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The Undead Hypothesis:Why the Documentary Hypothesis is

the Frankenstein of Biblical StudiesDuane Garrett

Duane Garrett is a professor of Old

Testament at Gordon Conwell Theologi-

cal Seminary. He has served the Inter-

national Mission Board by teaching in

Southern Baptist seminaries in both

Korea and Canada. Dr. Garret t is the

author of many ar ticles and books,

including two Old Testament commen-

taries in the New American Commen-

tary series. He is currently working on a

commentary on the Song of Solomon

for the Word Biblical Commentar y

series.

A stock feature of the classic “grade B”horror movie is the undead creature whorelentlessly stalks innocent people andterrorizes an otherwise quiet village.Whether it be Frankenstein, the Mummy,Dracula, or simply crude, grotesque zom-bies with rotting flesh falling off theirlimbs and faces, these villains share acommon trait. They all have already diedand usually have already been buried. Butthen, either through the blunder of someinvestigator or the work of some evilgenius, they rise and walk again. Thedilemma posed by these undead mon-sters is obvious: How do you kill some-one who is already dead?

A similar creature stalks the halls ofbiblical studies. It is routinely raised upfrom the grave in classrooms and ithaunts textbooks and monographs thatdeal with the Hebrew Scriptures. Wher-ever it roams, it distorts the analysis of thetext of the Bible, confounds readers, andproduces strange and irrational interpre-tations. This undead creature sometimesgoes by the quasi-mystical soundingsobriquet “the JEDP theory,” but it is bet-ter known by its formal name, the docu-mentary hypothesis.

The time has come for scholars to rec-ognize that the documentary hypothesisis dead. The arguments that support ithave been dismantled by scholars ofmany stripes—many of whom have notheological commitment to the Bible. Thetheory is, however, still taught as an

established result of biblical scholarshipin universities and theological schoolsaround the world. Books and mono-graphs rooted in it still frequently appear.Laughably, some of these books aretouted for their “startling new interpre-tations” of the history of the Bible whilein fact doing little more than repackagingold ideas.1 If the sheer volume of litera-ture on a hypothesis were a demonstra-tion of its veracity, the documentaryhypothesis would indeed be well estab-lished.2 Nevertheless, while the deadhand of the documentary hypothesis stilldominates Old Testament scholarship asits official orthodoxy, the cutting edgeresearch of recent years has typically beenhighly critical of the theory.3

In 1991 I published Rethinking Genesis,4

which was one of a number of books pub-lished within about a decade to challengethe documentary hypothesis and suggesta new approach to the background ofGenesis. Notwithstanding the fact thatthis work and several major challenges tothe hypothesis from established criticalscholars received some significant atten-tion—but virtually no rebuttals speakingin favor of the documentary hypothesis—J, E, D, and P continue to be paradedbefore university students as the originaldocuments behind the Pentateuch.

Evangelical readers should not be san-guine about this fact. Despite the assur-ances of some quasi-confessional scholarsthat it really does not matter where Gen-

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esis comes from, the documentaryhypothesis is fundamentally incompatiblewith belief in even a minimal historicalcore of the Pentateuch. If the hypothesisis true, then the Pentateuch is essentiallyfiction. Worse than that, it is a confused,self-contradictory fiction with no unifiedtheological message. It is with this inmind that I return to this topic and seekto make readers of this journal aware ofthe basic issues.

The Background of theDocumentary Hypothesis

The documentary hypothesis beganwith the speculations of Jean Astruc(1684–1766), who suggested that he coulduncover the sources of the Pentateuch byusing the divine names Yahweh (“theLORD”) and Elohim (“God”) as a guide. Heplaced passages that use the name Elohim

in one column (A), those that use Yahwehin another (B), and passages with “repeti-tions” in a third column (C), and inter-polations in a fourth column (D). Hissuggestion led scholars to believe that thedistinction in the divine names—that is,whether a given text calls the Deity“Yahweh” or Elohim—was the primarymarker of the origin of that text. Usingthis basic criterion, scholars accounted forthe development of the Pentateuch as itexists today in various ways. Some sug-gested a “fragmentary hypothesis”(which asserts that the Pentateuch wascompiled from a mass of fragmentarysources) while others postulated a “sup-plemental hypothesis” (which asserts thata single document lies at the core of thePentateuch, but that many fragmentarysources have been added to it). But thetriumphant theory of Pentateuchal originswas the documentary hypothesis, oftencalled the Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis

after K. H. Graf and Julius Wellhausen,who gave it its classic expression.5 In theEnglish-speaking world, the theory waspopularized especially by S. R. Driver.

The Documentary HypothesisBriefly Described

The theory asserts that behind thePentateuch are four source documents,called J (Yahwist), E (Elohist), D (Deu-teronomist), and P (Priestly Code).

J, the oldest, begins at Genesis 2:4b andincludes large portions of Genesis as wellas portions of Exodus and Numbers anda few short texts in Deuteronomy. It isoften dated to the early monarchy periodand is thought to have its provenance inJudah. In Genesis, J refers to God asYahweh for, according to the hypothesis,J believed that people began using thename Yahweh early in the antediluvianperiod (Gen 4:26, a J text). As a theologi-cal statement, J is often regarded as thework of a great, original thinker who gaveshape to the Old Testament idea of thehistory of salvation.

