A Brief Look at Source Criticism and the Pentateuch: With a Review of the Armstrongist Counterpoint

 

“Ezra Reads the Law” 

from the Third Century Dura-Europos synagogue (Fair Use)

A Brief Look at Source Criticism and the Pentateuch

With a Review of the Armstrongist Counterpoint

By Scout

“This book is not merely written for children. Adults by multiple thousands followed the installments avidly when they first appeared in "The Plain Truth". Adults will gain an understanding of the WHOLE BIBLE — of its continuous story thread — from this book.” – Herbert W. Armstrong, Introduction to Volume 1 of The Bible Story

When I was in college, one of the guys in the dorm got an anonymous poison pen letter from his hometown. There was no signature but he deduced who had sent it.  It was an old girlfriend with whom he had had a falling out.  The content could have come from a number of people but the language usage was a giveaway.  The letter contained locutions that only his old girlfriend was known to use.  And the current circumstance of their relationship made the letter a fit.  So, she had in effect signed the letter but didn’t know it. 

Analyzing ancient documents resembles the process my dorm buddy went through.  The Torah, for instance, is full of clues that can be mined for a fuller picture of its history.  Source Criticism capitalizes on this and unpacks the Torah in a disciplined way.  Everyone who reads the Bible seriously should know something about Source Criticism and its findings. 

Source Criticism in a Nutshell

Source criticism is an analytical methodology that advances the idea that the Hebrew scriptures are a discernable composite of texts from several different sources. The texts were under the curation of several different groups but in later history were edited to form the canon of the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible).  It is thought by some that the editor was Ezra assisted by his scribes. This multi-source idea was made popular by a German Biblical scholar named Julius Wellhausen near the end of the Nineteenth Century.  It now exists in several updated versions.  I will refer here to the version developed by Jewish theologian Richard E. Friedman.

Friedman’s sources include the Yahwists (J), Elohist (E), Priestly (P) and Deuteronomist (D).  He also identifies contributions to the composite scriptures by the Redactor (R).  It is important to recognize that Source Criticism is not the simplistic idea that different terms for God are used to hypothesize different contributors of texts to the scriptures.  It is far more complicated than that and is supported in a number of different ways, internal and external to the Tanakh, that verify each other.  I will not try to replicate the numerous arguments that support the methodology.  These are well documented and accessible.  I have included some works by Friedman in the References below.  And I assure you that Source Criticism is something you cannot easily dismiss.

As an example of why these sources are each cohesive, I will give a short profile of the Yahwist source. The Yahwist text in the Tanakh is the earliest prose writing (poetic writing has a longer history) made by mankind.  God is referred to as Yahweh.  The Yahwist writing dates to 950 BCE and is associated with the Davidic and Solomonic Monarchies. The Hebrew language used in the Yahwist passages pre-dates the language of the other sources. Yahwists bring certain accounts to the Bible that the other sources do not.  On the other hand, the Yahwist texts recount many events which will seem like redundancy to the reader because they are repeated by the later Elohist texts.  These repetitions are called “doublets.” Only the Yahwists use Yahweh in these doublets to refer to God rather than the Elohim of the Elohists.  Yawhists seem pre-occupied with dramatic story-telling, portraying God as anthropomorphic, dialogs between men and God, and the history and status of the Tribe of Judah. And further, there are other well-documented attributes of Yahwist writing that I will not attempt to characterize here. 

I am not asserting that Source Criticism perfectly explains everything we see in the Torah.  You can find passages that seem to defy classification.  Sometimes the term “Yahweh Elohim” is used.  These infrequent one-offs do not overturn the broad premise.  I do believe Source Criticism presents us with an accumulation of credible evidence that is persuasive. 

The Armstrongist View on the Authorship of the Torah

The Armstrongist view is that the five books of the Pentateuch were written by Moses.  This is a traditional view, also widely held among evangelicals.  Ronald L. Dart wrote an article, published by the Worldwide Church of God, titled “Who Wrote the Law?” that asserts that the Pentateuch was written by Moses.  The article was written in 1971 and is somewhat dated. It does not engage, for instance, the findings of Richard E. Friedman that support multiple sources.

