hezekiah jones

wikipedia is a good place to start:

documentary hypothesis

Or just google it; there's some pretty good sites.

Basically, it involves multiple authorship and editors for the first five books (or eight, according to some) of the Bible. It explains a lot of the inconsistencies, parallelisms, different names for God, stuff like that there.

In some celebrated instances, for example the creation and flood narratives, separate accounts appear to have been "woven" together. Much of the current debate seems to involve the dates of the various sources:

J: Jahwist (From the German for Yahweh)
E: Elohist (He called God(s) "Elohim")
P: Priestly Gang
D: The Dude, or Deuteronomist (played by Jeff Bridges)
R: Redactor (Editor[s])

Then several scholars start splitting those sources up, J1, J2, and so on and so forth.
That's where the trouble starts.

Neat thing is, no historians or archaeologists can find much evidence of any Mosaic "law" existing much before the Exile, which pretty much tosses out the fundie belief that "Moses" wrote the whole shootin' match.

godfry n. glad

LOL!

_The Deuteronomist_, the story of a sick & twisted priest with an agenda to inflict on unwitting innocents throughout ages, starring Jeff Bridges. Coming to theaters near you soon!

Actually, he'd be very good in such a role. Just slimy enough.

It'd be kewl if the Coen brothers could produce and direct, too. That'd be appropriate.

Heh.

godfry

ScottDNV21

As many of you could probably have guessed if you've read any of my other posts, I reject the documentary hypothesis, for a number of reasons.

But here's my primary question to those of you who do subscribe to the documentary hypothesis. The book of Deuteronomy is written in the style and manner of an ancient Hittite form of treaty that passed out of use around 1000 B.C. It includes a greeting, the terms of the treaty, blessings and curses for adherence to and breaking of the treaty, etc. If this is true, then how is it possible for the book of Deuteronomy to be dated any time after 1000 B.C., as the documentary hypothesis requires?

Celsus

Hi Scott,

Welcome to the boards. A question for you: how similar is this document? Is it as similar as parts of Genesis are to the Enuma Elish? As similar as the Mosaic code is to Hammurabi's? I'd like to see your references for this, particularly the original Hittite treaty you are refering to. Another point to consider, is that I don't subscribe to the Documentary Hypothesis. It is a specific theory established by Julius Wellhausen, and while accepted with minor changes for almost a century, has undergone extensive reworking since. You'll have to consider form criticism as well.

Joel

lpetrich

I thought that the theory was that Deuteronomy was modeled after Assyrian treaties, but the principle is likely the same. One interesting question is how much was specifically Assyrian in such treaties and how much could be expected to be typical of ruler-vassal treaties. Did these Assyrian versions have stylistic quirks that distinguish them from similar treaties composed elsewhere?

CX

Unfortunately this sets a terminus a quo (i.e. could not date to BEFORE the invention of that style of document) but not a terminus ad quem. Just to speculate if one were writing a document in the 7th century BCE and wanted it to look ancient wouldn't one model it after an ancient style?

Say you're trying to write a sonnet and pass it off as Shakespeare. Would you use contemporary English and a modern genre?

My point is not to defend the documentary hypothesis nor to defend a late date for Deuteronomy, but merely to offer reasonable doubt for your argument.

Futhermore, I'm not entirely certain the DH requires a particular date for D (thanks to Celsus for correcting my usage), at a fundamental level the DH just says that there are multiple streams within the current Torah. Those streams' dates could vary. In fact I think Friedman offers an alternative dating scheme to Wellhausen.

Celsus

Where did Scott disappear to?

hezekiah jones

Originally posted by Celsus
Where did Scott disappear to?

That's a good enough reason to bump this thread, but I also wanted to mention I finally got a hold of Apikorus' other recommendation, Introduction to the Composition of The Pentateuch by Alexander Rofé: that is one handy little book.

Apparently it's part of a series put out by Sheffield Academic Press, since it's captioned "The Biblical Seminar, 58." So I picked up a couple other volumes from the series, The New Testament Among the Writings of Antiquity by Detlev Dortmeyer, and The Historical Jesus, edited by Craig A. Evans & Stanley E. Porter. The latter is a collection of essays by various authors.

Good stuff!

godfry n. glad

Interesting....

Do any of the Evans & Porter essays dispense with the a priori assumption of Jesus' historicity?

I certainly appreciate the recommendations I find in these fora, and Apikorus has made some stellar recommendations.

Thanks, Ap. And everybody else, too.

godfry