E is somewhat later than J but followsthe same basic story line as J. Genesis 15is the first extant E text. E comes from thenorthern kingdom. In Genesis, E refersto God as Elohim rather than Yahwehbecause, according to E, the name Yahwehwas not revealed until the exodus period(Exod 3:15, an E text). E is more sensitiveto moral issues than J but it views God assomewhat more distant from man. J andE were subsequently redacted into asingle document by RJE (R = “redactor”).In the redaction, much of the E materialwas edited out and thus lost to posterity.

D was written at the time of Josiah’sreformation and is essentially the book ofDeuteronomy. According to 2 Kings 22,Hilkiah the priest found a copy of the law

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of Moses when the temple was beingrestored. In the documentary hypothesis,however, Deuteronomy was actuallywritten at this time as a kind of piousfraud to justify Josiah’s reformation. Ddoes not have a characteristic divine namebut uses both Yahweh and Elohim. Theredactor RD subsequently combined thetexts JE and D.

P was written in the postexilic period.It begins at Genesis 1:1 and includes largeportions of Genesis, Exodus, and Num-bers and all of Leviticus. It is said torepresent the triumph of the postexilicpriesthood and it attempts to justify theirform of worship and codify their religion.In Genesis, P refers to God as Elohim since,like E, it assumes that the divine nameYahweh was first revealed at the exodus(Exod 6:3, a P text). It is dominated bygenealogies, priestly regulations, and avery formal manner of narration. P wassoon redacted into JED by RP. ThePentateuch was thus formed.6

Defining Principles of theDocumentary Hypothesis

One must recognize that according tothis theory the four documents were eachcomposed first of all as independent, con-

tinuous, single narrations and only laterwere brought together and edited into thepresent work. The scholars who devel-oped the documentary hypothesis eitherexplicitly or implicitly followed a numberof basic principles in their research.

It is easy to determine the purposes and

methods behind the documents and redactions.

The early framers of the documentaryhypothesis thought they could deduce thepurposes and methods of the redactors,despite the fact that enormous culturaldifferences existed between the (mostlyGerman) scholars who studied Genesis

and the ancient Near Eastern world of thetext itself. In addition, scholars werewilling to tolerate a glaring inconsistencyin their approach to the problem. Theyassumed that each document writer (suchas J) aimed to produce a single, con-tinuous history but would tolerate noinconsistency, repetition, or narrativedigressions. They believed that the redac-

tors, however, were oblivious to con-tradiction and repetition when theycombined the documents.

Stylistic differences enable scholars to dis-

tinguish one source text from another. Earlyadvocates of the documentary hypothesisfelt they could easily separate one textfrom another on the basis of style. P, forexample, is said to have a formal, seg-mented, and rather aloof style while J issupposed to have written in a flowing anddramatic narrative style. This perceptionis reinforced by the fact that formal texts(such as Genesis 1, descriptions of the tab-ernacle and its offerings, and genealogies)are routinely assigned to P while textssuch as Genesis 2—4 are for the most partassigned to J. But this is more a matter ofcontent than of style. The whole Penta-teuch is in standard (albeit somewhatlofty) biblical Hebrew.

Ancient editors (redactors) simply

conflated their source documents without

attempting to correct obvious contradictions

or smooth out problems created by joining the

documents together. That is, the redactorssimply merged the texts at hand by the“scissors-and-paste” method of cuttingup each document and then joining thewhole into a continuous narrative. This is,of course, a questionable and peculiarassumption.

Israelite history and religion developed in

a simple, evolutionary manner. In the docu-mentary hypothesis, Israelite religion is

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supposed to have moved from a primi-tive tribal religion to the advanced mono-theism of postexilic Israel. Israelite socialinstitutions that reflect a sophisticated,monotheistic religion with a centralpriesthood (such as the institutions of theAaronic priesthood and the regulated sys-tems of offerings described in Exodus andLeviticus) are said to be retrojections fromthe postexilic period onto the (largelymythical) era of Moses and the Exodus.Wellhausen built his theory on an evolu-tionary philosophy with its roots in theidealism of G. W. F. Hegel. In Wellhausen,Old Testament scholarship is dominatedby an outdated and discarded approachto historical analysis.

The Arguments for theDocumentary Hypothesis

As scholars have continued to studythe texts, they have proposed many modi-fications to the original documentaryhypothesis. Some scholars have made thetheory more complex by dividing the foursources into even smaller sources (e.g.,J1 and J2 ), whereas others reduced thenumber of sources, especially by rejectingthe existence of E altogether. Neverthe-less, the basic documentary hypothesisfrom which all refinements come is thesimplest point at which the theory can beanalyzed. In addition, the book of Gen-esis is the true focus of the debate. Thecentral arguments for the hypothesis areas follows.

