Prolegomena to the Historical Theory of Wellhausen: An Overview of Wellhausen's Prolegomena to the

History of Israel

A Paper Submitted tothe Faculty of the Seminary & Graduate School of Religion

Bob Jones Universityin Candidacy for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy in Theological Studies

byNathaniel Paul Labadorf

Greenville, South CarolinaApril 2019

Word Count: 5896

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Prolegomena to the Historical Theory of Wellhausen: An Overview of Wellhausen's Prolegomena to the History of Israel

The Five Sources of Wellhausen's Theory 2

Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette 2

Johann Friedrich Ludwig George 3

Johann Karl Wilhelm Vatke 4

Édouard Guillaume Eugène Reuss 5

Karl Heinrich Graf 6

Wellhausen's Argument 7

The History of Worship 7

Chapter 1: The Place of Worship 7

Chapter 2: Sacrifice 9

Chapter 3: The Sacred Feasts 9

Chapter 4: The Priests and the Levites 10

Chapter 5: The Endowment of the Clergy 11

The History of Tradition 11

Chapter 6: Chronicles 11

Chapter 7: Judges, Samuel, and Kings 12

Chapter 8: The Narrative of the Hexateuch 13

Israel and Judaism 13

Chapter 9: Conclusion of the Criticism of the Law 13

Chapter 10: The Oral and the Written Torah 142

Chapter 11: The Theocracy as Idea and as Institution15

The Documentary Hypothesis Post-Wellhausen 15

Hinckley Mitchell: 1910 15

William Creighton Graham: 1938 16

J. Coert Rylaarsdam: 1954 17

Rainer Albertz: 2018 19

Summary 20

Selected Bibliography

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Prolegomena to the Historical Theory of Wellhausen: An Overview of Wellhausen's Prolegomena to the

History of Israel

Evolution is perhaps the hallmark of nineteen-century scholarship. And, although biological evolution and Darwin are the first to come to mind, biology is not the only science based on evolution. In the field of theology, this theory undergirds the entire approach of the higher critics. The most famous of them was, arguably, Wellhausen. He popularized the Documentary Hypothesis which traced the evolution of the Israelite religion from primitive to complex. Like Darwin, Wellhausen did not so much come up with his ideas as he did synthesize ideas current in his day. As far as German higher critics go, he had relative clarity and simplicity in his presentation. And his thoughts were coherent, systematized, and (most of all) convincing. Over one-hundred and forty years later, his influence is still present in Biblical scholarship.

Yet many scholars today, especially those in conservative circles, are ignorant of Wellhausen's basic argument. He is often counted as one of those nineteenth-century unbelieving higher critics who made conspiracy theories concerning the Bible. While this may be true, his basic idea—that the Bible came from multiple sources—underlies much of critical scholarship today. Thus, if a conservative scholar wants to be effective in his field, he should know the basic arguments of the source-critical theories. The best way to learn these arguments is to study the man who first popularized this the source theory—Wellhausen. It is the purpose of this paper to explore Wellhausen's

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Prolegomena to the History of Israel to find Wellhausen's predecessors, his basic argument, and the life of his argument after he died.

The Five Sources of Wellhausen's Theory

In his book, he pointed to five men who were influential in the development of the Documentary Hypothesis: de Wette, George, Vatke, Reuss, and Graf.1

Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de WetteDe Wette's main contribution to Wellhausen came from his

doctrinal thesis first published in 1805. He thesis was that "Deuteronomy is unique and it is of a very different nature from the other books [of the Pentateuch]. For not only was it written from another author in more recent time, but in many cases, it differs from the previous books; in fact, it seems to be incompatible with those."2 He concluded in his dissertation that Deuteronomy was not written by Moses at all but that the Deuteronomic-history was first begun by Josiah. His other great contribution was his proposal that Chronicles was a literary creation written well after the Exile, without drawing

1. Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel with a Reprint of the Article Israel from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, trans. J. Sutherland Black and Allen Menzies (Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1885), 4.

