Introduction:
In our last post I introduced readers to the opposing school of thought to the Divine inspiration of the Pentateuch and its Mosaic authorship. I want to continue from where we left off in that post to deal with the outcome of the Higher Critical view - the so-called "J.E.D.P" theory or Documentary Hypothesis.
Why was the 18th century ripe for the emergence of Higher Criticism of the Bible?
In the 17th and 18th centuries, the so-called "Age of Reason" or "Age of Enlightenment" was underway in France, Germany, and Europe. The long wars between Protestants and Catholics formed the climate of spiritual fatigue, not to mention Western culture's continuing drift toward deism, agnosticism, and in some pockets atheism.
Coupled with political instability in Europe and the eroding confidence in the church lent to the emergence of the notion that human reason, rather than revelation, was ultimately authoritative. For instance, in 1651, philosopher Thomas Hobbes exemplified this changing attitude. He wrote a book called "Leviathan", wherein he proposed that religion was a tool of men to control the masses. His use of the term "religion" no longer meant its historical meaning of "devotion to God" as it was changed to "what men believed they believed about God".
Higher Criticism initially attempted to still have a Christianity that could survive in a climate no longer friendly to miracles, prophecy, and the evidence for God's Providence and existence. This theological motivation produced what came to be "theological liberalism", championed by such thinkers as Friedrich Schleiermacher at the end of the 1700s. I'll comment in a moment on the fruits produced by this theological movement as it grew from the seeds of Higher Criticism. What did the Higher Critics develop in their views about Genesis through Deuteronomy?
The Higher Critical School's Bringing Forth of The Documentary Hypothesis
In 1878, a German scholar by the name of Julius Wellhausen (we will call him “Wellhausen”) took all of the above critics and brought them together into a proposal, a “hypothesis”, in which he proposed multiple sources sources for the Pentateuch. Below is a typical diagram illustrating Wellhausen's view.
According to Wellhausen, Moses was out, and multiple editors were now the responsible parties for the Pentateuch or Torah we have today. He idea “The Documentary Hypothesis”, headlined a school of German theological scholarship known as "source criticism". Source criticism, along with its related discipline of "redaction criticism", which proposed multiple editors as being the authors of the Biblical documents, drove the engine behind the Documentary theory.
To summarize Wellhausen's view:
1. He claimed that there was a “J” editor (because of the name “Jahweh”), who was big on presenting God as a being more human like, adding his parts to the Pentateuch after King David in 950-850 b.c. (that’s 600 years after Moses lived!)
2. Wellhausen then proposed a second editor, “E”, because, he claimed, that editor used God’s general name “Elohim” when describing God in spiritual terms. Wellhausen claims that this second editor added his piece in 750 b.c.
3. Then Wellhausen proposed a third editor, “P”, whom he claimed wrote the “Priestly” details we read of in Leviticus to prove the Jewish priesthood during the reign of King Josiah (around 650 b.c).
4. Then Wellhausen proposed one final part to his theory, editor “D”, whom he claimed wrote the Book of Deuteronomy during the time of Jewish return from the Babylonian exile in 539 b.c. to argue for the Jews right to the promised land.
Based off of the names of the editors he postulated, Higher Critical Scholarship would come to call this the "J.E.D.P" theory. It wasn't that Wellhausen invented the Documentary hypothesis, rather he expressed it in a systematic form that combined insights from previous thinkers in the Higher Critical School. Men such as Eichhorn in the 1780s, DeWitt in 1805, Hupfield in 1853, and Graf in 1866 all had their variations of this general view that was conveyed by Wellhausen.
As Higher Criticism picked up steam, in 1805, another German critic by the name of William Martin Lebrect DeWitt proposed that the book of Deuteronomy was written during the reign of King Josiah in 640-609 b.c. Other names could be mentioned, however this gives us a working understanding of the development of the growing opposition to Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch.
In a lecture on the Documentary Hypothesis at Yale University, Professor Christine Hayes laid out pretty much the narrative I just told above. In her lecture she notes this about the goal of the Documentary Hypothesis:
"The key assumption in the documentary hypothesis is that the sources composing the Pentateuch don't tell us anything of the time or situation of the Israelites or the author(s), but only what they believed."1
That statement has embedded within it the denial of the possibility of Divine revelation, since the historic Christian position asserts that God has disclosed His will and nature in creation and more fully in the Bible and through the Person of Jesus Christ.
