March 2025
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Paperback / $6.00 / 55 Pages
(Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis / Documentary Hypothesis)
Historical Setting
For recent generations of Christians, the message of the gospel has been compromised in many circles by ‘higher critical analysis’ of the Bible texts. Rejecting the truth claims of authority and inspiration of Scripture, many Biblical scholars from the nineteenth century on, began to interpret the Bible texts in terms of subjective criteria designed to separate those documents into fragments. Such techniques have been applied to many books of the Bible including the Old Testament prophets, the New Testament gospels and many epistles of the apostle Paul and others.
In commentary under the “Introduction to the Prophetic Books: Scholarly Issues” in the New English Version Study Bible, for example, we read “For centuries most scholars basically accepted that the Prophetic Books were written by the persons whose names are mentioned at the beginning of the books. They did so because they held traditional beliefs about the inspiration and authority of the Bible, yet also because the books are as well attested by other ancient sources and as coherent in content and style, as any surviving ancient books”…… but concerning the new views, further in this chapter we read “Many of the critical scholars also concluded that the OT [Old Testament] prophets did not predict future events in the manner that the NT [New Testament] claims. Rather, in their view the prophets wrote about events in their own day, but NT writers applied these texts to Jesus, the church and other subjects. Thus, the unity of the OT and the NT, which Jesus and Paul portrayed as affirming, simply does not exist. Church tradition may treat the Bible as a unity, but, they argued, historical research does not confirm that belief.”
None of these critical trends however has had as big an impact on the faith of Christians as the critical analysis of the Pentateuch (first five books of the Bible) and especially the treatment of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, which naturally sets the foundation for all the truth claims that follow.
Following the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, some European scholars, especially in Germany, began to look at how the text of Genesis was organized. A French professor of anatomy at Toulouse, Jean Astruc (1684-1766) noticed that there are two names for God used in the Hebrew text of Genesis. These are Yahweh and Elohim. Speculating that these names perhaps came from disparate documents, he began to divide the Hebrew text into separate pieces, one collection using the name Yahweh, and the other Elohim. He separated out other portions of the text into other columns on the basis of other criteria. For this medical doctor, this was perhaps just an interesting mental exercise.
About 100 years later, German Old Testament scholar K. H. Graf used the documentary techniques of Astruc and others to declare that parts of the Pentateuch (called Priestly documents) were written about 500 years later than the documents using the name Elohim. This was a big departure from the understanding that Moses was the author of the whole Pentateuch (which is attested to by the whole Bible including New Testament references).
Another German scholar Julius Wellhausen, used the same approach to propose an entirely new understanding of Genesis. Called the Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis, or the Documentary Hypothesis or JEPD, this technique applied the following criteria to the analysis of Genesis. (J stands for Yahwist documents, E stands for Elohist, D stands for Deuteronomist, and P stands for Priestly Code).
Wellhausen’s particular criteria for analysis of Genesis were as follows:
1) an evolutionary approach to Israelite history. The customs and monotheistic picture of God in the text only came about as a result of a long history of changing views. This approach indicated that Wellhausen did not believe in revealed truth. Ancient peoples developed the ideas in Genesis as time went on.
2) Wellhausen believed that the stylistic criteria that he used for distinguishing the various document sources, were valid ones.
3) Wellhausen assumed that some documents were much older than others and that he could figure out which were which. He also assumed that there were redactors (editors) who spliced the documents together according to criteria which might or might not have been similar to those of the authors of the original documents.
4) Lastly Wellhausen assumed that this process could reasonably reveal the past to him. [These criteria are outlined by Duane Garrett p. 16. See book reference further on.]
The JEPD documentary hypothesis spread like wildfire through the educated world. Even today it is considered to be the mainstay of ‘critical orthodoxy’ or in other words the modern scholarly view of Genesis. As a result, this view is taught in most evangelical and Protestant seminaries today.
Ramifications of the JEPD view of Genesis
Many people in academia naturally like to be au courant (up to date) with the latest techniques and research results. Unfortunately, many Biblical scholars did not seek to evaluate the assumptions, methods and conclusions of the documentary hypothesis. Instead, they embraced the whole approach. Except for conservative apologists, the results of this approach are as follows.
Wellhausen argued that none of the Genesis documents provides any reliable information about Moses, the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph and of course none concerning origins. He declared that the only time which we can conclude anything from the documents, is the time of the kings or the later exile (none of which is discussed in Genesis.) [Hamilton pp. 17, 20] Other experts with similar views to Wellhausen have declared that the promises of Genesis were all inserted into the text at the time of the exile when the editors/redactors wanted to establish the validity of the Jews as a definable people with claims to a specific landscape (Israel). [Hamilton p. 26] [Victor P. Hamilton. 1990. The Book of Genesis Chapters 1-17. New International Commentary on the Old Testament with R. K Harrison, general editor. Eerdmans.] [R. K. Harrison (1920 – 1993) is another eminent Old Testament scholar, latterly based at the University of Toronto, who supported the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch.]
So much for the truth claims of any sort in Genesis, no historicity of the creation or of the patriarchs. No truth claims to God’s promises to Eve and to the patriarchs in Genesis. According to this approach there is no interest in Genesis from an apologetics point of view (no foundational doctrines like the fall of Adam) and no interest in origins such as the creation account since these ideas are presumed to have developed over time and thus are not revealed truth.
Not everybody went along with the Graf-Wellhausen views. Conservative Biblical scholars (very much in a minority) have fought back and they evaluate the assumptions, methods and conclusions and find them seriously wanting.