Some texts in Genesis refer to God as

Yahweh, whereas others call him Elohim. Pas-sages in Genesis that call God Yahweh areassigned to J, who thought the nameYahweh was revealed to humanity wellbefore the patriarchal age began. Thosetexts that refer to God as Elohim may beassigned to E or P, both of whom thought

the name Yahweh was not revealed untilthe Exodus.

Genesis contains some duplicate stories

and repetitions. This is because each sourcedocument often contained its own versionof a single tradition. Thus 12:10–20 (J) and20:1–18 (E) contain variants of a single tra-dition of a patriarch passing off his wifeas his sister.7 Sometimes the two variantversions were redacted into a single nar-rative, yet the documents behind thesingle redaction are still apparent. J andP each had a version of the Flood story,for example, but these have been com-bined in the present text.

Contradictions within Genesis indicate

the existence of the separate documents. Theimplication is that one document had oneversion of a tradition, but a second docu-ment had another version of the samestory that contradicted the first in somedetails.

The language and style of the documents

vary. J is said to have been a masterfulstoryteller, but P is regarded as formal andwordy. Each document also has its ownpreferred vocabulary.

Each document, when extracted from the

present text of the Pentateuch, shows itself to

have been originally a continuous, theologi-

cally meaningful piece of literature. Somehave argued that it is possible to see a spe-cific literary and theological purposebehind each document.8 If this argumentis established, then it obviously suggeststhat there actually were separate docu-ments behind the present text.

Even on a superficial reading, some texts

obviously involve more than one source. Thebest example is Genesis 1–2. Genesis 1:1–2:3 and Genesis 2:4ff. seem to differ inmany details in regard to the sequence ofcreation (for example, whether the ani-mals were made before or after the cre-

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ation of the first man).The confused history of the Israelite priest-

hood found in the Pentateuch is best explained

by the documentary hypothesis. In some texts(e.g., Deuteronomy), all Levites arepriests. In other texts (the P portions ofExodus and Leviticus), only the Aaronitesare priests and the rest of the Levites aremere temple workers without priestlyprivileges. The Pentateuch, therefore, can-not be a unified work from a single hand.Rather, documents D and P come fromdifferent perspectives and different ages.

An Analysis of the Arguments forthe Documentary HypothesisThe Names of God

The criterion of the divine names forsource analysis is very weak. First, the cri-terion cannot be applied consistently. Atthe beginning of the Pentateuch we readnot simply “Yahweh” in the J source (Gen-esis 2-4) but the unusual Yahweh Elohim

(“the LORD God”). Genesis 22:11, an E text,uses the name Yahweh. M. H. Segal notesthat the divine names are often usedinterchangeably in texts that cannot havedifferent sources, which begs the questionof why Genesis should be treated excep-tionally.9

Second, use of the divine names as asource criterion is contrary to all ancientNear Eastern analogies. No Egyptologist,for example, would use divine names forsource criticism in an Egyptian text.

Third, the rationale for the avoidanceof Yahweh in E and P sources in Genesisis specious. There is no reason that Jshould ever avoid Elohim; no one suggeststhat he did not know the word or hadtheological reasons to exclude it from histexts. And even if the E and P writersthought that the Israelites did not knowof the divine name Yahweh until the time

of Moses, there is no reason for them toavoid using the name in patriarchalstories except when they were directlyquoting a character whom they believeddid not yet know the name.10 If anything,we might have expected P to use Yahwehin his patriarchal narrative in order toestablish continuity with the God of theExodus.

Fourth, the interchange of Yahweh andElohim can be explained without resort topostulating different sources. UmbertoCassuto makes the point that the twonames bring out different aspects of thecharacter of God. Yahweh is the covenantname of God, which emphasizes his spe-cial relationship to Israel. Elohim speaksof God universally as God of all earth.11

Elohim is what God is and Yahweh is whohe is. More precisely, one can say that theterms Yahweh and Elohim have semanticoverlap. In a context that emphasizes Godas universal deity (e.g., Genesis 1), Elohim

is used. In a text that speaks more of Godas covenant savior (Exodus 6), Yahweh ismore likely to be found. Otherwise, ifneither aspect is particularly stressed, thenames may be alternated for variety or forno perceivable reason.

Fifth, the assumption that the J textthought the patriarchs knew the nameYahweh but that E and P texts claim theydid not is based on faulty exegesis. Gen-esis 4:26, “Then people began to call onthe name of Yahweh,” is often taken as anassertion by J that the name Yahweh wasrevealed at this moment in history. E andP, on the other hand, are said to havebelieved that the name Yahweh was firstrevealed in the period of the Exodus. Therelevant texts are Exodus 3:13–15 (E) andExodus 6:24 (P).

Genesis 4:26 has nothing to do with thequestion of when the name Yahweh was

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revealed. Even Claus Westermann, anadherent of the documentary hypothesis,says that it has been misunderstood. Gen-esis 4:26 gives an optimistic closure to thesad history of Genesis 3-4 and says thatthe God his readers know as Yahweh isthe one true God whom people have wor-shiped from earliest times.

