There is a potential problem with separating out J and E that needs to be discussed. According to the DH, J and E were edited together into one text (appropriately called JE), and it is often hard to separate the strands. There are some stories or passages where characteristics indicating J are found right next to other characteristics indicating E. For example, the burning bush story in Exodus 3, and the revelation at Sinai in Exodus 19 both have combined sections from J and E. This problem is resolved by splitting the passage sentence by sentence, or sometimes even clause by clause.
In general, there are two possibilities here. It might be the case that the DH is correct and J and E were edited together this way. Alternatively, it might be the case that the DH is wrong and this is in fact a single text. If the former, it is quite difficult to show that this is the case. After all, one of the stronger arguments for the DH is that some passages are complete by themselves, show an internal consistency in style, wording, and content, but show an inconsistency with other passages. However, if a passage has elements of both J and E thoroughly mixed throughout, then it is much more difficult to show that they were originally separate texts. One would have to show that particular sentences or clauses show multiple characteristics of one source but not the other, and this gets difficult to show this persuasively at the sentence level.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Problems with E and J
Monday, April 27, 2009
Horeb or The Moutain of God - E and D
The word "Horeb" or the phrase "the mountain of God" ("har Elohim") appears 6 times in E, 9 times in D, and never in P or J. The complete list is set forth below.
(E) Exod. 3:1: Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. (Note: E and J are both present in the burning bush story. Separating them is complex. However, Friedman makes a reasonable case in his footnote. I will discuss how reasonable or unreasonable this is when we discuss that particular story. At that time, we will assume the various characteristics of each source and see how well that explains the divisions. But for now we are doing the opposite; we are assuming the divisions into sources and seeing how well that explains the characteristics of each source.)
(E) Exod. 4:27: The LORD said to Aaron, "Go into the desert to meet Moses." So he met Moses at the mountain of God and kissed him.
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Sinai - P and J
One commonly cited difference between the sources is the J and P use the term "Sinai" while E and D use "Horeb". Each will be examined in a separate post, as well as traditional explanations for the difference.
"Sinai" appears 18 times in P, 6 times in J, 4 times in R, and 2 times in Other sources. It appears no times in E or D.
The following are all the references to Sinai in the Torah:
(R) Exod. 16:1: The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt.
* * *
Update: see here for a particular problem with J and E.
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The Documentary Hypothesis - Characteristics of Each Source
I have now prepared five chart showing which verses of the Torah belong to which sources, at least according to Richard E. Friedman and Samuel Driver. I am going to start a (long) series of posts about the particular characteristics of each source. For example, a common argument is that "Sinai" was used by P and J, and "Horeb" was used by E and D. I will start with this example, list each time that Sinai and Horeb are used, and then see how they line up with the different sources. I will have one post on Sinai, one on Horeb, and at least one post on the traditional Jewish explanations for the use of each name.
Remember the Bayes-theorem methodology: I will assume the documentary hypothesis is correct and then see how well it explains the actual occurrences of these words. If it does easily and naturally, it will weigh in favor of the DH being correct. If it appears forced, with ad hoc justifications and explanations, then it will not weigh in favor of the DH being correct. Similarly, for the traditional explanations, I will assume that TMS is correct and then see how well it explains the actual occurrences of these words. If it does easily and naturally, it will weigh in favor of TMS being correct. If it appears forced, with ad hoc justifications and explanations, then it will not weigh in favor of TMS being correct.
The purpose of this introductory post is to think about what specifically I will be looking for when examining the sources. I can think of several particular "issues", and I will update this list as I go. Please feel free to add additional criteria in the comments.
Criteria Pertaining to Words
1. Obviously, the central issue is how many times does the word appear in its supposed source and how many times in other sources. If the word appears many times in one source, and few or no times in other sources, it is strong supporting evidence for the DH.
2. If the word has a synonym, does a different source use the synonym instead? If one source uses one word, and another source uses the synonym, it is strong supporting evidence for the DH.
3. Is the appearance of the word in a source explained by its meaning? A brief note is in order here. If the presence of a word in a source is explained by its meaning, it is weaker evidence (or perhaps no evidence) of the distinctiveness of the source. For example, P is the "priestly" author. If the P verses were selected because their content involved things that the priests were concerned with --- priests, sacrifices, ritual purity, and so on --- then it would not be surprising to find that the words pertaining to these matters are contained in P. The argument --- at least in this simplistic formulation --- is circular.
In contrast, the disproportionate use of particular words in a source that are not explained by their simple meaning (such as Sinai and Horeb) is stronger evidence of different sources.
