Friday, December 26, 2008
[Julius Wellhausen 1844 - 1918 an architect of modern Biblical Criticism]
The Documentary Hypothesis proposes that the Torah was written by several different authors between about 950 BCE through 450 BCE, at which point it was assembled into the present single document, probably by Ezra. This hypothesis is pretty much universally accepted by secularists.
There are several problems with this theory, in my humble opinion.
The first problem is the Samaritan Pentateuch. The Samaritans have not shared a common tradition with Jews since the division of the United Monarchy following the death of King Solomon. According to Ezra 4, the Samaritans were bitter enemies of the Jews in the time of Ezra. Clearly they would not have accepted a book composed by Ezra.
In addition to that, the Torah does not mention the city of Jerusalem, which was the center of Judaism from the time of King David up until the present.
Based upon this, it would appear that the latest the Torah could have been written would have been the time of Samuel, which was about 400 years after the Exodus.
In addition to this, no copies of the alleged pre-Ezra documents have ever been discovered anywhere, nor are they ever mentioned in any ancient literature. If they had been regarded as sacred for centuries, it is implausable that they quickly and entirely disappeared.
Also, it's logically inconsistent that secular scholars believe that the Torah is basically bogus, yet some apparently accept the Talmudic statement (Bava Basra 109b) that there existed in ancient Israel a priesthood descended from Moses, claiming that these priests wrote the E document. (See Richard E. Friedman in “Who Wrote the Bible” pages 48 and 79)
Advocates of the Documentary Hypothesis point out that different parts of the Torah are written in different styles. There is a simple explanation for this. The Talmud many times mentions God’s two character traits – the trait of mercy and the trait of justice. Mercy is represented by the name YHVH while justice is represented by Elohim (see Midrash Braishis Rabbah 73:3). The Talmud Tractate Megilah 31b states that Deuteronomy was written by Moses – it is a speech given by Moses, rather than having been simply dictated to him by God. Based upon this, we can understand why different portions of the Torah are written in different styles although they actually have a Mosaic authorship. Rather than refuting the single authorship of the Torah, Bible critics have merely rediscovered the midrash.
Posted by jewish philosopher at 10:28 AM