The Bible Says That!? - Who Wrote The Torah? Pt. 1
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Intro
Have you ever noticed places in the Bible where the story seems to repeat itself? Or what about when God or people are called by different names?
What about places where the story seems to be going along, and then all the sudden there is a break in the story with a different story. Then it snaps back to the original story?
Why do you think that is? What do you think about that?
Intro to Source Documentary Hypothesis
Over the next several weeks I want to present to you a hypothesis that helps to explain a lot of these quirks or peculiarities in the text. DISCLAIMER: For the next few weeks, I want you to firmly hold on to what you believe. Don’t let go of it, don’t throw it away. But for the next few weeks, I want you to simply set what you’ve been taught off to the side just a little bit and just hear me out. Don’t let go, but please allow me to explain to you the theory in its entirety. Then at the end, we’re going to bring back what you’re holding onto and talk about the strengths and weaknesses of the whole conversation. Don’t throw anything away but allow for the evidence to speak for itself, come at this with an open mind, and try to learn something new.
A few things to start:
I believe in this hypothesis and I’m still a Christian. Many Scholars in our movement teach, discuss, debate, etc., all using this theory and they are on the cutting edge of Christian faith, belief, and practice for the church. This may test your faith, but if you stick with it, I promise I will not leave you hanging. You will be stretched, but you will be stronger for it and have a better response to those who want to discredit our faith. We will cover as many counter examples, “What if’s” and “Yeah… But’s” as we can toward the end. But let the evidence speak for itself first.
I ask that you either 1) attend every class for this series, or 2) if you miss, please listen to the lesson you missed. There is a LOT of content and you will be lost if you miss anything.
For some of these lessons, I’m going to be doing a lot of speaking, and other’s we’re going to be doing a lot of exploring working a LOT with the biblical text. Bring a good solid Bible with you throughout this series.
CREDIT: The contents of this lesson come from several books written by Richard Friedman. Specifically, Who wrote the Bible and The Bible with sources revealed. The following is a summary of his works and credit go to him for his work in compiling a simplified explanation and examination of the evidence for this hypothesis.
In its simplest form the theory goes like this: The books of the law – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, were written, edited, and compiled form many sources. In it’s simplest form, there are 4 sources known as: J, E, D, and P. There are other possible sources which I will mention, but not detail here.
This theory came about because over many decades, Bible scholars looked at all sorts of pieces of evidence that wouldn’t quite make sense if the Torah was written by a single person – namely Moses. We will get into tangible examples over the next several weeks, but for now, just know that there are hundreds of evidence points that suggest that multiple authors wrote the Torah.
Scholars wanted to honestly examine and understand the Bible as best as they could. They combed through every single word in the Torah for the better part of a century to learn as much as they can, find pattern’s, learn from extra biblical sources, debate amongst each other, and try to get at the most honest understanding of our Bible. The conclusion that they came to was the Source Documentary Hypothesis.
Now not every scholar believes in this theory. So if by the end you do not find the evidence convincing enough, that is totally fine. Please stick to your beliefs. I only ask that we don’t ignore the evidence and silence voices of different opinions just because we don’t like what we hear.
History of the sources
From 922 to 722 – the period known as the Divided Kingdom, the people of God were divided between 2 kingdoms: Israel to the North and Judah to the south. The source known as J was composed during this time period.
This source is called “J” because of how the Hebrew and German language work around the proper name of God – YHWH. J calls God, YHWH. The “Y” in German is replaced with a “J” and since most biblical scholarship during this time period came from German scholars, that is how we got the name “J” J says that the proper name of God was revealed from the beginning of creation. From the start, God is known as YHWH. The J source includes:
Stories like: the garden of Eden, the story of Cain and Abel, the flood, the story of the tower of Babel, various stories about the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. There are other stories including: Joseph, Moses, the exodus, the story of Mt. Sinai, and the wilderness wanderings.
It is most likely that J lived and wrote in the southern kingdom of Judah. (Friedman, 3).
The second source is called “E” E calls God “Elohim” or “El” meaning “God” in English. The “E” stands for the first letter in Elohim. E also wrote during the same time period as J ~922-722. It is likely that E comes from the North – Israel. E seems to understand that the proper name of God was not given to humanity until the Burning Bush encounter. Until Moses, God was known as "God" (elohim or el). Once he revealed his name to Moses, E will refer to God as "YHWH" (LORD) and "God" (elohim or el). The E author:
Seems to not write anything about the creation events. Not that they don’t exist, but is rather focused on the creation of Israel as a people with the story of Abraham. E’s writings include stories of: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, the plagues, and the exodus, the revelation at the mountain of God, and the wilderness wanderings. E shares some overlap with J.
There are some differences between J and E. E includes: stories of the near sacrifice of Isaac as well as the story of the golden calf. Both of these do not appear in J. J includes the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, but E does not. J and E are our oldest sources.
