JEHOVAH EVIDENTLY DIDN’T PUBLISH (JEDP)
In the hallowed halls of theological academia, the acronym “JEDP” is often used to describe the theoretical method in which the Old Testament Scriptures are believed to have been composed, and it stands for, “Jehovah Evidently Didn’t Publish”. This theory postulates the concept that, contrary to the Old Testament and New Testament Scriptures themselves, and the vast majority of Hebrew and Christian tradition down through the ages, “Jehovah Evidently Didn’t Publish” the Old Testament after all, it was done entirely through the mind of man, free from supernatural influence.
Actually, as any first year seminarian would have already detected, the statement above is incorrect! It’s not completely wrong, mind you, only the acronym definition. “J, E, D, & P” actually stands for, “Yahwist (or Jehovist), Elohist, Deuteronomist, & Priestly”, which supposedly represent four or more individual source documents for the Old Testament, composed by multitudes of editors and redactors, over a long period of time, hundreds of years after the life and death of Moses. In essence, this system of interpretation, represented by many names, (Graf-Welhausen Theory and Documentary Hypothesis, to name a few) seriously calls into question the doctrine of divine inspiration, and has precisely the same effect as saying that, “Jehovah Evidently Didn’t Publish the Old Testament!” However, most conservative theologians see this as an affront to the Christian faith, and have been battling against it for over a century now. The following analysis of the Documentary Hypothesis, and its stepchild, Deuteronomist History, will explain the basic tenants of the Old Testament interpretive systems, and offer substantial rebuttals to the same.
The Documentary Hypothesis, (notice the key word here embraces the hypothetical), imagines the Pentateuch or Torah, (first five books of the Bible) as a compilation of four literary sources. Each of these alleged source-documents are said to have been collected from diverse Israelite groups over the course of time, and summarily cut, pasted, and spliced together like an old movie reel, in order to achieve the cogent finished product that we read today. The Jehovist document was said to have been written in the Southern Kingdom because of their preference of this name, while the Northern kingdom who may have preferred the name Elohim, wrote the Elohist document. The Deuteronomist document is comprised primarily of the book of Deuteronomy, but using the same ideology, source-criticism analysis, and interpretive framework employed by the Documentary Hypothesis:
"…critical scholars now tend to group it with the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings more than with Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. They refer to this body of books as the Deuteronomistic History, a term that the German scholar Martin Noth coined. This is due to the foundational nature of Deuteronomy as reflected in the presentation of the later history of Israel that these books present. Conservative scholars usually tie Deuteronomy in with Genesis through Numbers because of authorship and historical sequence. Many of them, however, also recognize that Deuteronomy provides the basis for the evaluation of the nation that Joshua through Kings presents." (Whybray 136)
Deuteronomist History theory maintains that, “Deuteronomy – 2 Kings was a unified work written substantially during the exilic period... Opponents of this view are quick to point out that actual evidence… is scant. No consensus exists among its advocates as to the origin and extent… All this puts the idea of a Deuteronomistic school in the time of Josiah in considerable doubt.” (Hill and Walton 205 & 283) The Priestly document is said to be responsible for Leviticus and all other passages in the books of the Pentateuch that deal with the priesthood. The final compilation of both the Documentary Hypothesis and the Deuteronomist History versions of the Old Testament books, is said to have been completed by the very late date of 500-400 BC, only a few hundred years before the ministry of Christ began on the earth.
The late dating is a very important factor that cannot be overstated, because it is a favorite tool of the rationalistic liberal scholars in their attempt to discredit Bible prophesy, the inexplicable proof of the Divine origin of Scripture. If it were possible to prove that the prophecies of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Daniel, etc… were written much later than they claim to have been, even after the events of which they had prophesied had been fulfilled, it would render biblical prophecy forever irrelevant. This must be seen as at least one of the prime motivating factors for all of higher criticism, given their propensity to consistently render extremely late timelines, and their obvious distain for the concept of divine revelation. Over the course of 125 years, the late chronology was formulated prior to the Documentary Hypothesis theory being established.
As stated in The Jerome Biblical Commentary: “It was the determination of the relative chronology of the documents that provided the necessary framework of the theory… Document D was identified with the book found in the temple in Josiah’s time (622 BC), and the others were dated on the basis of comparison with it.” (Maly 2) This is all theoretical non-sense and circular reasoning at its finest! Remember, there are no actual, “J, E, D, & P” documents that could have been subjected to dating, the theory only postulates that these documents existed, but for the theory to work it must be assumed that the phantom documents were written at a later date. In essence, they had to theorize a late chronology in order to establish a theory that can only be supported by a late chronology. Sounds a bit fishy doesn’t it?