Dart instead argues against conclusions on this topic drawn by scholars back in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.  Dart is concerned with countering the idea that the Torah was an evolutionary development and also pointing out that some scholars have incorrectly concluded that the Torah dates from the reign of Josiah simply because a copy of the Torah was discovered then.  Otherwise, Dart seems to argue plausibility.  Moses was literate and educated.  Why would we assume he could not write the Torah?   Finally, Dart states, “And so in conclusion, everything in the Pentateuch is as it should be for Moses to be the author.”  In fact, the arguments of Source Criticism show that everything is not as it should be for Moses to be the single author.  

Jesus as the Ultimate Source

If the Torah is a composite of texts from different sources, each with a separate curational history, how can it be trusted to be accurate?  The cleanest model, for those who idealize inerrancy, is Moses, acting as merely a bio-mechanical hand, writing the whole Torah at the inspiration of God. This is the best route to certainty (as opposed to faith).  

Dart writes, “Once we admit the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, it becomes impossible to deny the divine origin of the Law.”  Dart does not explain why single authorship is more likely to be inspired than multiple authorship.   A plausible observation is that single authorship would be appealing to those who support a hierarchical, autocratic form of church governance.  Single authorship beats the drum for the idea that God would always work through one chosen man who is the anointed leader.  A collegial approach would then be precluded. This political view overlooks the fact that the Tanakh as a whole is the collegial product of different authors in different time periods.

For most Christians, the need to have an unassailable version of the Torah is a non-issue because of Jesus.  When Jesus came to us, he did not start a project of purging the composite and humanly curated Tanakh.  He did not concern himself with who really killed Goliath or why light appeared before there were any celestial bodies.  As Miller Jones stated, “Christ did not dispute the understanding of the religious leaders of his day that Moses had authored the Torah, and that its terms were binding on humanity.” I don’t think Jesus gave the Torah a waiver because he believed it to be perfect.  Read Jeremiah 8:8 in some other translation besides the KJV. The KJV fumbles it. 

Jesus did observe the behavioral standards of the Torah perfectly. And he knew what constituted perfect law keeping because he inspired Version 1.0 of the Law and there was also an extant Temple in Jerusalem.   Jesus also noted that, “The Law and the Prophets were until John came”.  Thereafter, the era of the Gospel began.  And in this era, Jesus revealed himself as the Word of God.  His living example became our new behavioral standard.  Hence, the Old Testament, encrusted with human fingerprints, remained a valuable document.  But it had only a subordinate and contributory status when compared to the example of Christ.  So, in a sense, Jesus did rectify and purge the Torah.  But it was not a writing project with droves of scribes.  Jesus did it by the testimony of his personal spiritual walk under the New Covenant. 

Armstrongism and the Pitfall of a Non-wholistic View of Scripture

If you are not a cherry-picker of scriptures, the composite nature of the Old Testament will turn you into one if you are not careful.  Because the Torah is a compilation of texts from different sources, this pitfall for interpretation is present.  If one cites a passage that came, for instance from the Yahwists, that passage is going to reflect naturally the single view point associated with the Yahwists and not scripture as a whole necessarily. Even though the passage may be legitimate scripture, it may need to be tempered by other scriptures from other sources.  A case study of this problem is found in Basil Wolverton’s “The Bible Story.”

While I found Wolverton’s writing to be absorbing years ago, it was heavily skewed in the direction of what theologians call Deuteronomist History.  The Deuteronomists are only one of the sources for the Torah. I have listed below the content of Wolverton’s volumes and beneath that the books of the Deuteronomist History.  The correspondence is clear. 

 

Wolverton’s Bible Story:

 

Volume 1:  Genesis, Concerning Moses

Volume 2:  Concerning Moses

Volume 3:  Judges, Joshua

Volume 4:  Samuel

Volume 5:  Samuel, Kings, Chronicles

Volume 6:  Kings, Chronicles

 

Deuteronomist History:

Deuteronomy

Joshua

Judges

Samuel

Kings

 

Why does this make a difference? First, this is not a contrived collection of books from the Hebrew scriptures.  It follows the natural chronological order of Biblical events.  But it nevertheless represents the viewpoint of a single source.  The Deuteronomist History portrays God in a certain way. It supports transactional relationships, law and hierarchy. In particular, the Christian doctrine of grace has no place in this model (John 1:17, “The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”).  To the point, the Deuteronomist History portrays a transactional God.  The transactional model follows the logic of “If X, then Y.”  The two principal transactions are: “If you obey the law, then you will be blessed” and “If you disobey the law, then you will be punished.” The Bible Story prominently portrayed this narrow theological view with its absence of grace. I doubt that the portrayal was calculated but was rather done with good intentions. The good intentions were just overtaken by the multi-source nature of the scripture. But Herbert W. Armstrong (HWA) seemed to draft off of the Deuteronomist viewpoint, in my opinion as a former WCG lay-member, in his leadership style and in the formation of the denominational governance within the WCG.  

