Documentary hypothesis

The Documentary Hypothesis was originated by Julius Wellhausen in 1876, with his work, Die Komposition Des Hexateuch in Der Jungsten Diskussion. The hypothesis is based upon the belief that that the Pentateuch is inconsistent in its writing, and shows signs of multiple authors, rather than one. This has in turn led to the theory that the Pentateuch is the result of four different authors, who supposedly wrote the book centuries later than the Biblical Moses. As a general framework, the proposed authors are:


 * J: Yahwist source
 * E: Elohist source
 * D: Deuteronomist source
 * P: Priestly source:

Traditional Views
Traditionally, Moses was considered the author of the Pentateuch (first 5 books of the Christian Bible and Jewish Tanakh. Jewish tradition held that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch. In Deuteronomy 31:24-26 it says Moses wrote the words of the Law in a book, that was then put in the Ark of the Covenant. In 2 Chronicles 34:14 it says Hilkiah found a book of the Law of the Lord given by Moses and the book of Nehemiah says the Law was given by Moses, a claim repeated in the New Testament's Gospel of John.

German Influence
Like the Q Source hypothesis claimed by critical scholars to have been used as a basis by the authors of the Mark and Luke Gospels, (see Johannes Weiss, Christian Hermann Weisse and Friedrich Schleiermacher), the Documentary Hypothesis found its roots in 19th century Germany, where it would ultimately be popularized by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust, as noted by author Ken Collins:

"The Nazis, borrowing from the growing scholarly consensus that the Torah consisted of myth and legend, used this scholarly climate to invalidate both Judaism and the Old Testament. The Nazis promoted a revised form of Christianity called Deutsches Christentum, in which they replaced the Old Testament with Germanic myths and legends. Deutsches Christentum never caught on with the public, but since it epitomized the beliefs of the leadership of the Nazi party, it contributed to the martyrdom of a number of famous German Christians."