Conservative Response
Conservative scholars have vigorously defended the traditional understanding of Genesis and the whole Bible. Such Old Testament scholars as E. J. Young (1907-1968) of Westminster Theological Seminary and Jewish scholar Umberto Cassuto (1883-1951) articulately argued for the unity of Genesis and the whole Pentateuch. They suggested that the Documentary Hypothesis is a figment of the Enlightenment European mind. [Douglas Kelly. 1997. Creation and Change: Genesis 1.1-2.4 in the light of changing scientific paradigms. Mentor. p. 54]
One current Old Testament specialist is Duane Garrett who authored Rethinking Genesis: the Sources and Authorship of the First Book of the Pentateuch. Baker Books. 1991. Dr. Garrett points out concerning Cassuto’s work: “the phenomenon of the interchange of Yahweh and Elohim can be explained far more satisfactorily and simply without resort to source criticism. Umberto makes the point that the two names bring out different aspects of the character of God. Yahweh is the covenant name of God, which emphasizes his special relationship to Israel. Elohim speaks of God’s universality as God of all earth. To put it simply, Elohim is what God is [creator] and Yahweh is who he is.” (Garrett p. 19)
For his part, E. J. Young declares that there is a unity to the Pentateuch that the documentary hypothesis does not satisfactorily explain. (p. 35) [E. J. Young. 1970. In “History of the literary criticism of the Pentateuch” in The New Bible Commentary revised. Edited by D. Guthrie and J. A. Motyer. Intervarsity Press.] One of the things that Dr. Young points out is that the system established by Graf-Wellhausen, does not work. Thus “In at least five chapters of Genesis the Deity is not mentioned at all, and yet these chapters are divided among J, P (E1) and E2 . Obviously, criteria other than divine names must be employed. In seventeen chapters of Genesis and Exodus 1 and 2, the name Yahweh does not occur and yet it is asserted that portions of J are found in each of these chapters. …. It would appear that the names are not adequately distributed throughout Genesis to form the basis for division or partition into documents.” (p. 35)
In his book Duane Garrett, a southern Baptist with ties in the past to Alberta, emphatically declared that the Graf-Wellhausen theory as a starting point for continuous research is dead – effectively demolished by scholars from many different theological perspectives and areas of expertise. And yet, he informed us, the documentary hypothesis has remained the mainstay of critical orthodoxy – or the favoured scholarly position. (p. 13) Garrett also insists that there is massive evidence (his emphasis) that Genesis is a unity, not the result of documents spliced together. (p. 30). He had already declared that the documentary hypothesis can no longer be considered valid in any sense. (p. 8)
Finally, E. J. Young reflected on what happens to many seminary students who have embraced the techniques and conclusions of the Documentary Hypothesis. “When, however, the student departs from the direct claims of the Bible itself, he finds that he is involved in serious difficulty. None of the theories mentioned really does justice to the facts of Scripture. It is only when the claims of the Bible (including its claim that, in the ultimate and most real sense, God is its Author) are taken at face value that one can do justice to Scripture.” (p. 40)
Summary
Conservative Christians insist that Moses wrote the Pentateuch (first five books of the Bible including Genesis), inspired by God, and that this account is historically accurate. Those people impressed by the higher critics deny the authorship of Moses and the historicity of the account. Concerning Moses, Garrett wrote: “in the face of biblical evidence that Moses was highly educated (reared in Pharaoh’s household) and the father of the new nation, one cannot doubt that he was a figure of sufficient stature to have written the law.” (p. 84) Moreover, Edward J. Young declared: “There are positive claims made in the Bible that the Law [entire Pentateuch] is from Moses. In the Pentateuch itself there are express statements to the effect that Moses did write what God commanded of him….. If the first five books of the Bible were put together in the manner which this [documentary] hypothesis demands, it is difficult, if not impossible to understand how the result could be the unity which the Pentateuch actually does exhibit.” (p. 35) (And a contemporary of Dr. Young – in the same volume on p. 41 similarly declared concerning such critical views: “The dominant theory of Pentateuchal criticism combines two strands, the documentary and the developmental theories, both of which are based on the supposition of large-scale contradictions in the Old Testament.”)
So do not be intimidated by the so-called academic status of the Documentary Hypothesis. The Bible’s testimony tells us that those claims are false.
Related Resources
Order Online
Paperback / $12.00 / 295 Pages / line drawings
(Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis / Documentary Hypothesis)
Historical Setting
For recent generations of Christians, the message of the gospel has been compromised in many circles by ‘higher critical analysis’ of the Bible texts. Rejecting the truth claims of authority and inspiration of Scripture, many Biblical scholars from the nineteenth century on, began to interpret the Bible texts in terms of subjective criteria designed to separate those documents into fragments. Such techniques have been applied to many books of the Bible including the Old Testament prophets, the New Testament gospels and many epistles of the apostle Paul and others.
In commentary under the “Introduction to the Prophetic Books: Scholarly Issues” in the New English Version Study Bible, for example, we read “For centuries most scholars basically accepted that the Prophetic Books were written by the persons whose names are mentioned at the beginning of the books. They did so because they held traditional beliefs about the inspiration and authority of the Bible, yet also because the books are as well attested by other ancient sources and as coherent in content and style, as any surviving ancient books”…… but concerning the new views, further in this chapter we read “Many of the critical scholars also concluded that the OT [Old Testament] prophets did not predict future events in the manner that the NT [New Testament] claims. Rather, in their view the prophets wrote about events in their own day, but NT writers applied these texts to Jesus, the church and other subjects. Thus, the unity of the OT and the NT, which Jesus and Paul portrayed as affirming, simply does not exist. Church tradition may treat the Bible as a unity, but, they argued, historical research does not confirm that belief.”
None of these critical trends however has had as big an impact on the faith of Christians as the critical analysis of the Pentateuch (first five books of the Bible) and especially the treatment of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, which naturally sets the foundation for all the truth claims that follow.
Following the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, some European scholars, especially in Germany, began to look at how the text of Genesis was organized. A French professor of anatomy at Toulouse, Jean Astruc (1684-1766) noticed that there are two names for God used in the Hebrew text of Genesis. These are Yahweh and Elohim. Speculating that these names perhaps came from disparate documents, he began to divide the Hebrew text into separate pieces, one collection using the name Yahweh, and the other Elohim. He separated out other portions of the text into other columns on the basis of other criteria. For this medical doctor, this was perhaps just an interesting mental exercise.
About 100 years later, German Old Testament scholar K. H. Graf used the documentary techniques of Astruc and others to declare that parts of the Pentateuch (called Priestly documents) were written about 500 years later than the documents using the name Elohim. This was a big departure from the understanding that Moses was the author of the whole Pentateuch (which is attested to by the whole Bible including New Testament references).
