The Undead Hypothesis: Why the Documentary Hypothesis is the Frankenstein of Biblical Studies Duane Garrett Duane Garrett is a professor of Old A stock feature of the classic “grade B” established result of biblical scholarship Testament at Gordon Conwell Theologi- horror movie is the undead creature who in universities and theological schools cal Seminary. He has served the Inter- relentlessly stalks innocent people and around the world. Books and mono- national Mission Board by teaching in terrorizes an otherwise quiet village. graphs rooted in it still frequently appear. Southern Baptist seminaries in both Whether it be Frankenstein, the Mummy, Laughably, some of these books are Korea and Canada. Dr. Garrett is the Dracula, or simply crude, grotesque zom- touted for their “startling new interpre- author of many articles and books, bies with rotting flesh falling off their tations” of the history of the Bible while including two Old Testament commen- limbs and faces, these villains share a in fact doing little more than repackaging taries in the New American Commen- common trait. They all have already died old ideas.1 If the sheer volume of litera- tary series. He is currently working on a and usually have already been buried. But ture on a hypothesis were a demonstra- commentary on the Song of Solomon then, either through the blunder of some tion of its veracity, the documentary for the Word Biblical Commentary investigator or the work of some evil hypothesis would indeed be well estab- series. genius, they rise and walk again. The lished.2 Nevertheless, while the dead dilemma posed by these undead mon- hand of the documentary hypothesis still sters is obvious: How do you kill some- dominates Old Testament scholarship as one who is already dead? its official orthodoxy, the cutting edge A similar creature stalks the halls of research of recent years has typically been biblical studies. It is routinely raised up highly critical of the theory.3 from the grave in classrooms and it In 1991 I published Rethinking Genesis,4 haunts textbooks and monographs that which was one of a number of books pub- deal with the Hebrew Scriptures. Wher- lished within about a decade to challenge ever it roams, it distorts the analysis of the the documentary hypothesis and suggest text of the Bible, confounds readers, and a new approach to the background of produces strange and irrational interpre- Genesis. Notwithstanding the fact that tations. This undead creature sometimes this work and several major challenges to goes by the quasi-mystical sounding the hypothesis from established critical sobriquet “the JEDP theory,” but it is bet- scholars received some significant atten- ter known by its formal name, the docu- tion—but virtually no rebuttals speaking mentary hypothesis. in favor of the documentary hypothesis The time has come for scholars to rec- —J, E, D, and P continue to be paraded ognize that the documentary hypothesis before university students as the original is dead. The arguments that support it documents behind the Pentateuch. have been dismantled by scholars of Evangelical readers should not be san- many stripes—many of whom have no guine about this fact. Despite the assur- theological commitment to the Bible. The ances of some quasi-confessional scholars theory is, however, still taught as an that it really does not matter where Gen- 28 esis comes from, the documentary after K. H. Graf and Julius Wellhausen, hypothesis is fundamentally incompatible who gave it its classic expression.5 In the with belief in even a minimal historical English-speaking world, the theory was core of the Pentateuch. If the hypothesis popularized especially by S. R. Driver. is true, then the Pentateuch is essentially fiction. Worse than that, it is a confused, The Documentary Hypothesis self-contradictory fiction with no unified Briefly Described theological message. It is with this in The theory asserts that behind the mind that I return to this topic and seek Pentateuch are four source documents, to make readers of this journal aware of called J (Yahwist), E (Elohist), D (Deu- the basic issues. teronomist), and P (Priestly Code). J, the oldest, begins at Genesis 2:4b and The Background of the includes large portions of Genesis as well Documentary Hypothesis as portions of Exodus and Numbers and The documentary hypothesis began a few short texts in Deuteronomy. It is with the speculations of Jean Astruc often dated to the early monarchy period (1684–1766), who suggested that he could and is thought to have its provenance in uncover the sources of the Pentateuch by Judah. In Genesis, J refers to God as using the divine names Yahweh (“the Yahweh for, according to the hypothesis, LORD”) and Elohim (“God”) as a guide. He J believed that people began using the placed passages that