In Exodus 3:1–15, Moses asks God hisname, and is told first that God is the “Iam,” and then that he should tell theIsraelites that Yahweh, the God of theirfathers, had sent Moses to them. Godadds that Yahweh is the name by whichhe is to be worshiped forever. The textdoes not say that no one had ever heardthe name Yahweh before this time. Werethat the case, one would find somethinglike, “No longer will you call me the Godof your fathers; from now on my name isYahweh,” similar to Genesis 17:5, 15.Instead, the text asserts that the nameYahweh will have new significancebecause of the Exodus. The people willnow see that Yahweh is present withthem.12

Exodus 6:2c–3 appears to be a straight-forward assertion that the patriarchs didnot know the name Yahweh. Most trans-lations are similar to the following: “I amYahweh. I appeared to Abraham, and toIsaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty, butby my name Yahweh I did not makemyself known to them.” But the Hebrew,as Francis I. Andersen points out, containsa case of noncontiguous parallelism thattranslators have not recognized: “I amYahweh . . . and my name is Yahweh”. Thenegative (“not”) is part of a rhetoricalquestion and not a simple negative.13 Thewhole text is set in a poetic, parallel struc-ture, as follows:

A I am Yahweh.

B And I made myself known toAbraham, to Isaac, and to Jacobas El Shaddai.

A’ And my name is Yahweh;B’ Did I not make myself known to

them?

The text insists that God revealed him-self to the patriarchs. It does not say thatthey had never heard of Yahweh or thatthey only knew of El Shaddai, although itdoes say that God showed them themeaning of his name El Shaddai. Ander-sen’s comments are to the point: “Thereis no hint in Exodus that Yahweh was anew name revealed first to Moses. Onthe contrary, the success of his missiondepended on the use of the familiar namefor validation by the Israelites.”14

In short, the criterion of divine names,the historical and evidential starting pointfor the documentary hypothesis, is com-pletely specious. It is based on misinter-pretation, mistranslation, and lack ofattention to extrabiblical sources.

Repetition, Parallel Accounts(Doublets), and Redundancy

The use of repetition as evidence formultiple documents in Genesis is perhapsthe most persuasive argument for themodern student, while in fact it is themost misleading of all. It seems to themodern reader that Genesis 12:10–20and 20:1–18 must be variants of a singletradition. How else could one explainthe presence of two stories that seem soremarkably similar—a patriarch whoseeks to avoid trouble by claiming that hiswife is his sister? The variants (Pharaoh’shouse in Genesis 12, Abimelech’s housein Genesis 20) appear to be examples ofhow a single tradition has been handeddown in different forms in different com-

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munities. But this assumption is anentirely modern reading of the text andignores ancient principles of rhetoric. Inan ancient text, there is no stronger indi-cation that only a single document ispresent than parallel accounts. Doublets,that is, two separate stories that closelyparallel one another, are the very stuff ofancient narrative. They are what the dis-criminating listener sought in a story.

Simple repetition is common in ancientNear Eastern literature. In the Ugaritic Epicof Keret, for example, large portions of thetext are repeated verbatim (albeit from dif-ferent perspectives). This technique isemployed in the Bible as well. In Genesis24, a great deal of vv. 12–27 is repeated invv. 34–48, although in the latter text it isfrom the servant’s perspective.

In an analogous manner, if two or moreseparate events were perceived to be simi-lar to one another, ancient writers tendedto give accounts of the events in parallelfashion. To do this, they would highlightsimilarities in the episodes. A narratormight put into the same form all theaccounts that he wants to present as par-allel; he would also select material that fitthe parallel he seeks to establish and per-haps leave out some of the differences. Forthis reason the author of Kings, in sum-marizing the reigns of each king of Israeland Judah, tends to employ a number offormulas. He gives the date a king cameinto power, the length of his reign, anevaluation, a reference indicating wherethe reader can find more information, anda statement of the king’s death and burial.By employing this technique, he estab-lishes the same pattern for every king andemphasizes the evil done by Israel’s kingsthrough the frequent repetition of “and hedid evil in the sight of the Lord.” A mod-ern writer, even one with the same theo-

logical point to make, would not employthis technique.

The parallels between Genesis 12:10–20 and 20:1–18, when analyzed by ancientliterary standards, strongly indicate thatthe two accounts are from the samesource. That is, when judged according tothe narrative techniques of an ancientstoryteller, the repetition is evidence thatwe have a single author giving us paral-lel but distinct episodes in his story.

In contrast to the phenomenon of dou-blets, redundancy within a single textoccurs when, according to the documen-tary hypothesis, a redactor combines (forexample) a J version and a P version of atradition into a single narrative. The floodnarrative is the classic example of twoaccounts having been joined in a scissors-and-paste method. As evidence for theconflation, advocates of the hypothesiscite the redundancies and argue that asingle author would not have repeatedhimself so much. Thus, for example, Gen-esis 6:9–22 is said to be P but 7:1–5 is J. Asthe text reads, however, the two passageshave repetition but are not fully redun-dant; they are consecutive. The P mate-rial is prior to the building of the ark andthe J material is a speech of God after itscompletion but just prior to the beginningof the flood. The repetition heightens thedramatic anticipation of the deluge to fol-low and is not indicative of two separatedocuments having been combined.

