I picked up a book by Father Roland Vaux on religious institutions of the Old Testament and was very disappointed to find he gives credence to the Documentary Hypothesis (the multiple source JEDP theory of the Pentateuch). I did some research and found this theory to be totally worthless, not only from a theological viewpoint but even among biblical scholars.
If the JEDP theory has caused your faith to suffer, please read this excellent article on why Catholics should not buy into the Documentary Hypothesis:
unamsanctamcatholicam.com/history/historical-apologetics/79-history/472-deconstructing-documentary-hypothesis.html
A hypothesis is just that, a type of educated guess which attempts to explain its subject.
OK, let’s say the hypothesis is rejected. Then, what?
It seems that Deuteronomy must be the work of more than one person – certainly not Moses alone – whose death and legacy is described in Chapter 34.
I don’t think that the Documentary Hypothesis needs to be perfect the first time around. In physics, there were many attempts to document the speed of light, for example. As the science developed, the number has gotten more accurate and the uncertainty has been significantly reduced.
I have read Jewish commentaries that offer more modern literary theories, including the idea that there were redactors of the text. There is some really interesting evidence, whether or not anybody wants to credit it to the work of a redactor.
When you get to the wording of the text and you examine the structure, which hasn’t had the slightest mention in any Catholic book that I have come across so far, let me say that it is eye-opening.
From the Jewish Publication Society commentary on Genesis, the author points out that in the first creation account in Genesis, each of the sections which we now refer to as verses had seven Hebrew words or a multiple of seven Hebrew words. And, even in English, you can see that there is a re-use of words or an omission of words to make the numbers come out correctly. So, if you don’t want to attribute such things as this to a documentary hypothesis, you still have the data to contend with.
If you read the 1993 document from the Pontifical Biblical Commission, On the Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (
ewtn.com/library/CURIA/PBCINTER.HTM )
you will read that the Church officially has no single method for analyzing scripture. This document, in a lengthy discussion, points out the pros and cons, for example, of the feminist interpretation of scripture or literary analyses of scripture or the form-analysis of scripture, etc.
Pros and cons of a hypothesis.
In science, when a hypothesis must be rejected, then scientists look for another hypothesis. The rejection of a hypothesis does not discredit all hypotheses or revised hypotheses. A rejected hypothesis may even be useful to get to the next hypothesis.
If the Genesis creation accounts sound, even vaguely, like some other neighboring religions’ creation accounts, that doesn’t bother me. The first few chapters of Genesis certainly were not written by an observer who witnessed the events that were described. Everyone has to accept that they were written by some form of inspiration.
And, there are things that just cannot be explained. If Adam was condemned to scratching a living out of the soil, how did his offspring become a herder of animals? Where did Cain and Abel get the idea of making sacrifices to God? These things just occur. While the documentary hypothesis may make some lose faith, the text itself challenges the faith of a lot of people, up against the evidence for evolution, for example.
There is no official interpretation of any verses of the Hebrew Bible in Judaism. But, there has been, over the centuries, a lot of inquiry striving for harmonization of two creation accounts for example or for three interwoven accounts of Noah’s flood.
In the book, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Pope St. John Paul II said that some people reject Christianity or religion itself, because they reject the way God has revealed himself. You are forewarned.
