At 02:02 PM 8/31/2006, Brent Foster wrote:
>My latest read is "Who Wrote the Bible" by R. E.
>Friedman. It covers the JDEP, or documentary
>theory of Old Testament authorship. I'm curious
>what the folks around here think about the
>theory in general and this book/author if anyone
>is familiar. I havn't read much in the genre of
>biblical scolarship. I've read some books by F.
>F. Bruce but that's about it. I'm struck by the
>difference in the degree of proof or evidence
>that appears to be required to support a theory
>in the in the realm of theology vs. science.
>Friedman seems to draw conclusions with amazing
>certainty from information in the text that may
>only seem to suggest a certain inferrence. But I
>do see a similarity of methodology with science.
>I think critics of JDEP can rightly say that
>much is based on the assumption that fullfilled
>prophesy is out of the question. In other words
>if an author is aware of an event that happened
>at a certain time, then the text must have been
>written after that time. But is this not !
> just methodoligical naturalism? Or is it philosophical naturalism?
>
>Here's what AIG had to say about JDEP, in the
>concluding remarks from one of their online articles:
>
>"On the other hand there is no historical
>evidence, and no spiritual or theological basis
>whatsoever for the deceptive JEDP hypothesis.
>Its teaching is completely false; the
>‘scholarship’ that promotes it is totally
>spurious. Propped up by the theory of evolution,
>it exists solely to undermine the authority of the Word of God."
>
>Whatever problems we may have with JDEP it's
>just wrong to say that there is no evidence or
>any basis at all for it. This is the same load
>of garbage they write about every theory they don't like.
>
>Brent
@ A walk down memory lane below. ~ Janice
Date: Tue, 06 Dec 2005 09:31:05 -0500
To: Chris Barden <chris.barden@gmail.com>, ASA list <asa@calvin.edu>
From: Janice Matchett <janmatch@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: JEDP: another heresy?
At 06:51 AM 12/6/2005, Chris Barden wrote:
>Hello all,
>
>I've been wondering lately what the status of
>the JEDP documentary hypothesis should be in
>light of its "evolutionary" character. It is
>cited approvingly in plenty of Bible
>commentaries and is lambasted by Answers in
>Genesis (see
>http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i4/moses.asp)
>so my assumption is to treat it with some plausibility. But I don't really
>know much about it, so I thought I would ask
>experts on the list if it is a firm explanation
>of "textual origins" or something weaker. ~ Chris
### In a nutshell:
Composing the Old Testament
http://www.tektonics.org/nutshell/nutshelljedp.html
The JEDP Theory in a Nutshell James Patrick Holding
----------
Maybe you have heard of the "JEDP" theory, or
else, have heard of theories that Moses did not
write the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Numbers,
Leviticus, Deuteronomy), and that it was written later in Israel's history.
What does JEDP stand for? J is supposed to be
Jawhist (or Yahwist), a writer who had a thing
for the name "Yahweh" and viewed God as very
personal E is supposed to be Elohimist, a writer
who had a thing for the name "Elohim" and viewed
God as somewhat distant D is supposed to be
Deuteronomist, a writer who composed Deuteronomy
and maybe did a few tweaks here and there P is
supposed to be Priestly, a writer who took the
works of J, E and D and mashed them together into
what we have now, adding his own touches
The JEDP theory has a lot of mutations, with some
people adding other letters, and offering a
variety of ideas about when each writer did their
work, though all agree that little if any of the
first five books of the Bible were written by Moses.
What's wrong with this theory?
It started with certain ideas that further
research has shown to be false. In particular,
the idea that the books of the Bible could be
divided by the use of the two names for God,
Yahweh and Elohim, has been found to have
reasonable cause that a single author allows. But
it was one of the original criteria for divinding
parts of the Pentateuch into J and E sections,
and now, theorists will either ignore the later
research, or else continue to change the theory
to keep it alive. One way they do this is by
turning "P" into a genie who edited and changed
the text at various places for no discernible
reason (other than, maybe, to confuse modern JEDP
theorists into thinking there was a problem for
their theory). For another example, certain
features of the text that were once taken as
proof for JEDP are now known to simply reflect
normal writing practice for ancient people, and
thus work with an idea of just one author
writing. JEDP also did not conceive of the idea
of such things as scribes writing on behalf of
others, or of later writers making minor updates
to texts to keep them from becoming anachronistic.
Today many scholars still hold to JEDP because
they do not know what else to put in its place,
and they don't consider Mosaic authorship an option.
For further and more detailed reading:
Specific Case Studies on some texts said to support JEDP:
<http://www.tektonics.org/jedp/gen12.html>Gen.
12:10-20, 20:1-18, and 26:1-11
<http://www.tektonics.org/jedp/gen15.html>Gen. 15
and 17
<http://www.tektonics.org/jedp/gen21.html>Gen.
21:14-21
<http://www.tektonics.org/lp/midish.html>Gen. 37
<http://www.tektonics.org/jedp/rockwater.html>Exod.
17:2-7, Num. 20:2-13
<http://www.tektonics.org/jedp/num16.html>Num. 16
<http://www.tektonics.org/jedp/deut.html>Deuteronomy
<http://www.tektonics.org/af/davegol.html>1 Samuel 16-18
General Studies
<http://www.christian-thinktank.com/aec2.html>The
Making of the Old Testament [Off Site] --
includes pertinent commentary showing the
internal unity of items like the Flood story
<http://www.christian-thinktank.com/aecy.html>A
Brief Case for Moses as author of the Pentateuch
[Off Site]
<http://www.christian-thinktank.com/qmoses1.html>More
on what "Mosaic authorship" means [Off Site]
<http://www.christian-thinktank.com/qmomoz.html>Was
the Pentateuch adulterated by later additions?
[Off Site]
<http://www.winnie-the-pooh.ru/online/lib/stud.html>Satire
of JEDP principles used on the works of A. A.
Milne (Winnie the Pooh) [Off Site]
Book Reviews
<http://www.tektonics.org/books/sailpentrvw.html>The
Pentateuch as Narrative by John Sailhamer
<http://www.tektonics.org/books/friedhidrvw.html>Review
of The Hidden Book in the Bible by Richard
Elliott Freidman
<http://www.tektonics.org/books/friendmanwwbrvw.html>Who
Wrote the Bible? by Friedman
~ Janice
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Received on Thu Aug 31 14:19:49 2006
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