The JEDP theory is just that, a theory. It does not in and of itself contradict Catholic teaching and similarly is not anti-Semitic. Maybe there are some who use it in those ways, but it’s a pretty standard theory that is clearly not (in and of itself) contradictory to the Catholic faith.
Catholics are free to believe Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, or not. As long as theories of authorship do not contradict Church teaching, specific questions like these are open to different theories.
Right on!
The concept of “authorship” in regard to the diversity of “books” in the bible is a broad notion. “Authorship” does not mean that a particular person, i.e. Moses, had to personally pen the final manuscripts of the Pentateuch. There existed oral transmission of teachings long before anything was written down. It is enough that these traditions in some significant way originated with Moses. The final redactor of the various oral traditions, and sometimes written accounts, which often vary in details, composed the written Biblical work under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Textual analysis reveals the interweaving of mostly three and sometimes four sacred traditions in the Pentateuch.
Another example of “authorship” involves the
Wisdom of Solomon. It is widely agreed among biblical scholars that Solomon himself did not write Ws. It was a common technique among the ancients to name their work after an important person in order to call attention to the importance of their work.
Again, the NT book
Hebrews was not written by Paul himself. It appears to be written by someone in Paul’s inner circle. And so it reflects perfectly Pauline doctrine, but the author himself we can say is Paul only in the broad sense of authorship. Nonetheless, it was probably Barnabas who penned the work.
By way of analogy I would say that Christ was fully Divine and fully human, except for sin. Likewise, Scripture is fully divine and fully human, except for errors in teaching God’s message.
Scripture is fully human in the sense that human literary genres common to a cultural milieu are used in the bible under Divine inspiration. Inspiration does not involve dictation word for word. (Note that Church documents regarding the bible have used the word “dictation” in a sense other than our modern one.). If literal dictation, in the modern sense of the term, were the case, God would be guilty of some poor grammar, among other things.
A proper and deeper understanding of Scripture is obtained by understanding the ancient literary genres used and how they each function in their own way to communicate the author’s message. The literary genre or
genus litterarium is the vehicle that conveys the message. Understanding how that vehicle operates is the key to unlocking the deepest parts of the message.
It is not necessary to know the details of theories about multiple traditions to understand the Pentateuch. What is more important is to correctly understand the *genus litterarium *of any particular text. In so doing, we grasp what the author is actually teaching. Hence, we won’t look for a scientific account of creation in Genesis 1, any more than we will waste our time on reports of Ark sightings or global inundations. Such useless distractions detract from the message of the biblical accounts.
(I wish there were a tongue-in-cheek icon). OECs have good arithmetic, too.
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The Lord works in mysterious ways. 