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S i d e b a r
What Is the Documentary Hypothesis?
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This Rock
Volume 16, Number 4
 April 2005 
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In his Prolegomena to the History of Israel, the nineteenth-century Lutheran scholar Julius Wellhausen adopts the "documentary hypothesis." His theory was that the first five books of the Bible were compiled from at least four different sources.
- J (Yahwist): J gets its name because it uses and allows humans to use the name of God (Jahwe in German) before Israel exists (cf. Gen. 4:26). J appears to have been composed in Judah, perhaps during Solomon’s day, around 950 B.C.
- E (Elohist): The name is derived from E’s use of Elohim (Hebrew for "God") rather than YHWH in the early period. E reserves the name Yahweh for the time from Moses on (cf. Ex. 3:13–15). E appears to have been written in the north, around 850 B.C.
- P (Priestly): P is concerned especially with stories and laws relevant for priests. Many scholars date P either during the exile (sixth century B.C.) or shortly thereafter (fifth century B.C.). Others date it as early as the beginning of the seventh century B.C.
- D is essentially the book of Deuteronomy. It is not mingled with J, E, or P.
The strength of Wellhausen’s theory is that it explains why there are differences of terms and ideas between different sections of the Pentateuch.
But Wellhausen uses this theory to reconstruct the history of the Old Testament in order to demonstrate that the religion of the Israelites began as a free-spirited affair, devoid of a priesthood and unconcerned about the law. Gradually, he believed, the priests were able to consolidate their power and force the people into a desiccated religion of legalistic and ritualistic observance known as Judaism. In his schema, then, Jesus Christ comes to liberate us and give us back a free-spirited religion without priests and laws.
It does not take much observation to see that this is a thinly veiled critique of Catholicism. Wellhausen, like many Protestants, believed that the early Church was without priests or laws and that the institutional Church lost this new sense of freedom in faith.
Within Wellhausen’s lifetime, many points of his argument were disproved, often by new archaeological discoveries that contradicted his historical account. Nevertheless, his basic critique of Judaism and Catholicism is still very powerful today. Wellhausen’s theory illustrates the undue influence of historicism, as he tends to date the four sources of the Pentateuch by where they fit into his historical scheme rather than on scientific criteria.
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