Music and Musical instruments in the Psalms

I am only making a brief presentation here, as there is a huge amount of material available both in libraries and online; what is online will be linked here, but be ready for multiples among the links, and huge disagreement among the multiples.

There are reckoned to be 19 instruments mentioned in the Bible. The two main lists of instruments are in Daniel 3 and Psalm 150: only cymbals come twice, perhaps because of the two different types.

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The full list in the Encyclopaedia Judaica is Asor, Halil (I would write that as Chalil), Hazozerah (and that as Chatsotsrah), Kaitros/Katros, Keren, Kinnor, Mashrokita, Mena'ane'im, Meziltayim/Zilzalim/Mezillot, Minnim, Nevel, Pa'amon, Pesanterin, Sabbekha, Shalishim, Shofar, Sumponyah, Tof, Ugav; as you can see at Meziltayim, the disputes are included. (This link is obviously to the online version; but that is a very brief entry and does not include this list; you will need to find the 18-volume book version for that).

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Psalm 150 has

SHOPHAR (שׁוֹפָר - trumpet); more on this below.

NEVEL (נֵבֶל - psaltery, which is some kind of a string instrument; but there is also NEVEL ASOR in Psalm 33, which is definitely a 10-stringed instrument (ASOR means ten), and then Psalm 92 [the Sabbath Psalm] has ASOR and NEVEL separate and contrasted: some kind of lyre probably, deeper in tone than the Kinnor; according to Josephus in Antiquities 7:306 it was 12-stringed and played by plucking with the fingers; probably the equivalent of the viola to the violin in today's orchestra, number two in the strings; but see also the BASANTARIN, below.

CHINOR (כִנּוֹר - harp) in verse 3; but "harp" is a generality, and probably means the same as "psaltery", for both of which we have several examples. See my further notes below.
   More often than not it is pronounced KINOR, and spelled KINNOR, but the Chaf is definitely soft.
   See also my notes at Psalm 43:4, which show the Chinor both in use and in context.Psalm 43:4

But for some reason none of the translators, and few of the scholarly commentators, include the NEGIYNOT, which can be found at Psalms 4:1, 6:1, 54:1, 67:1 and 76:1. I have translated it as "the string section", and noted MANGIYNA, which comes from the same root, as "a melody" - which is how the word is used in modern Ivrit. The verb therefore simply means "to play on stringed instruments" amd the title probably intends that these Psalms were to be accompanied in cantillation exclusively "with stringed instruments". Psalm 61 (60 in some Christian versions) has "Al Neginath" in its title, and was perhaps to be sung with one stringed instrument only for accompaniment; and if so, given its special status, probably the lyre or the harp (which may actually have been the same instrument).

Likewise missing from the standard lists are the NECHIYLOT of Psalm 5:1, their only mention, and the root clearly connects them with the CHALIL (for which click here), rather than MACHOL, for which see below. A flute, perhaps, or does it intend the wind instruments as a section, in the same way that NEGIYNOT is the strings?

And finally, for the missing instruments list before I resume the known ones, GITTIT, for which I can offer no explanation whatsoever, but can refer you to my lengthy attempt to do so at its only appearance, which is Psalm 8:1.

TOPH (תֹף - timbrel, drum or tambourine); more on this below.

MINIM (מִנִּים - stringed instruments, probably lyre, ud and small harp - see Psalm 45:9)

and UGAV (עוּגָב - organ, but more likely pan pipes or bagpipes) in verse 4;

it also mentions MACHOL (מָחוֹל), which some scholars think is "dancing", but others reckon means "something hollow", and therefore some sort of a pipe - but if it is dancing, then whatever was the ancient equivalent of the HORA - some kind of round dance;

TSILTSELEY SHAM'A (צִלְצְלֵי שָׁמַע - "loud" , which is to say "treble", cymbals);

and TSILTSELEY TERU'AH (צִלְצְלֵי תְרוּעָה - "high-sounding", which is to say "bass" cymbals, or possibly a snare drum) in verse 5.

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Genesis 4:21 claims that Yuval ben Lamech invented the Kinnor and the Ugav - logical enough, given that his name is also the Jubilee - see the link to his name.

The Kinnor (Chinor correctly) probably was not a harp, though everybody thinks it was, and the Sea of Galilee is now called Kinneret because it is harp-shaped, which it isn't really. Probably it was a 10-stringed lyre, which actually makes far more sense, because it was David's instrument, and it was Orpheus' instrument, and - see other parts of this blog for the multiple explanations of this - David and Orpheus are the Yehudit and Pelasgian Greek names for the same earth-god, and both have the same star, which is Vega in Lyra, named for their instrument. David's star is known in Yehudit as the Oreph, which is odd, because the "oreph" is the back at the point where it bows out to become shoulders, and then narrows to become neck; but then, go take a look at a Biblical lyre, and it is precisely that shape, a body cut off half way down the trunk, two arms likewise spliced, and a yoke. Kena'ani lyres that have been dug up are invariably asymmetrical, one arm shorter than the other, and a decidedly box-shaped back. Anything up to 23 inches high, alto in range, played with a plectrum according to Josephus (Antiquities 7:306 again), and using sheep-gut (Mishnah, Kin 3:6), where modern guitars supposedly use cat gut but actually use nylon.

Nor was the Ugav an organ – that was only invented in Alexandria around 250 BCE (click here). Some kind of woodwind, but no one knows what sort - my own speculation, based on the many similarities between the tribe of Dan and the Tuatha de Danann, who were the original Celtic settlers of Eireland, plus hints in several of the texts as well: that it was an early form of bagpipe.

The Ugav is mentioned only in Genesis 4:21, Psalm 150 and twice in Job; the Kinnor is named repeatedly, especially in the Psalms.

Next the Chaliyl (חליל), which does not take its name from the root that yields Hallel, the series of Psalms sung at Rosh Chodesh (New Moon) and elsewhen, though the two roots are clearly connected, and not only because the Hey and the Chet are so similar visually and aurally. The word means "joyful" and it was used to greet a Prophet as well as at "coronations" (anointments, actually; Yisra-Eli kings did not wear crowns). Most likely it was a reed instrument similar to our double flageolet, the primitive version of an instrument much-used in the Arabian world to this day, and now called a Zumara; though the archaeology suggests there may have been two instruments with the same name, the second a single flageolet. EJ (Encyclopedia Judaica) reckons "a double-pipe wind instrument, with the mouthpieces probably of the single-reed (clarinet) type, and probably made up of one melody pipe and one drone pipe. A folk and popular instrument, it was used for rejoicing and also in mourning ceremonies".

