What is the documentary hypothesis about who wrote the Torah?

The documentary hypothesis is a model used by biblical scholars to explain how the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, came to exist. It proposes that the Torah was not written by one person but compiled from originally independent documents by a series of editors. In its classic form there were four: the Jahwist (J), the Elohist (E), the Deuteronomist (D) and the Priestly source (P). It is often called the Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis after the 19th-century scholars who gave it its classic shape. [1] [2] [3]

The traditional view was that Moses composed all five books. By the seventeenth century this was challenged because of inconsistencies and repetitions in the text. Moses dies at the end of Deuteronomy, so he could not have written that part. Deuteronomy 1:1 calls the land east of the Jordan "beyond the Jordan," a perspective from inside the promised land, which Moses never entered. Genesis 12:6 says the Canaanites were then in the land, a remark that sounds like a later writer. The eighteenth-century scholar Jean Astruc, who still believed Moses was the author, argued that differences between the creation accounts, including the divine names, suggested Moses used two sources. [4] [5]

J uses the divine name Yahweh, is associated with the southern kingdom of Judah, and portrays God interacting directly with people. E uses Elohim, is associated with the northern kingdom of Israel, and shows God communicating indirectly, through angels or dreams. D is essentially Deuteronomy, which many scholars link to the book found under King Josiah in 622 BCE. P supplies material such as Genesis 1, Leviticus, genealogies, and rules on priesthood and worship, with an emphasis on ritual and purity. In the classic version, J and E were joined after the northern kingdom fell in 722 BCE, and P was the latest source. [2] [4]

A version of the hypothesis associated with Julius Wellhausen was almost universally accepted for most of the 20th century, dating J to about 950 BCE and P to the time of Ezra in the 5th century BCE. That consensus faltered after mid-1970s work by John Van Seters, Hans Heinrich Schmid and Rolf Rendtorff. They argued that J dates no earlier than the Babylonian exile, rejected a substantial E source, and questioned the nature and extent of the other sources. [1]

Scholars have also revived "fragmentary" models (many small units) and "supplementary" models (a core text expanded over time), often combined with a documentary model. Most now give up the classic dating and see the finished Torah as a product of the Achaemenid period (probably 450-350 BCE), though some place it as late as the Hellenistic period. Most still accept Deuteronomy as a source and some form of Priestly source, though the Priestly source's extent is uncertain. Some recent scholars, such as Milgrom, see P as containing pre-exilic material. [1] [2]

Few scholars accept every part of the original form, but most agree that the Pentateuch contains diverse material put together over a long period. Repetitions, inconsistencies and contradictions are best explained, they say, by distinct sources from different historical periods. Debate continues over the nature of the written sources and the role of oral and liturgical traditions. [4] [5]