Documentary Hypothesis

TheTorah.com engages the Documentary and Supplementary Hypotheses, source, redaction, and textual criticism, and even offers moral critiques of Torah laws and narratives, but what is Steinberg really trying to accomplish?

YHWH instructs Moses to carve a second set of tablets and come up the mountain (Exodus 34). YHWH then presents a set of laws, including: Don’t intermarry with the Canaanites; don’t make idols; and do observe Matzot, Shabbat, Shavuot, Ingathering, and Passover. What is the nature of this collection of laws?

Clue: Seven pairs of kosher animals are brought to the ark so that Noah can sacrifice to YHWH after the flood.

Deuteronomy cannot accept that Israel, under YHWH’s command, had to bypass Seir because the Edomite king would not allow them to pass through (Numbers 20). Thus, Deuteronomy has Israel wandering aimlessly, skirting Seir in a southward march away from Canaan (E) while waiting for the exodus generation to die for the sin of the spies (J).  

YHWH continuously tests Israel in the wilderness with water, manna, and quail. When they fail, YHWH threatens to leave them and then punishes them with fire and plague. J's depiction of YHWH as an emotional deity is already reflected in the stories of Eden and the flood.

Was the Tabernacle constructed only in response to the golden calf? Rashi and Nachmanides’s disagreement on this fundamental question highlights the structural problem in the second half of the book of Exodus, created when the compiler of the Torah interwove the E and P sources.

When the Egyptians pursue Israel into the wilderness, Moses tells the Israelites to “stand by and witness the deliverance which YHWH will work for you today” (Exodus 14:13). YHWH brings panic upon the enemy, as he does in the battle of Gibeon and the war against Sisera. This is J’s story of Israel’s escape, hidden in the biblical accounts of the escape by the sea.

When YHWH tells Abraham that Sodom and Gomorrah are to be destroyed, Abraham pleads for their lives without mentioning Lot. Why? The answer is in the sources describing Lot’s accompanying of Abram to Canaan and their eventual separation.

Julius Wellhausen’s analysis of the Torah is perfused with the anti-Jewish sentiment prevalent in Bismarck’s Second German Reich. This adversely affected the use of the Documentary Hypothesis among Jewish scholars until Yehezkel’s Kaufmann’s introduction of a Jewish variation on the theory.

The story of the ancestors in Genesis serves as a prequel to that of Moses in Exodus. Originally, however, each were self-standing accounts of Israel’s origin. They were combined for the first time by the Priestly author in the post-exilic period.

The evidence seems compelling.

In the introductory verses of the Akedah (Binding of Isaac), God refers to Isaac as Abraham’s only son, ignoring the existence of Ishmael. Ishmael’s absence has bothered even the earliest readers of the text, but a documentary approach obviates the problem. The key is understanding the relationship between Abraham and Hagar.

Noah’s name expresses his father’s hope that Noah will bring comfort from the pain of the curse of the land, and before he plants his vineyard, he is called “a man of the land” (איש האדמה). These and other verses point to an older core narrative which spoke not of a flood but of a primeval famine that Noah brings to an end.

The merging of two different accounts of Jacob’s return home is reflected in the double etymologies for Mahanaim and Penuel. Why do both sources have Jacob pass through these two cities one after the other? The answer lies in geography.

Joseph, sold by two different groups (Midianites and Ishmaelites), seems to have been bought by two different men (Potiphar, captain of the guard, and an unnamed Egyptian man), leading to two discrete storylines, each of which place Joseph in a different position when he meets the cupbearer and the baker.

The plague of blood developed as a mythological amplification of an older account in which Moses strikes the Nile to kill the fish and make the water stink.

Demonstrating God’s control of the world

Bringing Parashat Vayechi to Life

Why do the Israelites name their first stop Marah “Bitter Waters,” if the story is about how Moses miraculously made the water sweet?

Set in between two stories that describe Sarah as old and withered is the episode of Abimelech taking Sarah. Why does he desire her?

Many Orthodox Jews believe that God composed the Torah, and feel no need to inquire further. Nevertheless, it does occurs to me to inquire further, and find a respectful answer to the question of how people, including myself, come to this belief. An honest question beats a dishonest answer, even if the dishonest answer produces much more comfort.