Shawm: like a Zumara (in the way that an oboe is like a clarinet) but with a large, fluted end like a small trumpet, very loud and reedy. It had an expanding, conical bore, whence the high sound. I said oboe in my parenthesis, but it may have been even more like a bassoon - the difficulty with any of these instruments is that, like language, it goes through local "dialect" variations, and changes over time: think of the development of the clavichord and harpsichord and organ into today's pianoforte. The Greeks had a similar instrument called the Aulos which turns up across the whole silk route as far as China.

Why were reed instruments so commonplace? Simple. Because they are so easy to make. Cut a diagonal shape on the mouth of a straw and it makes a reed; the shorter you cut it, the higher the pitch.

KEREN: Karna in Sanskrit, Karas in Greek, Cornu in Latin, Horn in German, usually a cow. The instrument appears in the Nebuchadnezzar list and in the Book of Yehoshu'a (Joshua). Mosheh's "beams of light" were called KEREN, but probably (see my various notes on this in the Book of Exodus, though actually Zechar-Yah 2 is the best place to go) this was a depiction of one or other of several Egyptian deities - Hat-Hor and Hor are both depicted with cow-horns, the latter most famously in his "Golden Calf" icons; but Anubis, several others, likewise had horns (click here).

And when the horn was from a ram (or a wild ox would be acceptable) rather than a bull or cow, it was called a SHOPHAR (or SHOFAR, as you prefer), and is the instrument used to this day in every synagogue in the world, to announce the New Year, the end of Yom Kippur, the Jubilee... a black shofar was used when a Cherem was pronounced.

From the SHOPHAR to the CHATSOTSRAH is a very complex though short distance. Where the Shofar is a natural instrument, Chatsotsrot are man-made - in Numbers 10 they were made of silver, and beaten not cast, though elsewhere they seem to have been made of bronze, or later on brass. Where the complexity arises is in usage: it seems implausible that a man-made object would ever be used liturgically, given the rules that apply to every other temple-related or shrine-related object: stones must not be hewn, the wood for the altar may not be sanded or plained, etc. And yet we have texts in which the shofar is used for military purposes, and the Chatsotsrah for religious despite the clear statement in Numbers 10:2, that " they shall serve you for the summoning of the congregation, and for causing the camps to set forward". The latter was blown, for example, by the priests to signal camp movements and in battle, and the Commander-in-Chief of every battle was YHVH, so the distinction between religious and secular requires someone more expert than I am to explain it (Yehoshu'a at Yericho is the key instance for this). See my notes on this at Exodus 16:9 and 19:13. The Chatsotsrah may also have been used as part of the sacrificial ceremonies, as a means of signalling to the next donor, waiting outside with his animal, that his turn had come.

Equivalent to our trumpet, whatever their use, the Keren, the Shophar and the Chatsotsrah produced only a monotone, but unlike our trumpet they did not have buttons you could press to modify the sound: this was achieved using a morse-like system of notes, known as Teru'ah, Shevarim and Tekiya.

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The Book of Daniel (written in a mixture of Aramaic and Yehudit) lists: 

KARNA = "whistling" or "hissing", perhaps a Greek word that had been adapted; this may be the Sirinx, a type of pan pipe.

SABKA = Greek Sambuka or Sambyke* an early prototype for the guitar, albeit with eight strings.

[* this link is particularly useful for the Greek instruments: pictures and explanations in detail.]

BASANTARIN, which was probably the Greek Epigonion that is rendered in English as "psaltery"; plucked with quills like a zither and/or struck with hammers like a dulcimer. This may well be a variant of, even an error for, the PESANTERIN, for which see below.

MASHROKITA: (מַ֠שְׁרוֹקִיתָ֠א) see Daniel 3:5. Worth reprinting the entire verse here, as it lists several of our instruments, and in their Aramaic spelling:

SABCHA PESANTERIYN SUMPONYA VE CHOL ZENEY ZEMARA TIPLUN VE TISGEDUN LE TSELEM DAHAVA DI HAKIM NEVUCHADNETSAR MALKA

 שַׂבְּכָ֤א פְסַנְתֵּרִין֙ סוּמְפֹּ֣נְיָ֔א וְכֹ֖ל זְנֵ֣י זְמָרָ֑א תִּפְּל֤וּן וְתִסְגְּדוּן֙ לְצֶ֣לֶם דַּהֲבָ֔א דִּ֥י הֲקֵ֖ים נְבוּכַדְנֶצַּ֥ר מַלְכָּֽא

... when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, zither, lyre, psaltery, bagpipe, and all other types of instruments, to fall down and worship the statue of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.

The Mashrokita is thought by some (click here), to be a "whistling" instrument like the KARNA; others regard it as the Caetros, Caethara in Greek, not just any old lyre, but the very big concert lyre.

The Daniel list: in 3:5, has KARNA, MASHROKITA, KAITROS, SABBEKHA, PESANTERIN, SUMPONYAH, and "all kinds of instruments"; of which KARNA is the horn, Kaitrosm Sabbekha and Pesanterin are Aramaic versions of the Greek Kithara, Sambyke and Psalterion (see my definition of Psalm in the blog-intro). Mashrokita is a whistling or piping instrument, Sumponyah equals Symphoneia in Greek, and may not be an instrument at all, but the totality of sound generated by a "symphony" orchestra - which is also true of that closing statement about "all kinds of instruments...".

Finally SUMPONYA = "symphony" in Greek = "sounding together"; therefore several instruments, but which is not clear; it may may well have been the word for the orchestra, just as we use it today.

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Which brings us to the percussion instruments.

METSILTAYIM - as the double plural suggests, they always come in pairs, and - were really cymbals, usually made of bronze: Encyclopedia Judaica says "plates with a central hollow boss and a metal thumb-loop". Played by the Levites in the Temple, they were about 5 inches in diameter. When similar objects were put on horses, they were called METSILOT (cf Zechariah 14:20); countless numbers of these can be found among the Assyrian reliefs.

TSILTSALIM are also regarded as cymbals by some scholars, but surely they must have been tambourines, which always have mini-cymbals around their rim. The word Tseltselim suggests a "tinkling" sound, which is what the tambourine makes when shaken, rather than stirred.

PA'AMON: the hemp of the priests' robes was adorned with bells (Pa'amonim) and pomegranates (Rimmonim), the latter made of gold; it was made as a kind of necklace, exactly the same as a harness on a mule, causing them to jangle as they walked. But the intention was apotropaic not musical - it warded off evil spirits. Cf Exodus 28:33-34 and 39:25-26. After the 7th century CE, when bells were invented, the bronze Pa'amonim were probably replaced, and monks and padres walking through Greek churches to this day are likely to be seen and heard shaking precisely those later replacements.

TOPH: Possibly a tambourine, but more likely a timbrel, which is to say a tambourine without the rim-cymbals, so it had to be tapped to make a drumming sound, rather than shaken to make you think it was the Pa'amon on the priestly gown. However, as per the link, it may have been a completely different instrument altogether, a triangle made of wood, with Tseltselim inside. Mir-Yam (Miriam) played a Toph after the incident of the Sea of Reeds (Exodus 15:20). In Syria it is known as a Doph, which seems to clinch the matter. 

