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The Documentary Hypothesis
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The Yahwist Source
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- The traditional identification of the Yahwist source begins with the creation story in Gen 2:4b and concludes with the Balaam narrative in Numbers 25:5. There is emphasis on the patriarchal narratives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jacob's twelve sons, as well as on the exodus from Egypt, but relatively little on the Sinai covenant and the conquest tradition (but these apparent emphases may be the result of later editing).1
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Genesis |
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2:4b-24
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3:1–4:26
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6:1-8
7:1-5, 7-10, 12, 16b, 17b, 22-23
8:2b-3a, 6, 8-12, 13b, 20-22
9:18-29
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10:8-19, 21, 25-30, 32
11:1-9
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11:28-30
12:1-4a, 6-9, 10-20
13:1-5, 7-11a, 13-18
15:1-2, 3b-4, 6-12, 17-21
16:1b-2, 4-14
18:1–20:1a
21:7
22:20-24
24:1–25:6, 11b
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27:1-45
28:13, 16-17
29:1-29, 31–32:33 (with E)
33:1-20
34:1-21 (with E)
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- Joseph (and his brothers):
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37:1-36 (with E)
38:1–39:23
41:1–45:28 (with E)
46:1–48:22 (with E and P)
49:29–50:26 (with P)
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Exodus |
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1:8-12
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2:11-22
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3:1-4a, 5, 7-8, 16-22
4:1-16
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- Moses Confronts Pharaoh, Plagues:
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4:19-20a, 21-31
5:1–6:1
7:14-18; 20b, 21a, 23–8:4
8:8-15a
8:20–9:7, 13-35
10:1–11:8
12:21-23, 27b, 29-39
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13:20-22
14:5b-6, 13-14, 19b-20, 24-25b, 27,
30-31
15:20-25a
16:4-5. 28-31, 35b-36
17:2, 4-16
[P+E version in Num 20:1-13] |
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19:2b, 11b-13, 18, 20-25
24:1-2, 9-11
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33:1, 3, 12-23
34:1-35
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Numbers |
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10:29-36
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11:1-35
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12:1-16
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13:17b-20, 22-24, 27-31
14:1b, 4, 11-25, 39-45 |
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16:1b, 12-15, 25-34
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- Negotiation with the King of Edom:
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20:14-21 (with E, and D editing?)
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21:1-3
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21:4b-9
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- Passage through Transjordan:
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21:12-35 (or E)
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22:22-35
23:27–24:25
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25:1-5 (or E?)
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- Settlement of Gad and Reuben in Transjordan:
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32:1-27, 29-42 (or E?)
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- Typical Passages2
Typical phrases appear in orange
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Genesis 12:1-3
Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."3 |
Genesis 18:16-19
Then the men set out from there, and they looked toward Sodom; and Abraham went with them to set them on their way. The LORD said, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? No, for I have chosen him, that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice; so that the LORD may bring about for Abraham what he has promised him." |
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- Themes & Identifying Traits4
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- Use of the term יהוה (YHWH) alone to indicate the name of the divine; most Bibles translate the term as "LORD." The Yahwist will use other names for God at times, so this is not foolproof, but if a verse ONLY uses this name for God, chances are, it is the Yahwist.
- The divine blessing on the patriarchs is first of a child and thus of a people, rather than of a land; the land is promised, but it is not the subject of the blessing. Instead, the people not only are the blessing, but are also the source of blessing for other nations—namely, those that David and Solomon have just conquered or annexed. The blessing is realized through Israel's intercession on behalf of the other nations (as Abraham does for Sodom and Gomorrah), through peaceful agreements (as with Isaac and the Philistines), and through economic aid (as when Jacob's skillful husbandry yields sheep for the Arameans). Even when the Moabite king commands his seer Balaam to curse Israel, Balaam cannot, and offers a blessing instead (Num 22).
- In contrast with the blessing is the curse (אָרוּר) on those who despise the order and the people the LORD establishes, whether that be Adam, Eve and the Serpent in Genesis 3, the brother-murderer Cain (Gen 4:11), the land men must till (Gen 5:29), Noah's son Canaan (Gen 9:25), or Pharaoh after the plague of the death of the firstborn (Exod 10:17). But even those cursed may yet be clothed (Adam and Eve), protected (Cain, Canaan) or request forgiveness (Pharaoh) through the intercession of the follower of YHWH.
- The blessing on Israel is not yet fulfilled in the Yahwist narrative, and won't be until all the nations are indeed blessed by her. This is an exhortation to the monarchy and its people to strive for that blessing for others, and not only for themselves.
- The writing style is direct and colorful. The authors describe God in anthropomorphic terms and the divine's relationship with humans is close and intimate.
- There is more emphasis on agricultural society and kinship or clan social structures and a God who is close to the people, as opposed to the more urban or cosmopolitan sensibility one finds in the Priestly source, with its highly structured sense of time and society and its more remote God.
- The patriarchs are associated with sites in the south—that is, in Judah (such as Hebron and Mamre with Abraham)—rather than the north.
- Judah (the person) is listed as the first of the twelve sons of Jacob.
