Reddit reviews The Documentary Hypothesis

>https://www.amazon.com/Documentary-Hypothesis-Umberto-Cassuto/dp/9657052351 Here's a great book that debunks the DH on what you're describing. Just blocking off names by YKVK and Elokim is not a thoughtful argument. Both names connote something different so their context matters, as do the other names of God laced throughout the Torah kEl, kEl Shakkai, and so on.

Umberto Cassuto died 1951. With all due respect, his work is quite outdated.

The academic community knows and it isn't as homogeneous as it is portrayed online. However, the academics that are cited by internet "theologians" are operating under a few faulty assumptions and will view all evidence in light of those assumptions. One of those assumptions is that ancient Israel was no different than any other contemporary civilization. They make the assumption with absolutely no evidence, and you can google all day but you'll never find anything objective supporting it, that Israel and the Canaanites were essentially the same civilization until we "suddenly became monotheistic" in Babylon and established a monotheistic temple cult under Ezra. Then the scripture was written backwards to make Judaism monotheistic. To me, that would imply that you wouldn't find henotheism in scripture, but there you go. That's the theory. The TLDR would be that they know, but don't care because they rewrite histories scripture to support their claims. It's circular reasoning. Here's a book that's relatively cheap that outlines the fundamental errors for biblical criticism. http://www.amazon.com/The-Documentary-Hypothesis-Umberto-Cassuto/dp/9657052351 It's a little outdated by now, but I still link it for a few reasons. 1) The fundamental theories have never changed. The specifics have changed to "correct" the assumptions that were disproved by archaeological evidence, but the basics of the theory have never changed. 2) that book only focuses on disproving the basic premises of the documentary hypothesis and therefore takes apart all of modern biblical criticism without having to address each specific applied instance while still touching every major specific instance still cited by internet theologians, and 3) it is written in lecture format which makes it highly readable and very easy to understand. If a more complicated point is being made, it'll explain it briefly and then defer to another book. But the most important points are extremely clear in the book.

You should also read The Documentary Hypothesis by Umberto Cassuto for the other side of the argument.

I'd suggest checking out the translation of Umberto Cassuto's lectures on DH.

The dh fails in a lot of respects. If you're really interested in the topic, I suggest the book Documentary Hypothesis by Umberto Cassuto.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/9657052351/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/178-9044561-1948155

A few problems with DH. 1) It doesn't resolve any coherence issues. It makes them worse. This is from the other week in Parshah Noach.

>The Documentary Hypothesis not only fails to eliminate all of the redundancies it was created to solve, but also introduces new difficulties along the way. The division of the Biblical text into distinct sources creates gaps in each of these accounts, as certain facts are missing from one or another of the supposed documents. As a result, the reconstructed texts often become incoherent. For example:

• In the "J" source, the building of the ark is never discussed, and the ark appears out of nowhere in 7:1, when Hashem commands Noach to enter it.
  
  
• In the "P" source, the mention of both pure and impure animals in 7:8 is extraneous. Since this source maintains that two of each type of animal, regardless of purity, entered the ark, why differentiate between pure and impure at all?
  
  
• The theory's splicing of 6:16 means that the phrase "וַיִּסְגֹּר ה' בַּעֲדוֹ" in the isolated "J" source is missing its antecedent. Since it no longer follows Noach's entry into the ark, this phrase becomes an incomprehensible non-sequitur.
  
  
• In "P", Noach's sending of the raven similarly becomes difficult to understand and simply hangs in the narrative since it is not accompanied by a survey of the land.
  
  
• In "J", too, Noach's sending of a dove to check the land "after forty days" does not make sense. Since this source does not record a gradual lessening of waters, it reads as if immediately after the rain stopped, Noach assumed that the dove might find dry land, a strange and unrealistic notion.
  
  
• In other cases, the ordering of the story is illogical. Thus, "J" presents Hashem shutting the door to the ark only after describing how it rained for forty days.
  
  Remind me why I'm supposed to accept DH? "Superior explanation" my eye. It makes a mess of things: this is a reason to reject it.
  
  >To account for these problems, adherents of the theory must postulate that parts of each document were not preserved by the supposed Redactor when he conflated his sources to create the Biblical text. This, however, means that the Redactor would have been very inconsistent in his use of sources, sometimes creating unnecessary redundancies by preserving both versions of a story, while at other times retaining only one account. Such capricious editorial practice seems farfetched.
  
  

2. What would constitute a falsification of DH? It can't be disproven if its proponents keep tweaking the rules for divvying up the text and ascribing greater and greater degrees of Rube Goldbergian genius to the Redactor.
   
   
3. Where's the evidence? DH has the burden of proof.
   
   >The justifications were mostly circular. A theory was proposed on some assumptions about ancient Israelite theology and culture, and the text would be divided up accordingly. Then the fact that the text divides according to these assumptions was used as evidence that the assumptions were correct. Then archeological evidence would falsify some of those assumptions, new rules were devised to divide the text, and the cycle would repeat itself. Umberto Cassuto published a work that stripped DH of most of its details and reduced it to five basic premises that must be true if DH is to be sustained. He then debunked all of them. Since then, the details of the hypothesis changed substantially, but the fundamentals of the theory were never seriously examined or justified.
   
   Very interesting thread on the circularity of DH.
   
   Cassuto & Haim Shore's books are on my reading list. DH is presumed like gravity when it's their burden of proof.
   
   
   
   

Judaism acknowledges other Gods. The 4 letter name YHVH, Elokim, Kal, etc are all contextual. Elokim is a generic word for God, so it can refer to Jesus or Bahama or Zeus or whoever you want but YHVH is exclusively Jewish God.

I highly recommend reading The Documentary Hypothesis. It is a series of lectures that discuss the issues with the Documentary Hypothesis and at the same time giving you a good insight into learning the structures within the Torah.

Can you refute Cassuto's take on it?

http://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/2ro5qp/understanding_passages_with_contradictory/cnikit9

Cassuto's book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Documentary-Hypothesis-Umberto-Cassuto/dp/9657052351

Layman, so I don't know if the academic position is to "hey we don't have the time to refute every Rabbi's take on reconciling creation 1 and 2", or if it's because Cassuto makes a good case. I've been unable to find a refutation of Cassuto's findings on creation.

Umberto Cassuto is good.

>It posits that the Torah/Pentateuch/OT/Hebrew Bible... whatever u call it, was written in a fragmented way and compiled by diff sources/writers based on analysis of different writing styles used in the scripture (aka use of Yahweh as the name for God or use of Elohim/El)

https://www.amazon.com/Documentary-Hypothesis-Umberto-Cassuto/dp/9657052351

Here's a great book that debunks the DH on what you're describing. Just blocking off names by YKVK and Elokim is not a thoughtful argument. Both names connote something different so their context matters, as do the other names of God laced throughout the Torah kEl, kEl Shakkai, and so on.

As for the story about Isaac, there's no inconsistency. He was brought as an offering, (here's a great essay on the lesson/meaning of that story), and since he was not offered, he became what's called "hekdesh," which means he was something set aside for a purpose of holiness (as one sets aside a certain thing for an offering, they are supposed to bring that specific thing and not something different). As a result, Isaac never leaves the land of Israel the rest of his life, unlike his father did and unlike his son Jacob eventually does.

The real issue with all this redactor theory is that no one is willing to claim who the redactor is. Judaism makes claims on who wrote every book contained in our bible, sometimes even specific verses. The proponents of the DH are constantly suggesting and resuggesting theories as every theory they've proposed gets holes poked in it. While people poke holes in Judaism's claims, we don't huddle up and suggest another one as there's no real need to.