use the name Elohim name Yahweh early in the antediluvian in one column (A), those that use Yahweh period (Gen 4:26, a J text). As a theologi- in another (B), and passages with “repeti- cal statement, J is often regarded as the tions” in a third column (C), and inter- work of a great, original thinker who gave polations in a fourth column (D). His shape to the Old Testament idea of the suggestion led scholars to believe that the history of salvation. distinction in the divine names—that is, E is somewhat later than J but follows whether a given text calls the Deity the same basic story line as J. Genesis 15 “Yahweh” or Elohim—was the primary is the first extant E text. E comes from the marker of the origin of that text. Using northern kingdom. In Genesis, E refers this basic criterion, scholars accounted for to God as Elohim rather than Yahweh the development of the Pentateuch as it because, according to E, the name Yahweh exists today in various ways. Some sug- was not revealed until the exodus period gested a “fragmentary hypothesis” (Exod 3:15, an E text). E is more sensitive (which asserts that the Pentateuch was to moral issues than J but it views God as compiled from a mass of fragmentary somewhat more distant from man. J and sources) while others postulated a “sup- E were subsequently redacted into a plemental hypothesis” (which asserts that single document by RJE (R = “redactor”). a single document lies at the core of the In the redaction, much of the E material Pentateuch, but that many fragmentary was edited out and thus lost to posterity. sources have been added to it). But the D was written at the time of Josiah’s triumphant theory of Pentateuchal origins reformation and is essentially the book of was the documentary hypothesis, often Deuteronomy. According to 2 Kings 22, called the Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis Hilkiah the priest found a copy of the law 29 of Moses when the temple was being and the ancient Near Eastern world of the restored. In the documentary hypothesis, text itself. In addition, scholars were however, Deuteronomy was actually willing to tolerate a glaring inconsistency written at this time as a kind of pious in their approach to the problem. They fraud to justify Josiah’s reformation. D assumed that each document writer (such does not have a characteristic divine name as J) aimed to produce a single, con- but uses both Yahweh and Elohim. The tinuous history but would tolerate no redactor RD subsequently combined the inconsistency, repetition, or narrative texts JE and D. digressions. They believed that the redac- P was written in the postexilic period. tors, however, were oblivious to con- It begins at Genesis 1:1 and includes large tradiction and repetition when they portions of Genesis, Exodus, and Num- combined the documents. bers and all of Leviticus. It is said to Stylistic differences enable scholars to dis- represent the triumph of the postexilic tinguish one source text from another. Early priesthood and it attempts to justify their advocates of the documentary hypothesis form of worship and codify their religion. felt they could easily separate one text In Genesis, P refers to God as Elohim since, from another on the basis of style. P, for like E, it assumes that the divine name example, is said to have a formal, seg- Yahweh was first revealed at the exodus mented, and rather aloof style while J is (Exod 6:3, a P text). It is dominated by supposed to have written in a flowing and genealogies, priestly regulations, and a dramatic narrative style. This perception very formal manner of narration. P was is reinforced by the fact that formal texts soon redacted into JED by RP. The (such as Genesis 1, descriptions of the tab- Pentateuch was thus formed.6 ernacle and its offerings, and genealogies) are routinely assigned to P while texts Defining Principles of the such as Genesis 2—4 are for the most part Documentary Hypothesis assigned to J. But this is more a matter of One must recognize that according to content than of style. The whole Penta- this theory the four documents were each teuch is in standard (albeit somewhat composed first of all as independent, con- lofty) biblical Hebrew. tinuous, single narrations and only later Ancient editors (redactors) simply were brought together and edited into the conflated their source documents without present work. The scholars who devel- attempting to correct obvious contradictions oped the documentary hypothesis either or smooth out problems created by joining the explicitly or implicitly followed a number documents together. That is, the redactors of basic principles in their research. simply merged the texts at hand by the It is easy to determine the purposes and “scissors-and-paste” method of cutting methods behind the documents and redactions.