- The peoples or nations mentioned are those annexed or conquered during the reign of David (Moabites, Ammonites, Arameans, Edomites, Amalekites, Philistines, Canaanites), with no mention of Babylon or Egypt (foes of later centuries).
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- Historical Context
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- The Yahwist source is traditionally associated with the united monarchy of David and Solomon, thus roughly 1000–900 BCE.5 As civilization expands in Genesis, the sites we hear of are those associated with the southern kingdom of Judah, and the neighboring peoples who are mentioned are nations that David and Solomon have conquered or annexed. That conquest of nearby neighbors features prominently, but the land itself is less a proof of divine blessing than the people of Israel themselves—a great nation through whom all other nations will be blessed. This is the official view of the newly anointed monarchs.
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- The anthropomorphic deity who forms the earth creature out of the clay and "walks in the garden at the breezy time of day" is an early, even primitive image of the God of Israel. Adam is tasked with tilling the soil in a garden located in a specific place—a projection of an agricultural society imagining its God to be tied in a special way to a particular land.
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- Later Echoes6
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- The following passages were not written by the Yahwist, but reconstruct the earlier Yahwist themes in new contexts. Can you identify the original Yahwhist theme, and analyze how it is repurposed in the new situation?
- Click on the image of the ancient key to see an explanation.
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Psalm 47:8-9
(used in the Temple rituals)
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God is king over the nations;
God sits on his holy throne.
The princes of the peoples gather
as the people of the God of Abraham.
For the shields of the earth belong to God;
he is highly exalted.
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Isaiah 19:23-25
(c.720 BCE as Assyria threatened Jerusalem)
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On that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian will come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians. On that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, "Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my heritage."
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Jeremiah 4:1-2
(c.587 BCE as Babylon threatened Jerusalem)
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If you return, O Israel,
says the Lord,
if you return to me,
if you remove your abominations from my presence,
and do not waver,
and if you swear, "As the Lord lives!"
in truth, in justice, and in uprightness,
then nations shall be blessed by him,
and by him they shall boast.
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Zechariah 8:13
(c.520 BCE as the Persians allowed the exiles to return)
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Just as you have been a cursing among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you and you shall be a blessing. Do not be afraid, but let your hands be strong.
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Zechariah 8:23
(c.520 BCE as the Persians allowed the exiles to return)
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Thus says the Lord of hosts: In those days ten men from nations of every language shall take hold of a Jew, grasping his garment and saying, "Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you."
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- New Questions
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- There has been some skepticism in the last forty years about whether early sources such as the Yahwist and the Elohist may be so clearly identified; some scholars have even suggested that these sources do not exist. The "minimalists" (as the skeptics are called) are more comfortable assigning the composition of the Torah to the post-exilic period—that is, after 539 BCE—rather than to the putative monarchy of Davic or Solomon for which almost no archaeological evidence exists.
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- Sources
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- Clifford, Richard J. "Exodus." In The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (ed. Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer and Roland E. Murphy; Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1990) 44-60.
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- Clifford, Richard J. and Roland E. Murphy. "Genesis." In NJBC, 8-43.
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- L'Heureux, Conrad E. "Numbers." In NJBC, 80-93.
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- Metzger, Bruce M. et al., eds. The Holy Bible (NRSV). Washington, D.C.: National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, 1989. Online, http://biblia.com/books/nrsv/, accessed 29 November 2016.
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- Wolff, Hans Walter. "The Kerygma of the Yahwist," trans. Wilbur A. Benware. In The Vitality of Old Testament Traditions (Walter Brueggemann and Hans Walter Wolff, 2d ed.; Atlanta: John Knox, 1982; original, 1975) 41-66.
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- 1 The summary of the contents of the Yahwist source is from Hans Walter Wolff, "The Kerygma of the Yahwist," trans. Wilbur A. Benware, in The Vitality of Old Testament Traditions (Walter Brueggemann and Hans Walter Wolff, 2d ed.; Atlanta: John Knox, 1982; original, 1975) 42-3. The subsequent chart of the contents of the Yahwist source has been compiled from the following essays: Richard J. Clifford and Roland E. Murphy, "Genesis," Clifford, "Exodus," and Conrad E. L'Heureux, "Numbers," in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (ed. Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer and Roland E. Murphy; Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1990) 8-60 and 80-93.
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- 2 The passages are discussed by Wolff, "The Kerygma of the Yahwist," 46-55.
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- 3 Bruce M. Metzger et al., eds., The Holy Bible (NRSV) (Washington, D.C.: National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, 1989), online, http://biblia.com/books/nrsv/Ge12.1, accessed 29 November 2016.
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- 4 The themes are summarized from Wolff, "The Kerygma of the Yahwist," 46-63, 148-54, and from Douglas A. Knight and Amy-Jill Levine, The Meaning of the Bible: What the Jewish Scriptures and Christian Old Testament Can Teach Us (New York: HarperCollins, 2011) 70, 199.
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- 5 Wolff, "The Kerygma of the Yahwist," 42-5.
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- 6 Wolff, "The Kerygma of the Yahwist," 63-5.
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