Another German scholar Julius Wellhausen, used the same approach to propose an entirely new understanding of Genesis. Called the Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis, or the Documentary Hypothesis or JEPD, this technique applied the following criteria to the analysis of Genesis. (J stands for Yahwist documents, E stands for Elohist, D stands for Deuteronomist, and P stands for Priestly Code).
Wellhausen’s particular criteria for analysis of Genesis were as follows:
1) an evolutionary approach to Israelite history. The customs and monotheistic picture of God in the text only came about as a result of a long history of changing views. This approach indicated that Wellhausen did not believe in revealed truth. Ancient peoples developed the ideas in Genesis as time went on.
2) Wellhausen believed that the stylistic criteria that he used for distinguishing the various document sources, were valid ones.
3) Wellhausen assumed that some documents were much older than others and that he could figure out which were which. He also assumed that there were redactors (editors) who spliced the documents together according to criteria which might or might not have been similar to those of the authors of the original documents.
4) Lastly Wellhausen assumed that this process could reasonably reveal the past to him. [These criteria are outlined by Duane Garrett p. 16. See book reference further on.]
The JEPD documentary hypothesis spread like wildfire through the educated world. Even today it is considered to be the mainstay of ‘critical orthodoxy’ or in other words the modern scholarly view of Genesis. As a result, this view is taught in most evangelical and Protestant seminaries today.
Ramifications of the JEPD view of Genesis
Many people in academia naturally like to be au courant (up to date) with the latest techniques and research results. Unfortunately, many Biblical scholars did not seek to evaluate the assumptions, methods and conclusions of the documentary hypothesis. Instead, they embraced the whole approach. Except for conservative apologists, the results of this approach are as follows.
Wellhausen argued that none of the Genesis documents provides any reliable information about Moses, the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph and of course none concerning origins. He declared that the only time which we can conclude anything from the documents, is the time of the kings or the later exile (none of which is discussed in Genesis.) [Hamilton pp. 17, 20] Other experts with similar views to Wellhausen have declared that the promises of Genesis were all inserted into the text at the time of the exile when the editors/redactors wanted to establish the validity of the Jews as a definable people with claims to a specific landscape (Israel). [Hamilton p. 26] [Victor P. Hamilton. 1990. The Book of Genesis Chapters 1-17. New International Commentary on the Old Testament with R. K Harrison, general editor. Eerdmans.] [R. K. Harrison (1920 – 1993) is another eminent Old Testament scholar, latterly based at the University of Toronto, who supported the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch.]
So much for the truth claims of any sort in Genesis, no historicity of the creation or of the patriarchs. No truth claims to God’s promises to Eve and to the patriarchs in Genesis. According to this approach there is no interest in Genesis from an apologetics point of view (no foundational doctrines like the fall of Adam) and no interest in origins such as the creation account since these ideas are presumed to have developed over time and thus are not revealed truth.
Not everybody went along with the Graf-Wellhausen views. Conservative Biblical scholars (very much in a minority) have fought back and they evaluate the assumptions, methods and conclusions and find them seriously wanting.
Conservative Response
Conservative scholars have vigorously defended the traditional understanding of Genesis and the whole Bible. Such Old Testament scholars as E. J. Young (1907-1968) of Westminster Theological Seminary and Jewish scholar Umberto Cassuto (1883-1951) articulately argued for the unity of Genesis and the whole Pentateuch. They suggested that the Documentary Hypothesis is a figment of the Enlightenment European mind. [Douglas Kelly. 1997. Creation and Change: Genesis 1.1-2.4 in the light of changing scientific paradigms. Mentor. p. 54]
One current Old Testament specialist is Duane Garrett who authored Rethinking Genesis: the Sources and Authorship of the First Book of the Pentateuch. Baker Books. 1991. Dr. Garrett points out concerning Cassuto’s work: “the phenomenon of the interchange of Yahweh and Elohim can be explained far more satisfactorily and simply without resort to source criticism. Umberto makes the point that the two names bring out different aspects of the character of God. Yahweh is the covenant name of God, which emphasizes his special relationship to Israel. Elohim speaks of God’s universality as God of all earth. To put it simply, Elohim is what God is [creator] and Yahweh is who he is.” (Garrett p. 19)
For his part, E. J. Young declares that there is a unity to the Pentateuch that the documentary hypothesis does not satisfactorily explain. (p. 35) [E. J. Young. 1970. In “History of the literary criticism of the Pentateuch” in The New Bible Commentary revised. Edited by D. Guthrie and J. A. Motyer. Intervarsity Press.] One of the things that Dr. Young points out is that the system established by Graf-Wellhausen, does not work. Thus “In at least five chapters of Genesis the Deity is not mentioned at all, and yet these chapters are divided among J, P (E1) and E2 . Obviously, criteria other than divine names must be employed. In seventeen chapters of Genesis and Exodus 1 and 2, the name Yahweh does not occur and yet it is asserted that portions of J are found in each of these chapters. …. It would appear that the names are not adequately distributed throughout Genesis to form the basis for division or partition into documents.” (p. 35)
In his book Duane Garrett, a southern Baptist with ties in the past to Alberta, emphatically declared that the Graf-Wellhausen theory as a starting point for continuous research is dead – effectively demolished by scholars from many different theological perspectives and areas of expertise. And yet, he informed us, the documentary hypothesis has remained the mainstay of critical orthodoxy – or the favoured scholarly position. (p. 13) Garrett also insists that there is massive evidence (his emphasis) that Genesis is a unity, not the result of documents spliced together. (p. 30). He had already declared that the documentary hypothesis can no longer be considered valid in any sense. (p. 8)
Finally, E. J. Young reflected on what happens to many seminary students who have embraced the techniques and conclusions of the Documentary Hypothesis. “When, however, the student departs from the direct claims of the Bible itself, he finds that he is involved in serious difficulty. None of the theories mentioned really does justice to the facts of Scripture. It is only when the claims of the Bible (including its claim that, in the ultimate and most real sense, God is its Author) are taken at face value that one can do justice to Scripture.” (p. 40)
Summary
Conservative Christians insist that Moses wrote the Pentateuch (first five books of the Bible including Genesis), inspired by God, and that this account is historically accurate. Those people impressed by the higher critics deny the authorship of Moses and the historicity of the account. Concerning Moses, Garrett wrote: “in the face of biblical evidence that Moses was highly educated (reared in Pharaoh’s household) and the father of the new nation, one cannot doubt that he was a figure of sufficient stature to have written the law.” (p. 84) Moreover, Edward J. Young declared: “There are positive claims made in the Bible that the Law [entire Pentateuch] is from Moses. In the Pentateuch itself there are express statements to the effect that Moses did write what God commanded of him….. If the first five books of the Bible were put together in the manner which this [documentary] hypothesis demands, it is difficult, if not impossible to understand how the result could be the unity which the Pentateuch actually does exhibit.” (p. 35) (And a contemporary of Dr. Young – in the same volume on p. 41 similarly declared concerning such critical views: “The dominant theory of Pentateuchal criticism combines two strands, the documentary and the developmental theories, both of which are based on the supposition of large-scale contradictions in the Old Testament.”)
