The Documentary Hypothesis

THE PENTATEUCH in the battle for I So, thirdly, Israel must keep the covenant announced publicly to the whole nation, for the ; with a series of wholeheartedly. 'Love the LORD your God with Lord's appearance on the mountain was too ter s and how the all your heart and with all your soul and with all rifying. Instead they were made known to rng the secular your strength' (6:5) sums up the whole message Moses alone (Ex. 20: 19-21; Dt. 5:5), who then Levi (chs. 34 I of Moses. This meant keeping the Ten Com passed them on to the people. o the establish mandments given by God at Sinai (ch. 5). It Moses' role as a mediator is stressed those guilty of meant applying the Commandments to every throughout the Pentateuch. Time and again ~ I i sphere of life. The second and longest sermon laws are introduced by the statement, 'Then the land was more Ile land in which of Moses consists of a historical retrospect LORD said to Moses'. This implies a special in vas therefore, a followed by an expansion and application of the timacy with God, suggesting that if God is the Jfe: especially of commandments to every sphere of Israel's life ultimate source of the law, Moses was its chan . (ch. 35).It was, in Canaan; the laws in chs. 12 - 25 roughly nel, if not the human author of it. This impres for ever, and the follow the order of the commandments and ex sion is reinforced most strongly by the book of :signed to ensure pand and comment on them. Israel must be as Deuteronomy, with Moses addressing the na hin the tribe (ch. warm-hearted in her response to the law as the tion in his own words, explaining the laws given Lord had showed himself in giving her the land on Sinai and urging Israel to keep them when and the law itself. they enter the promised land. Finally, Israel's future destiny depended on Deuteronomy contains the last words of Law') is Moses' her response to the law. Obedience to the com Moses to Israel before he died. Moses talks tel. It consists of mandments would lead to immense prosperity about himself in the first person, 'The idea before his death, in family, farm and nation, whereas disobe seemed good to me' (1:23); and sometimes he . ry notice. In some dience would result in disaster, culminating in identifies with Israel 'as the LORD our God com one before, hence expulsion from the land (ch. 28). But ifthis hap manded us, we set out' (1: 19). At other times he ereas Exodus to pened, and Moses feared it would, it would not sets himself over against them, 'I told you, but lS they were given spell the end of Israel's relationship with God. you would not listen' (1:43). Chs. 1 - 11 ly we have Moses Repentance would lead to renewal of the cove describe most of the same events from the ex applying it ~o the nant blessings and national prosperity would be odus to the conquest of Transjordan as the experience In the restored (chs. 29- 30, 32). books of Exodus to Numbers do, but whereas these books recount it from the perspective ofa a summary of the The composition ofthe Pentateuch narrator outside the situation, Deuteronomy ·e. It is a prophetic While there is broad agreement among many describes the events as Moses experienced es, the greatest ?f scholars about the theme of the Pentateuch as them. The claim that Moses is the speaker in rael's prospects In sketched above, there are very deep differences Deuteronomy is inescapable. o choose whether of opinion about its composition. This has not If Deuteronomy ended at 31 :8, it would be . a way of prosperi always been the case; indeed, for nearly two possible to suppose that Moses preached about 'whims and inclina millennia it was universally agreed that Moses the law, but someone else, perhaps much later, was the principal author of the whole Pen committed his ideas to writing. However 31 :9, my weaves a rich tateuch. It therefore seems best to tackle the 'Moses wrote down this law and gave it to the First and foremost issue of composition under three heads. First, priests', and 31 :24,'Moses finished writing in a generosity of G.od. the traditional theory of Mosaic authorship. book the words of this law from beginning to lent of the promises Secondly, the consensus critical view, the end', seem to exclude such a loose view of ob. Israel had bee~ documentary hypothesis, which reigned almost Mosaic authorship. If then Moses wrote experienced God s unchallenged from 1880 to 1980. Thirdly, Deuteronomy, it would seem likely that Exodus Mt. Sinai, and was modem theories. to Numbers were written by him earlier in his \d flowing with milk The traditional view career, and that Genesis, the indispensable in ses ready for them to troduction to the other books, may well have en them by God, not From pre-Christian times to the beginning of been composed by him too. , but because God the nineteenth century it was accepted by nearly These are the arguments that led earlyJewish - 8). everyone that Moses was the author ofnearly all writers, the NT, and nearly everyone who stresses Israel's un the Pentateuch. This is a natural conclusion to studied the Bible until about 1800 to conclude ent sinfulness. They draw from a straightforward reading of Genesis that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch: refused to enter the to Deuteronomy. From Ex. 2 onwards Moses is Consequently, Genesis was often called the first .uraged them. They the leading actor in the story. The Lord reveal book of Moses, and so on. However in the nine ater. Even Moses lo~t ed himselfto Moses at the burning bush (Ex. 3); teenth century this ancient consensus began to .ord, and forfeited his then Moses negotiated with Pharaoh for Israel's crumble, and to this change of approach we id Moses feared that release and brought the people through the Red must now turn. Sea to Sinai. There he personally received the I; they would forsak.e The 'documentary hypoth~sis' maanite gods. And If Ten Commandments, other laws and the in hiven from the land, structions for erecting the tabernacle. The nar It all began with an interesting book written by a e (chs. 9 - 11). rative stresses that many of the laws were not French doctor, J. Astruc in 1753. Astruc 47 THE PENTATEUCH observed that in the early chapters of Genesis to suppose that Deuteronomy's laws were a God is sometimes referred to as God and at dead letter from the time of Moses? This argu others as 'the LORD'. This suggested to him that ment of de Wette connecting Deuteronomy at least two sources had been drawn on by with the centralization of worship inJosiah's day Moses in the writing of Genesis. This was sup was to become one of the main planks in the ported by the observation that there was 'Wellhausen synthesis' at the end of the century. duplication of material in Genesis (e.g. two ac Most of Wellhausen's ideas had been an counts of creation in chs. I and 2). ticipated by others. But he transformed OT Astruc had no intention of denying the scholarship with a book published in 1878, Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch; he was sweeping away traditional views of the origin of simply exploring what sources Moses may have the Pentateuch. Iffew of his ideas were new, the used. Yet his source analysis became a key in way they were presented by Wellhausen was gredient of later criticism. In the course of the brilliant and appealed very strongly in an era nineteenth century his analysis was refined, and when the theory of evolution was new and some scholars argued that these sources were believed by many to explain not just biological later than Moses. change but many other historical developments. About fifty years after Astruc a much more Wellhausen painted a picture of Israel's radical proposal was put forward by W. M. L. religious development that seemed natural and de Wette, who in his dissertation of 1805, and inevitable without the need for miracle or divine in another work (1806-7), argued that revelation. In the earliest stages, he argued, Deuteronomy was written in the time of Josiah Israelite religion was relatively unregulated. (i.e. about seven.centuries after Moses) and that People offered sacrifice when they liked and the book of Chronicles gives a quite unreliable where they liked, without any priestly in account of the history of Israel's worship. Both terference. This is the situation Wellhausen saw these ideas became central in the view of pen reflected in the books of Samuel and Kings. At tateuchal origins that emerged later in the cen the end of the monarchy period King Josiah in tury. So it is appropriate here to note how de tervened, limiting all worship to Jerusalem, Wette reached his conclusions, for they are fun thereby greatly enhancing the power of the damental to the new critical consensus often priests, who were now able to control the details known as the documentary hypothesis. of worship. Once the priests had this power, De Wette noted that Chronicles has much they consolidated it, and during the exile more to say about worship than Kings does, (587-537 BC) they invented all sorts ofrules and although both deal with the same historical regulations about the details of worship, the period.

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