MENA'ANE'IM: one mention only in the Bible, 2 Samuel 6:5, when David was bringing the Ark - but its parallel, in 1 Chronicles 13:8, has Meziltayim, which are cymbals. By its etymology it has to have been some kind of a shaken instrument, like a maracca but not enclosed. Archaeologists have dug up huge numbers of clay rattles, but suddenly none after the 7th century BCE, when the Pa'amon, which is made of metal, appears to have rendered this Biblical "walkman" obsolete.

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Further notes to work on, from the Encyclopedia Judaica:

"The Book of Chronicles" makes music central, has duty rosters, and entire genealogies for the "Levitical singers" and orchestra, and quite a lot of those are named among the returnees from the Babylonian exile, so it is definitely First Temple, though most scholars say minimally so. 

1 Samuel 10:5 has an orchestra at Giv-Yah.

Amos 5:23 has some negatives about the modes of the northern cult, which resemble Orthodox Judaism today railing against five-piece bands, fully amplified, leading Kabbalat Shabat in today's Reform world.

Worth pointing out Psalm 137, which seems to infer that the Babylonians knew some of their captives were Levitical musicians and singers, and forced them to perform - the same happened at Theresienstadt during the Holocaust (see my essay on April 1 in "The Book of Days"). Nor would they have sung alone - choirs and orchestras were to Mesopotamian culture of the time what rock 'n' roll bands were to American culture in the 1970s, and much of what would take place in Second Temple Yeru-Shala'im, from musical genres and modes to instruments etc, were probably brought back from Tel Abib with Zeru-Bavel and those who came after him.

The text of 1 Samuel 10:5  should be read alongside 2 Kings 3:15, where Elisha undergoes some sort of seizure as a result of the music - rock 'n roll musicians of the 1970s ibid, though it is not certain what Elisha used as his equivalent of LSD: probably haoma, as King Sha'ul did in the Samuel text, when he likewise used music as a psychological placebo (1 Samuel 10:6).

Trumpets, especially the Shofar, should be treated separately from the orchestra, though they may have been included: essentially they were priestly, or military. See 2 Kings 11:14 for their blowing at coronations, with women more than men singing, dancing, and drumming. Ditto for war-triumphs, as per the Song of the Sea and 1 Samuel 18:6-7.

There are also casual references (or complaints) to singing, dancing and making music, for example at Judges 21:19-21, 2 Samuel 19:36, Isaiah 5:12, Amos 6:5 Ecclesiastes 2:8 ... and many others.

2 Chronicles 35:25 informs us that there were specially written dirges for the women to keen at mourning-rituals, and for both men and women, written by the Prophet Yirme-Yah, for the funeral of King Yoshi-Yah.

Shalishim: mentioned in 1 Samuel 18:6-7, played by women. The word should be pronounced Talitim, from the Ugaritic word for "metal", and not Shalishim, from the Babylonian word for "three" - which I only mention because it gives yet one more example of that important linguistic variant: Tammuz and Shimshon, Ptolomy and Shelomoh (Solomon).

ROSHIM: see 2 Samuel 6 and my notes on this at Psalm 8:1

For Yedutun (or Yediytun) see my notes at Psalm 39:1

Copyright © 2022 David Prashker

All rights reserved

The Argaman Press

Teraphim and Treyf

Is TERAPHIM the root of the Yiddish word TREYF (= non-kosher)? Trust me, I get asked questions like this in Bible classes all the time, and this is an entirely sensible question. And Teraphim (household gods) are most definitely not kosher!

But the answer is: no. The Teraphim (תְּרָפִ֣ים) have a first-letter Tav (ת), not Tet (ט), and come from the root TARAPH, meaning "to enquire", presumably because it is to your household gods that you go to ask about the mysteries of life and the universe. Treyf in Yiddish is טרייף‏ , from the Yehudit טְרֵפָה‏ (terephah), and its various meanings are worth an entire Shabbat morning shi'ur:

The first is TEREPH, found in Genesis 8:11, and meaning a fresh or newly-plucked leaf. And actually it is the same as the second meaning, though it isn't immediately obvious why.

The second is TARAPH, which can be found, inter alia, at Genesis 37:33 and 44:28, at Deuteronomy 33:20 and Psalm 22:14, always with the same sense, of something torn to pieces by a wild beast. Plucked, like a fresh leaf.

But then a third usage arises, in Proverbs 30:8, where the aphorist asks "two things of you, do not deny them to me before I die: keep lies and false words from me: give me neither poverty nor riches, but provide me with my daily bread." The last phrase there being, in Yehudit, HATRIYPHENI LECHEM CHUKAI, which also happens to be the source of Jesus' famous phrase in the Lord's Prayer: "Give us this day our daily bread". Yet the "feeding" here is TREYF!

Clearly the Yiddish did not know, or simply chose to ignore, the Proverb, and stuck with the definition of meat that has not been properly killed and sacrificed, according to the laws of Kashrut called Shechitah. Meat that has been found in a field, dead of natural causes or killed by a predator - fowl, animal or human - is Treyf. Food that is prohibited by Mosaic law is Treyf.

But then see Proverbs 31:15 Malachi 3:10, Psalm 111:5, all of which, like the previous Proverbs quote, use the root in the Hiph'il or causative form: feeding, rather than eating. And no question in any of these that it is perfectly kosher food, even if it is also Treyf!

So TREYF is not the same as Teraphim (though if you consult your Teraphim, they will advise you not to eat Treyf). Having said which, there is also a follow-up question, which the same shi'ur would do well to address, and which is why I am exploring these two words on the same page, and through the same texts: is it possible that the two were in fact from the same root, but the spelling is a dialect variation, in the same way that Sarai reflects the Aramaic and the Chaldean but Sarah the Hittite and the Hurrian? In other words, are they, after all, the same?

Genesis 49:27 tells us that "Bin-Yamin is a ravenous wolf; in the morning he devours the prey, and in the evening he divides the spoil." The "ravenous" part is YITRAPH (יִטְרָ֔ף), and it connects to the commandment prohibiting the eating of any meat that has been torn from a live animal, or from an animal found dead of natural causes (one of the No'achide Laws, Genesis 9:4, reiterated and extended in Leviticus 11:4-8). When Ya'akov is told of the "death" of Yoseph, and shown his coat, he assumes that "an evil beast has devoured him; Yoseph is without doubt torn in pieces", the latter phrase rendered in Yehudit as "TAROPH TORAPH - טָרֹף טֹרַף" and repeated identically when Ya'akov reminds the boys of the incident in Genesis 44:28. Other examples of the word can be found in Deuteronomy 33:20, Psalm 22:14, Nahum 2:13 and more, all with the same meaning, as already noted above.