In actuality, P is concerned with more than priestly matters, the P verses were chosen on numerous grounds, and other sources (especially D) are also concerned with priestly matters. So a word whose location is explained by its meaning is not irrelevant, but instead is weaker evidence for the DH. The analogous situation in statistics is correlation among the independent variables. Where such correlation exists, more data from correlated variables provides some explanatory power, but not as much as similar data from uncorrelated variables. (There are many limitations and qualifications that I am skipping over.)
4. Is the appearance of the word in a source explained by related words? This is similar to the last point. If two words are frequently used together, the presence of one word is largely explained by the presence of the other word. In such cases, it might be more helpful to thing of the two words together as forming one phrase.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
The Documentary Hypothesis In Detail - Deuteronomy
Here is a table showing all the verses in Deuteronomy and which source they are from. Again, I have used two separate classifications: Richard E. Friedman's from The Bible With Sources Revealed (2003) and Samuel Driver's from Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (9th ed 1913). I have also marked the verses with an asterisk where they differ, and finally included some explanatory notes by Friedman and Driver.
Chapter | Friedman | Driver | Difference? | Notes |
Deuteronomy | ||||
1:1-2 | Dtr1 | Dtr1 | ||
1:3 | Dtr1 | P | * | |
1:4-46 | Dtr1 | Dtr1 | ||
2 | Dtr1 | Dtr1 | ||
3:1-13 | Dtr1 | Dtr1 | ||
3:14-17 | Dtr1 | Dtr2 | * | |
3:18-29 | Dtr1 | Dtr1 | ||
4:1-24 | Dtr1 | Dtr1 | ||
4:25-28 | Dtr2 | Dtr1 | * | |
4:29--31 | Dtr2 | Dtr2 | ||
4:32-40 | Dtr1 | Dtr1 | ||
4:41-49 | Dtr1 | Dtr2 | * | |
5,6,7 | Dtr1 | Dtr1 | ||
8:1-18 | Dtr1 | Dtr1 | ||
8:19-20 | Dtr2 | Dtr1 | * | |
9,10,11 | Dtr1 | Dtr1 | ||
12-25 | Dtn | Dtr1 | * | |
26:1-15 | Dtn | Dtr1 | * | |
26:16-19 | Dtr1 | Dtr1 | ||
27:1-4 | Dtr1 | Dtr2 | * | |
27:5-7a | Dtr1 | JE | * | |
27:7b-8 | Dtr1 | Dtr2 | * | |
27:9-10 | Dtr1 | Dtr1 | ||
27:11-26 | Dtr1 | Dtr2 | * | |
28:1-35 | Dtr1 | Dtr1 | ||
28:36-37 | Dtr2 | Dtr1 | * | |
28:38-62 | Dtr1 | Dtr1 | ||
28:63-68 | Dtr2 | Dtr1 | * | |
28:69 | Dtr1 | Dtr1 | ||
29:1-9 | Dtr1 | Dtr1 | ||
29:10-20 | Dtr1 | Dtr2 | * | |
29:21-27 | Dtr2 | Dtr2 | ||
29:28 | Dtr1 | Dtr2 | * | |
30:1-10 | Dtr2 | Dtr2 | ||
30:11-14 | Dtr1 | Dtr1 | ||
30:15-20 | Dtr2 | Dtr1 | * | |
31:1-13 | Dtr1 | Dtr1 | ||
31:14-15 | Dtn | JE | * | |
31:16-22 | Dtr2 | Dtr2 | D: incorporated from independent sources | |
31:23 | Dtn | JE | * | |
31:24-27 | Dtr1 | Dtr1 | ||
31:28-30 | Dtr2 | Dtr2 | ||
32:1-44 | Dtr2 | Dtr2 | F and D: Song of Moses was an independent work added by Dtr2 | |
32:45-47 | Dtr1 | Dtr1 | ||
32:48-52 | R | P | * | |
33:1-29 | Dtr1 | Dtr1 | Blessing of Moses was an independent work added by Dtr1 | |
34:1a | Dtr1 | JE | * | D: to "the top of Pisgah" |
34:1b | Dtr1 | P | * | D: "which is facing Jericho" |
34:1c-4 | Dtr1 | JE | * | |
34:5a | J | JE | * | |
34:5b | J | P | * | |
34:6 | J | JE | * | |
34:7 | J | P | * | |
38:8-9 | P | P | ||
38:10 | Dtr1 | JE | * | |
38:11 | Dtr1 | Dtr2 | * |
Thursday, April 23, 2009
New Understandings of Old Books
In the comments to the last post about James Kugel, SS raises an interesting question: how does a contemporary reader understand older commentators who had a very different understanding of the origins of the Torah. Suppose a person believes that the Torah was written after Moses by multiple authors, later compiled and edited, and then interpreted in new ways by later interpreters, including the rabbis of the Talmud. And suppose the person believes the Torah is in some way divine. (There are lots of possible approaches here, all of which I am skipping over.) How should that person read and understand traditional commentators and halachic works (Talmud, midrashim, Rashi, Shulchan Aruch, etc.), all of which were written with a different understanding of the origins of the Torah, namely that God literally gave the Torah to Moses and the Jewish people on Mt. Sinai?