So do not be intimidated by the so-called academic status of the Documentary Hypothesis. The Bible’s testimony tells us that those claims are false.
Related Resources
Order Online
Paperback / $6.00 / 59 Pages / Full colour
(Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis / Documentary Hypothesis)
Historical Setting
For recent generations of Christians, the message of the gospel has been compromised in many circles by ‘higher critical analysis’ of the Bible texts. Rejecting the truth claims of authority and inspiration of Scripture, many Biblical scholars from the nineteenth century on, began to interpret the Bible texts in terms of subjective criteria designed to separate those documents into fragments. Such techniques have been applied to many books of the Bible including the Old Testament prophets, the New Testament gospels and many epistles of the apostle Paul and others.
In commentary under the “Introduction to the Prophetic Books: Scholarly Issues” in the New English Version Study Bible, for example, we read “For centuries most scholars basically accepted that the Prophetic Books were written by the persons whose names are mentioned at the beginning of the books. They did so because they held traditional beliefs about the inspiration and authority of the Bible, yet also because the books are as well attested by other ancient sources and as coherent in content and style, as any surviving ancient books”…… but concerning the new views, further in this chapter we read “Many of the critical scholars also concluded that the OT [Old Testament] prophets did not predict future events in the manner that the NT [New Testament] claims. Rather, in their view the prophets wrote about events in their own day, but NT writers applied these texts to Jesus, the church and other subjects. Thus, the unity of the OT and the NT, which Jesus and Paul portrayed as affirming, simply does not exist. Church tradition may treat the Bible as a unity, but, they argued, historical research does not confirm that belief.”
None of these critical trends however has had as big an impact on the faith of Christians as the critical analysis of the Pentateuch (first five books of the Bible) and especially the treatment of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, which naturally sets the foundation for all the truth claims that follow.
Following the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, some European scholars, especially in Germany, began to look at how the text of Genesis was organized. A French professor of anatomy at Toulouse, Jean Astruc (1684-1766) noticed that there are two names for God used in the Hebrew text of Genesis. These are Yahweh and Elohim. Speculating that these names perhaps came from disparate documents, he began to divide the Hebrew text into separate pieces, one collection using the name Yahweh, and the other Elohim. He separated out other portions of the text into other columns on the basis of other criteria. For this medical doctor, this was perhaps just an interesting mental exercise.
About 100 years later, German Old Testament scholar K. H. Graf used the documentary techniques of Astruc and others to declare that parts of the Pentateuch (called Priestly documents) were written about 500 years later than the documents using the name Elohim. This was a big departure from the understanding that Moses was the author of the whole Pentateuch (which is attested to by the whole Bible including New Testament references).
Another German scholar Julius Wellhausen, used the same approach to propose an entirely new understanding of Genesis. Called the Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis, or the Documentary Hypothesis or JEPD, this technique applied the following criteria to the analysis of Genesis. (J stands for Yahwist documents, E stands for Elohist, D stands for Deuteronomist, and P stands for Priestly Code).
Wellhausen’s particular criteria for analysis of Genesis were as follows:
1) an evolutionary approach to Israelite history. The customs and monotheistic picture of God in the text only came about as a result of a long history of changing views. This approach indicated that Wellhausen did not believe in revealed truth. Ancient peoples developed the ideas in Genesis as time went on.
2) Wellhausen believed that the stylistic criteria that he used for distinguishing the various document sources, were valid ones.
3) Wellhausen assumed that some documents were much older than others and that he could figure out which were which. He also assumed that there were redactors (editors) who spliced the documents together according to criteria which might or might not have been similar to those of the authors of the original documents.
4) Lastly Wellhausen assumed that this process could reasonably reveal the past to him. [These criteria are outlined by Duane Garrett p. 16. See book reference further on.]
The JEPD documentary hypothesis spread like wildfire through the educated world. Even today it is considered to be the mainstay of ‘critical orthodoxy’ or in other words the modern scholarly view of Genesis. As a result, this view is taught in most evangelical and Protestant seminaries today.
Ramifications of the JEPD view of Genesis
Many people in academia naturally like to be au courant (up to date) with the latest techniques and research results. Unfortunately, many Biblical scholars did not seek to evaluate the assumptions, methods and conclusions of the documentary hypothesis. Instead, they embraced the whole approach. Except for conservative apologists, the results of this approach are as follows.
Wellhausen argued that none of the Genesis documents provides any reliable information about Moses, the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph and of course none concerning origins. He declared that the only time which we can conclude anything from the documents, is the time of the kings or the later exile (none of which is discussed in Genesis.) [Hamilton pp. 17, 20] Other experts with similar views to Wellhausen have declared that the promises of Genesis were all inserted into the text at the time of the exile when the editors/redactors wanted to establish the validity of the Jews as a definable people with claims to a specific landscape (Israel). [Hamilton p. 26] [Victor P. Hamilton. 1990. The Book of Genesis Chapters 1-17. New International Commentary on the Old Testament with R. K Harrison, general editor. Eerdmans.] [R. K. Harrison (1920 – 1993) is another eminent Old Testament scholar, latterly based at the University of Toronto, who supported the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch.]