Exodus 22:21 tells us that "IM TAROPH YITAREPH YEVI'EHU ED HA TEREPHA LO YESHALEM - אִם טָרֹף יִטָּרֵף יְבִאֵהוּ עֵד הַטְּרֵפָה לֹא יְשַׁלֵּם - If it be torn in pieces, let him bring it for witness; he shall not make good that which was torn", which becomes a clause in the Torah section on Nezikim or Damages. Leviticus 7:24 then tells us that "VE CHELEV NEVELAH VE CHELEV TEREPHAH YE'ASEH LE CHOL MELACHAH VE ACHOL LO TO'CHLUHU - וְחֵלֶב נְבֵלָה וְחֵלֶב טְרֵפָה יֵעָשֶׂה לְכָל מְלָאכָה וְאָכֹל לֹא תֹאכְלֻהוּ - And the fat of that which dies of natural causes, and the fat of that which is torn by other animals, may be used for any other service; but you shall in no manner eat of it", which becomes a clause in the Torah section on Kashrut; and it is from this that the Yiddish word Treyf is derived.

The Teraphim that Rachel stole (Genesis 31:19) were probably oracular heads mummified, whereas the one that Michal made as a pretend David (1 Samuel 19:13) has to have been full body and life-sized. Lavan was presumably ha Lavanah, the white moon god(dess?), in the original of this tale; was he, like Dinah, also a female, made to appear male? In this sense there would have been more than one Ya'akov, the Hera-Kles who put on the goat-skin as Tanist to his sacrificed brother Esav ; the one who served seven years at Lavan(ah)'s shrine as consort of Le'ah the cow-goddess, his successor (or more likely an Egyptian equivalent later identified with him) who served seven years as consort to Rachel (Raguel?) and fled to avoid being sacrificed.

1 Samuel 15:23 could not be more clear that they are "iniquitous", and Zechariah 10:2, seven hundred years later, continues to affirm that. And yet, just as we have seen that Treyf can be perfectly acceptable provisions, so in Judges 17 and 18 we appear to have Teraphim of the same order - the ones that Michah acquires, and which will become the temple ornaments for the tribe of Dan when they move to La'ish. 

Copyright © 2021 David Prashker

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The Argaman Press

Necher, Goy and Ger

Three words for "foreigners", but all of them very different.

1) NECHER

Usage generally emphasises the "strangeness", in the sense of something "unfamiliar", and therefore "foreign", though the Chaldean and Syriac equivalent "repudiates", "contemns" and even "pollutes" – so that the object in question is not simply strange, but always negatively so.

So the belief among many of us that racism stems from unfamiliarity applies here, with NECHER having the sense of "ignorant" - pure ignorance, the absence of knowledge, in Job 24.13. In Deuteronomy 32:27 for example, where ignorance breeds misunderstanding, or Job 21:29, where cultural differences lead to phobias: "ask now those that go by the way, and you will not be ignorant of their signs". Familiarity breeds knowledge breeds understanding breeds empathy, where ignorance through unfamiliarity breeds fear, and fear leads to push-back and rejection.

From these we can now see why the root of NECHER is the same that yields LEHAKIR, which means "to know", but specifically in the French sense of "connaître" rather than "savoir", "recognition" rather than "cognition". Dozens of uses of this verb, as physical recognition in Genesis 27:23, 31:32 and 37:33, or at the next level, of familiarity breeding deeper understanding, in Nehemiah 6:12.

Move the root into the passive (Niphal), and then use the reflexive as well, and Genesis 42:7, like 1 Kings 14:5/6, has dissimulation or feigning, deliberately making others mis-recognise – the pretense of being something you are not, which therefore makes you strange. This danger of facial mis-recognition is alerted in Isaiah 3:9, though Isaiah also makes a very precise distinction between LADA'AT (savoir) and LEHAKIR (connaître) at 63:16. Worth looking at Deuteronomy 1:17 and 16:19, and see my notes at each of them, for a very subtle further nuance about the corrupt misuse of facial recognition, our tendency, often unconscious, to favouritise those we know or recognise: family, celebrities, politicians.

LEHAKIR is the verb that Nechem-Yah uses in 13:24, to express his dismay and disappointment that his own people no longer know how to speak their own language: AYNAM MAKIYRIM; where Ezra, at exactly the same epoch, uses LADA'AT, the French "savoir", in 3:13 of his book, for people "knowing the difference between", which of course is a cognitive not a recognitive. So this is not a modern understanding being read into the texts; it is unequivocally there: knowable and recognisable.

So there are "strange" people and "strange" countries and "strange" gods (Deuteronomy 31:16 seems to intend all three!), because, like the past in J.P. Hartley's novel "The Go-Between", "the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there". Things you have never encountered before, as in Isaiah 28:21. "Strange" people in Psalm 18:44/45 and Obadiah 1:11, "strange" gods in Genesis 35:2 and Jeremiah 5:19, or simply strange fates and destinies, as in Job 31:3; but especially strange people, which is the most common usage, as in Exodus 21:8, Ecclesiastes 6:2 and many others.

2) GOY


The root is GAVAH (גוה), but it is complicated by there being two roots that are identically spelled, a consequence of evolution in language – an American, for example, could tell you a story about a multi-story building, or try to curb your bad habit of stepping off the curb, but no Englishman could do either, because the second "story" is spelled "storey", and the second "curb" is spelled "kerb". Probably there was once GIYAH and GAVAH, the former having to do with "pride", and things being "exalted" or "elevated" in a manner that would engender pride (Job 22:29 and 33:17, Jeremiah 13:17, many others); the latter is the one we are examining here.

But our GAVAH appears to be complicated at a second level too, because it is used for things "coming together", or even, in the case of water, "flowing together", and this is precisely how it is used to this day in Arabic; and at the same time it means "a body" (see below). How can these two dissimilarities "come together" as a single meaning? And what does this have to do with "foreignness"? Ah, but of course, when people "come together" as a tribe or nation, they form a "body politic", and so we have GOY very much as the "Corpus Reipublicae" of Aristotle, and later of Cicero. So in Genesis 25:23 (which adds another layer to this, by introducing the word LE'UMI for "nation", from the root AM = "people"), Isaiah 1:4, Psalm 79:10, many others. And only in a later development does GOYIM come to mean "non-Jews" – logically enough, since all other nations followed other gods than the Jewsh god, so the totality of "others" "flowed together" into a single concept: non-Jews.

It would appear that GAVAH as "body politic" came first, and from there the root came to be used for the body itself, the root even extended to yield GEVIYAH - Nechem-Yah uses it in 9:37, and it can be seen at Genesis 47:18, Ezekiel 1:11 and 23, Daniel 10:6, with the corpus becoming a corpse, a dead body, in 1 Samuel 31:10 and 12, Nachum 3:3, Judges 14:8 and 9. (And yes, the development could have been the other way around, the body coming before the body politic, but the grammatical form of Geviyah is late Yehudit, and then see my note on Geb below).

