_{Handout 63}

Scholarly Reaction to Wellhausen’s Explanation of JEDP & the Pentateuch:

The Very Mixed Reactions to Wellhausen’s Views
The “Assured Results” of Biblical Criticism
The Proposed Subdivisions of Some of the Four Sources of the Pentateuch
The Rise of Other Fields of Biblical Criticism (see further the next handout)
The Particular Study of “Covenant” and “Treaty” in the OT and the ANE

A. Recap:

To be clear, Julius Wellhausen did not introduce the idea of underlying sources to the Pentateuch, nor was he the first to propose that there were four main ones, nor was he the first to put them into the sequence J-E-D-P. His main work was published in 1878. Again, Wellhausen ‘s main ‘contribution’ was:

Wellhausen worked up a reconstructed history of Israel, and then linked the sources JEDP to that reconstructed history.
In particular, that reconstructed history of Israel described the evolution of Israel’s religion.

The four sources come from and reflect the stages of the evolution of Israel’s religion.

A related claim of Wellhausen’s was that, unlike the bewildering, senseless Pentateuch, the four documents which he identified did each make sense. That is to say –

Each one was coherent (they made sense, and told a reasonably complete story); and,
Each one was consistent (in terms of its terminology & its theological perspective).

Wellhausen’s explanation of the origin of the Pentateuch from J, E, D & P in light of the proposed evolution of Israel’s religion quickly became the standard form of the documentary hypothesis.

B. The Very Mixed Scholarly Reaction to Wellhausen’s Views:

Wellhausen’s formulation remained the dominant view within critical scholarship for decades. His position is often called the “classical” or “mature” expression of the documentary hypothesis. Even though aspects of it have been and are now vigorously debated–even by other critical scholars–it remains highly influential to this day, and is commonly taught in universities and colleges. No other suggestion has truly replaced it.

Nonetheless, reactions to it then, and now, have been quite mixed.

The names and details of the counter-arguments raised by critical scholars are beyond what is useful for the purposes of the present course. A detailed summary of much of it is available in R. K. Harrison’s Introduction to the Old Testament (Eerdmans, 1969, pp. 19–61). Harrison is a conservative with a high regard for the Scriptures.

To note: Harrison's work dates to 1969, so it is considered "dated" by scholarly standards; it does not take into account developments in the field in the last 40-50 years. However(!), it is well-researched and well-written, and what it describes about the reaction to Wellhausen up until the 1960's remains accurate and entirely useful.

A shorter more recent summary is available in Joseph Blenkinsopp, The Pentateuch (a volume in the Anchor Bible Reference Library; 1992, Doubleday, pp. 1–30). Blenkinsopp is a moderate conservative.

We will present the conservative replies to = against Wellhausen’s views in a subsequent handout.

We will summarize what are often referred to as the “assured results of biblical criticism” in the next section of the present handout, just below.

After that, we will look at three other developments that resulted from Wellhausen’s work.

C. The “Assured Results” of Biblical Criticism:

Critical scholars were so confident of the mature expression of JEDP / the documentary hypothesis, that they sometimes spoke of the “assured results” of biblical criticism. Among the “assured results” were:

The main features of the documentary hypothesis itself (that the Pentateuch came from multiple sources and that Moses was not its author), along with some specific details, such as:
The main part of “D” dates to the reign of King Josiah (esp. 621 BC).
The Levitical laws & the priestly code (“P”) do not come from Moses; they originated some 1,000 years later. They are exilic or post-exilic in origin, and were introduced by Ezra when he read them to the people in Jerusalem after the exile (444 BC, Nehemiah 8).
The final assured result was that the Pentateuch was compiled from the four sources “J”, “E”, “D”, & “P”, and was edited into its present form after the exile by one or more priestly redactors.

Within the general field of critical scholarship, the seeming success of source criticism led to the search for other possible sub-sources within the four main documents, as well as the rise of other specific fields of biblical criticism.

D. Some Proposed Sub-sources of the Four Sources of the Pentateuch:

In view of the fact that Wellhausen and scholars before him had identified source documents within the Pentateuch based on factors such as: consistency in their names, terminology, and theology, other critical scholars used these criteria and continued to read the Pentateuch looking to identify sources within the four main ones. These can be found in the work by Blenkinsopp mentioned above (pp. 13 & 14), and Gleason Archer, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction (3rd edition, 1994, Chicago, Moody Press, p. 99).

Among the proposed sub-sources were:

No, you do not need to learn these; but we will make a point from them in the handout labelled Conservative Replies to Wellhausen.

