Arguments Against The Documentary Hypothesis

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The Documentary Hypothesis states that the first five books of the bible were each separate, parallel, and complete narratives that were put together by a set of redactors at a later time period. There were multiple arguments in which the Documentary Hypothesis seemed to be the most credible theory to how the first five books of the bible came into being. The most persuasive argument though would be the variations of the many different bible stories in the Pentateuch. Not only the different uses of God’s name being YHWH in one story and the discrepancy of the time period of the use of YHWH, but throughout the first five books the variations of the stories referenced in Genesis, Exodus, and Deuteronomy do not always match up. Duplications do not normally occur with a single author, and if there were a single author the references to the stories would not have different meanings to look back on. One of the major stories that can be seen as supporting the Documentary Hypothesis would be the crossing of the Red Sea. Such …show more content…

The problem that they have is asking why would the editors of the multiple sources leave many areas of writings stand, while editing other areas much more intensely. With the central element of the Deuteronomic movement being that the sacrifices can be only done in central sanctuary in Jerusalem, and Genesis have many cult sacrifices done by the patriarch’s, it makes no sense to the point of the Documentary Analysis. The editors of Deuteronomy would have never let that discrepancy happen, especially after they edited many other parts of Deuteronomy. The argument against shows that J and E probably combined before the Deuteronomic reform and material was added later. Blum and Rendtorff make the argument against the Documentary hypothesis and help support that by using the Deuteronomic