Documentary Assumption

The system of Graf-Welhausen is not the documentary first assumption . Previously, Edouard Wilhem Reuss (1804 - 1891) had already had the idea that Pentateuque would have had as sources three or four documents from which it distinguished clearly, in 1839, the sacerdotal legislation (Exodus 25-40, Nombres 1-10, Lévitique and some texts narrative).

Prolegomenes

Karl-Heinrich Graf, (1815 - 1869) its pupil, shows that neither the Deutéronome, neither the prophetic books, nor the historical books (of Josué with 2Rois) know the sacerdotal legislation as brought back in the Torah. So the document of sacerdotal legislation is dated from the post-exilic time.

It is systematized at the XIXe century by the German exégète Julius Wellhausen. It is wrongly retained like the first theory disputing the drafting of the Pentateuque by Moïse. The theory considers that the development of the Tanakh is the product of former theological traditions and started before the Monothéisme is not really established at the Hebrew X. It reveals documents (from where the name) tangled up or juxtaposed in the current Torah.

the theory of Wellhausen

According to this exégète, each document reflects an evolution of the faith of its writers

According to this theory, one distinguishes:

the Document jahvist (J), where the God of Israel is named YHWH. Its fixing (oral or written) would have taken place with Jerusalem at the end of the Xe front century J-C; under the reign of Solomon
the Document elohist (E), where the God of Israel is named Elohim. Its fixing would have been made in the kingdom of Israel (kingdom of North) at the end of the 9th century or at the beginning of the 8th century
the Deutéronome (D) or 2nd law, compose to Jerusalem (Kingdom of Juda, in the South) under the reign of the king Josias
the sacerdotal Document (P for priest ) written during the Exil in Babylon at the 6th century or a little later and presents the restoration.

Wellhausen inquires around various sets of themes:

the place of worship,
sacrifices,
festivals,
clergy,
the dîme.

He concludes that each one of these institutions knows the same movement characterized by a pluralism, followed by a centralization and being completed by a ritualisation.

Ideological dimension of the work of Wellhausen

Wellhausen prefers the monarchical period, that of the document J (sometimes also named I). Its successors there see at the same time a consequence of the German Romantisme but also suggest that its admiration for the Kaiser has perhaps something to see in this taste if it is considered that Julius Wellhausen wrote about 1871, i.e. at the time where Bismarck unified the German empire.

However, after monarchy, Wellhausen sees only Décadence and degeneration which culminates at the time post-exilic. This type of problems led Wellhausen to resign of the faculty of Theology of Göttingen and to teach Semitic philology with the faculty of Letters.

Evolution of the theory

Hermann Gunkel

The theory almost immediately finds dispute which becomes a leaven of evolution, in particular with Hermann Gunkel (1862 - 1932). Formed by the school history of the religions , he writes the Bible is a collection of legends . Under the influence of the Archeology Mésopotamie, it does not privilege the pre-monarchical period and develops the oral tradition. One can also regard it as one of the founders of the school of the history of the forms according to which the shape of a text gives an account of the situation of communication and the sociological context in which it is produced.

Martin Noth

Martin Noth (1902 - 1968) raises the question of wide sources: Pentateuque, Hexateuque or Tétrateuque?

to see article specialized History deuteronomist

Gerhard von Rad

With Gerhard von Rad (1901 - 1971) the documentary assumption finds its canonical form , that which will give best an account of the formation of Pentateuque until in the years 1970. According to Rad, Pentateuque is in fact Hexateuque on the plan of its structure in which Yahwiste considers a history of the hello starting from the small creed initial in Deutéronome 26,5-9.

Yahwiste considers (Genesis 12,1-3) that the empire salomonien constitutes the result of the promises and the project of YHWH.
the ideology of Yahwiste says that the made promise with Abraham relates to the Great Nation , the blessing and the possession of the country as realized under the reign of Solomon
the Great name (Genesis 12,2) is that granted to David into 2 Samuel 7,9.

Rad esteem necessary to undertake same work on the other sources. The guiding line of Rad is close to the dialectical theology under the influence of Karl Barth

In the neighborhoods of 1960, the documentary assumption is stated in a form different from that of its beginnings and rather like this:

Posterity

The research published around 1975 somewhat dynamited the documentary assumption. They are the following works:

J. Van Seeters, Abraham in Tradition and History New Haven/London 1975 (Abraham in the tradition and the history)
HH Schmidt, the so-called yahwist
R. Rendorff, Das überlieferungsgechichtliche Problem of Pentateuch Berlin, 1975 (the problem of the transmission of the traditions of Pentateuque).

These 3 works give again dynamism with the assumption of the fragments .

The theory reappears today in the form of a new documentary theory . Some Israeli historians think that Pentateuque was composed during the hellenistic period, i.e. about third century BC or second century BC. Work of the archeologists Silbermann and Finkelstein (" the revealed Bible " or better exhumed , translation literal of the English title) concludes that the empire salomonien did not exist; the description which is made by it would correspond (concretely registered in the Stratigraphie) to that of the empire of Omri, one of the last kings of the Kingdom of Nord

For the Judaism, the documentary assumption and its derivatives are rigorously inadmissible, because the Unicity of YHWH and Elohim is the base of the Jewish faith. (See Shema Israel). In the Torah, the two names are not used indifferently: for example, in Genesis 22, it is Elohim which requires of Abraham to sacrifice Isaac to him to verse 1, and it is YHWH which blesses it to have obeyed to him, with verse 15. The use of the two terms does not indicate different sources, but complementary uses.
In the same way, if there are two accounts of Creation, it is that the design of a child can be described from the point of view of the parents or that of the designed child, although it is the same design, and not because there are two authors.

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