Similarly, Genesis 7:21–22 is cited as aredundancy in the flood story. The docu-mentary hypothesis assigns verse 21 to Pand verse 22 to J,15 but Andersen has shownthat the two verses are chiastic and are notthe product of two separate writers.16

A They perishedB Every living thing that moves on

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earth . . .B’ Everything that has the breath of

the living spirit . . .A’ They died

Andersen argues that when the textis left as it stands rather than arbitrarilydivided into sources and doublets, theartistic unity of the whole gives theimpression of having been formed as asingle, unified narration.17

Contradictions in the TextApparent contradictions in Genesis are

often cited as markers to the differentdocuments behind the text. A simpleexample in the flood account concerns thenumber of animals to be brought on boardthe ark (6:20 says to bring one pair ofevery kind of animal, but 7:2 says to bringseven pairs of clean animals). The expla-nation is simply that 7:1–2 is a precise fig-ure given immediately before the floodbut that 6:20 is a general figure givenbefore the ark was built. Provision had tobe made to ensure that there would besufficient livestock after the flood, andthus the higher number of clean animals.Of course, contradictions have to beexamined on a case-by-case basis, butapparent contradictions hardly sustainthe documentary hypothesis.

The Criterion of StyleAs already indicated, the idea that J

and P have different styles is a result ofartificially dividing the text. The “arid”style of the genealogies of P is simply aby–product of the fact that they aregenealogies—it has nothing to do withtheir being written in a different style.Whybray points out that the genealogiesascribed to J “have precisely the same‘arid’ character as those attributed to P.”18

Studies in the Pentateuch written in theearly twentieth century from the perspec-tive of the documentary hypothesistended to contain lengthy lists of whatwas supposed to be the characteristicvocabulary of each document. One rarelysees in modern studies lists of this kind.19

The criterion is itself quite artificial; weknow nothing of the common speech ofthe people of ancient Israel, and we can-not be sure that the words cited as syn-onymous pairs are really synonymous.One word may have been chosen overanother for the sake of a special nuancein a given circumstance, or indeed sim-ply for the sake of variety.

The Unity of Each DocumentThe argument that each document (J,

E, or P) is a self-contained and completenarrative when separated from its contextin Genesis is simply absurd, althoughdemonstrating the absurdity of it willrequire us to examine a text in somedetail. For example, if one looks at Gen-esis 28:10-30:7 as it is analyzed in astandard text (Driver’s Introduction), theinternal confusion of each document isself-evident. Below is the text as separatedinto its J and E components along withadditional, extraneous material.20

J Text28:10 So Jacob departed from Beersheba

and headed toward Haran. 28:13 And therewas Yahweh who stood above it and said,“I am Yahweh, the God of your fatherAbraham and the God of Isaac; I will givethe land on which you lie to you and toyour descendants. 28:14 Also, your descen-dants will be like the dust of the earth, andyou will spread out toward the west andtoward the east and toward the north andtoward the south; and all the families of

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the earth will be blessed in you and inyour descendants. 28:15 And look, I am withyou, and will keep you wherever yougo, and will bring you back to this land;for I will not leave you until I have donewhat I have promised you.” 28:16 ThenJacob woke up from his sleep and said,“Yahweh is definitely in this place, but Idid not know it.” 28:19 He called that placeBethel although the city used to be calledLuz. 29:2 And he looked and saw a well inthe field, and there were three flocks ofsheep lying there beside it, for theywatered the flocks from that well. Nowthe stone on the mouth of the well waslarge. 29:3 When all the flocks were gath-ered there, they would roll the stone fromthe mouth of the well and water thesheep, and then put the stone back in itsplace on the mouth of the well. 29:4 SoJacob said to them, “My brothers, whereare you from?” And they said, “We arefrom Haran.” 29:5 Then he said to them,“Do you know Laban the son of Nahor?”And they said, “We do know him.” 29:6 Sohe said to them, “Is all well with him?”And they said, “All is well; look, there isRachel his daughter coming with thesheep.” 29:7 Then he said, “You know, it isstill the middle of the day; it is not timefor the livestock to be gathered. Water thesheep and go pasture them.” 29:8 But theysaid, “We cannot until all the flocks aregathered and the stone is rolled from themouth of the well; then we water thesheep.” 29:9 While he was still speakingwith them, Rachel came with her father’ssheep (for she was a shepherdess). 29:10

And this is what happened: when Jacobsaw Rachel the daughter of Laban hismother’s brother, and the sheep of Labanhis mother’s brother, Jacob went up androlled the stone from the mouth of thewell and watered the flock of Laban his

mother’s brother. 29:11 Then Jacob kissedRachel, and lifted his voice and wept. 29:12

Then Jacob told Rachel that he was arelative of her father and that he wasRebekah’s son. She ran and told herfather. 29:13 Then this happened: whenLaban heard the news of Jacob his sister’sson, he ran to meet him and embracedhim and kissed him and brought him tohis house. Then he told Laban about allthese things. 29:14 And Laban said to him,“For sure you are my bone and my flesh.”And he stayed with him a month. 29:31

