Many modern readers of the bible may not think about the different
sources used in the composition of the various books of the Bible. For example, many believe that a particular
book of the Bible had its own author or source.
However, further investigation of the biblical text uncovers “apparent
contradiction, repetitions, doublets, and changes in literary style and
vocabulary that seemed best explained by asserting the composite nature of the
text itself."[1] The main focus of source criticism is to
investigate the possible sources of the authors of the different biblical
books. Source criticism has advanced
many different hypotheses regarding the sources used in the composition of the
Old and New Testament.
One of the most common misconceptions that people have regarding the
Bible is that Moses was the sole author of the Torah or Pentateuch, the first
five books of the Bible. Although St.
Augustine recognized that the Old Testament contained multiple re-tellings of
certain stories, he did not yet draw the conclusion that this might indicate
the biblical texts included other sources than Moses.[2] Hundreds of years
later, the 12th-century Jewish commentator Abraham Ibn Ezra realized
that other sources must have been used to compile the Pentateuch. He reasoned that Moses could not have written
in Genesis 12:6 that "[t]he Canaanites were then in the land"
(NABRE).[3] In the 17th century, numerous voices—such as
Thomas Hobbes, Baruch Spinoza, and Richard Simon—began to challenge the
traditional view that Moses is the singular author of the Pentateuch, though
the Church sought to suppress their opinions.[4] The following century saw the refinement of
the multiple-source view, with various scholars positing that the different
names used for God in the Pentateuch indicated different source materials.[5] Among these was the
philologist Johann Gottfried Eichhorn, considered "the father of OT
criticism," who played a key role in "establishing criteria for the
discernment of divergent source materials in the OT" through analysis of
textual clues.[6] Eichhorn built on the work of Jean Astruc, a
Catholic layman in France who had identified separate Yahwistic and Elohistic
sources in the book of Genesis.[7]
Hypotheses about the sources and formation of the Pentateuch continued
to develop into the 19th century.[8] In 1817, Wilhelm Martin Leberecht De Wette
advanced the thesis "that the Deuteronomic Code was the book found in the
Temple" in 621 BC.[9] De Wette also
argued that the books of Chronicles were likely exilic or post-exilic works
based on their religious differences with the parallel historical narrative
contained in the books of Kings.[10] Soon afterward, Edward Reuss asserted that
the ritual legal system associated with Moses really originated around the
exilic period, citing as evidence the absence of textual acknowledgment of this
system by the pre-exilic prophets.[11] At the same time, scholars continued to
discern possible distinct sources within the Pentateuch, with Karl Heinrich
Graf claiming in 1866 that a priestly source was the most recent portion added.[12] Julius Wellhausen took up this insight in his
1878 text Prolegomena to the History of Israel, in which he advanced the
most compelling case to-date (at that time) for the Documentary Hypothesis.[13] This hypothesis, also known as the
Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis, argued that the Pentateuch in its current form is
the result of a compilation of four distinct sources: 1) an early Yahwist
source (J) perhaps from the period of the united monarchy in Israel;[14] 2) a subsequent Elohist
source (E) from the Northern Kingdom;[15] 3) the Deuteronomic law
code (D), held to have emerged in 621 BC in accordance with De Wette;[16] and, 4) the priestly
source (P) identified by Graf as the "final document added by a
redactor" close to 400 BC.[17] This hypothesis for the construction of the
Pentateuch enjoyed much weight through the first half of the 20th century,
serving as a foundation which scholars sought to build upon. It was believed that the fall of the Northern
Kingdom to Assyrian invaders in 721 BC forced northern refugees to flee to
Judah, thus explaining the presence of northern E stories interwoven with J
material.[18] Scholars believed the genealogical listings
in the Pentateuch were characteristic of the P source, which sought to
legitimize the Aaronic priesthood after the Babylonian Exile.[19]
The dominance of the Documentary Hypothesis began to fade in the 1970s
after scholars such as Rolf Rendtorff provided narrative critical evidence that
damaged scholars' confidence in the unity and pre-exilic character of both J
and E.[20] As a result, the JEDP
theory has now been discarded almost completely by contemporary biblical
scholars in Europe.[21] Nevertheless, scholars still agree that
multiple sources were used in the formation of the Pentateuch. Certain scholars known as
'neo-documentarians' continue to advance JEDP in a modified form. For example, Joel S. Baden shows how the
story of Joseph being sold by his brothers into slavery in Genesis 37 can be
separated into two individually coherent yet differing source narratives: one
has Joseph sold to Ishmaelites after Judah convinced the other brothers not to
kill him; the other has Joseph taken by Midianite traders after Reuben
interceded on his behalf.[22] From his analysis of the Pentateuch, Baden is
confident that he can identify four separate sources (JEDP) but is not yet
