Considering the Implications of the Textual Criticism of the Torah

By Daniel Branstetter (PO ‘24)

The more I studied the Bible, the more I came to see, with the help of scholars before me, the human fingerprints all over it. How could I balance the messiness of the Bible, with its contradictions and missing books, so obviously the product of human hands, with the authority of the revealed word of God?

Deus dimittat erratae et omissionibus mei.

When I began my study of the textual criticism of the Bible, I was worried that what I discovered would challenge my understanding of scriptural authority, and even my own faith. Perhaps though, it can be (as my wise senior pastor suggested) comforting rather than disturbing. Might a holy book weaving the experience of diverse tribes and generations into a single grand tapestry be more inspired, more authoritative, than the product of a single prophet? Can a scripture written in a lifetime be as insightful, as rich, as one that encompasses half a millennium?

During the pandemic, I started reading a chapter of the Bible every night to make use of my free time. As I read through my study Bible, amply assisted by the rich, scholarly, footnotes and prefatory essays, I noticed something that deeply disturbed me: the human fingerprints all over it. I discovered that scholars had strong reason to believe that some books of the Bible were falsely attributed — that is, not written by the purported authors, a phenomenon called “pseudepigrapha.” Others were almost certainly written decades (or even centuries) after the events they described as contemporaneous. Even more disturbing were flat contradictions between books and verses. The same stories might be told multiple times but with different, contradictory, details. Biblical laws might directly conflict. Indeed, I discovered a whole discipline of study, textual criticism, dedicated to uncovering the historical compilation of the Bible. Even the collection of books which constitute the Bible can be questioned. Different denominations dispute the Biblical status of some 15 books, and several books that may once have been part of the Bible seem to have been lost over time. These discoveries shook me. The Bible is the word of God. It is divinely inspired. In the Protestant tradition, it is the foundation of all belief and doctrine, the source of legitimacy for all theology and church practice. How could I balance the messiness of the Bible, with its contradictions and missing books, so obviously the product of human hands, with the authority of the revealed word of God?

I quickly realized that the sixty-six (or eighty-one) books of the Bible were too much to analyze at once. Instead, I started with the Torah (the “teaching” in Hebrew), the oldest layer of the Bible, which comprises the five books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Not only is it more manageable in size, the Torah already has a well established corpus of source critical analysis owing to its central place in Jewish and Christian tradition, as well as the prestige of the figure long assumed to be its author, Moses.

Scholars have identified at least four distinct voices in the Torah, each with its own theology and version of events. They are denoted by the letters J, E, D, and P. The Yahwistic source, abbreviated J (from the German spelling), is named after the name it uses for God, YHWH (יהוה‎). The name was considered so holy that only its consonants could be written. J is the oldest strata of the Torah. It is probably the voice of scribes in the royal courts of Solomon and David writing around the Tenth Century BC. The Elohistic source, abbreviated E, after its preferred name for God, “Elohim” (אֱלֹהִים), which is used until God reveals his personal name to Moses at the Burning Bush, is probably the work of scribes in the Northern Kingdom of Israel by the Eighth Century BC. It is the smallest of the four voices, and can sometimes be hard to separate from J. The Deuteronomistic source, D, is named after the eponymous book. It is most likely the product of scribes in the Southern Kingdom of Judah around the Seventh Century BC, possibly during the reign of King Josiah (r. 640–609 BC). The Priestly source, P, is named after its conjectured authors, temple officials of the seventh or eighth Century BC. It is supplemented by a fifth voice, the Holiness Source (H), which is later than P and agrees with it generally, but elaborates on it at key points, especially in the law collections. The final compilers and editors of this complex book are unknown, and referred to as the Redactors, R(s). They probably worked during the Babylonian exile (586–538 BC) or the Early Persian Period (538 BC-420 BC).

How does the composite nature of the Torah, and the Bible at large, change the way we view scripture? Most modern Christians (though by no means all) approach the Bible as a univocal text — that is, one that speaks with a single voice, expresses a single viewpoint. This clearly is not the case. The Torah at least is polyphonic, a chorus of several distinct voices joined in a sort of scriptural fugue, each with a distinct tone, yet producing together something of breathtaking scope and complexity.

With that question driving me, I dove into my study of textual criticism. Let me note first that I do not assume all textual scholarship of the Bible to be correct. Rather, I consider the evidence marshaled by the scholarly community in favor of their consensus positions sufficient for us to consider the possibility that they might be right.