Which leads me to wonder if a second linguistic merging might not have taken place, because that corpse is likely to be laid to rest in a burial mound, a tumulus (click the link, but also go back to Judges 14:8 and follow it through to my page on Devorah and the bee-hive tombs), and in Biblical Kena'an that burial mound could well have been named for the Egyptian god of the Underworld, Geb – as in Gev'a and Giv-On and Giv'ah. But they are all spelled with a Vet, not a Vav. Perhaps, in a pre-literate world, or in the same way as the American variations, which are dialect-based, the homophone became a homonym, just as GIYAH and GAVAH had done previously.


3) GER


From the root that yields the verb LAGUR, "to live" in the sense of "dwelling" or "inhabiting" (life itself is either LEHIYOT for "being", as in YAH and YHVH, or LECHIYOT for "existing", as in CHAVAH). So "GERCHA ASHER BI SH'EAREYCHA" of Exodus 20:10 is really "the person who happens to be dwelling within your gates at that moment", your gates meaning your house, or your city; and this could be any person, Jew or non-Jew, some temporary passer-through with or without a visa, a foreign worker, a trader or tourist; and regardless of whether he or she is NACHRI or GOY. Quite simply: anyone who "is dwelling" there at that moment.

And yet it has come to mean "foreigner", "stranger", "ex-patriate" – cf Genesis 15:13, Exodus 2:22 and 18:3 - despite the fact that there is a very specific phrase used elsewhere to denote that distinction – TOSHAV in Genesis 23:4, as opposed to EZRACH in Exodus 12:19.

TOSHAV is really the key to understanding this, because LASHEVET means "to sit" or "to settle", which is why Jews in the Diaspora have always referred to Israel as the "Yishuv", “the place where we were settled”. A Yishuv is a homeland, a fixed and staying-there place, where one expects to live one's whole life (not counting holidays and occasional jobs abroad), and raise one's children, and establish roots, but when you take that holiday, when you spend a year on an archaeological dig, or three months of your GAP-year in a school, that is LAGUR, just as it is on your diplomatic posting to the Embassy, or your secondment to company HQ for a short period. GER is temporary; TOSHAV, like EZRACH (citizenship) is permanent. A TOSHEV ARA'I, in contemporary Israel, is a person who has been granted "permanent resident" status, but not yet citizenship; something like the Green Card in the USA.

Isaiah 5:17 adds an endorsement to this explanation, having GERIM for the Bedou, the nomadic shepherds who never inhabited or dwelled anywhere for longer than a lambing season or a period of good grazing. To be a Bedou is to be permanently passing through.

Copyright © 2020 David Prashker

All rights reserved

The Argaman Press

Biblical Source Criticism and The Documentary Hypothesis

Traditional Judaism holds that the Five Books of Mosheh – the Torah - were given by the god YHVH (or possibly Elohim, or possibly both), to Mosheh (of whom there is no historical evidence besides these books), on Mount Sinai (still unlocated, but probably not in the desert that bears its name), "in the form in which we have them now"; some passages, such as the Ten Commandments, in written form; the remainder in oral form.

Yet "the form in which we have them now" is classical Yehudit (paleo-Hebraic versions, such as the Samaritan, contain many variations), and we know that Yehudit, even in its most aboriginal form, was not invented as an alphabetically written language before circa 1000 BCE, at least three hundred years after the supposed god-gift; logically we must therefore presume that the written Ten Commandments were in Egyptian hieroglyphs, and the oral tales transmitted in classical Egyptian, or perhaps Hurrian, the language of Kena'an (Canaan), itself a dialect of late Hittite proto-Aramaic, or in some dialect of Chaldean brought out of Ur Kasdim by Av-Ram's family (assuming that Av-Ram's family were ever in Ur Kasdim)... all of which leaves open a staggering number of rather obvious questions.

In 1651, Thomas Hobbes, writing in "The Leviathan", noted the oddity of Deuteronomy 34:6, speaking of the death of Mosheh, that "no man knows of his sepulchre to this day", a statement that infers an authorship long after Mosheh's death. Hobbes also pointed out Genesis 12:6 – "and the Canaanite was then in the land" – which clearly indicates an author living when the Canaanite was no longer in the land; and Numbers 21:14, which makes reference to an earlier book, "The Book of the Wars of YHVH", that also recorded the life of Mosheh. Hobbes concluded that Moses could not possibly have written any of this, and that it would undermine God's almightyhood if these anachronisms were divinely attributed.

Isaac de la Peyrère, Baruch Spinoza, Richard Simon, John Hampden and many other of Hobbes' contemporaries came to similar conclusions, based on other oddities in the text, but where Hobbes' "Leviathan" lives on, unexcommunicated and un-indexed, amongst the canon of English literature, de la Peyrère, Simon and Hampden were condemned, imprisoned and forced to recant by the Christian authorities, while Spinoza was excommunicated by his Jewish confrères, a ruling based on the 12th of the 18 blessings in the Amidah, a statement of extraordinary compassion, empathy, sympathy and mercy written by Rabban Gamliel II in the 2nd century CE: 

"And for slanderers let there be no hope, and may all wickedness perish in an instant, and may all your enemies be cut down speedily. The wanton sinners - may you speedily uproot, smash, cast down and humble them, speedily, and in our days. Blessed are you, YHVH, who breaks enemies and humbles wanton sinners."

As late as the 1950s, the verse was applied by order of the Beth Din of London, when Rabbi Louis Jacobs was forced out of his ministry in an orthodox London synagogue for daring to challenge the divine source of the text – he would probably have been excommunicated, but the right of excommunication had been withdrawn by the English Parliament. Challenges to the orthodox tradition are not welcome, in either Jewish or Christian circles.

If the goal of those who attacked Spinoza and co was to deter the open-minded scholars, the attempt failed, and somewhat ironically too, because the man who laid out the new methodology of Biblical scholarship intended it to be used to refute Hobbes and Spinoza. Published in 1753, Jean Astruc's "Conjectures on the original accounts of which it appears Moses availed himself in composing the Book of Genesis" employed the same techniques of literary analysis that were being used to deduce which of the many versions of the Latin and Greek classics was the authentic text. Astruc noted the variant usage of "Elohim" and "YHWH" as the name for the Yisra-Eli deity, and the repetition of certain stories (the two accounts of the creation in Genesis 1-3; the two accounts of Sarah prostituted to the harem of a foreign king in Genesis 12 and 20, et al); and concluded that a later editor had erroneously mixed up the deity's pure original!

Astruc had invented "Biblical Source Criticism", and applied it to Genesis. Johann Gottfried Eichhorn applied it to the entire Torah, and by 1823 had come to the conclusion that Mosheh could not possibly have written any of it.

