Talk:Documentary hypothesis
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Talk:Documentary hypothesis/Archive 1
The D source is the source of the book of Deuteronomy, and likely in addition, the books of Joshua, Judges, I and II Samuel and I and II Kings. Generally speaking, the Deuteronomist emphasizes centralization of worship and governance in Jerusalem. Consider the book of the teaching - this was the book that was found in the Temple in 622 B.C.E. by the High Priest Hilkiah while the Temple was undergoing a renovation....Modern scholarship has argued convincingly that this book of the teaching was in fact Deuteronomy....Several of the Deuteronomic prescriptions that Josiah carried out were actually created for the first time shortly before he did so, in the late 8th and 7th centuries B.C.E....
The first attempt to centralize sacrifice was made about a century before Josiah by King Hezekiah (late 8th-early 7th centuries B.C.E.). Hosea (early-mid 8th century B.C.E.) was the first prophet who criticized the proliferation of altars. Earlier, no prophets or pious kings attacked or suppressed the practice, and no less a prophet than Elijah (9th century B.C.E.) built an altar and offered sacrifices on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18). As for the united national Pesach sacrifice, Kings itself says that nothing of the sort had even been done since the days of the Chieftains. If these Deuteronomic prescriptions did not exist prior to the 8th-7th centuries [B.C.E.], than Deuteronomy itself could not have existed earlier." [p.xx]
....key aspects of Josiah's reform and of Deuteronomy - centralization of sacrifice, destruction of shrines other than the Temple, and destruction of cultic pillars and sacred posts - had already been undertaken a century earlier by Hezekiah. Since Hezekiah's short-lived reformation is not said to have been based on a book, we cannot be certain than Deuteronomy existed then, but the ideas that produced the book were clearly developing. It seems likely, then, that Deuteronomy was composed in the 8th-7th centuries B.C.E." [p.xxi]
...Many features of Deuteronomy, particularly its vigorous monotheism and fervent opposition to pagan practices in Israel, are very understandable as a reaction to conditions in the 8th-7th centuries....[many examples discussed] ....However there is much in the book that seems considerable older than this. The society reflected in Deuteronomy's laws is a good deal less advanced than that of 7th century Judah. It consists primarily of farmers and herders. There are no laws about merchants, artisans, professional soldiers or other processionals. There are none dealing with commerce, real estate, or written contracts, and none dealing with commercial loans...There is no mention of royal officials or the royal power to tax and confiscate property and draft citizens....But [it does] contain some later elements. Deuteronomy in particular reflects some conditions that developed in monarchic times.
....Combining all of these chronological clues, it appears that the civil laws of Deut. go back to a time in the United Monarchy or the early divided monarchy - the tenth and nine centuries B.C.E. - during the transition from the old tribal-agrarian society to a more urbanized, monarchic one. It is difficult to tell whether Deut, selected these laws individually or in groups, or whether they were already a collection... In any case, these laws were supplemented and partly revised during the Assyrian age, primarily for the purpose of centralizing sacrificial worship and countering the threat of pagan religious belief and practice to which Israel was exposed during that time period....These connections with the northern kingdom make it seem likely that the Deuteronomic ideology crystallized there as a reform program, partly inspired by Hosea, during the final years of the kingdom as a response to the assimilatory pressures of the Assyrian age and to the excesses of the northern monarchy.....
- Warning: The above quotes are excerpted from, with minor adaptations, from the Jewish Publication Society commentary on the Torah. As such, this text is not in the public domain. It does represent a mainstream current view of Biblical scholars on the subject (including research by Christians, Jews, and others), although it is by no means the last word.
- Thank You! I really appreciate Your help.