2. My own translation from the later reprint of his dissertation in Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette, “Dissertatio Critica Qua a Prioribus Deuteronomium Pentateuchi Libris Diversum, Alius Cuiusdam Recentioris Auctoris Opus Esse Monstratur,” in Opuscula Theologica (Berlin, 1830), 152–153.

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from any pre-Exilic sources.3 Wellhausen agreed with this conclusion, noting that any view otherwise was "manifestly out of the question."4

Johann Friedrich Ludwig GeorgeIn 1835, George published his influential work The Older Jewish

Festivals with a Criticism of the Legislation of the Pentateuch.5 George's main contribution to Wellhausen is his analysis of the feasts. George viewed the feasts of Israel as beginning "from a purely natural starting point, with quite a predominantly sensual meaning and celebration." The festivals were "pure harvest festivals" which looked forward to the acquisition of more goods. In these feasts, the people worshipped YHWH. But their religion was mixed with the other gods of the nations. A Religiously pure class reacted against this syncretism and they "develop[ed] ever more spiritually, and monotheism [became] purer and more pure." And the festivals "gradually emerge from their natural bourgeois meaning, and the religious, which at first had united with the other as a subordinate one, finally gain[ed] the upper hand." After the Exile, the festivals lost their natural significances and only kept the pure religious meaning. While Wellhausen did not cite George as much as he did Vatke, he still used

3. Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette, Beiträge zur Einleitung in das Alte Testament (Halle: Schimmelufennig und Compagnie, 1806), 24–38.

4. Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 222.5. Johann Friedrich Ludwig George, Die Älteren Jüdischen Feste mit einer Kritik

der Gesetzgebung des Pentateuch (Berlin: E. H. Schroeder, 1835).

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George's theory about the feasts as the basis for his discussion on feasts of Israel.6

Johann Karl Wilhelm Vatke In the same year that George published his work, Vatke

published his work The Biblical Theology Scientifically Presented. Vatke took "the positive results of the critique of the older Hebrew tradition" which came from de Wette and went "a step further than the usual critical view."7 Vatke made several points from which Wellhausen drew his theory. But two main ideas come to the front. First, Vatke argued that in the early stages of the Israelite religion, "the Cultus at that time still lacked the later mysterious shell." He drew for his prime example the Ark of the Covenant. At the beginning, the Ark was not considered holy and untouchable. At one point, it was stored in a common house. And at another point, David danced wildly around it in primitive exuberance. It only achieved the holy and untouchable state "after it had stood for some time in the inaccessible Holy of Holies and was deprived of the eyes of the profane people by various coverings."8 According to Wellhausen, the Ark became untouchable as the priest gained influence under the monarchy. Thus, Israel's religion evolved from a free expression of primitive religion to the cold grip of a

6. Ibid., 304–306.7. Wilhelm Vatke, Die Biblische Theologie Wissenschaftlich Dargestellt, vol. 1

(Berlin: G. Bethge, 1835), 185.8. Ibid., 1:317.See also, Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 131.

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controlling orthodoxy. This concept became the fundamental organizational pattern of Wellhausen's Prolegomena.

Second, Vatke argued that Zadok did not come from the line of Aaron. Rather, the Chronicler fabricated the line from Aaron to Zadok, but it had no historical basis at all.9 Wellhausen drew from this point to argue that the Zadokian priesthood was a later development during the First-Temple Period. As for the Aaronic priesthood, it ended with Eli in the Tabernacle-Period. Then, a non-Aaronic priesthood arose. But this priesthood conflicted with the requirements of the Pentateuch. So, to meet the demands, the Chronicler fabricated the genealogy so that the Zadokian line seemed legitimate. This observation, then, puts the development of the Priestly Code after the Exile.10

Édouard Guillaume Eugène ReussIn 1879, Reuss published his work The Holy History and the Law.11

Reuss's main contribution in the critical field was not so much this work, but of his teaching position at the university of Strasbourg. During his time there, He taught Graf from whom Wellhausen drew

9. His initial statement is this: "As for the rank of priests, who gained the most importance by the historical circumstances, Eli, Ahijah, Abiathar, Zadok, who became the progenitor of the later priesthood at the temple, the genealogical chain of the descendants of Aaron was already interrupted with them; because Zadok was not one of them." After this, he has a rather lengthy footnote detailing the inconsistencies of the priestly genealogy as recorded in Chronicles and elsewhere. His conclusion about these genealogies is "the genealogies of the Chronicle have no value, and are for the most part fictitious, which is why nothing can be done with them." Vatke, Die Biblische, 1:344–345.

10. Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 125–126.11. Édouard Guillaume Eugène Reuss, L’Histoire Sainte et la Loi: Pentateuque

et Josué, vol. 1, La Bible: Traduction Nouvelle avec Introductions et Commentaires (Paris: Sandoz et Fischbacher, 1879).

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much of his theory. Independently of Vatke and George, Reuss recorded similar critical thoughts concerning the Pentateuch in 1833 (though he did not publish them until 1879). He argued that the laws and the history of the Pentateuch had to be separated. The laws came much later than the history during the time of Josiah. And the ritual laws did not come till after Ezekiel. These concepts played an important role in Graf's theory which Wellhausen took over.12

Karl Heinrich GrafGraf wrote two works which influenced Wellhausen: the first in

1866, The Historical Books of the Old Testament, and the second in 1869, The S. G. Main-stock [or Priestly Code] of the Pentateuch.13 Graf's main contribution to Wellhausen was his organization of the Elohist, Yahvist, and Priestly14 sources. The Elohist was the first to write down the historic and religious accounts of Israel. Later, the Yahvist "primarily used [the Elohist] as [his] source and . . . he has merged [the Eholist's stories] with his own into an independent work." Thus, the priestly code "consists of additions later added to the 'Yahwistic' works" and it is "the most recent sections of [the Pentateuch]." From this theory, Wellhausen considered the Yahvist and Elohist sources as

12. Ibid., 1:23–24.13. Karl Heinrich Graf, Die Geschichtlichen Bücher des Alten Testaments

(Leipzig: T. O. Weigel, 1866); Also, Karl Heinrich Graf, “Die S. G. Grundschrift des Pentateuchs,” in Archiv für Wissenschaftliche Erforschung des Alten Testamentes, by Adalbert Merx (Halle: Verlag der Buschhandlung des Waisenhauses, 1869), 466–77.

14. More properly as he called it, "Grundschrift" translated as "main-stock." This term was later changed by Wellhausen to Priestly. I anachronistically used the term Priestly in order to remain consistent and avoid unnecessary confusion. Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 8.

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primitive while the later Deuteronomist and Priestly sources were complex and newer.15

Wellhausen's Argument

Wellhausen addressed one central issue in Prolegomena: "the place in history of the 'law of Moses.'"16 In his mind, there were two options as to when the Law was given. First, it could have been given as the starting point of the nation of Israel (the traditional view). Or second, it could have been compiled after the Exile at the starting point of Judaism. Wellhausen felt that there were "urgent reasons for taking the [second] suggestion into very careful consideration" (p. 3).

He proposed three main steps to consider that suggestion. First, he showed how the ordinances of worship evolved to its present form in the Pentateuch. Second, he traced how each tradition (J, E, D or P) shaped the previous traditions that it received. Third, he summarized his results and added additional considerations to his arguments (p. 13).

The History of WorshipChapter 1: The Place of Worship

He began his argument by asserting that a single place of worship in Israel did not exist either in the Law or in reality. Instead, the single sanctuary was the product of the evolution of the community. In part one, he showed that there were three stages to the

15. Graf, “Die S. G. Grundschrift des Pentateuchs,” 468.16. Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 1. From now on, page numbers will be in

parentheticals.

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Hebrew religious life. First, he noted that there was no uniformity of the worship location in the earlier history. Instead, there were many high places that filled the land serving as the loci for worship (p. 19).17 Second, this diversity of worship changed when the Northern Kingdom fell, and the prophets came. They preached against the actions of the cultus that occurred on the high places, but not against the high places themselves (p. 23). Third, the Babylonian captivity removed Israel from their land and severed the people's tie to the land. This event enabled the reforming party to localize the worship to a single location (p. 27-28).18

In part two, he explored the OT to see if the three stages of development could be seen in how the text was transmitted (p. 28). First, the earliest writer, the Yahwist, indicated that there were multiple high places that God would set his name (p. 29).19 Second, the next writer, the Deuteronomist, wrote against the high places and commanded that the temple in Jerusalem should be the only locus of worship (p. 33). Third, the final writer wrote in the Priestly Code about the single place of worship with its fact already assumed because he found it in the Deuteronomist Code (p. 35).

