For most of the twentieth century, the New Documentary Hypothesis of Julius Wellhausen, written in the 1870s, was the accepted hypothesis regarding the origin of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures.
According to this, the earliest materials were from the Jahwist scribes, nearly 1,000BC from the court of Solomon. The next layer were the Elhoist texts from the 8th century BC in the northern kingdom of Israel. The Deuteronomists then redacted again in the 7th century BC, after the Babylonian exile, and much ink has been spilled on the 'hard line' D texts calling a recalcitrant diaspora back to the homeland and the faith of their fathers (a process not altogether successful).
In the 600s BC, during the reign of King Josiah produced the Priestly materials in a world dominated by priests and the emerging temple cult.
Wellhausen saw the J and E texts describe the inchoate emergence of monotheism and a direct personal relationship with God. In Deuteronomy he saw the influence of the prophets and the development of an ethical outlook, which he felt represented the pinnacle of Jewish religion. On the other hand, the release from the Babylonian exile led to a determined effort by the D scribes to assert the ancient traditions and rebuild Israel, and the P source reflected the rigid, ritualistic world of the priest-dominated post-exilic period.
This somewhat 'tidy' view of sources began to unravel in the last decades of the 20th century when studies into the origins of the written sources in oral compositions suggested the creators of J and E were collectors and compilers, not authors and historians. Rolf Rendtorff (d2014) argued that the Pentateuch was the result of short, independent narratives gradually brought together and shaped in two editorial phases, the first Deuteronomic, the second Priestly.
The current view sees only two major sources in the Pentateuch, the Deuteronomist (Deuteronomy) and the Priestly (Genesis-Exodus-Leviticus-Numbers).
The majority of scholars today recognise Deuteronomy as a source, with its origin in the law-code produced at the court of Josiah and framed during the exile as the words of Moses.
Most scholars agree some form of Priestly source existed, although its extent is uncertain.
The Torah is increasingly seen as probably 450–350BC, possibly a product of the Persian imperial practice of authorising local, autonomous law codes for conquered populations. Some scholars would place the final formation of the Pentateuch even later, in the Hellenist (333–164BC) or Hasmonean (140–37BC) periods.
The latter dating remains a minority view, but the Elephantine papyri, the record of a Jewish colony in Egypt dating from the end of the 5th century BC, shows no knowledge of a Torah or an exodus. There is also a growing recognition that Genesis developed separately and was joined to the story of Moses post-exileby the Priestly writer.[10]
A revised neo-documentary hypothesis still has adherents, especially in North America and Israel.[38] This distinguishes sources by means of plot and continuity rather than stylistic and linguistic concerns, and does not tie them to stages in the evolution of Israel's religious history.[38] Its resurrection of an E source is probably the element most often criticised by other scholars, as it is rarely distinguishable from the classical J source and European scholars have largely rejected it as fragmentary or non-existent.[39]
Wellhausen used the sources of the Torah as evidence of changes in the history of Israelite religion as it moved (in his opinion) from free, simple and natural to fixed, formal and institutional.[40] Modern scholars of Israel's religion have become much more circumspect in how they use the Old Testament, not least because many have concluded that the Bible is not a reliable witness to the religion of ancient Israel and Judah, representing instead the beliefs of only a small segment of the ancient Israelite community centred in Jerusalem and devoted to the exclusive worship of the god Yahweh.[41][42]
According to this, the earliest materials were from the Jahwist scribes, nearly 1,000BC from the court of Solomon. The next layer were the Elhoist texts from the 8th century BC in the northern kingdom of Israel. The Deuteronomists then redacted again in the 7th century BC, after the Babylonian exile, and much ink has been spilled on the 'hard line' D texts calling a recalcitrant diaspora back to the homeland and the faith of their fathers (a process not altogether successful).
In the 600s BC, during the reign of King Josiah produced the Priestly materials in a world dominated by priests and the emerging temple cult.
Wellhausen saw the J and E texts describe the inchoate emergence of monotheism and a direct personal relationship with God. In Deuteronomy he saw the influence of the prophets and the development of an ethical outlook, which he felt represented the pinnacle of Jewish religion. On the other hand, the release from the Babylonian exile led to a determined effort by the D scribes to assert the ancient traditions and rebuild Israel, and the P source reflected the rigid, ritualistic world of the priest-dominated post-exilic period.
This somewhat 'tidy' view of sources began to unravel in the last decades of the 20th century when studies into the origins of the written sources in oral compositions suggested the creators of J and E were collectors and compilers, not authors and historians. Rolf Rendtorff (d2014) argued that the Pentateuch was the result of short, independent narratives gradually brought together and shaped in two editorial phases, the first Deuteronomic, the second Priestly.
The current view sees only two major sources in the Pentateuch, the Deuteronomist (Deuteronomy) and the Priestly (Genesis-Exodus-Leviticus-Numbers).
The majority of scholars today recognise Deuteronomy as a source, with its origin in the law-code produced at the court of Josiah and framed during the exile as the words of Moses.
Most scholars agree some form of Priestly source existed, although its extent is uncertain.
The Torah is increasingly seen as probably 450–350BC, possibly a product of the Persian imperial practice of authorising local, autonomous law codes for conquered populations. Some scholars would place the final formation of the Pentateuch even later, in the Hellenist (333–164BC) or Hasmonean (140–37BC) periods.
The latter dating remains a minority view, but the Elephantine papyri, the record of a Jewish colony in Egypt dating from the end of the 5th century BC, shows no knowledge of a Torah or an exodus. There is also a growing recognition that Genesis developed separately and was joined to the story of Moses post-exileby the Priestly writer.[10]
A revised neo-documentary hypothesis still has adherents, especially in North America and Israel.[38] This distinguishes sources by means of plot and continuity rather than stylistic and linguistic concerns, and does not tie them to stages in the evolution of Israel's religious history.[38] Its resurrection of an E source is probably the element most often criticised by other scholars, as it is rarely distinguishable from the classical J source and European scholars have largely rejected it as fragmentary or non-existent.[39]
Wellhausen used the sources of the Torah as evidence of changes in the history of Israelite religion as it moved (in his opinion) from free, simple and natural to fixed, formal and institutional.[40] Modern scholars of Israel's religion have become much more circumspect in how they use the Old Testament, not least because many have concluded that the Bible is not a reliable witness to the religion of ancient Israel and Judah, representing instead the beliefs of only a small segment of the ancient Israelite community centred in Jerusalem and devoted to the exclusive worship of the god Yahweh.[41][42]
