. It is beyond excellent and reads like a good detective story. You'll come away with a greater understanding of the world that fashioned the bible, it's politics, history, and personalities.
Thanks for the thought provoking posts. Really appreciate you my friend
Jose Lecour
Bro. Jose: Thanks for your input. It is very insightful and valuable. I take with the Documentary Hypothesis the same approach that I take with the Theory of Evolution, i.e. it is just a hypothesis. There have been scholarly books published that deconstruct the hypothesis.The hypothesis does raise questions that reflect curiosity and interest for further research. It has a lot of truth to it,but like with everything else,is not the entire absolute truth. It does give the student of Scripture a much broader view of the text. It does help, as you so correctly point out, to see the environment that fashioned the Bible in a much broader light. Thank you once again for engaging and contributing.
DeleteJuan Ayala-Carmona