certain of the time period and location for the composition of each.[23]
Part of the methodology of source criticism is to identify 'aporiae'
(i.e., apparent "inconsistencies and contradictions in a text"),
which then serve as a textual basis for positing multiple sources.[24] Some examples of aporiae in the Pentateuch
include the dual accounts of creation in Genesis which feature differences in
the order of how God created the world, the differing accounts of how many of
each kind of animal Noah brought on the ark, and the patriarchs' seeming
knowledge of the divine name despite the revelation to Moses at the burning
bush episode that the patriarchs did not know the divine name.[25] One example of an aporia from the New
Testament is the amazement of Jesus' parents at Simeon's prophetic hymn about
Jesus during the child's presentation in the Temple despite their knowledge of
Jesus' divine sonship from previous angelic revelations.[26] Despite the identification of aporiae as a
key method of the discipline, David Law points out a critique of source
criticism in that it must assume that aporiae and other apparent textual
inconsistencies necessarily point to multiple sources. It must discard alternate explanations for
the presence of aporiae, such as that a single author did not hold "modern
notions of contradictions or inconsistency" or that a single author drew
solely from oral traditions.[27]
The most prominent application of source criticism to the New Testament
involves analysis of the Synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. We find that even though these Gospels
present a very similar overall narrative, there are still many pieces of
information unique to each gospel. Knowing this information, it seems clear
that the writers of the different gospel had access to some sources that were
similar and other sources that were somewhat different. After attempts at harmonizing the accounts
into a single 'harmony' were rejected,[28] the similarities between
the stories in each account led 18th-century scholars to conjecture
a written or oral "primal Gospel" which served as the original source
for all three.[29] The next century saw scholars modify these
views to one that saw Mark's Gospel as the first (as opposed to the traditional
view of Matthean priority, which had prevailed since Eusebius) and serving as a
foundation for the other two.[30] In 1863 H. J. Holtzmann postulated a
collection of Jesus' sayings known as 'Q', which B. H. Streeter widened in 1924
into his Four Source Hypothesis ('Q', Mark, 'M', and 'L').[31] The 'L' source refers to distinctively Lucan
material while the 'M' source refers to distinctively Matthean material. Many scholars now consider that both Mark and
‘Q’ are source material used by the authors of Matthew and Luke.
In the field of
hermeneutics, source criticism is the method used to discover the various
references used while composing the different books of the Bible. We have seen there
has been significant development in the last three centuries when it comes to
the study of source criticism. Scholars
advanced many hypotheses concerning the sources used in the creation of
the Old and New Testament. Some of the parts of the Bible that were most questioned regarding their
sources were the Pentateuch and the Synoptic Gospels, although source criticism
certainly did not limit itself to these books. Some questions needed to be
asked for better clarification, such as: What source did the author(s)
use? Why are there multiple yet
differing versions of the same story in different books of the Bible (and
sometimes even in the same book)? Source criticism attempted to answer these
questions and discover the different sources the biblical authors used when
they began to write down stories that had been passed down from one generation
to another, either through oral or literary tradition.
Bibliography
Soulen, Richard N.
and Soulen, R. Kendall. Handbook of Biblical Criticism: Fourth Edition. Louisville,
KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011.
[1] Richard N. Soulen and R.
Kendall Soulen, Handbook of Biblical Criticism: Fourth Edition, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox
Press, 2011), 199.
[3] Ibid.
[6] Soulen and Soulen, Handbook,
59.
[7] 'Source Criticism' on
Moodle, 3 and 'Source Criticisim Chronology' on Moodle, 8-9.
[8] 'Source Criticism
Chronology' on Moodle, 12-14.
[9] Soulen and Soulen, Handbook,
54.
[10] 'Source Criticism
Chronology' on Moodle, 16.
[11] Ibid., 18.
[12] Soulen and Soulen, Handbook,
79; and 'Source Criticism Chronology' on Moodle, 21.
[13] Soulen and Soulen, Handbook,
79; and 'Source Criticism Chronology' on Moodle, 24.
[14] Soulen and Soulen, Handbook,
101.
[15] Ibid., 58.
[16] Ibid., 49.
[17] Ibid., 79.
[18] 'Source Criticism' on
Moodle, 4.
[19] Ibid.
[20] 'Source Criticism
Chronology' on Moodle, 41; and 'Source Criticism' on Moodle, 5.
[21] 'Source Criticism' on
Moodle, 5.
[22] Ibid., 7.
[23] Ibid., 5.
[24] 'Source Criticism
Evaluation (Law)' on Moodle, citing David R. Law, The Historical Critical
Method: A Guide for the Perplexed.
[25] 'Source Criticism' on
Moodle, 5-6.
[26] Ibid., 9.
[27] 'Source Criticism
Evaluation (Law)' on Moodle, citing David R. Law, The Historical Critical
Method: A Guide for the Perplexed.
[28] Soulen and Soulen, Handbook,
81.
[29] 'Source Criticism
Chronology' on Moodle, 49-50.
[30] Ibid., 51-52.
[31] Soulen and Soulen, Handbook,
206.
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