Strata: In His Own Words

How, when and by whom were the Pentateuch and the historical books of the Bible written? Many theories have been offered to answer this question—one of the best known being that of the Documentary Hypothesis^a first proposed by the German scholar Julius Wellhausen in 1878. Not surprisingly, Wellhausen’s theory has been worked and reworked since its debut more than 130 years ago. Is this hypothesis still relevant? Dr. David Bokovoy of the University of Utah certainly thinks so.¹

I’m surprised how often I read online someone making the assertion that the Documentary Hypothesis is dead …

The truth is that the Documentary Hypothesis is far from dead. While there have been some important criticisms of the traditional Documentary Hypothesis presented in recent years, even European critics have not entirely abandoned the idea that the Pentateuch is a compilation of “documents.” P, for example, is now almost universally recognized as an independent source, as is D. Hence, what we call these sources (for example, P [Priestly Code], J [Yahwist], E [Elohist], and D [Deuteronomist]) really doesn’t matter. There will always be some differences in the way scholars divide them up (documents versus fragments, etc.).