Documentary Hypothesis Quotes

“In the past, scholars have focused overly much on subtle distinctions between purported J and E documents interwoven with each other throughout the Pentateuch, distinctions so subtle, in fact, that many, if not most, pentateuchal specialists no longer see them.

Meanwhile, [...] it is becoming increasingly clear that there is another more obvious and important set of divisions between sources of the Pentateuch, that is, the divisions separating the major non-Priestly sections from each other: primeval history, Jacob, Joseph and Moses-exodus stories.

(David M. Carr essay, p. 159)”
― Thomas B. Dozeman

“I, like many, if not most, specialists working on pentateuchal formation now, do not recognize an 'Elohist' counterpart to the older 'Yahwist.'

Whatever pre-Priestly proto-Pentateuch I would consider would be one that contains texts once assigned to J and E. Furthermore, I am inclined to date any non-P proto-Pentateuch no earlier than the late preexilic or (more likely) exilic period.

My pre-Priestly 'proto-Pentateuch' is close to the older J neither in contents or context. The only way I am a proponent of a 'Yahwist' is if one reduces the definition of such a document as Jan Christian Gertz does to those who posit a 'running strand of pre-Priestly material in the Tetratech.'

That definition, however, makes the term 'Yahwist' so different from the older use of the term as to make it functionally nonusable.

In fact, no one on this panel, so far as I know, advocates a Yahwist recognizably like the J of studies up through the 1970s.

(David Carr essay, p. 160)”
― Thomas B. Dozeman, Farewell to the Yahwist?: The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation

“The documentary hypothesis once held (and maybe still holds) the agreement of the majority of scholars. But that is not what made it right. We do not determine truth by a majority vote. The hypothesis held us because its evidence was (and is) strong. None of the new alternatives has replaced it, not only because they have not won over a majority of the field, but because they remain insufficiently defended and because they have not dealt with the evidence that made the documentary hypothesis the standard for a century.
(footnote)”
― Richard Elliott Friedman, The Exodus