Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: ncramer@bbn.com (Nichael Cramer) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Documentary Hypothesis Contest extended Message-ID: Date: 13 Mar 91 09:02:00 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA Lines: 133 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu writes: >I've been the most active recently in the "liberal" camp, so I thought >you might be expecting a response from me. If you read my posting >over the weekend,... I for one seem to have missed this. If you still have it around and wouldn't mind e-mailing me a copy... >... I think you'll realize that I'm substantially more >conservative than the typical scholars that work with the documentary >hypothesis. Certainly I don't claim it is possible to unscramble >arbitrary texts based on stylistic differences. I certainly don't think that this is any more "conservative" than even the most ardent scholar working to disentangle the sources of the OT --let alone the most "typical". As has been stressed here repeatedly (frankly, to little avail) stylistic difference are only one and typically a minor criterion used as a basis for the identification of sources. Now does this mean that examination of such differences is _useless_ as a tool? Of course not. Clearly the uncertainties involved, the error-bars if you will, can be quite large and the discussion of any conclusion based on such evidence must keep this in mind (I defy anyone to find a serious claim to contrary). Nonetheless, it doesn't hurt to remind ourselves that, as with any tool the results may be quite surprising when that tool is wielded by a master craftsman. > ... In fact I find the >typical commentaries that assign alternate half-verses to various >sources ludicrous, and have said that a number of times in the past. >I do see signs of multiple viewpoints in some places, e.g. in Gen. 1 >and 2. However I have great scepticism about the detailed >reconstructions some scholars have proposed. ...and it's hard to imagine that the scholars in question would disagree with you in the details. Are all detailed, specific assignments to be taken equally seriously? Surely not. Certainly without a specific example[*] and the corresponding evidence it's impossible to say. As with any scientific endeavor, the farther one gets down in the details, the larger the corresponding uncertainties are going to become. But this certainly does not, in itself, destroy the credibility of the explanatory powers of such source criticism taken in the broad. [* And more on this below] >My understanding is that you need much larger samples of text than we >normally have in order to make serious stylistic analyses. ...and this is one of the many reasons that simple stylistic concerns are not given much weight in the final analysis of the sources. > ... As far as >I can tell, if you wanted to make a separation of sources in the flood >account the primary basis for doing so would be differing >chronologies. The normal claim from the documentary hypothesis is >that one source assumed 40 days for the flood and the other assumed >150 days. This is certainly one difference. Other difference include, among others, differences in vocabulary and the very theology used. But much more important, these difference DON'T OCCUR RANDOMLY. Characteristics of single sources remain constant throughout that source; granted sometimes in very broad strokes, but constant nevertheless. This is one of the most powerful pieces of evidence, and is one typically overlooked in such casual dismissals as O'Keefe's. > ... Based on this, you could make at least a rough cut at a >separation. I'm sceptical about claims to be able to do better than >this, or to be able to separate sources everywhere in Gen. This I suppose is the crux of the matter. The only thing that O'Keefe and other critics of such schemes of source assignment have said is "This is not how I think the text of the Bible works". There has yet to be a specific attack on _any_ point of argument of the source critics. Suppose we were discussing, say, Physics. We wouldn't consider "It doesn't seem _sensible_ to me that the universe would work like that" a useful or even a serious attack on Special Relativity, particularly in view of the enormous emperical data to the contrary. So, let's start from something specific. If there is an assignment of a chunk of text to a specific source that you feel is shaky, let's start from that. Broad, sweeping generalizations are useless; not the least when trying to hold reasonable discussions. So, as I say, point to an example where you feel that the evidence for a specific assignment is weak and we'll start from that. >At least in English translation I don't see enough difference in style >in the flood account that I'd try to make a separation on that basis,... This is simply stating the obvious fact that _any_ translation, english or otherwise, is useless for this kind of work. >nor do I believe I can separate your sources based on style. And to repeat, no one else has claimed this either (or, to perhaps state this more precisely, "there would certainly be a great deal of uncertainty were one to base ones conclusions _wholly_ on considerations of style"). > ... I don't >offhand see any equivalent in your text of the chronological >difference in Gen. There is no chronological difference; there is no evidence of major, mutually exclusive differences in vocabulary; there is no evidence that the sources are arguing from differing schools of science; there is no significant grammatical/linguistic differences between the source; as pointed out above, this is only a brief fragment whereas the sources in question extend in a consistant way over at least the first five books of the Hebrew Bible; there are no multiple expressions of the same information (critically important for the comparison of multiple sources); the sources do not recount mutually contradictory data... etc. etc. etc. Most importantly the fragments at hand don't exhibit the uniformity of collateral clues across their domain that the sources of the OT exhibit --for example, the fragments used in the "quiz" displays no analogues to the phenomenon of duplets that occur throughout the HB. In summary, the example given in the "quiz" does not exhibit _any_ of the characteristics on which the work of the source critics is based other than some trival, possibly non-existent, stylistic difference. It is, in short, simply a straw man that --at most-- demonstrates that the author's minunderstanding and misapplication of the DH doesn't go very far towards explaining the text of the OT. But this is very different from a significant criticism of the _actual_ work of the source critics themselves. Nichael