In the meanwhile, Wilhelm de Wette had demonstrated from the language characteristics of Deuteronomy that it had to have been written by a different author from the other four books, who (or even possibly all of whom) used a much later form of Yehudit; compare Chaucer with Shakespeare with Dickens and you will see how easy it is to detect the stages in the development of language (the same is true of regional dialects, though de Wette did not notice this equally valid point of variation within the Tanach). At the same time de Wette's student Friedrich Bleek had identified the Book of Joshua as a continuation of Deuteronomy, though others prefer to regard Deuteronomy as a prologue to Judges, Samuel and Kings - it's probably both.

By 1853 Hermann Hupfeld had introduced the concept of the Redactor, a final editor who, at some as yet unspecified point of Yisra-Eli history, had taken all known sources, amalgamated them into a single (unsuccessful) synthesis, and produced the final mess of errors, anachronisms, duplications, self-contradictions, doubles, inconsistencies and downright impossibilities which is the divine and perfect Torah that we have today. Though even Hupfeld admitted that there were probably more than just the four sources that all agreed upon.

Julius Wellhausen did not wait to be excommunicated or forced to recant; he resigned as Professor of Theology at Greifswald University, stating that

"I became a theologian because the scientific treatment of the Bible interested me; only gradually did I come to understand that a Professor of Theology also has the practical task of preparing the students for service in the Protestant Church, and that I am not adequate to this practical task, but that instead despite all caution on my own part I make my hearers unfit for their office. Since then my theological professorship has been weighing heavily on my conscience."

Wellhausen published "Die Composition des Hexateuch und der historischen Bücher des Alten Testaments - The Composition of the Hexateuch and the historical books of the Old Testament" in 1877, and the "Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels - Prolegomena to the History of Israel" in 1878, tracing in the latter the development of the religion of the ancient Yisra-Elim from an entirely secular, non-supernatural standpoint.

"Wellhausen's Hypothesis", which is also known as "The Documentary Hypothesis", was an attempt to deconstruct the Torah back into its original parts. He deduced four original texts (an extraordinary under-estimation!), using its language as his starting-point: those associated with J are much richer in their narrative style than those associated with E; the language of P is dry and legalistic; the language and content of D reflects the period of the Second Temple. Other obvious variations are the names of the Yisra-Eli god; the use of Chorev (Horeb) in E and D, but Sinai in J and P; ritual objects such as the Ark, which are mentioned frequently in J but do not actually appear in E; the absence of Judges from P, and of Prophets from both P and D; the Yisra-Eli god speaking directly with humans in J, but only through dreams in E, and more distantly still, through the office of the priest, in P. Wellhausen postulated the writing of the four texts as follows:

The Yahwist source (J), written c 950 BCE in the southern Kingdom of Yehudah.

The Elohist source (E), written c.850 BCE in the northern Kingdom of Yisra-El (Ephrayim).

The Deuteronomist (D), written c 600 BCE in Yeru-Shala'im during a period of religious reform.

The Priestly source (P), written c 500 BCE by Kohanim (Temple priests) in exile in Babylon.

Evidence for these dates for the writing is difficult to find, except through hints in the texts, especially the prophetic texts, or specific statements made in the historical sections. For example, in 2 Kings 22:8–20 we read that a "scroll of Torah" had been "discovered" in a store-room of the Temple in Yeru-Shala'im by the High Priest Chilki-Yahu (Hilkia) in the eighteenth year of King Yoshi-Yahu (Josiah), which is to say 622 BCE. Yoshi-Yahu had embarked on a campaign of religious reform, destroying all altars except the one in the Temple, prohibiting all sacrifice except at the Temple, and insisting on the exclusive worship of YHVH; so the "discovery" of a Torah scroll would have been extremely useful. In the 4th century CE Saint Jerome speculated that the scroll in question was probably Deuteronomy; in 1805 de Wette suggested that it may only have been the law-code in Deuteronomy 12–26, and that Chilki-Yahu probably wrote it himself, on the orders of Yoshi-Yahu.

Wellhausen believed that the originals were variations of the same narratives, complete with the same incidents and characters, but that each carried its own theological message, based on its contemporary understanding of both the Yisra-Eli deity and the cultic practice, neither of which have remained constant at any point in human history. The four, he argued, were combined on two separate occasions, each time by an editor - the technical term for Biblical editorship is redaction - who tried to retain as much as possible of the original, but again sought to superimpose their own contemporary theology and ritual.

Wellhausen followed Karl Heinrich Graf in concluding that the four sources were written in the order J-E-D-P, though most scholars at the time believed P to be the earliest. A key part of his argument was the perceived evolution of religious practice over the centuries, with altars erected wherever the Patriarchs or heroes such as Yehoshu'a chose during the pre-and early monarchic period of Genesis, Judges and Samuel (the three are almost certainly concurrent historically), with sacrifice available to individuals, and not exclusively through the priesthood, and priestly portions more a matter of tipping at the discretion of the giver. By the time of Yoshi-Yahu (Josiah), but possibly earlier, the rite of sacrifice was becoming centralised under the controlling authority of the priesthood, while ancient tribal or cultic festivals that had become national institutions, or simply crossed tribal and cultic boundaries (the most obvious of these being the Passover) were updated to something more like their present form, as a way of creating a national history with which all could identify.

The third stage of this religious evolution came after the return from exile (536 BCE) when the Temple in Yeru-Shala'im was established as the only permitted sanctuary (the Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim would not physically be destoryed until the reign of John Hyrcanus, in 128 BCE), and the descendants of Aharon as the caste designated to perform sacrifices. By this time the festivals had become linked to the calendar instead of to the seasons, and the schedule of priestly entitlements was strictly mandated.

The four sources were finally combined, so this theory concludes, by a series of Redactors, first J with E to form a combined JE, then JE with D to form a JED text, and lastly JED with P to form JEDP, the final Torah. Taking up a scholarly tradition that stretched back to Spinoza and Hobbes, Wellhausen named Ezra, the post-Exilic leader who completed the re-establishment of the Jewish community in Yeru-Shala'im with the support of the Persian emperor Artaxerxes I in 458 BC, as the final redactor.

And given that Ezra's own book, as well as that of his immediate political governor Nechem-Yah (Nehemiah), both tell us that it was Ezra who introduced the twice-weekly reading of the Torah, in the annual cycle still used today, this latter conjecture is probably as close to historical accuracy as any Bible archaeologist is ever likely to get.

Most of the remainder of the works described above have been radically re-questioned over the two hundred years since Hobbes and Spinoza et al began their undertakings. Those of the orthodox Jewish and Christian faiths continue to reject them, totally and absolutely. Their successors in the various fields of Biblical archeology, both literary and physical, and including TheBibleNet, regard them with great respect, accept many but by no means all of their speculations and hypotheses, and reckon that they did little more than touch the surface of what is now believed. The commentaries within TheBibleNet will illuminate those deeper excavations.