Rudolph Smend divided the “J” source into J1 and J2.
Otto Procksch divided the “E” into E1 and E2.
Otto Eissfeldt identified an L source within “J”.
Julius Morgenstern identified a K source within “J”.
Robert Pfeifer identified an S strand within “J”.
Georg Fohrer suggested an N source within “J”.
Gerhard von Rad divided “P” into Pa and Pb.

There were actually more such suggestions. But the list above is sufficient to make a point we will make more fully in the handout labeled “Conservative Replies to Wellhausen,” namely, the problem of “alphabet soup” (Blenkinsopp, Pentateuch, p. 14).

E. The Rise of other Fields of Biblical Criticism:

Another result that was encouraged by the seeming success of the documentary hypothesis was the rise of other fields of biblical criticism. The list of such fields grows and sometimes changes over the years; there are many. In brief, the following four are the most pertinent ones for our purposes:

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Form Criticism –

Rather than looking for large running sources (like J, E, D, & P), it seeks to analyze and compare the smallest possible literary units: a story, a parable, a psalm, a saying, etc.

Redaction Criticism –

On the assumption that originally separate sources were combined and edited ("redacted") to make a one resulting document, redaction criticism asks: What was the purpose, the intent, of the redactor / the editor? What effect / message was the redactor trying to achieve?

Some form of Literary Criticism –

this approach reads a book of the Bible in its finished form = its canonical form, and seeks to understand → What is the message of this book? What is the message of the text as it stands? However(!), a literary-critical approach does not read the books as a part of a larger canon; it reads each as an independent work of literature. Also, it makes no assessment as to whether the message of the book is true; it simply seeks to identify the message of the book, as it stands; that's all.

The Canonical Approach –

This approach is sometimes called "canonical criticism," but it is not really a "critical" approach in the normal use of the term, which is why it is better called "the canonical approach." The canonical approach seeks to read a book of the Bible: (1) in its final = canonical form (not a reconstructed form); and (2) as a part of the overall canon of Scripture (this makes it different from "literary criticism").

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F. The Resulting Study of “Covenant” and “Treaty” in the OT and the ANE:

Recall that one other conclusion of Wellhausen was this: The large majority of the laws of the Pentateuch did not go back to Moses, but were written late in or even after the exile. Therefore, for Wellhausen, the full body of those laws was not the foundation of the nation of Israel, but rather, laid the foundation for Pharisaic, legalistic, Judaism. Wellhausen did not view the final stage of the Pentateuch as a step upward morally, spiritually, or theologically, but as a step downward toward a legalistic, ritualistic approach to God. Closely related to this was Wellhausen’s view of Israel’s treaty-covenant with Yahweh.

Please remember, for Wellhausen, there was no such covenant. It was not the case that , because for rationalists, that would be impossible. Rather, for Wellhausen, Israel's religion had evolved to the point where Israel thought of itself as being in a covenant with Yahweh>.</pre>

So, in Wellhausen's assessment, how did Israel understand this covenant?

Wellhausen characteristically translated the OT term that we commonly translate "covenant" with the German word for "treaty" (Vertrag, pronounced: fair'-trog). [To reflect Wellhausen's understanding of it, in these handouts I have often referred to it as Israel's treaty-covenant with Yahweh.] The term "treaty" sends a meaningfully different signal than the term "covenant." The term "covenant" is associated with God's loving, dependable concern for Israel. The term "treaty," on the other hand, is essentially a negotiated business deal.

There were several scholars who contemplated Wellhausen's conclusions about the _priestly redaction of the Pentateuch_, and his view of Israel's treaty-covenant with Yahweh, and asked: Was the final word of the Old Testament truly Pharisaic, legalistic Judaism? Was it really the very form of religion which Jesus rejected?

Was Israel's "treaty" with God so radically different from the new covenant described in the New Testament? Are the Old Testament the New Testament truly that divorced from each other?

So while some scholars looked for more sources within sources, and others developed new fields of biblical criticism, yet other scholars investigated OT covenants and ANE treaties, to seek to identify how Israel's covenant with Yahweh should really be understood. This endeavor went on throughout the 1900's and yielded some very useful clarifications & results. As a result of those studies we now understand the covenants of the Bible better. And your prof will argue that, at least in this one area, the results have improved our understanding of the Bible, and from that, have improved our theology. This was an unexpected positive indirect outcome of Wellhausen's work.

The views of the nature of covenants, and of the three basic kinds of covenants in the OT and the ANE that your professor has presented in this course and others, have been informed by and have benefitted from the results of those studies.

In the next handout, we will briefly look at some of the other fields of biblical criticism that have developed following source criticism. In specific, we will look at the four mentioned in § E above.

Scholarly Reaction JEDP & the Pentateuch

Week 5