Hi lpetrich,
It gets much more interesting than that. The latest trends in higher criticism tend to reject much of the early dating and even whether J and E can be identified. When Christians say that scholars no longer take the Documentary Hypothesis seriously, they quote-mine Biblical scholarship much in the same way that Creationists quote-mine biology publications.
The more recent trends are to assign
all the strands to later dating (the link between J and the Southern Kingdom; and E with the Northern Kingdom has always been tenuous). The earlier attempts to understand JEDP as an evolution of religious belief are somewhat faulty, particularly the importance of oral history (oral transmission for 6-8 centuries? I think not). Even D reflects much about the post-Exilic experience, although it may fall within a similar tradition to that of the Deuteronomistic school.
Just one brief example: outside of the Pentateuch, in pre-exilic prophetic work, there is no mention of Abraham, scarce mention of Isaac (Amos 7:9 and passim), Joseph (Amos 5:5 and passim) and the only frequent occurrence is to Jacob. Only in exilic work do we hear about Abraham (Isaiah 29:22, 41:8, etc. Micah 7:20, Jeremiah 33:26), Sarah and so on. In the Deuteronomic history, they are mentioned, but only as far back as Jacob and the 70 for the most part. In the post-Exilic redaction, we do find their mention--but it does not salvage J and E (if they can be positively identified) from being post-exilic narratives. It is just one of
many clues that point to a exilic or post-exilic composition/compilation of the Pentateuch
and its sources.
Joel
[This message has been edited by Celsus, 05-04-2003]
[This message has been edited by Celsus, 05-04-2003]