So much for the truth claims of any sort in Genesis, no historicity of the creation or of the patriarchs. No truth claims to God’s promises to Eve and to the patriarchs in Genesis. According to this approach there is no interest in Genesis from an apologetics point of view (no foundational doctrines like the fall of Adam) and no interest in origins such as the creation account since these ideas are presumed to have developed over time and thus are not revealed truth.
Not everybody went along with the Graf-Wellhausen views. Conservative Biblical scholars (very much in a minority) have fought back and they evaluate the assumptions, methods and conclusions and find them seriously wanting.
Conservative Response
Conservative scholars have vigorously defended the traditional understanding of Genesis and the whole Bible. Such Old Testament scholars as E. J. Young (1907-1968) of Westminster Theological Seminary and Jewish scholar Umberto Cassuto (1883-1951) articulately argued for the unity of Genesis and the whole Pentateuch. They suggested that the Documentary Hypothesis is a figment of the Enlightenment European mind. [Douglas Kelly. 1997. Creation and Change: Genesis 1.1-2.4 in the light of changing scientific paradigms. Mentor. p. 54]
One current Old Testament specialist is Duane Garrett who authored Rethinking Genesis: the Sources and Authorship of the First Book of the Pentateuch. Baker Books. 1991. Dr. Garrett points out concerning Cassuto’s work: “the phenomenon of the interchange of Yahweh and Elohim can be explained far more satisfactorily and simply without resort to source criticism. Umberto makes the point that the two names bring out different aspects of the character of God. Yahweh is the covenant name of God, which emphasizes his special relationship to Israel. Elohim speaks of God’s universality as God of all earth. To put it simply, Elohim is what God is [creator] and Yahweh is who he is.” (Garrett p. 19)
For his part, E. J. Young declares that there is a unity to the Pentateuch that the documentary hypothesis does not satisfactorily explain. (p. 35) [E. J. Young. 1970. In “History of the literary criticism of the Pentateuch” in The New Bible Commentary revised. Edited by D. Guthrie and J. A. Motyer. Intervarsity Press.] One of the things that Dr. Young points out is that the system established by Graf-Wellhausen, does not work. Thus “In at least five chapters of Genesis the Deity is not mentioned at all, and yet these chapters are divided among J, P (E1) and E2 . Obviously, criteria other than divine names must be employed. In seventeen chapters of Genesis and Exodus 1 and 2, the name Yahweh does not occur and yet it is asserted that portions of J are found in each of these chapters. …. It would appear that the names are not adequately distributed throughout Genesis to form the basis for division or partition into documents.” (p. 35)
In his book Duane Garrett, a southern Baptist with ties in the past to Alberta, emphatically declared that the Graf-Wellhausen theory as a starting point for continuous research is dead – effectively demolished by scholars from many different theological perspectives and areas of expertise. And yet, he informed us, the documentary hypothesis has remained the mainstay of critical orthodoxy – or the favoured scholarly position. (p. 13) Garrett also insists that there is massive evidence (his emphasis) that Genesis is a unity, not the result of documents spliced together. (p. 30). He had already declared that the documentary hypothesis can no longer be considered valid in any sense. (p. 8)
Finally, E. J. Young reflected on what happens to many seminary students who have embraced the techniques and conclusions of the Documentary Hypothesis. “When, however, the student departs from the direct claims of the Bible itself, he finds that he is involved in serious difficulty. None of the theories mentioned really does justice to the facts of Scripture. It is only when the claims of the Bible (including its claim that, in the ultimate and most real sense, God is its Author) are taken at face value that one can do justice to Scripture.” (p. 40)
Summary
Conservative Christians insist that Moses wrote the Pentateuch (first five books of the Bible including Genesis), inspired by God, and that this account is historically accurate. Those people impressed by the higher critics deny the authorship of Moses and the historicity of the account. Concerning Moses, Garrett wrote: “in the face of biblical evidence that Moses was highly educated (reared in Pharaoh’s household) and the father of the new nation, one cannot doubt that he was a figure of sufficient stature to have written the law.” (p. 84) Moreover, Edward J. Young declared: “There are positive claims made in the Bible that the Law [entire Pentateuch] is from Moses. In the Pentateuch itself there are express statements to the effect that Moses did write what God commanded of him….. If the first five books of the Bible were put together in the manner which this [documentary] hypothesis demands, it is difficult, if not impossible to understand how the result could be the unity which the Pentateuch actually does exhibit.” (p. 35) (And a contemporary of Dr. Young – in the same volume on p. 41 similarly declared concerning such critical views: “The dominant theory of Pentateuchal criticism combines two strands, the documentary and the developmental theories, both of which are based on the supposition of large-scale contradictions in the Old Testament.”)
So do not be intimidated by the so-called academic status of the Documentary Hypothesis. The Bible’s testimony tells us that those claims are false.
Related Resources
Order Online
Paperback / $10.00 / 138 Pages / full colour
(Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis / Documentary Hypothesis)
Historical Setting
For recent generations of Christians, the message of the gospel has been compromised in many circles by ‘higher critical analysis’ of the Bible texts. Rejecting the truth claims of authority and inspiration of Scripture, many Biblical scholars from the nineteenth century on, began to interpret the Bible texts in terms of subjective criteria designed to separate those documents into fragments. Such techniques have been applied to many books of the Bible including the Old Testament prophets, the New Testament gospels and many epistles of the apostle Paul and others.
In commentary under the “Introduction to the Prophetic Books: Scholarly Issues” in the New English Version Study Bible, for example, we read “For centuries most scholars basically accepted that the Prophetic Books were written by the persons whose names are mentioned at the beginning of the books. They did so because they held traditional beliefs about the inspiration and authority of the Bible, yet also because the books are as well attested by other ancient sources and as coherent in content and style, as any surviving ancient books”…… but concerning the new views, further in this chapter we read “Many of the critical scholars also concluded that the OT [Old Testament] prophets did not predict future events in the manner that the NT [New Testament] claims. Rather, in their view the prophets wrote about events in their own day, but NT writers applied these texts to Jesus, the church and other subjects. Thus, the unity of the OT and the NT, which Jesus and Paul portrayed as affirming, simply does not exist. Church tradition may treat the Bible as a unity, but, they argued, historical research does not confirm that belief.”