Third, Wellhausen noted that usually the Priestly Code was considered older than the Deuteronomic. But he argued that this view

17. Even when the temple was built, it is not indicated anywhere that Solomon attempted to remove those high places (p. 21).

18. Josiah attempted a reform to remove the high places. But since these high places where so intertwined with everyday life, he could not remove it.

19. This support he drew from Exodus 20:24, "in every place where I cause my name to be honored." He stressed in every place (קום ל־המ� כ� which he took to mean (ב�there were multiple locations contemporaneously.

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was wrong (p. 39). The Priestly Code is often dated before the Deuteronomist because of the mention of the tabernacle. However, Wellhausen argued that the tabernacle was a fiction based on the temple about which the Deuteronomist wrote. Thus, the Priestly Code was written assuming the Deuteronomist (p. 45).20

Chapter 2: Sacrifice

His objective here is to see if the methods of sacrifice follow the same evolution found in the centralization of worship (p. 52). First, he argued that rituals of Israel were very ancient. But the codification of the rituals only could come about after many centuries of perfecting the rituals. Since the Priestly Code has many more details regarding the rituals over the Yahvist, then the Priestly Code must have come after the Yahvist (p. 60). Second, the material of the rituals changed over time (p. 61). The Yahvist described the rituals as a sacrifice of an animal to God with a fellowship meal eaten afterwards. The Priestly Code added bloodless sacrifices such as grain offerings. And the person offered his sacrifices out of fear of guilt rather than fellowship (p. 72). Third, as the Priestly Code centralized worship, the spontaneous nature of the sacrifices in the Yahvist gave way to the cold ritual of the state. The early sacrifices brought about by natural events were replaced by sacrifices that were brought about by the imposed consciousness of sin. (p. 80).

20. He spends a great deal of time in A.I.III.3 arguing against Nöldeke, but this simply supports his previous argument (A.I.III.2).

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Chapter 3: The Sacred Feasts

The sacred feasts follow the same evolution that the sacrifices underwent (p. 83). First, in the Yahvistic and Deuteronomic sections of the Pentateuch, there were three main festivals. These three festivals were tied to the agricultural calendar of the land of Canaan (p. 92). Second, the prophets and historical (JE, & D) books also show that the festivals were tied to the land and agricultural calendar (p. 92). Third, the Priestly code adds much more detail to the law, like the specification of dates for the festivals. Also, the feasts lost their joy because the Exile brought about the knowledge of sin and the need for atonement (p. 112). Fourth, the Sabbath gave rise to the Sabbatical Year and the Year of Jubilee. Since the latter two did not occur before the Exile, the authors of the Priestly Code must have created them when they wrote their works (p. 119-120).

Chapter 4: The Priests and the Levites

In this chapter, Wellhausen traced the evolution of the priestly class. First, he points to the Deuteronomist who separates out the Levites as clergy but did not specify the line of Aaron. Ezekiel created the idea that there was a separate class of priests (Aaronic) within the Levities. The Priestly Code took Ezekiel's innovation and treated it like it had always happened (p. 124).21 Second, he traced the development of the clean and the profane. In the early period, anyone could offer sacrifices to God because all classes of people were equal (p. 131). During the United Kingdom Period, the priestly class became restricted only to those who had the technical skill to perform the office (p. 133).

