Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 71:282 (Apr 1914)
Article: Is The Documentary Theory Tenable?
Author: Johannes Dahse

BSac 71:282 (April 1914) p. 331

Is The Documentary Theory Tenable?1

Johannes Dahse

II.

Julius Wellhausen’s Self-Consciousness

Before plunging in medias res, let me speak of a new victory which the textual critics have won. In the tenth number of the new weekly Die Geisteswissenschaften (Leipzig, Veit and Co.), 1913–14, Professor D. Max Löhr publishes an article, entitled “The Present Status of Old Testament Knowledge “(pp. 264-267), in which he compares the present time with that of thirty-five years ago. Just as, at that time, after the appearance of the first volume of Julius Wellhausen’s “Die Geschichte Israels “(later called Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels), a vigorous activity in the realm of Old Testament knowledge set in, so again in our own time, where many positions that were previously considered certain are being shaken (p. 265), there is much zealous work being done in the realm of Hexateuchal inquiry. We note especially that, in the course of his article, Dr. Löhr speaks of the use of the divine names (p. 266), and that he recognizes that, even after the establishment of the great Hexateuchal writing, systematic changes in the names of the Deity have occurred. Then he continues: “In view of this fact, the acceptance of a Jahwistic or Elohistic source writing would, at first glance,

BSac 71:282 (April 1914) p. 332

seem to be out of the question. But, alas, it only seems so. The distinguishing of both these source writings, which we shall designate for a while longer as Jahwist and Elohist, depends, in its last analysis, not upon this outward difference, but upon all sorts of real theological and linguistic differences, whose concurrence makes evident the presence of two transmitting strata concerning Israel from its earliest history down to the settling in Canaan.” “What has to be set aside in the future is something purely external; viz., the name used for both sources up to this time, not the sources themselves.” We are exceedingly grateful to Dr. Löhr for publicly casting aside the divine names as source distinctions and for expressing the same opinion which Dr. Gressmann does; viz., that the different strata of Genesis which must eventually be distinguished are unjustly designated, according to the use of the divine names, “Jahwist” and “Elohist.” Whether the other criteria mentioned by Dr. Löhr are in reality so cogent that, using them as a basis, we shall be compelled to conceive of the different strata of the Pentateuch as being source writing; whether they are really different strata of transmission rather than different conceptions of the same account (with occasional amplifications), our following articles will attempt to decide. For th...