These distinct voices are visible from the very beginning. Careful readers of the first two chapters of Genesis know that the universe is created twice: once in Ch 1:1–2:4, and again in 2:4–2:25. The familiar seven-day creation (1:1–2:4) is a Priestly composition. Recall that God creates land and vegetation on the third day (1:9–1:13). God then creates first land animals and then humans on the sixth day (1:24–1:28). “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them (1:27).” Women and men are created simultaneously in this account, and only after there are plants for them to eat and animals for them to rule over.

The second creation account is quite different:

“In the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, 5 when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no vegetation of the field had yet sprung up — for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground, 6 but a stream would rise from the earth and water the whole face of the ground — 7 then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground[c] and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. 8 And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed (2:4–9).”

In this version, which scholars believe was recorded by J, the first man precedes plants, animals, and the first woman. God subsequently decides that Adam, the only inhabitant of the garden, requires a partner. He forms each animal out of dirt and brings it to Adam to name and then choose from among them a helper (2:18–20). None of the animals prove to be a suitable partner for Adam, so God puts him to sleep and removes one of his ribs to create Eve (2:20–25).

These two passages highlight some of the distinct features of the Torah’s voices. P shows us a highly ordered vision of creation in which a divine monarch directs the universe. As the composition of temple functionaries, P tends to stress the immense holiness of God, as well as the careful boundaries and rules necessary to respect and defend that holiness. By contrast, J presents a much more proximate God, often closer to the humans in its tales, physically molding humans from dirt and leading animals to Adam. Scholars generally agree that in this case, J is recording oral traditions that were already ancient when this passage was first written down in the Tenth Century BC. In the earliest chapters of the Torah, the J source can be identified by its distinctive name for God, YHWH, which is rendered LORD in English translations of the Bible. Other sources of the Torah imply this name is not revealed to humans until Moses receives it at the Burning Bush (Ex 3:1–22), and do not use it until after that story is recounted.

Just a few chapters later, the two voices diverge again in the story of Noah.

God informs Noah, a righteous man, that He has “determined to make an end of all flesh” (Gen 6:11, 13). He instructs Noah to build an ark that will protect him and his family while God cleanses the earth of the unrighteous. He gives Noah detailed instructions on what to bring with him, saying “of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female” (Gen 6:19). This is the story familiar to most Christians: the two-abreast line of animals entering the ark is a classic of children’s Bibles and hangs on countless Sunday school walls. But a few paragraphs later, God gives entirely different instructions: he tells Noah to “take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and its mate; and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and its mate” (Gen 7:2). In expectation of a covenantal sacrifice after the conclusion of the flood, God instructs Noah to bring extra animals. This will prevent the obligatory sacrifice from causing the permanent extinction of ritually clean animals. However, the Biblical author seems to change their mind again a few paragraphs later.

“And Noah with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. Of clean animals and of animals that are not clean and of birds and of everything that creeps on the ground, two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah.” (Gen 7:7–10)”

This passage makes unequivocally clear that two — and only two — of each ritually clean animal entered the ark with Noah, and were saved from the ensuing flood. (It is also worth noting that Noah physically enters the ark twice, once in 7:7–9 and again in 7:13–16.)

How can readers make sense of this passage? Here two narratives have been compressed into a single account. Unlike the two accounts of creation, two accounts of the flood (one from J and one from P) can’t be recorded sequentially or else the authors would risk the misinterpretation that there were two floods instead of one, a doctrinally unacceptable misconception. Thus, the redactors took great pains to write a single story with two sets of key details.

And what about the sacrifice that is foreshadowed by the seven pairs of animals in 7:2–4?

“Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And when the Lord smelled the pleasing odor, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of humans, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.” (Gen 8:20–21)

The LORD (that is, YHWH) accepts Noah’s sacrifice of the clean animals, and decides, as a result, never to destroy all life again. However, a second conversation with “God”(not YHWH) unfolds in the subsequent chapter. In Gen 9:1–17, God lays down a set of laws for all humankind in the wake of the flood, establishing the dominion of humans over the natural world and the sacredness of human life. He also makes a covenant with Noah, setting his bow (the rainbow) in the sky after the rain, as a reminder that “the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.” (Gen 9:8–17)