21. Again, in section A.4.I.2 Wellhausen refutes Nöldeke, which merely strengthens his argument in A.4.I.1.

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In the Northern Kingdom, the official priestly class was limited to a smaller group of people and they did not ascend spiritually in the eyes of the common people more than the prophets (p. 138). But the people had the freedom to act as priests as they desired (p. 140). In Judah, the official priestly class became restricted to the king's priesthood in Jerusalem which was limited by heredity. Those who were outside of the heredity had to content themselves by being servants in the temple (i.e. the rise of the Levites) (p. 140). Third, the legislation of the priesthood followed the development of the outline of above. The Yahvist had almost no regulations for the priests (p. 141). The Deuteronomist regulated the priesthood to the Levites, but he did not develop the code in depth (p. 141). The Priestly Code, however, developed the regulations in depth. It limited the priestly class from all of Levites to the sons of Aaron only (p. 148). And it gave the high priest absolute authority over the priesthood (p. 149).

Chapter 5: The Endowment of the Clergy

With the rise of the priesthood also came a gradual change in their income. First, in the earlier stages of the religion, the priest's income was dependent on the worshipers. He had no legal right to claim what was sacrificed (p. 153). But the Deuteronomist legislated that a portion be given to the Levites. And still later, the Priestly Code demanded an even larger portion be given to the Aaronic priesthood (p. 154). Second, the land-grants of the priests also followed the same lines. The Deuteronomist established cities of refuge in the cities that

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were "previous holy places," which the Priestly Code then amplified in number and apportioned them to the priests (p. 162).

The History of TraditionChapter 6: Chronicles

Wellhausen argued that the late composition of the book of Chronicles (400-300 BC) accounts for the contradictions between it and the Samuel/Kings narrative (700-600 BC) (p. 172). First, the history of David and Solomon in Chronicles was "retouched" and all the "dark and repulsive features are removed" (p. 187). This retouching came from the dominance of the Priestly Code in the Chronicler's mind (p. 183). Second, the Chronicler relied heavily on the Book of Kings, thus he composed his work well after the Exile. And, where he embellished the accounts from Kings, the Hebrew was of poor and unintelligible, pointing again to a post-Exilic composition when Hebrew was falling out of use (p. 210). Third, the Chronicler fabricated the genealogical lists of the Northern tribes, but he based the lists of the Southern tribes on some historical tradition (p. 215). He focused on the Tribe of Levi creating a narrative that amplified their position in the eyes of the people. His motivation for this focus was based in the Priestly Code (p. 218-19). Thus, the Chronicler created a history based on a reinterpretation of the past for his present situation (p. 227).

Chapter 7: Judges, Samuel, and Kings

Wellhausen stated that the books Judges, Samuel and Kings (JSK) where written in pre-Exilic times and then modified over time to fit the needs of later generations. Thus, his goal for this chapter was to find

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the "active forces" which produced the original and then to find the later forces which reshaped it (p. 228). First, he argued that the book of Judges was originally a profane history which was redacted into a spiritual history by the Deuteronomist. From this argument he derived the principle that "the nearer history is to its origin the more profane it is" (p. 245). He traced this principle through the books of Samuel and Kings in his second (p. 245) and third (p. 272) points. His conclusion was that while Chronicles revised history based on the Priestly Code well after the Exile, JSK were revised based on the Deuteronomic Code at the beginning of the Exile (p. 249).

Chapter 8: The Narrative of the Hexateuch

Wellhausen attempts to compare the Priestly Code and the Yahvist in order to lay the foundation of the development of the Israelite legend (p. 296). First, he portrays the Priestly Code as a more factual and coherent explanation of the ancient (antediluvian) stories (p. 297). The Yahvist, however, was primitive and disorganized in his record of the ancient stories (p. 303). The Priestly Code used the Yahvistic document and simply added to and expanded the stories to set them up as a prologue for the later legal material (p. 315) Second, in the Patriarchal accounts, Wellhausen pictured the Yahvist as a free composer of vivid stories which are loosely connected by genealogies (p. 326-27). The Priestly Code, however, strips the history down to a genealogy with some comments here and there in order to set the stage for the later Mosaic legislation (p. 332, 39). Third, he traced his caricatures of the Yahvist (vivid story-teller) and the Priestly Code

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(cold-hearted lawyer) through the rest of the Hexateuch (p. 345). He further argues that before the Priestly Code was added, Deuteronomy was combined with the Yahvist to provide an expanded legal code to the Decalogue (p. 345).

