Supplementary hypothesis

Historical context

While documentarians originally placed the authorship of the Pentateuch in the tenth to seventh centuries BCE, the supplementary hypothesis places the authorship of the Pentateuch later in the seventh to fifth centuries. A major driver of this reassessment has been the evolving understanding of the historical context of the early Israelites. Biblical estimates put the earliest activity of the Israelites in Canaan in the thirteenth century BCE with Joshua's conquest. However, archeologist have found no evidence of a distinct Israelite people in the region at this time. Indeed, archaeologists have found that most of the places referred to by name in the bible, most notably Jerusalem, reflect much later seventh century realities. If, as the archeological evidence would suggest, there was no distinct group of "Israelite" people until the seventh century, the authorship of the Pentateuch is likely to have occurred in the seventh century and later. These archeological findings have caused recent Pentateuch scholars to reject earlier documentarian claims of tenth century authorship, in favor of later authorship, reflected in the supplementary hypothesis.

Major divergences from the documentary hypothesis

Julius Wellhausen, the leading proponent of the documentary hypothesis, proposed that the Pentateuch is the amalgamation of four independent and complete narratives which were combined by redactors. The supplementary hypothesis, as outlined by Van Seters, differs from it in three major ways:

The existence of the Elohist (E) source

The supplementary hypothesis denies the existence of an extensive Elohist (E) source, one of the four independent sources described in the documentary hypothesis; instead the hypothesis describes the Yahwist as having borrowed from an array of written and oral traditions, combing these into the J source. The hypothesis proposes that because J is compiled from many earlier traditions and stories, documentarians mistook this compilation as having multiple authors, the Yahwist (J) and the Elohist (E). Instead, the supplementary hypothesis proposes that what documentarians considered J and E are in fact a single source (some use J, some use JE) likely written in the sixth century BCE.

The chronology of the sources

The supplementary hypothesis proposes that the Deuteronomist (D) was the original, and earliest, Pentateuch writer, having been written at the end of the seventh century, and ascribes the Jahwist (J) to the exilic (c. 540) and the Priestly (P) to the post-exilic (c. 400) periods.

The supplementary hypothesis argues that the Deuteronomist (D) source is of the seventh century BCE. Early Pentateuch scholars, most notably Martin Noth, argued that the Deuteronomist (D) was a single sixth century author explaining the events preceding the Babylonian exile theologically. In 1968 Frank Moore Cross suggested that Deuteronomist (D) actually originated from "dual-redactors," with the original Deuteronomist (Dtr1) being a seventh century author supporting Josiah's reforms, and Noth's later sixth century Deuteronomist (Dtr2) revising the earlier work, imbuing it with themes of punishment for the sinful as to explain the Babylonian exile. This "dual-redactor" view is likely the most common held among scholars today; Van Seters affirmed this view arguing that both the emphasis on seventh century reform and on sixth century exile shows that "Deuteronomy . . . consists of an older nucleus with later expansions."

While the documentary hypothesis held that the Yahwist (J) was likely of the tenth century, the supplementary hypothesis puts it much later, in the sixth century during the exilic period. This reassessment was made largely due to research conducted in the 1970s. A 1976 study by Hans Heinrich Schmid demonstrated that the Yahwist (J) was aware of earlier religious writings of the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, making the original assessment of J as a 10th-century work impossible. Van Seters argues that the Yahwist (J) used "fragments, some in literary form, others as popular motifs and stories" to create a theological creation story, expanding upon the Deuteronomist's established corpus of work. By the post-exilic period, he theorizes that there was an established theological work (DJ) created by the Deutoronomist (D) and Yahwist (J).

Van Seters argues that the Priestly source (P) is not independent from the Yahwist source (J), and indeed relies heavily upon it. If J is ascribed to the exilic period, P must be of the post-exilic, or Second Temple, period, likely in the fifth century. This reassessment of chronology places the Deuteronomist as the first writer (DJP) whereas the documentary hypothesis places the Deuteronomist as a later writer (JEDP).

The independence of the Yahwist and Priestly sources

Whereas the documentary hypothesis proposed that the four Pentateuch sources were complete and independent accounts, Van Seters writes that the supplementary hypothesis “does not view the later sources J and P as independent documents but as direct additions to the earlier corpus.” The hypothesis proposed that the Deuteronomist is the only independent source and that the Yahwist (J) is a reply to the Deuteronomic explanation of the Exile and a “confessional reformulation” as a theological corrective. Further, the hypothesis views the Priestly (P) source as non-independent as well. Because many P texts, Van Seters argues, “do not make sense without the larger J context,” the Priestly writer is viewed as a redactor of J. A major consequence of this view that the later two sources are not independent is the removal of the need for redactors to explain the cohesion of the Penteteuch. Van Seters writes, “Since there are no separate sources after the first one, there is no need for redactors. The elaborate system of multiple redactors used by current documentarians is unnecessary.”