Now Yahweh saw that Leah was unlovedand he opened her womb; but Rachel wasbarren. 29:32 And Leah became pregnantand bore a son and named him Reuben,for she said, “Because Yahweh has seenmy affliction; certainly my husband willlove me now.” 29:33 Then she becamepregnant again and bore a son and said,“Because Yahweh has heard that I amunloved, he has given me this son, too.”So she named him Simeon. 29:34 And shebecame pregnant again and bore a sonand said, “Now this time my husbandwill be attached to me, because I haveborne him three sons.” Therefore he wasnamed Levi. 29:35 And she became preg-nant again and bore a son and said, “Thistime I will praise Yahweh.” Therefore shenamed him Judah. Then she stopped hav-ing children. 30:3b “I too may have childrenby her.” 30:4 So she gave him her slave girlBilhah as a wife, and Jacob went in to her.30:5 And Bilhah became pregnant and boreJacob a son. 30:7 And Bilhah Rachel’s slavegirl became pregnant again, and boreJacob a second son.

E Text28:11 Then he came to a certain place and

spent the night there, because the sun hadset; and he took one of the stones of the

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place and put it under his head, and laydown in that place. 28:12 And he had adream, and it was like this: a ladder wasset on the earth with its top reaching toheaven; and the angels of God wereactually ascending and descending on it.28:17 So he was afraid and said, “How awe-some is this place! This is none other thanthe house of God (Bethel)! This is the gateof heaven!” 28:18 So Jacob got up early inthe morning and took the stone that hehad put under his head and set it up as apillar and he poured oil on its top. 28:20

Then Jacob made a vow: “If God will bewith me and will keep me on this jour-ney that I am making, and if he will giveme food to eat and garments to wear, 28:21

and if I return safely to my father’s house,then Yahweh will be my God. 28:22 “Andthis stone, which I have set up as a pillar,will be God’s house; and I will indeedgive a tenth to you of all that you giveme.” 29:1 Then Jacob went along on hisjourney and came to the land of theeasterners. 29:15 Then Laban said to Jacob,“Since you are my relative, should you forthat reason serve me for nothing? Tell me,what will your wages be?” 29:16 NowLaban had two daughters; the name of theolder was Leah, and the name of theyounger was Rachel. 29:17 And Leah’s eyeswere tender, but Rachel was beautiful ofform and face. 29:18 But Jacob loved Rachel,so he said, “I will serve you seven yearsfor your younger daughter Rachel.” 29:19

So Laban said, “It is better that I give herto you than that I should give her toanother man; stay with me.” 29:20 So Jacobserved seven years for Rachel and theyseemed to him but a few days on accountof his love for her. 29:21 Then Jacob said toLaban, “Give me my wife, for my time iscompleted, so that I may go in to her.” 29:22

And Laban got together all the men of the

place and made a feast. 29:23 But this iswhat happened: in the night he took hisdaughter Leah and brought her to himand Jacob went in to her. 29:25 So the morn-ing came and there was Leah! So he saidto Laban, “What is this you have done tome? Didn’t I serve you for Rachel? Whythen have you cheated me?” 29:26 ButLaban said, “It is not the tradition here inour place to marry off the younger beforethe first-born. 29:27 “Fulfill the week of thisone, and we will give you the other alsofor your service—you will serve with mefor another seven years.” 29:28 So Jacob didthat and completed her week, and he gavehim his daughter Rachel as his wife. 29:30

So Jacob went in to Rachel also, and heloved Rachel in fact more than Leah, andhe served with Laban for another sevenyears. 30:1 But when Rachel saw that shebore Jacob no children, she became jeal-ous of her sister. So she said to Jacob,“Give me children, or I will die!” 30:2 ThenJacob got angry with Rachel and said,“Am I in the place of God, who has with-held the fruit of the womb from you?” 30:3a

So she said, “Here is my slave girl Bilhah!Go in to her so that she may bear on myknees!” 30:6 And Rachel said, “God hasjudged me, and has also heard my voice,and has given me a son: therefore calledshe his name Dan.”

Later editorial additions29:24 Laban also gave his slave girlZilpah to his daughter Leah as aslave girl.29:29 Laban also gave his slave girlBilhah to his daughter Rachel as herslave girl.

Read by itself, the J version makes nosense at all. It indicates that Jacob had avision of Yahweh when he arrived atHaran and that he built a shrine there(note the jump from 28:19 to 29:2, which

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implies he is in Haran). In 28:19 he callsthe place Bethel, but a reader who hadonly J would be confused about whetherthis is the Bethel in Canaan or if Jacob wasnaming some site at Haran “Bethel.” Thestory then leaps without any transition atall from Jacob’s dream to his encounterwith the shepherds and with Laban’s fam-ily. Then it abruptly tells us that Leah gavebirth to four children but was distressedbecause Jacob did not love her. Bear inmind that the reader of J has no idea who

Leah is, much less that she is Jacob’sunloved wife, because this is the first timeshe appears in J. In 30:3b somebody (iden-tity not given) says she wants to have chil-dren by “her,” and only in the next versedoes the reader learn that the surrogatemother is Bilhah, who is also otherwiseunknown to the reader. But for whom isBilhah acting as a surrogate mother —forLeah? Only in 30:7 is the reader told inpassing that Bilhah is Rachel’s slave. Butof course, up until this moment the onlything the reader knows about Rachel isthat she is the daughter of Laban whomJacob met at the well. How is the readerto know that Rachel is his second wife?