None of these critical trends however has had as big an impact on the faith of Christians as the critical analysis of the Pentateuch (first five books of the Bible) and especially the treatment of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, which naturally sets the foundation for all the truth claims that follow.
Following the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, some European scholars, especially in Germany, began to look at how the text of Genesis was organized. A French professor of anatomy at Toulouse, Jean Astruc (1684-1766) noticed that there are two names for God used in the Hebrew text of Genesis. These are Yahweh and Elohim. Speculating that these names perhaps came from disparate documents, he began to divide the Hebrew text into separate pieces, one collection using the name Yahweh, and the other Elohim. He separated out other portions of the text into other columns on the basis of other criteria. For this medical doctor, this was perhaps just an interesting mental exercise.
About 100 years later, German Old Testament scholar K. H. Graf used the documentary techniques of Astruc and others to declare that parts of the Pentateuch (called Priestly documents) were written about 500 years later than the documents using the name Elohim. This was a big departure from the understanding that Moses was the author of the whole Pentateuch (which is attested to by the whole Bible including New Testament references).
Another German scholar Julius Wellhausen, used the same approach to propose an entirely new understanding of Genesis. Called the Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis, or the Documentary Hypothesis or JEPD, this technique applied the following criteria to the analysis of Genesis. (J stands for Yahwist documents, E stands for Elohist, D stands for Deuteronomist, and P stands for Priestly Code).
Wellhausen’s particular criteria for analysis of Genesis were as follows:
1) an evolutionary approach to Israelite history. The customs and monotheistic picture of God in the text only came about as a result of a long history of changing views. This approach indicated that Wellhausen did not believe in revealed truth. Ancient peoples developed the ideas in Genesis as time went on.
2) Wellhausen believed that the stylistic criteria that he used for distinguishing the various document sources, were valid ones.
3) Wellhausen assumed that some documents were much older than others and that he could figure out which were which. He also assumed that there were redactors (editors) who spliced the documents together according to criteria which might or might not have been similar to those of the authors of the original documents.
4) Lastly Wellhausen assumed that this process could reasonably reveal the past to him. [These criteria are outlined by Duane Garrett p. 16. See book reference further on.]
The JEPD documentary hypothesis spread like wildfire through the educated world. Even today it is considered to be the mainstay of ‘critical orthodoxy’ or in other words the modern scholarly view of Genesis. As a result, this view is taught in most evangelical and Protestant seminaries today.
Ramifications of the JEPD view of Genesis
Many people in academia naturally like to be au courant (up to date) with the latest techniques and research results. Unfortunately, many Biblical scholars did not seek to evaluate the assumptions, methods and conclusions of the documentary hypothesis. Instead, they embraced the whole approach. Except for conservative apologists, the results of this approach are as follows.
Wellhausen argued that none of the Genesis documents provides any reliable information about Moses, the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph and of course none concerning origins. He declared that the only time which we can conclude anything from the documents, is the time of the kings or the later exile (none of which is discussed in Genesis.) [Hamilton pp. 17, 20] Other experts with similar views to Wellhausen have declared that the promises of Genesis were all inserted into the text at the time of the exile when the editors/redactors wanted to establish the validity of the Jews as a definable people with claims to a specific landscape (Israel). [Hamilton p. 26] [Victor P. Hamilton. 1990. The Book of Genesis Chapters 1-17. New International Commentary on the Old Testament with R. K Harrison, general editor. Eerdmans.] [R. K. Harrison (1920 – 1993) is another eminent Old Testament scholar, latterly based at the University of Toronto, who supported the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch.]
So much for the truth claims of any sort in Genesis, no historicity of the creation or of the patriarchs. No truth claims to God’s promises to Eve and to the patriarchs in Genesis. According to this approach there is no interest in Genesis from an apologetics point of view (no foundational doctrines like the fall of Adam) and no interest in origins such as the creation account since these ideas are presumed to have developed over time and thus are not revealed truth.
Not everybody went along with the Graf-Wellhausen views. Conservative Biblical scholars (very much in a minority) have fought back and they evaluate the assumptions, methods and conclusions and find them seriously wanting.
