September 26th, 2020
I just finished reading Who wrote the Bible? by Richard Elliot Friedman and I must say it was quite an experience. I will do my best to summarize and provide comments, but I can imagine that I will not do it justice. In short, the book is about the JEPD Theory/Documentary Hypothesis. The JEPD Theory is a theory that formulated from the exploration of certain passages in the Torah that had similarities and was then theorized that certain parts of the Torah were authored/compiled by different people (J, E, P, and D) in Israel’s history as opposed to being authored by Moses (or rather divinely dictated). The J stands for Jahwist/Yahwist and was associated with the divine name Yahweh/Jehovah. The E stands for Elohist and was identified as referring to the deity as God (in Hebrew, Elohim). The P stands for Priestly and is associated with the majority of matters concerning priests. D stands for Deuteronomist as it was the source only found in Deuteronomy. There is also an R which stands for Redactor who was the person that compiled all of the sources together. The J and E Texts were compiled sometime between the transition from tribal communities to the monarchy around 1200 BCE and the fall of Israel in 722 BCE. I believe the book emphasizes that the J text developed in the southern kingdom and the E text developed in the northern kingdom. When the northern kingdom fell to the Assyrians in 722 BCE it is plausible to suspect that a lot of northern kingdom refugees migrated to the southern kingdom and brought the E text with them where it was then combined with the J text to form the JE text. P appeared not long after the JE Text was compiled and served as counter-balance to some of the stories listed in the JE text. The P text focused heavily on priests and priestly duties and served to elevate certain priestly families. There was basically a power struggle between Aaronid priests and Mushite (Moses) priests and this shows up in the stories of Aaron and Moses. I can’t remember the full evidence, but one thing I do remember was that in some parts the text said Levitical priests and in other parts, it said priests and Levites. The P Text is associated with King Hezekiah who reigned from 715-686 BCE and who implemented religious reforms that favored priests (I believe Aaronid). The D text is associated with King Josiah who reigned from 640-609 BCE and has two distinct time periods Dtr-1 and Dtr-2. The author compiler of Dtr-1 was likely in the court of King Josiah and may have also been the same person that wrote Dtr-2 which was likely written in the days around the fall of the southern kingdom (605-586 BCE). The D text is a compilation of the history from Deuteronomy to 1 & 2 Kings covering Joshua, Judges, and Samuel and was used to explain the world that the ancient Israelites occupied (That world being the world from 722 BCE to 586 BCE). Friedman asserts that the author/compiler of this “Deuteronomic history” was likely Jeremiah due to several pieces of evidence of which I remember that the Books of Jeremiah and Deuteronomy had similar language and sentence structures. The Redactor then compiled all of these pieces together to form the first Bible. Friedman asserts that this redactor was likely Ezra and was likely composed in exile (between 586 and 538 BC) or shortly after the return from exile. Friedman also mentioned that a colleague posited that the first Bible likely contained The Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings. All in all, it was quite a fascinating read and something that I found very insightful. I wish I could draw the image that I have in my head for how the Old Testament came to be. I think of it as lines that start out skinny at the top and come together over hundreds of years to make thicker lines culminating one thick line at the bottom that represents the Old Testament. J and E may have a similar width and when they come together as JE their widths combine. The smaller sources from before these identifiable sources could be a variety of oral and written sources I will likely what to read it again in the future as I certainly haven’t captured the full breadth of the book. While reading the book though (and what may have distracted me a bit from fully absorbing what I was reading) I found that I kept thinking about the specific Christian doctrine of biblical inerrancy. I recently learned about this idea from the Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties by Gleason L. Archer. The book was given to me by someone who is involved in Christian Ministries with the local university and I must say that I find it very troubling. I had quite a lot of thoughts that I wanted to elaborate on while I was reading, but I’m having trouble formulating them. I think I can safely say that I don’t believe in biblical inerrancy. I believe the Bible was not dictated by God but was in fact written by humans. That doesn’t mean that it couldn’t have been inspired by God or at the very least inspired by the idea of God, but there are some parts that don’t need to be inspired by God (eg. the histories of the Kings of Judah and Israel in 1 & 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Chronicles). I don’t think Biblical inerrancy is required and that it causes more stress and confusion than is needed. One example of contradictory passages is Esau’s Wives in Genesis 26:34-35; 28:9; 36:2-3. Were there three, five, or six wives. Is this a translation or copying error? If I believe in Biblical inerrancy this may be fairly difficult to reconcile and may cause a lot of distress. I can see it making me want to avoid reading the Bible so that I don’t feel that distress. Once one contradiction pops up maybe more will start to show up. These may require having to look to proponents of biblical inerrancy which may use bad arguments to explain it away. One example for the Mosaic authorship, in particular, is the use of Exodus 17:14 to say that Moses wrote the Pentateuch:
“After the victory, the Lord Instructed Moses, “Write this down on a scroll as a permanent reminder, and read it aloud to Joshua: I will erase the memory of Amalek from under Heaven”
Exodus 17:14, NLT
This doesn’t say that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, but that Moses wrote “I will erase the memory of Amalek from under Heaven”. This is an example of a bad argument that makes me doubt the claims of certain Christian doctrine. I find it frustrating to engage with these kinds of arguments because they don’t make sense and turn me off from being a part of Christianity. I tend to like the documentary hypothesis better because now I’m actually studying the text and am interested in the stories not to disprove anything written, but to have a deeper understanding of the world in which the men who wrote the Bible lived. Another argument that I’ve seen is that if the Bible is inerrant how can we take anything said in the Bible to be true; I say the same way a child may trust their mother when she tells them: “Do not cross the street without looking both ways, for if you do not look both ways before crossing the street, you will not see a motorized vehicle which may strike and kill you”. This is a true statement yet we don’t claim the person saying it to be inerrant or infallible. The men who wrote the various texts and sources used to form the Bible may certainly have been inspired by God, but are we then to say that these men are infallible and the words that they wrote are infallible? I mentioned in a previous post what I rejected: Creationism, Fundamentalism, Christian Nationalism, the Prosperity Gospel, and Televangelists. I don’t know if I’d add Biblical inerrancy to that list because I haven’t seen any negative consequences yet. I think I might add bad arguments for the existence of God or the ad arguments for the justification of specific doctrine though. One argument is to say that the Bible is true because the Bible says the Bible is true. That seems like a circular argument. I’m sure I’ll have more to say on this when I get to the New Testament, but as it stands, I find it hard to believe based on what I’ve read and studied in the Old Testament. Yes, there are things that are true in the Bible, but that doesn’t mean that the Bible is without error. I don’t think I believe that the entirety of the Bible is God’s word, mostly because it doesn’t need to be. Another thing that I’ve thought about was prayer. I think it is a bit odd to ask God for things. If you trust and have faith in him, do you really need to ask him for anything? That doesn’t negate giving thanks for good things, I just don’t think one needs to ask for bad things to go away, because they are only temporary. In conclusion, Who Wrote the Bible? was good and I think it does a good job shedding light on how the Bible may have been written. I don’t think it negates the existence of God or that the Bible was divinely inspired. I think anyone who doesn’t want to engage in it may be misguided by the doctrine of biblical inerrancy though. Biblical Inerrancy doesn’t make sense because divine dictation doesn’t make sense, there are parts of the Bible that do not need to be inspired by God. Why would the records of the Kings of Israel need to be divinely inspired or dictated. I see the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy as causing more frustration than is needed for the average person like myself. If there is anything that is going to make me turn away from Christianity it is going to be Christianity (or more accurately specific doctrines of Christianity).