Moses' Torah Authorship claim explored in JEDP Theory, Graf-Wellhausen & Documentary Hypothesis - Dan Clanton

What is a Documentary?
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fiction motion picture intended to document reality. This is primarily intended for instruction, education or maintaining a historical record.

---

What is JEDP Theory?
Julius Wellhausen's (1844-1918) 19th century classic, the Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis ("JEDP Theory") explored the tradition of assigning Torah authorship to Moses. Wellhausen's work proved very influential. He was able to correlate the development of the Torah with Israelite and Jewish history. This hypothesis became later known as the Documentary Hypothesis. The documentary hypothesis (DH) is one of three models used to explain the origins of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible or Torah. All three models agree the Torah is not a unified work from a single author (traditionally Moses) but is made up of sources combined over many centuries by many writers. Modern scholars increasingly see the completed Torah as a product of the time of the Achaemenid Empire (probably 450-350 BC), although some would place its production in the Hellenistic period (333-164 BC) or even the Hasmonean dynasty (140-37 BC).

---

Who was Wellhausen?
Julius Wellhausen's (1844-1918) 19th century classic, the Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis ("JEDP Theory") explored the tradition of assigning Torah authorship to Moses. Wellhausen's work proved very influential. He was able to correlate the development of the Torah with Israelite and Jewish history. This hypothesis became later known as the Documentary Hypothesis. The documentary hypothesis (DH) is one of three models used to explain the origins of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible or Torah. All three models agree the Torah is not a unified work from a single author (traditionally Moses) but is made up of sources combined over many centuries by many writers. Modern scholars increasingly see the completed Torah as a product of the time of the Achaemenid Empire (probably 450-350 BC), although some would place its production in the Hellenistic period (333-164 BC) or even the Hasmonean dynasty (140-37 BC).

---

What is the Torah?
Torah, "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law" has a range of meanings. Common to all these meanings, Torah consists of the origin of Jewish peoplehood: their call into being by God, their trials and tribulations, and their covenant with their God, which involves following a way of life embodied in a set of moral and religious obligations and civil laws. In rabbinic literature the word Torah denotes both the five books "Torah that is written" and the Oral Torah "Torah that is spoken". The Oral Torah consists of interpretations and amplifications which according to rabbinic tradition have been handed down from generation to generation and are now embodied in the Talmud and Midrash. According to rabbinic tradition, all of the teachings found in the Torah, both written and oral, were given by God through the prophet Moses, some at Mount Sinai and others at the Tabernacle, and all the teachings were written down by Moses, which resulted in the Torah that exists today. The majority of Biblical scholars believe the written books were a product of the Babylonian captivity (c. 600 BCE), based on earlier written and oral traditions, which could only have arisen from separate communities within ancient Israel, and that it was completed by the period of Achaemenid rule (c. 400 BCE).

---