The third source is P. P was chosen because of this authors emphasis on the Priesthood. There are two theories of when P wrote 1) around a similar time as J and E or 2) after the exile once God’s people returned to the promised land. It is not super important for our study when exactly P wrote his work, but all you need to know is that P shares a lot of stories by both J and E and likely knew of both of these works when writing his own.
P’s writings include: Laws and instructions that take up about half of the books of Exodus, Numbers, and almost all of Leviticus. P parallels J and E in specific stories like: the creation account, the flood, the covenant with Abraham, stories of Isaac, and Jacob, the time of slavery in Egypt, the Exodus story, the events of Sinai, and the wilderness wanderings. Like E, P’s stories follow the idea that God’s proper name – YHWH, was not known by humanity until Moses.
The final main source is D. Literally D just takes up most of Deuteronomy. Specifically, Deuteronomy belongs to a much larger work consisting of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Sam, and 1 and 2 Kings. This is known as the Deuteronomistic History. The person or group that composed this whole work is known as “Dtr”. This expands beyond the Source Doc. Hypothesis, because these works go beyond the first 5 books of the Bible.
The last source I will mention will be a blanket term know as “The Redactor” that took the whole compilation of texts and edited it to make sure it all fit together cohesively. I will mention Him from time to time, but not go into detail.
Specific characteristics of JEDP
Here are some more tangible features of each source. We will explore many of these directly and some we will not. But I want to give you a clear snap shot of what each one looks like.
J:
Uses YHWH in all of his works as the name of God. The Name YHWH is revealed to us from the beginning of creation
Sees God as an Anthropomorphic God – portraying Human emotions or actions. He’s a gardener, shows regret, makes clothes for humans, smells the sacrifices, walks in the garden.
His language indicates he is from Judah/southern locations
The mountain of God is called “Sinai”
The Boundaries of the Kingdom is from the Nile to the Euphrates – which is roughly the territory David had during his reign.
The Ark of the covenant represents the presence of YHWH, but is never mentioned in E
The name of Moses’ father-in-law is called Ruel
Does not seem to be aware of the stories of Joshua.
E:
Uses “Elohim” or “El” as the name of God until it is officially revealed (according to E) with Moses. After which will interchange YHWH and Elohim.
Sees God as a distant deity who does not interact with his creation directly, but instead interacts through prophets, dreams, and visions.
His language indicates he is from Israel/ northern locations.
The mountain of God is called “Horeb”
The tabernacle represents the presence of YHWH, rather than the ark.
The name of Moses’ father-in-law is Jethro.
D:
Essentially the book of Deuteronomy, especially the law code in Deut. 12-26.
This is possibly the document that Hilkiah found and brought to Josiah claiming “this is the law of Moses!”D and DTR as a whole are often very critical of the Kingship and see it as a concession rather that God’s original design.
Possible D/DTR was a Shiloh priest. These priests were often kicked out of places because they were always critical of the King because they were not being faithful to God, kings didn’t like that, so that got them in trouble.
Likely dates to around the time of King Josiah in 609 BCE. An early copy may have come down from the Northern regions (where J was) when Assyria came in and exiled Israel the first time in 721. The core of the law existed for a long time before this, but this is the earliest copy that we have.
P:
Is either Early or Late – See reference above.
Largest of all the sources in the Torah.
Uses Elohim and El Shaddai before Moses, then after the Burning Bush uses YHWH. à aligns with E in the name of God piece.
God is remote and transcendent
God shows up as his “glory” rather than his actual self.
Structured around a lot of covenants: Noah, Abraham, Sabbath covenants.
The mountain of God is called Sinai and not Horeb.
Phrases like “be fruitful and multiply,” “male and female,” and other repeated formulas.
Talks a lot about: Dates, ages of people, measurements, numbers, etc.
Does not talk about dreams, talking animals, etc.
Sacrifices are the most important act of worship and only by priests from the line of Aaron.
Argues that the Aaron Priests are superior to the priests from the line of Moses (Shiloh priests)
How we identify these sources within the text
You might be asking “How can you even tell there are different sources within the text?” To that, here are a few responses So some people push back and say that this can’t possibly happen in our Bible. But think about the 4 gospels. There are 4 stories, all completely different, yet all telling the unique story of Jesus Christ and his ministry. We don’t bat an eye at the fact that there are at least 4 different authors of the same events of Jesus. Yet no one bats an eye at this. The literal only difference is that in the NT the 4 sources are cleanly separated into the 4 distinct books, but in the Torah, the sources are simply placed side by side next to each other and woven together to form one cohesive story. It’s literally the same exact thing.
We can also tell based on 7 major categories of evidence that we will go over in the next few weeks. Friedman explains them as: Linguistic, Terminology, consistency, Narrative flow, connections with other biblical texts, Relationships among the sources, and over all cohesion and convergence. We will look at each of these categories to examine in great detail how this theory works, as well as talk about what the implications are, and how we can use this theory to our advantage in our witness and build our faith.
Next week we will talk about how this theory fits together and cover the first few categories of evidence and do an exercise to help show you a tangible example of how this comes together.