E, by contrast, tells us that Jacob had adream of a stairway to heaven at Bethel,but in this version Jacob receives no cov-enantal promise. Jacob simply deducesthat the deity he saw in the dream wasYahweh. He makes a vow to Yahwehdespite the fact that Yahweh (in E’s ver-sion) has not given him any covenantalpromise that would give Jacob the rightto consider Yahweh bound by an oath tohim (note also the divine name “Yahweh”in 28:21, an E text). He then goes to theland of the easterners where Laban entersthe narrative abruptly and without intro-duction. After the story of the marriagesof Jacob, we are suddenly told that Rachel

was jealous of Leah. This is strange sincein E’s version the reader does not knowanything about Leah having children;all he or she knows is that Rachel wasbeloved and Leah unloved! Also, thereader can infer from what she says thatRachel has been unable to bear children(it is actually J who tells the reader thatRachel was infertile). But in 30:6 Rachelis suddenly praising God for giving her ason and she names him Dan. But fromwhere did Dan come? Who is Dan’smother, Rachel or Bilhah? The reader whoonly has E cannot tell. One should recallthat even though E was supposed to havebeen written after J, it is altogether inde-pendent of J. The early readers of E wouldknow nothing of J.

Of course, a standard response is thatdetails that would make the J and E ver-sions more coherent have been sup-pressed in the redactional process. Sucha response, however, only concedes thepoint that we are making: J and E, as wehave them, are incoherent. One cannotclaim that the coherence of J and E estab-lish the validity of the documentaryhypothesis.

Also, one can hardly claim that thesupposed theological vision of each docu-ment supports the documentary hypoth-esis. The assertion is based on theassumption that the hypothesis is true; itis not an independent argument for thetheory. Scholars once routinely spoke ofthe “theology of J” or of “P.” One has thesense that, even among scholars trainedin the documentary hypothesis, anincreasing number have difficulty takingseriously analyses like those by WalterBrueggemann and Hans Walter Wolff (seenote 8) as presentations of the theologi-cal background of Genesis. Thomas L.Thompson notes that, in more recent

39

analysis, the Elohist has disappeared fromview entirely and the Yahwist is fast fad-ing from existence, even as P grows largerand larger. The hypothesis has no valueas a guide for continued research.21

Whybray, too, in outlining especially therecent contributions by Rolf Rendtorff22

and H. H. Schmid, demonstrates that thenotion of a “theology of the Yahwist” isvanishing among scholars.23

The Hypothesis Proven by SomeSpecific Texts

Many scholars recognize that the argu-ments as such for the documentaryhypothesis have been exploded, but theyappear to hold to the hypothesis becausea few key passages seem persuasive. Inparticular, Genesis 1:1–2:3 and Genesis2:4ff. appear to come from separatesources. They lack both logic and a senseof balance. If the arguments for thehypothesis are shown to be worthless,then the differences in Genesis 1-3 mustbe explained in some other way. The merepresence of problems in the early Genesisnarrative is not sufficient to establish thedocumentary hypothesis.24

The Hypothesis Verified by theHistory of the Priesthood

It appears that many scholars continueto support the hypothesis because ofquestions regarding the history of Israel.In particular, the hypothesis seems tooffer the best explanation of why the termLevite is used inconsistently in the OldTestament. But the solution to the prob-lem of the history of the priesthood is bestexplained within the context of the his-tory of Israel as it is traditionally andcanonically understood.25 The documen-tary hypothesis only exacerbates the prob-lem with its competing theologies from

rival groups vying for priestly power.

Where Do We Go from Here?The documentary hypothesis is a zom-

bie; it is dead but still roaming the hallsof Old Testament scholarship seeking itsnext victim. What can account for this?The only answer can be that no paradigmhas arisen to replace the documentaryhypothesis as an explanation for the prob-lem of the origin of the Pentateuch. Thus,professors of Old Testament persist inteaching it, even though a large number,one suspects, know that it is not true.Sadly, when confronted with the docu-mentary hypothesis, many students andlay readers are dazzled by the apparentsophistication of the scholarship, and areespecially captivated by the fact that “J”seems much more interesting than stodgyold Genesis with all its genealogies.

Many believing Christians may rise toassert that the ruling paradigm should bethat Moses wrote the Pentateuch. This istrue but inadequate, at least in the case ofGenesis. It is inadequate because Moseslived hundreds of years after all the char-acters of Genesis had died. One couldsuggest that he received all his knowledgeof the history of the patriarchs directlyfrom God, but we do not make this claimabout any other historical book. To thecontrary, we assert that the writers ofJoshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Luke, andevery other historical book in the Bibleused sources where the author himselfwas not a witness to the events.