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J, The Jahwist source (which ought, of course, to be called Y, the YHVHist source):

According to the documentary hypothesis, all anthropomorphic descriptions of YHVH, as well as his personal appearances and the use of his name, belong, until Exodus 3, to the Jahwist source. After Exodus 3, D, E and P all manifest these. The hypothesis regards J as the oldest source, covering about a half of Genesis and Exodus, and some fragments of Numbers. J appears to focus on places within the territory of the tribe, later the kingdom, of Yehudah, as well as individuals connected with its history, and gives special weight of attention to Yehudah himself and tales relating to him. The style of J is highly literary. The general view is that J was written (a term that is itself controversial; we shall return to it later) around 950 BCE, either during the reign of Shelomoh (Solomon), or not long afterwards; definitely before the civil war between Shelomoh's "sons" which caused the united Kingdom of Yisra-El to split into the northern kingdom of Ephrayim and the southern kingdom of Yehudah, which event took place in 922 BC.

According to John Bright, "The Jahwist presents a theology of history, rather than timeless philosophical theology. YHVH's character is known by his actions. The Jahwist picture of YHVH begins with the creation of human beings and the early history of Mankind in general (Genesis 2-11). The Jahwist contributions in this material do not intend to present an exhaustive history, but rather certain episodes with particular importance to later generations. These episodes explain human mortality, the need to work for a living, the existence of many languages, rivalry among brothers, and Man's attempt to break through God's limits. The family is often in view in theological contexts, and the sequence of sin-punishment-mercy appears several times.

"The Jahwist picture of a theology of history continues with the call of Abraham and the subsequent history of Israel and their ancestors. The Jahwist presents the nation of Israel as YHVH's own people, which he brought into being, protected, and settled in the land of Canaan, in fulfillment of promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Jahwist source presents a history of Israel that also illustrates themes of sin-punishment-grace, but more especially one that portrays YHVH as a powerful deliverer and provider of his people's needs. Faith in YHVH alone is the primary virtue. The Jahwist also emphasises Israel's destiny to be a great nation who will rule over her neighbors and have a king from the tribe of Judah. The theology of the Jahwist extends beyond Israel and includes notice that all nations will be blessed through Abraham (or bless themselves through Abraham); furthermore, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is attributed to the Jahwist."

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E, the Elohist source:

The use of the generic word for the deity, Elohim, rather than the more personal name, YHWH, prior to Exodus 3, and descriptions of YHVH of a more impersonal nature (for example, speaking through dreams, prophets, and angels rather than personal appearances), indicate the Elohist source, according to the documentary hypothesis - though it should also be pointed out that the documentary hypothesis does not consider Elohim as an expression of polytheism, but only as an alternate singular name.

Nor does the Elohist's narrative begin with a depiction of YHVH's creation of Humankind, but with the divine address to Av-Ram, the ancestor of Israel: Lech Lecha - the instruction to leave Padan Aram for Kena'an (though actually he goes on to Mitsrayim, and when he comes back it is to Gerar; so this is a major flaw in the hypothesis). Because both the Jahwist source and the Elohist source use "YHVH" for the deity after Exodus 3, it is more difficult to discern Elohist from Jahwist source material from that point onward. E parallels J, often duplicating the narratives. E makes up a third of Genesis and half of Exodus, plus fragments of Numbers. E describes a human-like deity initially named Elohim, but YHVH subsequent to the incident of the burning bush, at which Elohim reveals himself as YHVH. E focuses on the Kingdom of Yisra-El and on the Shiloh priesthood, and has a moderately eloquent style. Scholars suggest that the Elohist source was composed around 850 BCE.

The theology of the Elohist focuses on four key elements: 1) prophetic leadership, 2) the fear of Elohim, 3) covenant, and 4) the theology of history.

Prophetic leadership is emphasised by building the narrative on four key ancestors (Av-Raham, Ya'akov, Yoseph and Mosheh) who are presented as prophets who receive revelations from Elohim in visions and dreams.

The Elohist's concept of the fear of Elohim goes beyond reverent awe and is the root of Av-Raham's obedience to the command to slay his son.

Covenant is emphasised by the Elohist on a number of occasions, notably the covenant ceremony of Exodus 24, the establishment of the tent of meeting, and Yisra-El's rebellion at Sinai, especially the worship of the golden calf, which presents the Elohist's gloomy view of Yisra-El's propensity to violate her covenant with Elohim.

The Elohist theology of history is focused on the nation of Yira-El and more inclined than the Jahwist to focus on the specifically religious aspects of prayer, sacrifice, and prophetic revelations. The goal of history for Yisra-El is explicitly religious: to be "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."

The other major flaw in the Elohist hypothesis is that, reckoning it to be from the Ephrayimite northern kingdom, its usage should surely die out after 720 BCE, when that kingdom was sent into oblivion in chains by Shalman-Ezer V; and yet the name continues to be used, alongside or in preference to YHVH, in most of the books of the Tanach after that date, including in the period when Ezra was writing down the Tanach.

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D, the Deuteronomist source:

According to Martin Noth, the Deuteronomist wrote in the middle of the 6th century BCE, with the purpose of addressing contemporaries in the Babylonian exile to show them that "their sufferings were fully deserved consequences of centuries of decline in Israel's loyalty to YHVH." Loyalty to YHVH was measured in terms of obedience to the Deuteronomic Law. Since Yisra-El and Yehudah had failed to follow that law, their histories had ended in complete destruction in accordance with the divine judgment envisaged by Deuteronomy.

"But it shall come to pass, if you will not listen to the voice of YHVH your god, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command you this day, that all these curses shall come on you, and overtake you."

D in the Torah is, self-evidently, restricted to the Book of Deuteronomy, although the hypothesis regards it as continuing into the subsequent books of Yehoshu'a (Joshua), Shophtim (Judges), and the four books of the Kings (the two books of Samuel and the two books of Kings in the Christian versions). There, it takes the form of a series of sermons about the Law, as well as recapitulating the narratives of Exodus and Numbers. Its distinctive term for the deity is YHVH Eloheynu, traditionally mistranslated in English as "The Lord our God".

Scholars since Noth now estimate that this source was likely composed circa 650–621 BCE, which would have been prior to the Babylonian Exile (587-539 BCE). Two principal examples of this:

According to Gerhard von Rad, Noth's view of the purpose of the Deuteronomist rightly emphasised the theme of judgment, but missed the equally central theme of YHVH's grace. The Deuteronomist, he claims, reported repeated instances of YHVH's word at work, by describing previously reported oracles of YHVH's Prophets being precisely fulfilled in events described later. On the one hand, destruction of Yisra-El and Yehudah was portrayed as being in accord with the prophetic pronouncement of doom in retaliation for disobedience; on the other hand, the final destruction was restrained by YHVH's promise to David, found in Natan's oracle in 2 Samuel 7, and reiterated throughout 1-2 Kings. Alas Noth was not alive to respond to von Rad, but one imagines that he would have pointed out the use of "retroactive validation", one of the favourite techniques in the Tanach as in all writing of human history; not that this negates von Rad, but it does equivocate the matter.

