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.
For these purposes, I will assume that the division of the Torah into sources is correct and fixed. The specific issue is given this division of the Torah into sources, how well does it explain the occurrence of the words in the places that they occur.
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.
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