Behind the Documents of the Pentateuch

Abstract

This chapter discusses research on the precompositional stages in the history of the Pentateuch. The Documentary Theory was based upon the composition of the Pentateuch as a literary corpus. The method employed was ‘literary-critical’ or ‘source-critical’. The emphasis was upon the creativity of the separate authors or ‘schools’ of authors who composed the original documents and upon the contributions of the various redactors who gradually combined them. As a result of this, little importance was credited to the ‘precompositional’ stage or stages in the development of the literature. In the closing years of the 19th century there emerged a movement of scholars who rejected as inadequate the preoccupation of Wellhausen and his followers with a purely literary-critical and source-critical approach, and who were confident that rich results were to be gained by just such a study of the pre-compositional stage in the history of Pentateuchal traditions and literature. The movement in question was known as Die religionsgeschichtliche Schule.