Israel and JudaismChapter 9: Conclusion of the Criticism of the Law

Here, Wellhausen addressed certain objections to Graf's (and by implication his own) theory. First, Wellhausen argued against Eberhard Schrader who simply stated that the post-Exilic dating of the Priestly Code was vetoed by critical scholarship.22 Implicit in Schrader's critique is that the Deuteronomist based his work on both the Priestly Code and the Yahvist. Wellhausen, however, demonstrated how Deuteronomy was based only on the Yahvist and not on the Priestly Code (p. 369). In his second section, he further demonstrates how the final version of the Hexateuch (including Deuteronomy) bears the mark of the priestly redaction (p. 376). Third, another objection stated that the language of the Priestly Code placed it before Yahvist. Wellhausen noted the difference in language and argued that aligned closer to the works of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, thus placing the Priestly Code after the Exile (p. 385).

Chapter 10: The Oral and the Written Torah

In this chapter, Wellhausen described the difference between the oral and the written law. First, he noted that the Torah was transmitted

22 Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette and Eberhard Schrader, Lehrbuch der Historisch-Kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testaments (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1869), 266.

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orally from Sinai till Yahvist started writing (p. 392-93). The priests and the prophets, who originated from Moses, orally transmitted the Torah to the people (p. 397). Second, he argued that Josiah published the first written Torah in 621 BC. This publication restricted freedom of religion and replaced it with state regulations (p. 402). The goal of the Deuteronomist was reform of the Torah not restoration of it (p. 404). In 444 BC, the Priestly Code was introduced into the canon as the legislative portion defining the Mosaic Law (p. 405). Finally, Ezra and Nehemiah formed the official canon which has survived to this day (p. 409).

Chapter 11: The Theocracy as Idea and as Institution

In this last chapter, Wellhausen argued that theocracy was only an ideal that was not institutionalized until after the Exile (p. 411). First, the state came before the idea of theocracy because the theocracy needed the financial support of the state to function (p. 412). Further, the rule of the state was identical to the rule of God. Thus, there was no difference between human law and divine law (p. 415). Second, when the Davidic monarchy ended, the prophets began preaching the concept of the theocracy in hope that is would replace the failed state (p. 419). The focus of the legislation then shifted to give Israel a national identity by defining it with moral terms. The focus was then not on the function of the cultus but on the obedience to the commands of God (p. 424).

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The Documentary Hypothesis Post-Wellhausen

Hinckley Mitchell: 1910Thirty-two years after the publication of Prolegomena, Mitchell

raised the question in his article entitled, Has Old Testament Criticism

Collapsed?23 His answer was "the critics, so far from abandoning this theory, are now taking it for granted and devoting themselves to the task of perfecting its application."24 While there were many objections to higher criticism in Mitchell's day, he listed several scholars (Cornill, Gunkel, Baentsch, and Steuernagel among others) who still held strongly to the Documentary Hypothesis. After reviewing the objections to the critical theory, he concludes:

It can hardly be doubted that the documentary hypothesis, in substantially the prevalent outlines, has come to stay: that is to say, we shall have to accept the theory that the early narratives of the Old Testament are composite productions, compiled from various sources in which had previously been embodied the unfolding conceptions of the Hebrews concerning their past.25

Mitchell compared the Documentary Theory to the theory of evolution popularized by Darwin. It was at first rejected by Christians, but then accepted and "found more worthy of 'his eternal power and god-head' than our previous ideas concerning the origin of the world." So also, when Christians accept the evolution of the Pentateuch, they

23. Hinckley G. Mitchell, “Has Old Testament Criticism Collapsed?,” The Harvard Theological Review 3, no. 4 (1910): 464–81.