SS argues in his comment that these modern ideas undercut these traditional works and thus Orthodoxy. That is probably correct. But I am sure that people like James Kugel and Louis Jacobs believed in both the modern approach and the continuing relevance of these classical works. I think there are at least four ways in which we can read these classical texts, and some of these may even be relevant to Orthodox Jews with a modern scholarly appraoch to the Torah. Let's take counting the omer as an example.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Kugel at the JTS
James Kugel, author of "How to Read the Bible," spoke last month at the Jewish Theological Seminary, on “Can The Torah Make Its Peace With Modern Biblical Scholarship?” A description of the lecture with a link to the podcast, as well as a list of all of JTS's podcasts are both online. This is a lecture worth listening to
Kugel is a well-respected academic Bible scholar who taught Bible at Harvard for many years. He believes in the documentary hypothesis and is an Orthodox Jew. Given current understandings of both, these two positions are seemingly inconsistent and difficult or impossible to reconcile. At his JTS lecture (unlike his recent YU lecture), Kugel directly addressed this issue and addresses this problem. His lecture was thoughtful, very funny, and largely persuasive.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Is the 'Blessing of the Sun' Joni Mitchell's favorite mitzvah?
There is a ritual mitzvah that occurs every 28 years: the blessing over the sun. And the time for this blessing is the morning of April 8. This is a mitzvah that is full of meaning and significance, easy to do especially with kids, and can take about 15 seconds. Here's what the blessing is, why it happens only every 28 years, and what people can get out of doing it, especially Joni Mitchell.
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game
But linear time involves a different understanding of time. Cycles may happen, but we move forward. We become (hopefully) better people. Society improves. We discover new knowledge and invent better inventions. This year is not the same as last year; it is better, and next year will be better still.
Joni Mitchell's song is not just about cyclical time, despite the chorus. It is also about linear time. The verses make clear that the boy the song is about is growing up and changing:
Yesterday a child came out to wonder
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar
Fearful when the sky was full of thunder
And tearful at the falling of a star
Then the child moved ten times round the seasons
Skated over ten clear frozen streams
Words like 'when you're older' must appease him
And promises of someday make his dreams
Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now
Cartwheels turn to car wheels thru the town
And they tell him, Take your time, it wont be long now
Till you drag your feet to slow the circles down
So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty
Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true
Therell be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through
This song (which always gets me a little teary) is a great juxtaposition of linear time in the verses, showing the child growing and changing, and cyclical time in chorus, with its circles and carousels and seasons.
And that's what I think the blessing over the sun is about.
We are all quite familiar with the shorter astronomical cycles --- days, months, and years --- and we use these cycles to break our lives into manageable and meaningful chunks of time. Thinking about our lives in a different unit of time gives a different perspective on our lives.
For example, Halley's Comet comes around every 76 years or so. It was visible in 1985 and 1986. I was 21 at the time, and I went out to the California desert with a few friends and some binoculars to see the comet. I realized then that the last time it came by (in 1910) I had not been born, and neither had my parents. Three of my four grandparents were small children. The next time Halley's comet will come by, in 2061, I will be 97, or more likely, dead. That was probably my one chance to see Halley's comet, and few people get to see it twice in their lifetime. But my children missed its appearance in 1986 (not having been born) but will be close to 60 when it rolls around again.
The blessing over the sun occurs every 28 years, a little more frequently than Halley's comet. It is not a once-in-a-lifetime event, but because of its timing, most of us will have the change to celebrate this blessing three or four times in our lives.
The last time it occurred was in 1981. I was in high school then, and I am now in my mid-40s. Since them I have changed in many ways, and have not changed in other ways. I have achieved some goals, made progress on others, and other goals have fallen by the wayside. I fortunately have kept in contact with most of my good friends, lost contact with others (although they are all seem to be showing up on Facebook now), and have made other friends. In 1981, I was moving forward in my life, and the earth and sun and the days of the week were moving forward in their cycles. It is now 28 years later. They have returned to where they were in 1981, but I have fortunately moved forward and am different and in many ways better.
The blessing over the sun will be back again in 2037. My wife and I will then be in our early 70s. My small children will be in their early 30s. I am not only looking back to 1981, but looking forward to 2037. And I will take the opportunity next week to recite the blessing with my wife and children, and in 2037, my children can look fondly back to that distant spring in 2009 when they were small and we all said the blessing over the sun.
I'm Back
I just got through several busy months at work. I should be blogging a little more regularly from now on.
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