Again, J and P are visible, with all of their differences. The anthropomorphic YHWH of J appreciates the pleasing aroma of the sacrifice, and is moved to mercy in his heart. The lawgiver God of P lays down a set of rules for post-flood humanity and makes a covenant without any sacrifice. The passage where YHWH instructs Noah to bring extra clean animals comes from J. Why can’t the God of P order Noah to bring clean animals for a sacrifice? The laws of proper sacrifice won’t be revealed until the time of Moses, in the book of Leviticus. For P to be internally consistent, no sacrifice can take place before then. Hence, in P’s account Noah can’t bring seven pairs of clean animals for a sacrifice that cannot legitimately take place. Similar double accounts occur frequently in the Torah. Especially notable are the two covenants with Abraham (chapters 15 and 17) or rather, two different accounts of the same covenant from two different sources.

The hands of J and P are clearly visible in the Torah. So are E and D.

One excellent portrait of E and its distinctive themes comes from the story of Jacob. After claiming his brother Esau’s birthright (by fraud), Jacob flees his father’s camp for the wilderness of Cannan. Jacob comes to a place called Luz, and sleeps there with a rock under his head for a pillow. (Gen 27:1–32, 41–46, 28:10–11) “And he dreamed that there was a stairway set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.” (Gen 28:12) God appears to Jacob, and confirms that the covenantal blessing given to Abraham applies to him as well (Gen 28:13–16).

Upon waking, Jacob responds immediately to this vision:

“He took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. He called that place Bethel … Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will keep me… then the Lord shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house…” (Gen 28:16–22)

Jacob journeys on with God’s blessing, but his promise to build a temple at Bethel (literally the “House of God”, בֵּית אֵל, in Hebrew) will be fulfilled by his descendants. Indeed, God himself reminds Jacob that “I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and where you made a vow to me,” a few chapters later (Gen 31:13). Note exactly what E describes Jacob as doing here. In response to a miraculous vision, he has set up a stone as a pillar and anointed it with oil, dedicating it to God as a small monument.

However, this kind of devotional action is condemned in Deuteronomy, which states “ Do not erect a sacred stone, for these the Lord your God hates.” (Deut 16:22) Deuteronomy states unequivocally that there will only be one place in Israel where legitimate sacrifices can be made to God: the Temple in Jerusalem, the holiest site in Judaism from the time of its construction in the Tenth Century BC to the modern day. Local shrines (“high places”) are condemned as a holdover from the Canan’s pagan past. The establishment of sacred stones and pillars at these local shrines, (exactly what Jacob does) is condemned as a pagan and illegitimate practice.

Deuteronomy also clashes with various Priestly traditions. In P’s account of the wilderness journey, Moses and Aaron fail to trust adequately in God while drawing water from a rock. As a result, God chooses to ban them from entering the promised land (Num 20:12). Deuteronomy gives an alternate reason– Moses is punished on behalf of the Israelites and their loss of faith in entering the promised land following the spies’ report (Deut 1:37). The two sources clash several times during Deuteronomy’s retelling of the Exodus and the revelation of the law. Another notable disagreement concerns the place of Moses’ death. The Priestly account claims it occurred on Mt. Nebo (Num 27:12, 33:47). The Deuteronomist claims he died on Mt. Pisgah (Deut 32:49). To confuse the account still further, a later chapter of Deuteronomy attempts to collapse the two different mountains into a single place (Deut 34:1).

What did the redactors of the Bible, who were surely aware of the complex provenance of their book, hope to accomplish by creating this composite text? They must have recognized the value of retaining multiple viewpoints of God, perhaps even the insufficiency of any one of them to do justice to a divinity so above the world of human experience. Perhaps it reflects a deep humility, a conviction that no one sect or school could claim a monopoly on religious truth. One might interpret this choice, especially as it relates to E, as merciful. The Torah was redacted by the people of Judah, not Samaria, whose inhabitants became known as “the lost tribes.” There is a much polemical inveighing against Samaritans and their religious errors in the Tanakh. The Redactors could have written them out of the Bible easily — yet they chose not to. At this risk of reading too much into this editorial choice, could this be imagined as a final act of kindness by the descendants of Benjamin and Judah to the children of their ten lost brothers? Saving them from historical oblivion, and carrying forward their legacy?