24. Ibid., 465.25. Ibid., 480.

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will "find in it one of our strongest arguments for the divinity of [its] origin."26

William Creighton Graham: 1938Sixty years after Wellhausen's work was published, theological

liberalism was losing ground because of the violence of WWI and the throws of the Great Depression. To support his fellow liberals, Graham wrote his article Higher Criticism Survives Archeology. He states that the sine qua non of liberalism was high criticism. If the Bible was a product of man as high criticism claimed, then liberalism is justified. Authoritarians, as he called them, attacked the foundation of high criticism with the discoveries of archeology. He admitted that "archeology has without doubt greatly increased the historical values of the Old Testament as an account of the life with which it deals." But, he said,

This, however, does not suffice to establish that full historicity claimed for the record in the dogmas propagated by some authoritarian systems. . . But archeology, though it has supported many individual details of this story, has nevertheless reinforced that very challenge of its salient features that had been raised by the results of historical criticism.27

After presenting information that supports this assertion, he stated that scholars needed to read the Old Testament from a psychological perspective. The Scriptures are not a record of the working of God in history, but "a record of the psychological forces

26. Ibid.27. William Creighton Graham, “Higher Criticism Survives Archeology,” The

American Scholar 7, no. 4 (1938): 412–413.

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which lie behind and make history."28 As for archaeology and higher criticism, the results of archeology did not prove higher critics wrong, but "merely indicates that higher criticism has not yet carried its task through to a socially and scientifically satisfactory result."29

J. Coert Rylaarsdam: 1954Seventy-six years after Wellhausen, Rylaarsdam wrote about the

crumbing of the Documentary Hypothesis in his article The Present

Status of Pentateuchal Criticism. Far from Graham's assurance that only details needed to be worked out, in Rylaarsdam's day "the assured results of scholarship [were] rather scantier than we thought."30 He observed three trends in his day which broke down Wellhausen's theory. First, Wellhausen's methods broke down his own theory. He split up the Pentateuch into four documents (JEDP), which is foundational to the Documentary Hypothesis. His followers, however, did not stop there. They broke down each of those Documents into smaller ones, for example, J1 and J2. This meant that what was once a document now could hardly be called a document any more. It was more of a fragment. The second breakdown of the Documentary Hypothesis was the data collected from archeological and historical sources. These data pushed the dating for the sources of the Pentateuch back before the Exile. For example, the discoveries at

28. Ibid., 414.29. Ibid., 427.30. J. Coert Rylaarsdam, “The Present Status of Pentateuchal Criticism,” Journal

of Bible and Religion 22, no. 4 (1954): 242.

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Ugarit showed that priestly legislation not only occurred but also was written in detail well before the Exile (ca. 1500 BC). Thus, Wellhausen's placement of the Priestly Code after the Exile was not accurate. The third breakdown comes from the form- and tradition-critics. These critics saw the Old Testament as an Israelite adaption of common Ancient Near Eastern mythology, cult, and ritual. They point to themes or ideas which Israel adapted and which make up the core of the Pentateuch rather than single document. Thus, the Wellhausen idea that the Yahvist formed the core of the Pentateuch was set aside. As for the rest of Documentary Hypothesis, Rylaarsdam remarked:

Today it has become evident that the hypothesis of Wellhausen was at least in part the outcome of a very specific philosophy of history in terms of which it ordered historical data. So, it seems not unlikely that when the history of criticism in our era is written it will appear that both the methods and results of criticism were conditioned by existential presuppositions that depreciated the meaning of the historicity of revelation as a hall mark of the Judaeo-Christian tradition.31

Rainer Albertz: 2018While Wellhausen's theory breathed its last in the mid-20th

century, his basic proposal—that there were many sources to the Old Testament—continues till the present. Albertz summarized modern approaches of source-criticism in his article The Recent Discussion on

the Formation of the Pentateuch/Hexateuch.32 He traces source-criticism from Wellhausen to the present, noting its failures and victories along the way. He also noted that some of the incites gained

31. Ibid., 246.32. Rainer Albertz, “The Recent Discussion on the Formation of the

Pentateuch/Hexateuch,” Hebrew Studies 59 (2018): 65–92.

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by Wellhausen et al. are still used in scholarship today. Then, he cites four current models of the source-criticism by Peter Weimar and Erich Zenger, Reinhard G. Kratz, Erhard Blum, and Eckart Otto. While their proposals are diverse, they agree on at least two points. First, the Patriarchal narratives and the Exodus narratives are from two different sources. And second, that Deuteronomy went through a completely different redactional history than the other books. At the conclusion of his article, he proposes his own source-critical theory. While his whole article is a valuable tool for understanding current source-criticism, the most useful parts are the charts at the end of the article which summarize each view on a timeline.

