The Kevins and I have had a wonderful discussion concerning aspects of higher criticism.  One article that might be of interest to all parties is that by Stephen Kaufman, my professor, here is the bibliographic info: The Temple Scroll and Higher Criticism, Hebrew Union College Annual 53 (1982), 29-43.
Here is the abstract of this article:

The compositional techniques used by the author of the Temple Scroll constitute an almost perfect parallel to the composition of the Pentateuch as envisaged by higher criticism–a parallel, moreover, from the same literary tradition.  Although the sources of the Pentateuch are only hypothetical reconstructins, the major source of the Temple Scroll is known to us–the Pentateuch itself.  This provides us the opportunity to test the methods of higher criticism empirically by performing such critical analysis on the Temple Scroll without recourse to its sources and subsequently comparing the results of our analysis with the known sources.

Six major compositional patterns are identified in the Temple Scroll and each is examined to determine its character and characteristics, the possibilities of identifying that character through blind literary criticism, and the possibilities of reconstructing the biblcal sources used therin.  It is shown that although the Temple Scroll demonstrates the feasibility, indeed perhaps even the high probablility, that the Torah, too, was coposed primarily of earlier, written sources, it also demonstrates that the attempt to identify and reconstruct those sources in other than their broadest outlines is a consummately fruitless endeavor.

This should give us pause as we attempt to delineate clear divisions between particular phrases and sometimes words to hypothetical authors.  As Kaufman demonstrates, if we did not have the source material that the Temple Scroll used, we would be very hard pressed to reconstruct the sources they used.  As Kaufman concludes, without the actual sources, we can only make very general remarks concerning the original materials that were edited together.  In fact, in most cases, we are completely unable to recover the textual history at all.

I really like digital communication. It lets scholars communicate with each other with ease. In my last post (written from Cincinnati, Ohio) I referred to a post (written in Berkeley, California) on the subject of higher criticism. I was wanting to get Kevin Wilson’s take on it since he has done extensive work in this area and he graciously obliged (writing from Lithuania). Thanks for the insightful response!

If I might be so bold as to dip my toe into the discussion. I agree with Kevin Wilson, there is a constant re-evaluation of theories in light of new evidence. One might argue that the re-evaluations have not gone far enough, fair enough. But, we see similar methodology in examining sources of documents in other ANE literature–it’s not like the Old Testament is the only ancient document that undergoes this sort of analysis. For instance, see Jeffrey Tigay’s book: The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic in which he tries to trace the text history of that document. Keep up the great work guys, discussions like these make us all better.

P.S. I hope that Jim West is encouraged that there are still rousing discussions happening in the blogosphere!

Kevin Wilson has an interesting post on assumptions concerning the authorship of the Pentateuch.  This is Kevin’s particular area of interest so his comments are all the more worthy of note.