Theological Term of the Week
Tuesday, May 8, 2012 at 8:40PM 
JEDP theory
A theory that supposes that the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) was not written by one author (Moses), but was written or compiled by different authors (J - the Yahwist, E - the Elohimist, D - Deuteronomist, P - Priestly) who lived after the time of Moses; also called documentary hypothesis.
- From scripture (and there are many more places where New Testament writers affirm Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch):
And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? (Mark 12:26 ESV)
- From Introduction to the Pentateuch in The ESV Study Bible:
For more than 2,000 years, readers of the Pentateuch assumed that Moses was its author (cf. Mark 7:10). This was a natural conclusion to draw from its contents, for most of the laws are said to have been given to Moses by God (e.g., Lev. 1:1), and indeed some passages are explicitly said to have been written down by Moses (see Deut. 31:9, 24). The account of his death could have been recorded by someone else, though some held it was a prophetic account by Moses himself (Deuteronomy 34).
But in the late eighteenth century, critical scholars began challenging the assumption of Mosaic authorship. They argued that several authors were responsible for writing the Pentateuch. These authors supposedly wrote many centuries after Moses, and were separated from each other in time and location. Complicated theories were developed to explain how the Pentateuch grew as different authors’ accounts were spliced and adjusted by a series of editors. According to these critical scholars, it was likely that the Pentateuch reached its final form in the fifth century b.c., nearly a millennium after Moses.
In the late twentieth century this type of critical theory was strongly attacked, not just by conservative scholars but also by those brought up on such theories. They argue that the theories are too complicated, self-contradictory, and ultimately unprovable. It is much more rewarding and less speculative to focus interpretative effort on the final form of the text. So there is a strong move to abandon the compositional theories of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries for simpler hypotheses. Thus some critical scholars would see the Pentateuch being an essentially fifth-century b.c. creation. Others suggest earlier dates. But none of these suggestions can really be proven.
The Pentateuch does undoubtedly claim to be divine in origin, mediated through Moses. Thus Moses should be looked to as the original human author. Indeed, as stated above, the Pentateuch looks like a life of Moses, with an introduction. But this need not mean that he wrote every word of the present Pentateuch. It seems likely that the spelling and the grammar of the Pentateuch were revised to keep it intelligible for later readers. Also, a number of features in the text look like clarifications for a later age. But this is quite different from supposing that the Pentateuch was essentially composed in a later age. Rather, it should be seen as originating in Moses’ time but undergoing some slight revision in later eras so later readers could understand its message and apply it to their own situations.
- Theopedia: JEDP theory, Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch
- GotQuestions.org: What is JEDP theory?, What is the documentary hypothesis?
- Reformed Answers: What is JEDP theory?
- Basic Theology Forums: JEDP theory
- Duane Garrett: The Documentary Hypothesis
- Colin D. Smith: A Critical Assessment of the Graf-Wellhausen Documentary Hypothesis
This week’s term was suggested by Diane Bucknell. Do you have a term you’d like to see featured here as a Theological Term of the Week? If you email it to me, I’ll seriously consider using it, giving you credit for the suggestion and linking back to your blog when I do.
Clicking on the Theological Term graphic at the top of this post will take you to a list of all the previous theological terms in alphabetical order.
Reader Comments (2)
Becky,
No matter what you think about what people have done with the "Bible Codes" they argue by statiscally repeating codes/letter sequences that the Pentateuch has one author, God, with Moses as the amanuensis. Other long texts do not have these repeating sequences and efforts to construct them by hand have proved futile.
Yes, it is sort of out of left field, but I think it is an interesting rebuttle.
Rebecca, Thanks so much for doing this. Good job.