Summary

If one word could summarize Wellhausen's Prolegomena, it would be the word evolution. It is this concept that filled his whole hypothesis. He started with the concept that Israel's early history as recorded by the Yahvist was primitive—free from the restraints of orthodoxy. Their sacrifices and festivals were tied to the land and harvest cycles and they were free to worship where they wanted. But when Josiah "found" the book of the law (Deuteronomy) in the temple, he instituted orthodoxy which polemicized against the freedom enjoyed by the masses. Israel's religion evolved to a higher state of organization and ceremony. The naturalness of the religion was replaced with the demand for united worship. Then, the Exile came and uprooted Judah from its land. When they came back, it was disconnected from the natural elements of its religion and left with the

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Yahvist and the Deuteronomist as its religious identity. The priests, wanting to unite Israel around a single religion, wrote the Priestly Code—that cold and legal document—which regulated every part of life. When this document was adopted into the canon, Judaism was born, and the free form of Israel's religion was lost forever.

Selected Bibliography

Albertz, Rainer. “The Recent Discussion on the Formation of the Pentateuch/Hexateuch.” Hebrew Studies 59 (2018): 65–92.

Carr, David M. “No Return to Wellhausen.” Biblica 86, no. 1 (2005): 107–14.

De Wette, Wilhelm Martin Leberecht. Beiträge zur Einleitung in das Alte Testament. Halle: Schimmelufennig und Compagnie, 1806.

———. “Dissertatio Critica Qua a Prioribus Deuteronomium Pentateuchi Libris Diversum, Alius Cuiusdam Recentioris Auctoris Opus Esse Monstratur.” In Opuscula Theologica. Berlin, 1830.

De Wette, Wilhelm Martin Leberecht, and Eberhard Schrader. Lehrbuch der Historisch-Kritischen Einleitung in die Bibel Alten und Neuen Testaments. Berlin: G. Reimer, 1869.

George, Johann Friedrich Ludwig. Die Älteren Jüdischen Feste mit einer Kritik der Gesetzgebung des Pentateuch. Berlin: E. H. Schroeder, 1835.

Graf, Karl Heinrich. Die Geschichtlichen Bücher des Alten Testaments. Leipzig: T. O. Weigel, 1866.

———. “Die S. G. Grundschrift des Pentateuchs.” In Archiv für Wissenschaftliche Erforschung des Alten Testamentes, by Adalbert Merx, 466–77. Halle: Verlag der Buschhandlung des Waisenhauses, 1869.

Graham, William Creighton. “Higher Criticism Survives Archeology.” The American Scholar 7, no. 4 (1938): 409–27.

Kratz, Reinhard G. “Eyes and Spectacles: Wellhausen’s Method of Higher Criticism.” The Journal of Theological Studies 60, no. 2 (2009): 381–402.

Mitchell, Hinckley G. “Has Old Testament Criticism Collapsed?” The Harvard Theological Review 3, no. 4 (1910): 464–81.

Reuss, Édouard Guillaume Eugène. L’Histoire Sainte et la Loi: Pentateuque et Josué. Vol. 1. La Bible: Traduction Nouvelle avec Introductions et Commentaires. Paris: Sandoz et Fischbacher, 1879.

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Rylaarsdam, J. Coert. “The Present Status of Pentateuchal Criticism.” Journal of Bible and Religion 22, no. 4 (1954): 242–47.

Talstra, Eep. “Genesis Bit by Bit.” Biblica 67, no. 4 (1986): 557–64.

Tigay, Jeffrey H. “An Empirical Basis for the Documentary Hypothesis.” Journal of Biblical Literature 94, no. 3 (1975): 329–42.

Vatke, Wilhelm. Die Biblische Theologie Wissenschaftlich Dargestellt. Vol. 1. Berlin: G. Bethge, 1835.

Wellhausen, Julius. Prolegomena to the History of Israel with a Reprint of the Article Israel from the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Translated by J. Sutherland Black and Allen Menzies. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1885.