Still more recently, Hans Walter Wolff has described the purpose of the Deuteronomist as a pattern of apostasy, punishment, repentance, and deliverance - the Yonah story writ larger, though he does not actually use this exemplar. According to Wolff, the Deuteronomist's intent was to show the exiles that they were in the second stage of the pattern and therefore needed to "cry out to YHVH in repentance", something achieved, quite simply, by going back to dutiful obedience to the given laws.

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P, the Priestly source:

The documentary hypothesis describes the Priestly source as using the title Elohim as the general name for the Yisra-Eli deity in the primaeval period (Genesis 1-11). El Shadai is the first special name for the god, and it is revealed to the patriarchs and reserved for that era. YHVH is the personal name for the deity that is revealed to Mosheh, and never set in the mouth of any speaker by the Priestly source prior to Mosheh (Exodus 6:3). The Priestly source portrays this god as the creator of the whole world, which he declared to be good, and on which he has bestowed his blessing. Humanity is created in the image of this deity, implying dominion over the whole Earth.

P includes many lists, especially of genealogies, dates, numbers and laws. Portrayals of the god viewed as distant and unmerciful are ascribed to P. P partly duplicates J and E, but alters details to stress the importance of the priesthood. P consists of about a fifth of Genesis, substantial portions of Exodus and Numbers, and almost all of Leviticus. According to Wellhausen, P has a low level of literary style. Scholars estimate its composition to have been around 600–400 BCE.

The Priestly source portrays YHVH as a god who is interested in ritual. The covenant of circumcision, the dietary laws, and the emphasis on making a tabernacle according to a divinely revealed plan are all ascribed to the Priestly source. YHVH's presence and blessings are described in the Priestly source, not to be mediated by the king, but by the high priest mediating at the central place of worship.

The Priestly source also depicts a formal structure in terms of space, time, and social structure. The spatial center of the universe is the sanctuary, which is first modeled in the Mishkan (Tabernacle), and later in the Temple, using the pattern revealed to Mosheh (though actually it was modelled on the temples to Adonis in the Lebanon). It is at this specific location that YHVH wanted to make himself present to His people. YHVH arranged the temporal order around progressive layers of sevens, most of them Sabbaths: seven days, seven months, seven years, seven times seven years.

In terms of social structure, the Priestly source portrays YHVH as granting his presence to the particular people "who know his name". The priesthood, the ritual system, and the law represent the cosmic order in a priestly garment.

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As noted already, all of these hypotheses have been, and continue to be challenged; and yet they remain in place, and the internal evidence of the text, alongside the vast absence of archaelogical support for the alternative faith position, has bestowed on them a considerable validity, to the extent that they are now the starting point for most other schools of Biblical criticism.

Where once the Catholic church locked up its rebellious Bible theologians (Roger Bacon is the most obvious example, but see the list of "proscribed Gospels" in "The Ghetto of the Christians"), today's Vatican has bowed to the advice of its publicity department and acknowledged that the "light derived from recent research... should not be neglected by Catholic scholars", which is a splendidly negative way of not encouraging it, and urging them especially to pay attention to "the sources written or oral" and "the forms of expression" used by the "sacred writer", which is vague enough to meet the requirement without actually naming or supporting anything. Sadly Jewish orthodoxy has not yet made even this level of non-acknowledgement.

And there are, of course, other schools of thought, including those non-religious scholars who reject Wellhausen entirely, and religious scholars such as Umberto Cassuto (1883–1951) who, while Chief Rabbi of Florence, wrote "The Documentary Hypothesis and the Composition of the Pentateuch" as an attempt to disprove Wellhausen line by line and premise by premise. He failed.

"Supplementary hypothesis", primarily the work of John Van Seters, prefers to argue for a single original book that was supplemented with later additions and deletions.

"Fragmentary hypothesis", primarily the work of Rolf Rendtorff and Erhard Blum, insists on far more than four source texts and redactions, all ultimately conjoined in a single anthology.

Albrecht Alt and Martin Noth have argued that many of the texts were the writing down of ancient core beliefs that had previously belonged to the oral tradition. These include the journey out of Egypt, the conquest of the Promised Land, the covenants and the revelation at Sinai/Chorev. In fact, this does not conflict with Wellhausen; it merely provides a possible source for the sources, in the way that Shakespeare scholars will acknowledge that many of his plays were sourced in the Italian Commedia del'Arte, paralleling Wellhausen, while other scholars will go further, as Alt and Noth have done, and trace the sources of those Commedia del'Arte "originals".

The American Biblical archaeology school under William F. Albright have made the case that, even if Genesis and Exodus were only given their final form in the first millennium BCE, they were nonetheless still grounded in the material reality of the second millennium – which is a variation on Alt and Noth but not radically different. Wellhausen does not contend that the authors of J-E-D-P made up their tales as fictions, but simply that this was the form in which they anthologised them.

By the 1980s three models had become standard among scholars: the "documentary" (the Torah as a compilation of once separate but complete books), the "supplementary" (a single original book, supplemented with later additions/deletions), and the "fragmentary" (many fragmentary works and editions).

In 1987 Roger Whybray, an Oxford-trained Christian priest and theologian, published "The Making of the Pentateuch: A Methodological Study", in which he challenged the plausibility of the processes of J-E-D-P individually, and especially the process by which the final redaction was supposed to have been made. The key for Whybray – and TheBibleNet supports this contention wholeheartedly – lies in the contradictions and duplications that are present, not only in the final redaction, but within specific fragments of J-E-D-P themselves. Surely they would have been noticed, and corrected, at some if not at every stage; and if not, the theory describes a sloppiness of extraordinary degree in multiple priests and scholars over many centuries. "Thus," Whybray concludes, "the hypothesis can only be maintained on the assumption that, while consistency was the hallmark of the various [source] documents, inconsistency was the hallmark of the redactors!"

A dozen other models offer variants on these three – but all non-faith scholars agree that "the form in which we have them now" cannot possibly be a complete original given by the Yisra-Eli deity to Mosheh at Sinai, even though this remains the central tenet of orthodox Jewish faith.

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The second part of this essay, which takes the conclusions above to their next stage, and offers a fuller contemporary account of "The Writing of the Tanach", will be found by clicking the link under that title, as soon as I have completed the essay and published it.

Copyright © 2021 David Prashker

All rights reserved

The Argaman Press