It wouldn’t surprise me a bit to learn that Adam already knows about this theory. But it was news to me and fairly fascinating to boot.
I just finished Richard Friedman’s Who Wrote the Bible? It’s a classic popularization of the Documentary Hypothesis, which claims that the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) is actually a medley of four earlier sources called J (the Yahwist), E (the Elohist), D (the Deuteronomist), and P (the Priestly source). Friedman’s survey of two centuries of Biblical detective work is quite fascinating. What truly shocked me, however, was learning that a bunch of liberal theologians converged on a vulgar Public Choice theory of the evolution of their most sacred book.
Friedman begins by explaining that J and E are the earliest sources. The most obvious difference between the two is that J always calls God “Yahweh,” while E initially calls him “Elohim.” But it’s the non-obvious differences that are telling. He presents strong evidence that the author of J came from Judah, the southern Jewish kingdom, while the author of E came from Israel, the northern Jewish kingdom. J elevates Aaron and slights Moses; E does the opposite.
What’s going on? Friedman explains that these two countries had conflicting religious establishments. Those in the north – or at least a major faction – were Mushite (claiming descent from Moses); those in the south were Aaronite (claiming descent from Aaron). Through this lens, J and E turn out to be thinly-veiled bids for money and power. Here’s one example of how E tries to push Mushite interests:
Recall that the [Mushite] priests of Shiloh suffered the loss of their place in the priestly hierarchy under King Solomon. Their chief… was expelled from Jerusalem. The other chief priest… who was regarded as a descendant of Aaron, meanwhile remained in power… The Shiloh prophet Ahijah instigated the northern tribes’ secession, and he designated Jeroboam as the northern king. The Shiloh priests’ hopes for the new kingdom, however, were frustrated when Jeroboam established the golden calf religious centers at Dan and Beth-El, and he did not appoint them as priests there. For this old family of priests, what should have been a time of liberation had been turned into a religious betrayal. The symbol of their exclusion in Israel was the golden calves. The symbol of their exclusion in Judah was Aaron. Someone from that family, the author of E, wrote a story that said that soon after the Israelites’ liberation from slavery, they committed heresy. What was the heresy? They worshipped a golden calf! Who made the golden calf? Aaron! [emphasis original]
—The Public Choice of the Ancient Hebrews, Bryan Caplan
You may want to click through to EconLog to read the rest of Bryan’s summarization. It’s all fascinating.
I might’ve even read this one, but I can’t remember for the life of me. The title and author sound right.
Anyway, yeah; in fact I recently returned to the library a commentary on “J”, which was interesting because it included the full text of J divorced (to the best of their ability) from the other three sources. It was strange to read it as one unbroken tale, but also stunning in how well it held up as an independent text.
But what’s interesting to me right now (as someone who, while now accepting the Bible’s lack of divinity, is still driven by a need to know what exactly he based the first 25 years of his life on) is the textual criticism of the previously-existing materials utilized by the 4(+) authors of the Pentateuch. I don’t think Friedman gets much into that, as he’s mainly concerned with parsing the four texts and explaining authorial motivations, but there’s a lot there, some of it arguable or just utterly unconvincing, some of it simply revelatory.
One example herein shall suffice: that the name “Moses” itself is first of all grammatically incorrect if it’s Hebrew, second that it makes no sense that his adoptive mother would call him a Hebrew name given the situation, and third that his name is actually obviously not only Egyptian but edited if you view it in that context. “msy” (remember, no vowels in that region) is a common suffix denoting a relationship to another word, usually a god (like “Elijah”, “El” being a reference to the Hebrew deity). Just look at “Ramses”, “Thutmose”, etc.
The name “Moses” is therefore more or less certainly only half a name – the Egyptian god honored in his name having been excised by some previous editor.
You post this whole thing and you don’t include the name of the commentary you just returned? For shame, sir! For shame!
‘Cause, heck, I’d like to read the full text of “J”.
Well, let’s see here: the Moses bit was from “Myths of the Bible”, though I don’t remember the author’s name. And the J book was fairly simply named, too – something like “J”, or “The story of J”.