Conservative Response
Conservative scholars have vigorously defended the traditional understanding of Genesis and the whole Bible. Such Old Testament scholars as E. J. Young (1907-1968) of Westminster Theological Seminary and Jewish scholar Umberto Cassuto (1883-1951) articulately argued for the unity of Genesis and the whole Pentateuch. They suggested that the Documentary Hypothesis is a figment of the Enlightenment European mind. [Douglas Kelly. 1997. Creation and Change: Genesis 1.1-2.4 in the light of changing scientific paradigms. Mentor. p. 54]
One current Old Testament specialist is Duane Garrett who authored Rethinking Genesis: the Sources and Authorship of the First Book of the Pentateuch. Baker Books. 1991. Dr. Garrett points out concerning Cassuto’s work: “the phenomenon of the interchange of Yahweh and Elohim can be explained far more satisfactorily and simply without resort to source criticism. Umberto makes the point that the two names bring out different aspects of the character of God. Yahweh is the covenant name of God, which emphasizes his special relationship to Israel. Elohim speaks of God’s universality as God of all earth. To put it simply, Elohim is what God is [creator] and Yahweh is who he is.” (Garrett p. 19)
For his part, E. J. Young declares that there is a unity to the Pentateuch that the documentary hypothesis does not satisfactorily explain. (p. 35) [E. J. Young. 1970. In “History of the literary criticism of the Pentateuch” in The New Bible Commentary revised. Edited by D. Guthrie and J. A. Motyer. Intervarsity Press.] One of the things that Dr. Young points out is that the system established by Graf-Wellhausen, does not work. Thus “In at least five chapters of Genesis the Deity is not mentioned at all, and yet these chapters are divided among J, P (E1) and E2 . Obviously, criteria other than divine names must be employed. In seventeen chapters of Genesis and Exodus 1 and 2, the name Yahweh does not occur and yet it is asserted that portions of J are found in each of these chapters. …. It would appear that the names are not adequately distributed throughout Genesis to form the basis for division or partition into documents.” (p. 35)
In his book Duane Garrett, a southern Baptist with ties in the past to Alberta, emphatically declared that the Graf-Wellhausen theory as a starting point for continuous research is dead – effectively demolished by scholars from many different theological perspectives and areas of expertise. And yet, he informed us, the documentary hypothesis has remained the mainstay of critical orthodoxy – or the favoured scholarly position. (p. 13) Garrett also insists that there is massive evidence (his emphasis) that Genesis is a unity, not the result of documents spliced together. (p. 30). He had already declared that the documentary hypothesis can no longer be considered valid in any sense. (p. 8)
Finally, E. J. Young reflected on what happens to many seminary students who have embraced the techniques and conclusions of the Documentary Hypothesis. “When, however, the student departs from the direct claims of the Bible itself, he finds that he is involved in serious difficulty. None of the theories mentioned really does justice to the facts of Scripture. It is only when the claims of the Bible (including its claim that, in the ultimate and most real sense, God is its Author) are taken at face value that one can do justice to Scripture.” (p. 40)
Summary
Conservative Christians insist that Moses wrote the Pentateuch (first five books of the Bible including Genesis), inspired by God, and that this account is historically accurate. Those people impressed by the higher critics deny the authorship of Moses and the historicity of the account. Concerning Moses, Garrett wrote: “in the face of biblical evidence that Moses was highly educated (reared in Pharaoh’s household) and the father of the new nation, one cannot doubt that he was a figure of sufficient stature to have written the law.” (p. 84) Moreover, Edward J. Young declared: “There are positive claims made in the Bible that the Law [entire Pentateuch] is from Moses. In the Pentateuch itself there are express statements to the effect that Moses did write what God commanded of him….. If the first five books of the Bible were put together in the manner which this [documentary] hypothesis demands, it is difficult, if not impossible to understand how the result could be the unity which the Pentateuch actually does exhibit.” (p. 35) (And a contemporary of Dr. Young – in the same volume on p. 41 similarly declared concerning such critical views: “The dominant theory of Pentateuchal criticism combines two strands, the documentary and the developmental theories, both of which are based on the supposition of large-scale contradictions in the Old Testament.”)
So do not be intimidated by the so-called academic status of the Documentary Hypothesis. The Bible’s testimony tells us that those claims are false.
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(Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis / Documentary Hypothesis)
Historical Setting
For recent generations of Christians, the message of the gospel has been compromised in many circles by ‘higher critical analysis’ of the Bible texts. Rejecting the truth claims of authority and inspiration of Scripture, many Biblical scholars from the nineteenth century on, began to interpret the Bible texts in terms of subjective criteria designed to separate those documents into fragments. Such techniques have been applied to many books of the Bible including the Old Testament prophets, the New Testament gospels and many epistles of the apostle Paul and others.
In commentary under the “Introduction to the Prophetic Books: Scholarly Issues” in the New English Version Study Bible, for example, we read “For centuries most scholars basically accepted that the Prophetic Books were written by the persons whose names are mentioned at the beginning of the books. They did so because they held traditional beliefs about the inspiration and authority of the Bible, yet also because the books are as well attested by other ancient sources and as coherent in content and style, as any surviving ancient books”…… but concerning the new views, further in this chapter we read “Many of the critical scholars also concluded that the OT [Old Testament] prophets did not predict future events in the manner that the NT [New Testament] claims. Rather, in their view the prophets wrote about events in their own day, but NT writers applied these texts to Jesus, the church and other subjects. Thus, the unity of the OT and the NT, which Jesus and Paul portrayed as affirming, simply does not exist. Church tradition may treat the Bible as a unity, but, they argued, historical research does not confirm that belief.”
None of these critical trends however has had as big an impact on the faith of Christians as the critical analysis of the Pentateuch (first five books of the Bible) and especially the treatment of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, which naturally sets the foundation for all the truth claims that follow.
Following the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, some European scholars, especially in Germany, began to look at how the text of Genesis was organized. A French professor of anatomy at Toulouse, Jean Astruc (1684-1766) noticed that there are two names for God used in the Hebrew text of Genesis. These are Yahweh and Elohim. Speculating that these names perhaps came from disparate documents, he began to divide the Hebrew text into separate pieces, one collection using the name Yahweh, and the other Elohim. He separated out other portions of the text into other columns on the basis of other criteria. For this medical doctor, this was perhaps just an interesting mental exercise.
About 100 years later, German Old Testament scholar K. H. Graf used the documentary techniques of Astruc and others to declare that parts of the Pentateuch (called Priestly documents) were written about 500 years later than the documents using the name Elohim. This was a big departure from the understanding that Moses was the author of the whole Pentateuch (which is attested to by the whole Bible including New Testament references).
Another German scholar Julius Wellhausen, used the same approach to propose an entirely new understanding of Genesis. Called the Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis, or the Documentary Hypothesis or JEPD, this technique applied the following criteria to the analysis of Genesis. (J stands for Yahwist documents, E stands for Elohist, D stands for Deuteronomist, and P stands for Priestly Code).
Wellhausen’s particular criteria for analysis of Genesis were as follows:
1) an evolutionary approach to Israelite history. The customs and monotheistic picture of God in the text only came about as a result of a long history of changing views. This approach indicated that Wellhausen did not believe in revealed truth. Ancient peoples developed the ideas in Genesis as time went on.
2) Wellhausen believed that the stylistic criteria that he used for distinguishing the various document sources, were valid ones.
3) Wellhausen assumed that some documents were much older than others and that he could figure out which were which. He also assumed that there were redactors (editors) who spliced the documents together according to criteria which might or might not have been similar to those of the authors of the original documents.
4) Lastly Wellhausen assumed that this process could reasonably reveal the past to him. [These criteria are outlined by Duane Garrett p. 16. See book reference further on.]