While the true “genesis” of the Bible is unknown, early forms of its narratives certainly circulated orally for centuries before the Israelite monarchy was established. The texts which would one day form the first layer of the written Torah were begun by scribes in the royal court of the United Monarchy (1005–928 BC). They committed their ancestral tales to paper, creating the J voice. Following the division of the kingdom in 928 BC, scribes in Judea and Samaria both continued to record current events and ancient wisdom. In the North, scribes recorded the E layer of the Torah. Its emphasis on the heritage of Jacob and those of his descendents who would become the ancestors of the Northern Tribes naturally buttressed the legitimacy of the Northern Kingdom.

The next distinctive layer, D, was forged in an existential crisis. By the 600s BC, Samaria had collapsed, and Judah was beset on all sides by expanding empires. This political crisis was concomitant with a religious crisis. Foreign influence brought pagan religious practices to the kingdom, and it seemed possible that the religion of Israel’s God might be submerged. Judea’s leaders decided that radical religious reform was necessary to combat these trends, and proceeded to rewrite the kingdom’s laws in response to these new challenges. The legal code within Deuteronomy formed the basis for an aggressive campaign of social reform and religious revival under King Josiah (r. 639–609 BC).

The fourth layer, the Priestly layer, contains a great deal of ritual and legal material from the First Temple Period. A first draft was likely produced around the time of King Hezekiah (r. 716–687 BC) However, it was extensively revised and reached its final form in the Exilic (586–538 BC) and early Post Exilic (538–515 BC) periods. It then that its authors chose to rewrite much of Israel’s early history to fit better with their theology and vision. While the emphasis on ritual correctness and religious law seems strange to many modern readers, they reflect the Priestly author’s attempts to develop a theology which explains the national trauma they had endured, and offered hope in the midst of devastation.

The final redaction — the editing of the disparate sources into the scripture we know today — took place during the Babylonian Exile (586–538 BC) and its immediate aftermath. The Exile was a traumatic period in Jewish history that forced the former inhabitants of Israel to ask difficult questions about their identity and religion in the absence of their homeland and its sacred institutions. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this was a major impetus for the compilation and editing of the document collections that would form the Bible. Scholars credit the generation of Exile with much editorial activity, as former Isrealites sought guidance from their history and tradition in an uncertain time.

The reconstruction of Jerusalem and its Temple between 538 BC and 515 BC also required the reconstruction of the Judean community. Without a monarch or state of their own, the returnees chose to unite around their God, His reconstructed Temple, and His scripture. The post Exilic community needed a shared history — a great written covenant — to hold them together. The final editing (or “redaction”) of the Torah took place in this period of reconstruction. The Second Temple’s scribes compiled, recopied, edited, and synchronized the documents that recorded Israel’s history and religion. Recognizing the complexity of Israel’s experience, they chose to include many disparate traditions in their final compilation. The newly-produced Torah gave the returnees a legal foundation for their communal life and an authoritative source for their unique religion. Its unifying power is attested by the fact that this refugee community, which first united around it nearly 2500 years ago, endures today in the practitioners of Judeasim and Christianity around the world.

The Bible isn’t monovocal or even monotemporal. The Torah is not the product of a single prophet, vision, or theophany. It transcends kingdoms and generations. It is a transtemporal document whose layers communicate with each other across history. Early layers form the basis for later layers, which revise their predecessors in light of contemporary circumstances even as they draw on them for authority and inspiration. The Torah is the story of the chosen people and their struggles to walk alongside their God for over five hundred years of recorded history. This long walk felt different to each generation of Isrealites who recorded their triumphs and tragedies for future generations. Like any relationship, the covenant between Israel and its God felt close at one moment and tenuous at another.

What can we learn from this? Perhaps part of the Torah’s staying power stems from this long perspective. It has a voice for every season, the experiences of its characters speaking to our own highs and lows, its people learning to walk beside God in triumph and defeat. Like the people of today, the inhabitants of ancient Israel struggled to adapt their ancestors’ religion to changing circumstances. In their long nights of slavery, wandering in the wilderness, staggering into exile, they doubted. Like people today, they rejected the faith of their ancestors — only to repent and return to it before beginning the cycle again. Any loving relationship, if it lasts, takes on a life of its own. It becomes more than the sum of its parts, the experiences and interactions that comprise the everyday. The grand sweep of the Torah reminds us of this. If we embrace this view of the Torah as the record of the relationship in the long dure, then perhaps it can become a greater guide for us as we walk our own journeys. Perhaps it can be for us the wisdom of an elder who has walked the same path for many centuries before us.