 

Friedman and other scholars believe that the Deuteronomists were Levites.  The Deuteronomist History seems to represent the interests of the Levitical Priesthood. Moses entrusted the book that he wrote to the Levites and told them to keep it with the Ark.  It is my personal belief that the book that Moses wrote was merged into the Pentateuch along with other source material by Jewish editors.  Moses’ book is embedded in the Pentateuch but does not constitute the whole of the five books.  This view accommodates the verifiable presence of discrete sources in the Pentateuch and also the “book” mentioned in Deuteronomy 31:24-26.

 

The problem is that the Deuteronomist History gives an incomplete picture of God and his relationships with people.  It must be completed and tempered by other books of the Tanakh and the New Testament. For instance, in the Book of Job you will find a contention over whether or not God is merely transactional.  Job’s “friends” expressed the Deuteronomist viewpoint.  Their repeated and lengthy assertion was that Job must be suffering because he had been disobedient.  This view is purely Deuteronomist. Job’s persistent counterpoint was that he had not been disobedient.  In the end, God said of Job’s Deuteronomist friends, “After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite: ‘My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.’”  At this point, the Deuteronomist view as the sole model of God collapses.  

 

The publication by the WCG of Wolverton’s Bible Story was much more than a retelling of some events from the Bible as juvenile literature in service to church families.  It resulted in the implantation in the minds of readers of a particular viewpoint that also formed a leitmotif in Armstrongism.  Whether planned or unintentional, it came about from basing a view of God on passages that came from a single ancient source.  It is like the lesson of the blind men who feel different parts of the elephant and come away with widely varying descriptions.  The Bible must be considered as a whole with the Gospel at the center.  This is the over-arching hermeneutic. In the book “Four Views of Hell”, Robin Parry stated, “Is there a guide to help us interpret in theologically sensitive ways?  Yes.  The church has always recognized that the gospel narrative of the triune God manifest in Christ’s incarnation, ministry, death, resurrection, ascension, and return must be at the core of the interpretation of scripture.”

 

HWA was always an advocate of collecting all the scriptures together on a given topic in order to understand the topic.  It is ironic that the WCG fell victim to the pitfall of being non-wholistic through focusing on texts from a single underlying source in The Bible Story.

 

Summary Argument

 

Source Criticism leads to the understanding that the Pentateuch is a composite of texts from many different ancient sources.  Jewish scribes redacted these sources to form the canonical books.  For those who believe for some reason that single authorship equates to inspiration, this collegial approach is an issue. It was not an issue for Jesus.  Jesus did not launch a literary revision of the Tanakh to remove its unevenness during his earthly ministry.  Instead, he cured the problem in that he himself was the Word of God among us in living action (Hebrews 1:1-2). He did not edit; he exemplified in both word and deed.  And what he exemplified was what Paul called the Law of Christ (Galatians 6:2). The Law of Christ stands on the shoulders of the Torah but is a new rendition – with a better covenant and better promises (Hebrews 8:6).

 

References

If you resonate with this topic, a good place to get a better introduction is to listen to the Peter Enns interview with Richard E. Friedman cited below.  For a useful overview, Wikipedia contains a number of articles related to Source Criticism that I have not cited here.

Dart, Ronald L.  “Who Wrote the Law?” in Tomorrow’s World magazine, January, 1971.

Friedman, Richard E.  “The Bible with Sources Revealed,” HarperOne, 2005. 

Friedman, Richard E.  “Who Wrote the Bible,” Simon and Schuster, 2019.

Friedman, Richard E. “Who Wrote the Pentateuch?” an interview on The Bible for Normal People podcast, Peter Enns Interviewer.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQpJI1gr3ww

Jones, Miller.  “The Authorship of the Torah and Its Implications for the Work of Jesus Christ,” from the “God Cannot be Contained!” website.