The JEPD documentary hypothesis spread like wildfire through the educated world. Even today it is considered to be the mainstay of ‘critical orthodoxy’ or in other words the modern scholarly view of Genesis. As a result, this view is taught in most evangelical and Protestant seminaries today.
Ramifications of the JEPD view of Genesis
Many people in academia naturally like to be au courant (up to date) with the latest techniques and research results. Unfortunately, many Biblical scholars did not seek to evaluate the assumptions, methods and conclusions of the documentary hypothesis. Instead, they embraced the whole approach. Except for conservative apologists, the results of this approach are as follows.
Wellhausen argued that none of the Genesis documents provides any reliable information about Moses, the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph and of course none concerning origins. He declared that the only time which we can conclude anything from the documents, is the time of the kings or the later exile (none of which is discussed in Genesis.) [Hamilton pp. 17, 20] Other experts with similar views to Wellhausen have declared that the promises of Genesis were all inserted into the text at the time of the exile when the editors/redactors wanted to establish the validity of the Jews as a definable people with claims to a specific landscape (Israel). [Hamilton p. 26] [Victor P. Hamilton. 1990. The Book of Genesis Chapters 1-17. New International Commentary on the Old Testament with R. K Harrison, general editor. Eerdmans.] [R. K. Harrison (1920 – 1993) is another eminent Old Testament scholar, latterly based at the University of Toronto, who supported the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch.]
So much for the truth claims of any sort in Genesis, no historicity of the creation or of the patriarchs. No truth claims to God’s promises to Eve and to the patriarchs in Genesis. According to this approach there is no interest in Genesis from an apologetics point of view (no foundational doctrines like the fall of Adam) and no interest in origins such as the creation account since these ideas are presumed to have developed over time and thus are not revealed truth.
Not everybody went along with the Graf-Wellhausen views. Conservative Biblical scholars (very much in a minority) have fought back and they evaluate the assumptions, methods and conclusions and find them seriously wanting.
Conservative Response
Conservative scholars have vigorously defended the traditional understanding of Genesis and the whole Bible. Such Old Testament scholars as E. J. Young (1907-1968) of Westminster Theological Seminary and Jewish scholar Umberto Cassuto (1883-1951) articulately argued for the unity of Genesis and the whole Pentateuch. They suggested that the Documentary Hypothesis is a figment of the Enlightenment European mind. [Douglas Kelly. 1997. Creation and Change: Genesis 1.1-2.4 in the light of changing scientific paradigms. Mentor. p. 54]
One current Old Testament specialist is Duane Garrett who authored Rethinking Genesis: the Sources and Authorship of the First Book of the Pentateuch. Baker Books. 1991. Dr. Garrett points out concerning Cassuto’s work: “the phenomenon of the interchange of Yahweh and Elohim can be explained far more satisfactorily and simply without resort to source criticism. Umberto makes the point that the two names bring out different aspects of the character of God. Yahweh is the covenant name of God, which emphasizes his special relationship to Israel. Elohim speaks of God’s universality as God of all earth. To put it simply, Elohim is what God is [creator] and Yahweh is who he is.” (Garrett p. 19)
For his part, E. J. Young declares that there is a unity to the Pentateuch that the documentary hypothesis does not satisfactorily explain. (p. 35) [E. J. Young. 1970. In “History of the literary criticism of the Pentateuch” in The New Bible Commentary revised. Edited by D. Guthrie and J. A. Motyer. Intervarsity Press.] One of the things that Dr. Young points out is that the system established by Graf-Wellhausen, does not work. Thus “In at least five chapters of Genesis the Deity is not mentioned at all, and yet these chapters are divided among J, P (E1) and E2 . Obviously, criteria other than divine names must be employed. In seventeen chapters of Genesis and Exodus 1 and 2, the name Yahweh does not occur and yet it is asserted that portions of J are found in each of these chapters. …. It would appear that the names are not adequately distributed throughout Genesis to form the basis for division or partition into documents.” (p. 35)
In his book Duane Garrett, a southern Baptist with ties in the past to Alberta, emphatically declared that the Graf-Wellhausen theory as a starting point for continuous research is dead – effectively demolished by scholars from many different theological perspectives and areas of expertise. And yet, he informed us, the documentary hypothesis has remained the mainstay of critical orthodoxy – or the favoured scholarly position. (p. 13) Garrett also insists that there is massive evidence (his emphasis) that Genesis is a unity, not the result of documents spliced together. (p. 30). He had already declared that the documentary hypothesis can no longer be considered valid in any sense. (p. 8)
Finally, E. J. Young reflected on what happens to many seminary students who have embraced the techniques and conclusions of the Documentary Hypothesis. “When, however, the student departs from the direct claims of the Bible itself, he finds that he is involved in serious difficulty. None of the theories mentioned really does justice to the facts of Scripture. It is only when the claims of the Bible (including its claim that, in the ultimate and most real sense, God is its Author) are taken at face value that one can do justice to Scripture.” (p. 40)
Summary
Conservative Christians insist that Moses wrote the Pentateuch (first five books of the Bible including Genesis), inspired by God, and that this account is historically accurate. Those people impressed by the higher critics deny the authorship of Moses and the historicity of the account. Concerning Moses, Garrett wrote: “in the face of biblical evidence that Moses was highly educated (reared in Pharaoh’s household) and the father of the new nation, one cannot doubt that he was a figure of sufficient stature to have written the law.” (p. 84) Moreover, Edward J. Young declared: “There are positive claims made in the Bible that the Law [entire Pentateuch] is from Moses. In the Pentateuch itself there are express statements to the effect that Moses did write what God commanded of him….. If the first five books of the Bible were put together in the manner which this [documentary] hypothesis demands, it is difficult, if not impossible to understand how the result could be the unity which the Pentateuch actually does exhibit.” (p. 35) (And a contemporary of Dr. Young – in the same volume on p. 41 similarly declared concerning such critical views: “The dominant theory of Pentateuchal criticism combines two strands, the documentary and the developmental theories, both of which are based on the supposition of large-scale contradictions in the Old Testament.”)
So do not be intimidated by the so-called academic status of the Documentary Hypothesis. The Bible’s testimony tells us that those claims are false.