In 1966 Professor Kenneth Kitchen wrote, “Even the most ardent advocate of the documentary theory must admit that we have as yet no single scrap of external, objective evidence for either the existence or the history of… any other alleged source-document…” (pp. 23) It is now almost fifty years later, and the evidence has stacked up even higher against Julius Wellhausen’s theory, but many liberal scholars still cling tenaciously to it, or to some modified form of it. This Hypothesis, “…being highly developed and deceitfully plausible, has deceptively captured the scholarly world for decades.” (Ross 16) Just as its twin brother, the theory of evolution, higher criticism of the Bible emerged from the rationalistic, enlightenment period at the top of its class and at the head of the table of ideas, and it spawned many damnable heresies; the dismantling of the Old Testament via the Documentary Hypothesis and Deuteronomist History, was certainly one of the most grievous.
Still many in theological academia don’t see a problem with it, considering it a reasonable method of interpretation, despite the damage that it inflicts on traditional Christian faith. There is no doubt that some valid difficulties have been identified concerning the traditional authorship views and timelines. Obviously, Moses was not present at creation, the flood of Noah, and other events on throughout the ancient history of Israel, and could not have written them down as first-hand accounts, nor could he have written the editorial updates that were added after his death. Certainly, the Bible doesn’t claim these things either, but he must have had access to oral traditions and or other written documents to assist him in compiling the Pentateuch. Working closely with the Levitical priesthood of his brother Aaron, it’s only logical that they would have aided him in the enormous task of amassing and composing the final work, to include even possibly inscribing the text themselves and adding needed information after Moses died. Kitchen also accounts for this by stating that:
"The primeval accounts and genealogies could have been brought from Mesopotamia by the ancestors. To these would have been added the family records of the patriarchs. All the traditions, oral and written, could have been preserved in Egypt by Joseph, along with his own records. Moses could then have complied the work in essentially the form in which it exists today, being preserved from error and guided in truth by the divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit." (PP. 137)
The "One Author – Later Editor(s) Hypothesis", is one such interpretive system that, “…attempts to honestly address the objections to Mosaic authorship raised by the multiple author hypothesis. (Hill and Walton 762) But bitter critics of the Bible and anti-Semitic influences in Europe in the nineteenth century, exploited these interpretive difficulties in the traditionally held view and sought to take full advantage of the opportunity in order to destroy, not only the documented history of Israel, but also the authority of Scripture itself. Back in the 1950’s, Dr. Edward Young had no illusions to how dangerous this was when he observed:
"If the Old Testament is not what it claims to be, we are robbed of an authoritative revelation about the creation of heaven and earth, of the origin of sin in the world, and of the promises that God will deliver man from his sin. If the Old Testament must be deserted, then Christianity is weakened at its foundations. Indeed, if the Old Testament is nothing more than a human document, and not a special revelation of God, it follows logically that the New Testament is also but a human document. If the Old Testament is to be abandoned, it is not all that must be abandoned. We shall soon make the discovery that we are also abandoning, and must abandon, the New Testament as well." (pp. 13)
The Documentary and Deuteronomist Hypothesis’ seem ideally suited to undermine Scripture in this way and to create precisely that type of scenario, which has caused many to conclude that something far more sinister lurks behind their purely academic facade. While well-meaning conservative Bible scholars foolishly quibble over the merits of JEDP and attempt to reconcile it with the traditional view, it is abundantly clear that, "The reconstruction of Israel’s history proposed by Julius Wellhausen, and the picture of that history offered in the Bible itself, are poles apart. In fact, they are mutually exclusive conceptions. If the Bible is correct, Wellhausen is wrong; and if Wellhausen is correct, the Bible most certainly is in error. A man may hold to one or the other of these two conflicting positions; he cannot possibly support both.” (Young 15)
Several detrimental implications can be derived from these audacious claims, if it were possible to prove them to be accurate: “(1) Moses could not have written any of the Pentateuch; (2) the Law originated after the historical books, not before them; and (3) the actual history of Israel differed markedly from the history of the OT books narrate.” (Klein 53) Obviously, this changes the entire landscape of biblical interpretation and renders the Old Testament a useless collection of ancient stories that have no intrinsic value or meaning. Ah, but are they true and accurate? Allen Ross writes of Wellhausen’s theory:
“Apart from its fundamental presuppositions that undermine revelation, the approach is fraught with problems. One is the lack of unanimity concerning the four sources (J,E,P,D) and which passages belong to each of them. Another problem is the subjectivity involved. Too often circular reasoning appears… Though the approach claimed to be analytical it too often evaded, emended, or deleted a text when it contradicted the system.” (Ross 16)
In other words, the system does not employ the same rigid hermeneutical principles of interpretation that higher criticism claims to represent, and while, “They insisted that the Bible was like any other book… at the same time they described it as being produced by a complicated array of sources, redactors, and interpolators, different from any other literary production.” (Mickelsen 44) In his essay, The Torah in Modern Scholarship, Kenneth Collins points out a number of problems with this theory that the original writers could not have even been aware of in their time:
"The documentary hypothesis was originally based on the supposition that the events in the Torah preceded the invention of writing, or at least its use among the Hebrews. This is because Julius Wellhausen lived in the nineteenth-century, but nineteenth-century notions about ancient literacy have been completely refuted by archaeological evidence. The documentarians have not updated the documentary hypothesis to take this into account, so we still find them assigning very late dates to their hypothetical sources of the Torah.... Archaeology has shown that writing was common during the time in which the events of the Torah were to have taken place." (Collins)
In light of what we know today concerning how advanced Israelite society was, it is ridiculous to even suggest that the Jews were incapable of reading and writing until after the time of the Babylonian Exile. However, that is exactly what the Documentary and Deuteronomist Hypothesis’ asks us to believe. And to accuse Israel of essentially fabricating all of those stories at a later date: the wilderness wanderings, the re-telling of the Law in Deuteronomy, etc… in order to promote a system of propaganda designed to motivate the post-exilic Jews to ‘evolve’ into a higher state of morality and spiritual identity; is an absurdly libelous accusation that smacks of the kind of racial overtones that gave birth to the Nazi Holocaust of the 1940’s. The timing of which interestingly coincides with the German theologian Noth, developing his Deuteronomist History theory in 1943.