In Rethinking Genesis, I suggest thatthere are sources behind Genesis but thatthese sources are compatible with the ideaof Mosaic authorship. In addition, I sug-gest that these sources had real ancientNear Eastern analogues (unlike J, E, D,and P, which are completely without par-

40

allel). Finally, I argue that these sourcescan be said to have had a real significancefor Israel in Egypt and that the collectionof these sources into the present book ofGenesis during the exodus is the mostsatisfactory explanation for the writing ofthe book. I will leave it to the reader todecide whether Rethinking Genesis makesfor a persuasive solution to the problem.But we can only hope that some paradigmthat is not opposed to Scripture willfinally put the documentary hypothesis inthe grave once and for all.

ENDNOTES11Thus Richard Elliot Friedman, The Hid-

den Book in the Bible / Restored, Translated,

and Introduced (San Francisco: Harper,1998).

22A few of the major works are S. R. Driver,An Introduction to the Literature of the Old

Testament (1897; reprint, Gloucester, MA:Peter Smith, 1972); John Skinner, A Criti-

cal and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis,2d ed., International Critical Commen-tary (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1930);Robert H. Pfeiffer, Introduction to the Old

Testament (New York: Harper and Broth-ers, 1941); Gerhard von Rad, Genesis,trans. John H. Marks (Philadelphia:Westminster, 1961); E. A. Speiser, Genesis,Anchor Bible (New York: Doubleday,1964); Otto Eissfeldt, The Old Testament:

An Introduction, trans. Peter Ackroyd(New York: Harper and Row, 1965);Georg Fohrer, Introduction to the Old

Testament, trans. David E. Green (Nash-ville: Abingdon, 1968); J. Alberto Soggin,Introduction to the Old Testament, OldTestament Library (Philadelphia: West-minster, 1976); George W. Coats, Genesis:

with an Introduction to Narrative Literature,Forms of the Old Testament Literature(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984); Claus

Westermann, Genesis 1-11, trans. JohnJ. Scullion (Minneapolis: Augsburg/Fortress, 1984); Werner H. Schmidt,Introduction to the Old Testament, trans.Matthew J. O’Connell (London: SCM,1984).

33R. N. Whybray, The Making of the

Pentateuch (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987);Rolf Rendtorff, Das überlieferungsges-

chichtliche Problem des Pentateuch,Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttesta-mentliche Wissenschaft 147 (Berlin: deGruyter, 1977); Brevard S. Childs, Intro-

duction to the Old Testament as Scripture

(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979) 119ff.; andGordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15, WordBiblical Commentary (Waco: Word,1987) xxxiv-xxxv.

44Duane Garrett, Rethinking Genesis (GrandRapids: Baker, 1991; reprint, Ross-shire,Great Britain: Christian Focus, 2000).

55For a history of Old Testament criticism,see R. K. Harrison, Introduction to the Old

Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,1969) 3-82. See also R. J. Thompson,Moses and the Law in a Century of Criti-

cism Since Graf (Leiden: Brill, 1970); alsoFohrer, 23-32, 106-113; and Soggin, 79-98.

66A few fragments not related to any of thefour source documents (e.g., Genesis 14)are also to be found in the Penta-teuch.See also the summary in Whybray, 20-21.For a detailed presentation of the classicform of the hypothesis, see Driver, 1-159.For a presentation of the hypothesis in amore complex, evolved form, see Fohrer,120-195. For a survey of the hypothesisin the context of some more recent de-velopments, see Soggin, 99-160, andWenham, Genesis 1-15, xxv-xlv.

77See Speiser, 150-152.88Walter Brueggemann and Hans Walter

Wolff, The Vitality of Old Testament Tradi-

tions (Atlanta: John Knox, 1975).

41

99M. H. Segal, The Pentateuch: Its Com-

position and Authorship (Jerusalem:Magnes, 1967) 11-14.

10Whybray, 64-65.11Umberto Cassuto, The Documentary

Hypothesis and the Composition of the

Pentateuch, trans. Israel Abrahams(Jerusalem: Magnes, 1941) 15-41.

12Cf. John Durham, Exodus, Word Bib-lical Commentary (Waco: Word,1987) 39-41.

13Francis I. Andersen, The Sentence in

Biblical Hebrew (The Hague: Mou-ton, 1974) 102.

14Andersen, 102.15Speiser, 49; Skinner, 153, 165.16Andersen, 39-40.17Andersen, 40.18Whybray, 60.19See Rolf Rendtorff, The Problem of the

Process of Transmission in the Penta-

teuch, trans. Johns Scullion, Journalfor the Study of the Old TestamentSupplementary Series 89 (Sheffield:JSOT Press, 1990) 146-150.

20Driver, 16.21Thompson, 49.22Rendtorff, Problem, 119-136.23Whybray, 93-108. He especially

summarizes arguments developedin Rendtorff, Pentateuch, and H. H.Schmid, Der sogenannte Jahwist

(Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1976).24For a more complete analysis of this

problem, see my Rethinking Genesis,chapter 10 (pp. 185-197 in the Chris-tian Focus edition).

25For a more complete analysis of thisproblem, see my Rethinking Genesis,chapter 11 (pp. 198-234 in the Chris-tian Focus edition).