I bet the title got your attention. It is a bit hyperbolic, but, with respect to the way in which many scholars employ source criticism of the Pentateuch, this title fits. Not all adherents of the Kaufman School completely disregard the documentary hypothesis, in fact, Dr. Kaufman himself does not. However, the Kaufman School is marked by a healthy suspicion of a scholar’s ability to accurately pinpoint various strata of the Pentateuch. Here are Kaufman’s words, “[T]he attempt to identify and reconstruct those sources in other than their broadest outlines is a consummately fruitless endeavor.”¹

The reason why Kaufman can get away with saying this is because he applied Pentateuchal source criticism to a control group–the Temple Scroll. The author of the Temple Scroll used a combination of exerpts from the Pentateuch in order “to forge new texts” (30). Since we have both the source material (the Pentateuch) and the new texts (the Temple Scroll), this provides us with a way to empirically test the techniques and assertions of the Documentary Hypothesis. Here is a summary of the results of this empirical test:

There is no way–that I have found–to regularly and accurately separate out and reconstruct the sources that have been used by the Temple Scroll. In many places it is even difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between the earlier sources and the author’s own words. In general, tensions and problems in the text can be recognized, but proposed solutions usually prove far from the mark when we turn to the original texts for verification. Moreover, many composite texts show few if any signs of a composite origin while many signs of textual tension are misleading, frequently simply echoing a problem already present in the original source for who knows how many textual generations back (33-34).

Kaufman analyzes six compositional patterns within the Temple Scroll (TS):

1. Original Composition– identified by late linguistic features (composite future imperfect–imperfect of hyh + participle, plural participle used to express the impersonal general present), kl + singular noun + plural verb, asher used syntactically like Mishnaic she, relative lack of textual tensions. Late vocabulary can be misleading because author often alters biblical vocabulary to conform with later usage, but also sometimes falls into biblical idiom. Only the sum total of features is significant; isolated peculiarities are often misleading.
2. Paraphrastic Conflation– Dependent upon Pentateuchal passages for their content, themes, and phrasing but contain a relative lack of textual tensions. “It is conceivable that the critic could correctly identify the two basic strands of the latter text; the strands of the former seem irrecoverable, even were the critic successfully able to recognize that he was dealing with a source-based text rather than a free composition.”
3. Fine Conflation– Highly biblical in style not neccessarily totally devoid of late syntax. “Has any literary critic ever been bold enough to suggest that in a biblical text several verses long each and every phrase comes from a different source? Doubtful indeed. Yet the presence of this kind of conflation in the Temple Scroll, albeit rare, suggests that there could well be biblical texts composed in a simliar fashion” (39).
4. Gross Conflation– Straightforward combination of all of the biblical texts treating the same subject. TS author often adds words or phrases of his own and sequence of biblical laws is not always retained. “As a result of such tampering, even in those relatively few cases where repetitions, inconsistencies, redundancies, and other textual tensions allow the critic to correctly recognize both the existence of a conflate text and the general shape of the component sources, the precise content of each component remains irrecoverable” (40).
5. Modified Torah Quotation– A quotation of a single Pentateuchal text, free of conflation with other biblical sources, but heavily modified by the author. “Reconstruction of the original is all but impossible” (41).
6. Extended Torah Quotation– The quotation of Pentateuchal texts without substantial modification, normally when a section is quoted in great length. “Names for God can be and probably are indicative of different sources, but need not be unique to a single source. Moreover, theological and semantic necessity can be responsible for the use of a name in a source that does not regularly use it” (42).

Here is a summary of Kaufman’s empirical test of the source critics’ methologies:

It is a legitimate and worthwhile enterprise to point out inconsistencies, duplications and other irregularities in a biblical text and to compare texts in terms of their language, forms, literary structures and contents. But, except where there are many substantial, coincident reasons to suspect that all is not whole, the reconstruction of redaction history on the basis of such inconsitencies and comparisons promises to be nothing more than so much wasted effort (43).

What do you think?

1. The Temple Scroll and Higher Criticism, HUCA 52 (1982): 29-43. [back]