While it would be unfruitful and unwise to attempt a character assassination of: Wellhausen, Noth, and their colleagues, and condemn them as merely racists and anti-Semites, bent on destroying the image of the Jewish people by demeaning their historical heritage; it would also be foolish to deny the anti-Semitic influences that dominated the culture from which they arose. Ideas have consequences, do they not? We know for certain that Hitler controlled every aspect of German society at the time of Noth, and especially the universities that were being charged with re-writing, not only German history, but also Judeo-Christian and world history as well. Regardless, many scholars have begun to see that, “Wellhausen’s speculations can be refuted… by showing the presuppositions which controlled his investigations and by making a thorough study of all textual phenomena. Furthermore, since Wellhausen’s time, a vast bulk of archaeological and linguistic evidence has accumulated. They must now be reckoned with.” (Mickelsen 46)
Edward Young agrees stating that, "Archaeology has caused this opinion to be greatly modified. The code of Hammurabi, for example, which was discovered in the winter of 1901-02, has cast some light upon Genesis. More important, however, were the discoveries which were made at Yorgan Tepa, the ancient city of Nuzi, in Mesopotamia. These remarkable texts have cast considerable light on the background of Genesis, and they have been assisted in this by the texts which were discovered at Tell el-Hariri, the ancient Mari. It is now rather generally recognized that the picture of the patriarchs given in Genesis is true to fact… Were Julius Wellhausen living today he would doubtless modify his statements concerning Genesis." (pp.19)
He might, but then again, he might not due to his inflexible philosophical arrogance and lack of faith in God’s revelation to man, which compelled him to establish his hypothesis in the first place. These two issues are irrefutably germane to this entire discussion and inevitable debate. Whether liberal or conservative, Unitarian or Southern Baptist, we must come to God’s word with humility and faith. C.H. Mackintosh beautifully captures this sentiment in his commentary on the very first words of Scripture, Genesis chapter one, verse one:
"There is something peculiarly striking in the manner in which the Holy Ghost opens this sublime book. He introduces us, at once, to God, in the essential fullness of His Being, and the solitariness of His acting. All prefatory matter is omitted. It is to God we are brought. We hear Him, as it were, breaking earth's silence, and shining in upon earth's darkness, for the purpose of developing a sphere in which He might display His eternal power And Godhead. There is nothing here on which idle curiosity may feed — nothing on which the poor, human mind may speculate. There is the sublimity and reality of DIVINE TRUTH, in its moral power to act on the heart, and on the understanding… None but an infidel or an atheist would seek an argument in proof of the Being of One who, by the word of His mouth, called worlds into existence, and declared Himself the All wise, the Almighty, and the everlasting God.” (pp. 17)
The Documentary Hypothesis, Deuteronomist History, and the systematic disciplines of higher criticism, all generally fail to appreciate this inescapably powerful truth, and will eventually suffer shipwreck as a result. Jehovah evidently did publish!
Whybray, Norman. Introduction to the Pentateuch. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. 1999. Print
Hill, Andrew and John Walton. A Survey of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010. Maly, Eugene. Introduction to the Pentateuch, Jerome Biblical Commentary. NJ: Prentice Hall. 1968.
Kitchen, Kenneth. Ancient Orient and Old Testament. London, UK: Tyndale, 1966. Print
Ross, Allen. The Bible Knowledge Commentary: Genesis. Colorado Springs, CO: Cook Com. 1983.
Kitchen, Kenneth. The Old Testament in its Context. Students Fellowship Bulletin 59. 1971. Print
Young, Edward. Contemporary Evangelical Thought. Great Neck, NY: Channel Press. 1957. Print
Klein, Blomberg, Hubbard. Introduction to Biblical Interpretation. TN: Thomas Nelson. 1993. Print
Mickelsen, Berkeley. Interpreting The Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1963. Print
Collins, Kenneth. The Torah in Modern Scholarship. www.kencollins.com/bible/bible-p2.htm
Mackintosh, Charles. Genesis To Deuteronomy. Neptune, NJ: Loizeaux Brothers, Inc. 1972, Print