The J.E.D.P theory also denies the reality (or the need) of God's existence, the spiritual realm, and the need for salvation by grace alone through faith alone apart from works. If not denying God's existence completely, the view certainly denies the Bible communicating a unified revelation of the living God. What fruits have Higher Criticism, the Documentary Hypothesis, and theological liberalism produced?
How Higher-Criticism, The Documentary Hypothesis, and Theological Liberalism has failed in its promises to advance the cause of the Church
It was once noted by R.C. Sproul that most forms of Biblical compromise emerge out of an attempt to increase the church's relevance in its evangelistic endeavors. Now please hear me, it is not evangelism that is sinful, since after all the Lord Jesus Christ issued the Great Commission to His Apostles and Church to "go into all the world and make disciples" (Matthew 28:19-20). The local church exists to spread the Gospel and call everyone to whom it goes to "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ" and "repent of their sins and be saved" (Compare Acts 2:36-37; Acts 16:31; Romans 1:16; Romans 10:9). Instead, if our missionary attempts are not grounded in fidelity to the truth of God's Word, we will find ourselves drifting in our message, and missions will die.2
The long parade of mainline American denominations who have dwindled and ceased their missionary endeavors is a consequence of the corrosive nature of Higher Criticism and its offspring, theological liberalism.
Take aways for today
We have introduced the so-called documentary hypothesis and the philosophical underpinnings of its forebear - Higher Criticism. We also summarized the traditional view of Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and its presuppositions. Why does this matter? Essentially, questions to ask are these:
1). Are the first five books of the Bible the by-product of longer, evolutionary, and editorial development by men?
2). Or are these five books the by-produce of Divine revelation by a Holy God Who through Moses expressed His Covenant commitment to them and plans for the future coming of the Messiah?
The answer to this line of questioning is proved important by the fruits we saw of men, churches, institutions, and denominations that adopted Higher Criticism, the Documentary Hypothesis, and the denial of the Divine inspiration of the Pentateuch and the remainder of the Bible.
In our next post we will wrap up this study of the authorship of the Pentateuch, noting what archaeology, linguistics, and the text of the Pentateuch itself reveals about the authorship of its contents. We will then draw our conclusions to grasp how you can know whether or not you can trust your Bible.
Endnotes:
1. Professor Hayes explains in her lecture how the alleged editors in the J.E.D.P theory portray varied views of God. She notes how the so-called "J" source sees God anthromorphically, using human body parts to describe Him (as in, Jehovah walking in the garden in Genesis 3). Then in her comments on the Elohistic or "E" source, God or Elohim is portrayed as a remote or non-physical entity. In the "D" or Deuteronomistic source behind the Book of Deuteronomy (per the theory), Professor Hayes notes God is viewed as dwelling in a sanctuary. Then finally, the "P" or priestly source in the professor's lecture presents God as concealed in a cloud of glory or light. The Documentary hypothesis presumes the Bible is a fragmented book, rather than a unified body of Divine revelation.
So why do thinkers who subscribe to the Documentary theory reach the conclusions they do as seen in the excerpt of the above lecture? Religious studies departments in many secular universities typically approach the Bible as a relic of the past that is not Divinely authoritative, but rather a by-product of the human imagination trying to make sense of the world. By having an awareness of such assumptions will help explain why there is such a vigorous effort to oppose Mosaic authorship and the idea of the Bible being Divinely inspired by God.
2 When you study the history of theological liberalism in the 19th and twentieth centuries, you discover that attempts at relevance at the expense of doctrinal fidelity resulted in the death of missions. Higher Critical theories of Scripture led to the departure of every major theological seminary and school that set out to train Pastors (such as Harvard Divinity School, Princeton Theological Seminary, Yale Divinity School, The University of Chicago, just to name a few).
The 19th century liberalism spawned by men like Friedrich Schleiermacher that attempted to align the church with then new theories of origins (Darwinism), age of the Earth (Charles Lyell's "Principles of Geology"), and the skepticism growing out of the 18th century produced churches that eventually ceased in their evangelism.
In the 20th century, theological liberalism became the movement known as "Modernism". Henry Emerson Fosdick, a leading figure of Modernism, stated how churches needed to preach their Gospel on basis of "the felt-needs" of their hearers, rather than on exactitude to sound doctrine. The Social Gospel emerged, touting the church's main mission to be that of social relief rather than calling for the conversion of souls. In as much as a local church should have a positive impact on its community, to make that the mission is to depart from the reason for local church - fidelity to sound doctrine, making of disciples, and calling for sinners to be born again in saving faith.