When God reveals the name YHWH to Moses in Exodus, he says that not even the patriarchs knew this name, yet they all use it in Genesis. Critical scholarship’s solution to this problem led to one of the most important academic innovations in biblical studies in the last three hundred years: the Documentary Hypothesis.

On a mountain, in a valley, no one knows – the three traditions about where Moses is buried in Deuteronomy 34 stem from three different sources.

Sharing his religious journey into biblical scholarship, a young married Hasidic man challenges the Modern Orthodox world to lead where his community cannot. 

Four accounts of revelation and laws, but one religion

Before Moses dies, he asks God for a leader who will “come and go” before the people. God’s response is unequivocal: appoint Joshua. Nevertheless, as the narrative continues, God places Joshua under Elazar the priest, a clear sign of later redaction. When was this change made and why?

From Judges to Tefillin, the Hagaddah to Kol Nidrei – Jewish Tradition has preserved or harmonized different opinions: An idea reflected in Torah as understood by the Documentary Hypothesis

Bewildered, Rashi asks why Deuteronomy records Aaron’s death at Moserah (not Mt. Hor) and why it does so in the middle of Moses’ description of his (second) forty-day stay upon Mount Horeb. Academic biblical scholarship sheds light on these questions.

On his way to Haran, Jacob stops at a place, later named Beth-El, and sees in a dream angels going up and down a staircase to the gateway of heaven. In the story, Jacob also notices YHWH standing beside him and YHWH speaks to him. Examined closely, this short story is beset with literary difficulties that suggest it is composed of two independent narratives.

A classic example of source criticism applied to Torah legislation.

The tribes of Reuben and Gad ask Moses for permission to settle in the Transjordan (Num 32). A look at this lengthy narrative, what exactly they request and what Moses answers, uncovers several contradictions and inconsistencies. Separating the contradictory elements in the story allows for the identification of two parallel accounts.

An ancient quote, preserved in Jephthah’s speech to the King of Ammon, gives us a clue into the methods of the Torah’s redaction and the status of pre-pentateuchal sources.

An inductive approach.

A closer look at the thematic and verbal parallels between the accounts of the flood and the destruction of Sodom, as well as comparison with other ANE flood/destruction stories, helps us better understand the genre and function of the Sodom story.

According to the Torah: Does God split the sea? Do the Israelites cross it? What is the wind for? Where are the Egyptians when they drown?

The older Northern version of the Jacob story was heavily supplemented by later Southern authors, yielding more sons of Jacob, new explanations of their names, and a much more fecund Leah.

The joy of unraveling the Torah’s mysteries

The Joseph story provides a compelling case for the use of source-critical methods for unraveling intertwined stories in the biblical text.

Exodus narrates three distinct conceptions of God’s relationship to Pharaoh’s stubbornness: God was surprised, God knew beforehand, and God was the direct cause.  The final conception reflects the Priestly redaction of the Torah, whose authors were unwilling to leave the destiny of the plagues up to Pharaoh’s own heart.

Is Moses raised by an Egyptian princess? Does he kill an Egyptian man? Does he run away to Midian and marry the daughter of a Midianite priest? Not according to P, which cleanses Moses of these problematic elements.

Four Answers to One Question

An introduction to the Diatessaron, and its significance to biblical studies, particularly the Documentary Hypothesis.

“I settled the Israelite people in booths,” כִּי בַסֻּכּוֹת הוֹשַׁבְתִּי אֶת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל – Leviticus 23:43

Deuteronomy 1:1 describes the place where Moses gave his address with a list of several toponyms. Early commentators interpreted these toponyms as Moses’ hidden rebuke, while peshat commentators from Bekhor Shor to R. David Zvi Hoffmann tried to fit them into their context. A geographic and source critical analysis suggests that this is an itinerary list, reflecting an alternative account of Israel’s travels through the Transjordan.

Traditional and critical scholars agree that the Ohel Moed “Tent of Meeting” Moses erects in Exodus 33 is not the same as the Ohel Moed Tabernacle referenced in other biblical texts. But what is it?

Traditional commentators endued certain Torah references with midrashic or esoteric purport in an effort to counteract those who mocked them. But in so doing, they were conceding the mockers’ evaluation of these texts as being, prima facie, inconsequential. Fortunately, source criticism helps us accept these texts without discomfort, obviating the compulsion to interpret them away.