From: PASAlist@aol.com
Date: Fri Oct 11 2002 - 02:54:33 EDT
George wrote,
<< It's easy to satirize "higher criticism," JEPD, &c. Critical
attempts to
assign individual sentences & words to different sources have sometimes been
overdone. But anyone who who has been alerted to the bare
possibility that there are
different sources behind the Pentateuch & who reads it open eyes &
mind will see places
where different traditions have been combined. >>
i agree. Most OT scholars today are well aware that the documentary theory
was taken to an extreme in the past. But, this does not mean it does not have
some validity. When I worked my way through each verse in Deuteronomy it
became quite clear that laws in Leviticus and Numbers had been changed in
significant ways, and anyone can see this even in translation if they
carefully look at the parallel passages. There is validity to the presence of
D. P seems quite obvious as well. The P style is quite contrastive to that of
J. I only find E ephemeral.
Before supposing that OT scholars all live on a cloud, one should carefully
work through the short book by Alexander Rofe, Introduction to the
Composition of the Pentateuch (Sheffield Academic Press, 1999) or The
Pentateuch by Joseph Blenkinsopp (Doubleday, 1992). One may still end up
rejecting the theory, but it should first be given serious consideration.
Paul
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