A critique of Bible Critics – Wellhausen

 

A critique of Bible Critics – Wellhausen

 

 

Prof. John Barton, writing on  https://www.thetorah.com/article/biblical-criticism-a-common-sense-approach-to-the-bible  

presents the claims of the German Bible critic Julius Wellhausen:

 

“But Wellhausen did a simple and obvious thing, which had enormous implications. He examined the historical books of the Bible, and the books of the pre-exilic prophets (Amos, Hosea, First Isaiah, and so on), for evidence that the priestly system was in force in the early days of Israel, and he found none. On the contrary, it is only in post-exilic texts (Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles, Daniel) that we find clear allusions to it.”

 

Wellhausen was trying to prove that there were sections of the Torah which were retroactively written in by Priests in the 2^nd Temple era. He arrives at this conclusion by having searched through the TNK,  as mentioned above by Barton.

 

However, a simple search of an early book, eg 1 Samuel  finds the existence of Kohanim:

 

לה  וַהֲקִימֹתִי לִי כֹּהֵן נֶאֱמָן, כַּאֲשֶׁר בִּלְבָבִי וּבְנַפְשִׁי יַעֲשֶׂה; וּבָנִיתִי לוֹ בַּיִת נֶאֱמָן, וְהִתְהַלֵּךְ לִפְנֵי-מְשִׁיחִי כָּל-הַיָּמִים.	35 And I will raise Me up a faithful priest, that shall do according to that which is in My heart and in My mind; and I will build him a sure house; and he shall walk before Mine anointed for ever.
לו  וְהָיָה, כָּל-הַנּוֹתָר בְּבֵיתְךָ, יָבוֹא לְהִשְׁתַּחֲוֺת לוֹ, לַאֲגוֹרַת כֶּסֶף וְכִכַּר-לָחֶם; וְאָמַר, סְפָחֵנִי נָא אֶל-אַחַת הַכְּהֻנּוֹת--לֶאֱכֹל פַּת-לָחֶם.  {פ}	36 And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left in thy house shall come and bow down to him for a piece of silver and a loaf of bread, and shall say: Put me, I pray thee, into one of the priests' offices, that I may eat a morsel of bread.' {P}

 

 

This shatters the assumption, and hypothesis of Wellhausen, as he has neglected to carry out a careful survey of the TNK, contrary to his claims.

 

Barton, with great arrogance, continues to spout Wellhausen’s disproven claims:

 

 

 

 

“So Wellhausen found himself in agreement with Karl Heinrich Graf (1815–1869) that “the law was later than the prophets” (lex post prophetas). P was not the foundation document of ancient Israel, but of Judaism after the exile. Not only did it not go back to Moses, it did not go back much before Ezra: it was a work of the sixth or fifth century B.C.E. at the earliest.

Ancient Israel, characterized by the prophets, and the legalistic Priestly religion of the Second Temple period, were two distinct things, and Judaism, which developed from the latter, could not claim to have truly ancient roots. It had been invented, we might almost say, by postexilic thinkers.”

 

 

The alleged “invention”, in fact, is  Wellhausen’s theory, which is contradicted by his own methodology, if applied honestly to the texts he claims to have read.