Origin of the Pentateuch: Tradition and Documentary Hypothesis

Abstract

In the article the problem of Pentateuch’s origin is researched. According to the traditional Church position, the Pentateuch was always considered a work of the prophet Moses. But already in XVII century - first half of XVIII century they were scholars (Benedictus Spinoza, Richard Simon, Jean Astruc), who argued, that the entire text of Pentateuch or some of its parts do not belong to Moses. These assumptions received a development in the works of protestant scholars Wilhelm De Wette, E. Reuss, Karl Graf, G. Hupfeld and J. Wellhausen. As a result, J. Wellhausen formulated a hypothesis, that the Pentateuch’s text consists of four sources (documents) - Jahwist (J), Elohist (E), Deuteronomist (D) and Priesterkodex (P). This hypothesiswas called the Documentary hypothesis. It is important to notice, that the earliest of these sources was dated by Wellhausen to the IX century BC. So there is an obvious contradiction between the traditional and critical views on the Torah’s origin. The A. sets forth the main arguments of the followers of the documentary hypothesis, who argue a composite character of the Pentateuch, and tries to understand the attitude towards it in pre-revolotionary Russian biblical studies, in Catholicism and traditional Judaism.