I find the statement modern studies began in the 1800s to be arbitrary and therefore misleading. This study is centuries old. It's just in recent years the public as a whole has been less inclined to burn scholars at the stake. If I said, for example, that modern biochemistry began in the 1920s with the invention of the ultracentrifuge I might be able to defend the point, but as hemoglobins had been studied for decades earlier, I'd also be quite wrong. Dwmyers 22:32, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
- That's a fair point. Maybe the article could say that Some critical study of the Bible began centuries before the modern era, but was sporadic and not generally accepted by the public at large. Modern critical study of the Bible began to be widely published and accepted in the 1800s. Or something like this. RK 02:45, Nov 21, 2003 (UTC)
- More so, the recent partitioning by JeMa disturbs me. I know he excised material from the article on Dating the Bible which in my opinion belongs there. I ended up reverting the bulk of what I wrote that he edited. He's also divided the scholars into classes and in some cases gotten the classes wrong. For one, Rentdorff is not an oral traditionalist, but holds yet another view, and I'm not sure that JeMa's subdivisioning of scholars adds anything to this article.
<p>In terms of scholastic division, this article still continues to suffer from identifying Baruch nee Benedict Spinoza as a Christian, as well.<p><p>Continuing on the problems of the latest revisions, the pre-JeMa orientation of this article had a clear historical narrative that bordered on "beautiful writing", and JeMa has changed that. History has been pushed to the rear of the article and the fact that people have been studying this problem for centuries is diminished as a result. It's as if the study is being "modernized" when that apparent modernization ignores the centuries of work others did.Dwmyers 15:13, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
- Ok, my mistake. The moving of historical material "south" predates JeMa. But more to the point, the original orientation of this article had what amounts to an introduction and historical narrative, focused on Jewish scholars but still, you could watch the evolution of ideas through the time frame in the text. I think the article gave short shrift to people the original author didn't consider good Jews (this is why Spinoza has been lumped in with the Christians) but that could be fixed. What I think I'm going to do is remove the heading from the various scholars, and see if there isn't a way to show that Rentdorff isn't an oral traditionalist, because some editor thought he was... Dwmyers 15:30, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
- More so, the recent partitioning by JeMa disturbs me. I know he excised material from the article on Dating the Bible which in my opinion belongs there. I ended up reverting the bulk of what I wrote that he edited. He's also divided the scholars into classes and in some cases gotten the classes wrong. For one, Rentdorff is not an oral traditionalist, but holds yet another view, and I'm not sure that JeMa's subdivisioning of scholars adds anything to this article.
One more point (nag, nag, nag, I know). The discussion of Bloom presents him as some kind of disciple of Friedman. It makes for a nicely told urban legend, but it diminshes Bloom and is probably factually incorrect. Harold Bloom isn't a biblical scholar, he's a highly regarded literary critic and I rather doubt he is one of Frank Cross's graduate students, as Friedman and Baruch Halpern are. Dwmyers 15:53, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Finally! I can enunciate the Spinoza problem more accurately. The problem is that the 2 paragraphs of text in Traditional Christian Scholarship aren't both about traditional Christian scholarship. The first paragraph is indeed about traditional Christian scholarship, but the second paragraph is more about 17th century scholastic views of the topic than about purely Christian views of the topic. <p><p>Section 2.2, Internal Textual Evidence, has been turned into a kind of orphan with the new reorganization. It's clearly out of place. Dwmyers 16:26, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
The recent edits which place Rolf Rentdorff among the "oral traditionalists", are simply incorrect. Rolf is nothing of the sort. He believes in a more extensive breakdown of documentary sources, and not in that the souces have an oral character. Any reading of Blenkinsopp's book will show that clearly. Harold Bloom, likewise, is clearly not a student of Friedmann's, though the text seems to suggest that. Bloom is a literary critic, Friedman is a scholar in the area. Dwmyers 16:26, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Richard E Friedman has a new book out, called The Bible With Sources Revealed. The ISBN number is ISBN 0060530693. It just came on sale on the 25th of November, and those who like this kind of scholarship may be interested in the book. It's on my Amazon wish list, for one. Dwmyers 18:46, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I have removed this paragraph, which was contributed by an anonymou user:
- The hypothesis also contains a number of tenets which do not coordinate with archaeology. Archaeology has found little evidence supporting the hypothesis, although between 1960 and 2000 archaeologists have made discoveries that contradict tenets of the hypothesis. Periodicals such as Near Eastern Archaeology should be studied before drawing conclusions. Also important is Umberto Cassuto's The Documentary Hypothesis and The Composition of the Pentateuch; Eight Lectures and his fuller work on all of Genesis.