The Bible under attack

Since the Bible claims to be the only inspired word of God, it has become the focus of many attacks from many groups. God's word has stood the test of time, but it is not without its difficulties. After all, the Bible was written two to three thousand years ago in a radically different culture than our own. There are cultural barriers to overcome as well as contextual issues when facing God's word as we seek to accurately interpret it. Nevertheless, there are those who sit in judgment of God's word. One of the greatest attacks on it has been the Documentary Hypothesis, also knows as the JEDP theory.

In short, this theory states that the first five books of the Bible, called the Pentateuch consisting of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, were not written completely by Moses, but by different post-mosaic authors. It is alleged that these authors are detectable through the variations of usage of different words within those books. These authors are known as the Jehovist, the Elohist, the Priestly, and the Deuteronomist. According to Oswald T. Allis there were four main areas considered by these critics when supporting the Documentary Hypothesis:⁽¹⁾

     This method of analysis really took root in 1753 when a French physician named Austruc analyzed the book of Genesis and asserted that it had two main sources: a Jehovist and an Elohist. However, he did not deny Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch at this time.
     A few years later, a gentleman named, De Wette (1805), assigned Deuteronomy to the time of Josiah (post Moses period). This prompted other writers to tackle the issue. In 1823 Eichhorn had given up on his claim of Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch.
     The letters associated with this issue are J and E.

In 1853, Hupfeld proposed that there are two Elohistic source documents in Genesis: chapters 1-19 by one author and chapters 20 - 50 by another. He also put great importance upon the redactor, or the one who assembled the various documents, who used editor rights during the compilation of the book of Genesis. Therefore, his arrangement of the documents was thus: First Elohist, Second Elohist, Jehovist, Deuteronomist: J, E, and D.

Later, Karl H. Graf in the 1860's and Julius Wellhausen in the 1870's said that "according to the historical and prophetical books of the Old Testament the priestly legislation of the middle books of the Pentateuch was unknown in pre-exilic time, and that this legislation must therefore be a late development."⁽²⁾ The letter P became associated with this view.
Basically they arranged the Pentateuch authorship in the following manner:

There have been slight modifications of this list, but it is basically the same form used by those holding to the Documentary Hypothesis.

There are several issues worth examining when answering those who promote the Documentary Hypothesis.

Presuppositions - The majority of those holding to the JEDP theory presuppose that the miraculous cannot happen. Therefore, they must conclude beforehand that the Pentateuch is not inspired and Moses could not have written it.

The Critics are claiming a great deal - The Pentateuch was written centuries ago in a different language, in a different culture, and a different land. The critics are claiming that "they are able to decide exactly what a writer could or could not say, and on this basis to determine what part of the document belongs or does not belong to him."⁽⁴⁾

Writing Styles change within Writers - The subject matter affects the content and writing styles. A technical work is different from a narrative or historical piece. The Pentateuch has components of all of these. Therefore, different styles are expected.

One writer can produce different analysis results - WordPerfect has a Grammar Analyzer for readability. I ran both the paper explaining the Documentary Hypothesis and this paper refuting it through the analyzer. The results are interesting.

Analysis	Explaining JEDP	Answering JEDP
Flesch-Kincaid grade level	13.64	10.35
Passive voice (% of finite verb phrases)	9%	9%
Sentence Complexity (100 = very complex)	60	43
Vocabulary Complexity (100 = very complex)	38	22

We could conclude that though there are similarities, because there are definite differences, there must be two authors. After all, the first paper has both more complex sentences and more verb complexity than the second as well as being 13th grade level. I wrote this in two sittings: One before church and the other after church on the same day.

A look at the actual analysis - In the back of Oswald T. Allis' book, pages 291-293, is a breakdown of the JEDP analysis of the Pentateuch. I chose a small section dealing with Genesis 1 - 7 and supplied the verses (NASB version) so you can see for yourself if these divisions are warranted.

J	P	Text of Genesis
	1:1-2:4a
2:4b- 4:26
	5:1-28	v. 28, "And Lamech lived one hundred and eighty-two years, and became the father of a son."
5:29		v. 29, "Now he called his name Noah, saying, 'This one shall give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed.'"
	5:30-32	v. 30, "Then Lamech lived five hundred and ninety-five years after he became the father of Noah, and he had other sons and daughters."
6:1-8
	6:9-22
7:1-5		v. 5, "And Noah did according to all that the Lord had commanded him."
	7:6	v. 6, "Now Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of water came upon the earth."
7:7-10		v. 7, "Then Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him entered the ark because of the water of the flood."
	7:11	v. 11, "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened."
7:12		v. 12, "And the rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights."
	7:13-16a	v. 16a, "And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, entered as God had commanded him. . ."
7:16b		v. 16b, ". . . and the Lord closed it behind him."
	7:17a	v. 17a, "Then the flood came upon the earth for forty days"
7:17b		v. 17b, "and the water increased and lifted up the ark, so that it rose above the earth."
	7:18-21	v. 18, "And the water prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark floated on the surface of the water. ¹⁹ And the water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered. ²⁰ The water prevailed fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered. ²¹And all flesh that moved on the earth perished, birds and cattle and beasts and every swarming thing that swarms upon the earth, and all mankind"
7:22-23		v. 22-23, "of all that was on the dry land, all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, died. Thus He blotted out every living thing that was upon the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky, and they were blotted out from the earth; and only Noah was left, together with those that were with him in the ark."
	7:24	v. 24, "And the water prevailed upon the earth one hundred and fifty days."

As you can see, the first seven chapters of Genesis are chopped up into bite-size pieces. In some places, sentences are cut in half and attributed to different sources. I cannot see any reason to divide the sections of scripture up the way they have.

6. Jesus attributed the 5 books to Moses - Whether or not a biblical critic wants to take Jesus' word for anything is up to the individual. But no less than Jesus authenticated the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. Jesus divided the Old Testament into three sections in Luke 24:44: Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms. Also, he attributed all the individual JEDP defined sections of the Pentateuch to Moses. In Mark 10:4-8, Jesus quoted Gen. 2:24, which would be J, as coming from Moses. Mark 7:10, Jesus quoted the Ten Commandments, which fall into the E category, as coming from Moses. In Mark 10:3, Jesus refers to Deut. 24:1f, which would be D, as being from Moses. In Matt. 8:4, Jesus quoted Lev. 14, which would be equivalent to P, as coming from Moses.
This is a brief look at the Documentary Hypothesis. It seems obvious that this is a fabrication based upon false presuppositions and inaccurate analysis. It contradicts what Jesus said and it is an unreliable way to analyze a document.

1. Oswald T. Allis, The Five Books of Moses, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., Phillipsburg, New Jersey, 1949, p. 22.
2. Oswald T. Allis, The Five Books of Moses, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., Phillipsburg, New Jersey, 1949, p. 17.
3. Josh McDowell, More Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Here's Life Publishers, Inc. 1981, p. 45.
4. Oswald T. Allis, The Five Books of Moses, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., Phillipsburg, New Jersey, 1949, p. 70.