Documentary Hypothesis vs. Supplementary Hypothesis

Although the first five books of the Hebrew Bible (also known as the Pentateuch or Torah) are traditionally attributed to Moses, they were actually written centuries after the character of Moses is said to have lived. Since the 19th century, Biblical scholars have identified distinct authorial voices within the text, which they have worked to identify to determine who wrote each portion and how they came together. In the early 20th century, a consensus emerged around the “Documentary Hypothesis” - which posits that ancient redactors (or editors) combined together multiple distinct texts to create the Torah.
However, by the end of the 20th century, the consensus began to break down as new scholarship proposed an alternate model: a core text supplemented by a series of writers who expanded the original, the “Supplementary Hypothesis.” John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will lay out the arguments for and against the Documentary and Supplementary Hypotheses for the Torah’s origins.
Join the livestream to participate in the discussion and to ask questions to our lecturer during the Q&A.
Other topics covered in this lecture include: Biblical origins, Biblical criticism, Ancient Judah, Ancient Israel
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[@seekingsomethingshamanic]

Hearing john say he was sorry for my loss has been something i keep replaying when the grief gets bad, thank you centre place

[@cpamacjd]

I so look forward to Tuesday so I can hear his teaching, one of the best teachers in all of KZbin or the world for that matter

[@garymensurati1631]

Agree 💯👍💯

[@Mercury-Wells]

Another exceptional lecture from Dr Hamer and the Hamer Heads. Many thanks to the ever erudite Dr Hamer, Leandro and the whole Centre Place team for bringing us this great blessing of wisdom. ❤

[@canisronis2753]

These folks are the epitome of the wisdom tradition.

[@loganperry5669]

Hamer Heads? 💀💯🔥

[@rayneweber5904]

Wait a second. Did I accidentally join the church months ago?

[@clareryan3843]

😂me too

[@centre-place]

[@santiagoosoriomejia1728]

Had the same realization just days ago, not mad but kinda freaked out

[@Metal2TheMaxxx]

There's no such thing as accidents.

[@pebystroll]

I am so so happy I found this community and for finding John, has been world changing for me. Love from Dublin to everyone

[@JohnFBurrows]

Love these - best podcast in the world to drift of to sleep- listen to the same show for days !! Just the title of tonight’s lecture makes me sleepy😂

[@joshbedford4889]

The content is top-notch, but his voice is rhythmic and monotone in a soothing sort of way: best of both worlds!

[@ubertrashcat]

I'm not sure if it's nice to know that after all the work put in people fall asleep to it.

[@nikolairuskanov787]

lol tuning in rn for this exact purpose. the content will infiltrate my dreams, and my understanding will be all the better when i listen again tomorrow lol

[@jeffkunce8501]

Ha! That sounds like a back-handed compliment, but I, also, often fall asleep listening 🤣 I do replay, though, when I can pay attention.

[@JohnFBurrows]

@@ubertrashcatI always listen to the entire episode- may just take 5 or 6 episodes - more views for a great production.

[@garymensurati1631]

Absolutely Awesome Lecture. The best teaching I've ever pondered with each story. John, you're knowledge is Amazing. Thank you so much for your time and effort, along with the Centre place team. Blessings to all.

[@nancybarnett7406]

Thank you John. Fascinating.

[@trumpetmaster83]

Love these videos!!!

[@Demiglot]

I always appreciate hearing John's summary of complex ideas. Thank you!

[@darksaurian6410]

Oh I missed this one. This the the stuff that got me interested in this stuff to begin with when I saw useful charts "Who Wrote the Torah?"

[@charlesmendeley9823]

I highly recommend the series on UsefulCharts. He also talks about the other parts of the bible.

[@mosleythehoesley]

This videos have been so helpful for me in my own understand of “the divine”. Coming from a very religious, and very supportive, family, my parents have allowed me to truly explore myself. How I understand faith, my relationship with the church and the Bible, my discontent and appreciations of Christianity. Eventually I would, and I think as of writing this I still would, consider myself atheist. I cannot conceptualize god like my parents do or see the Bible as more than myth either. However, I’ve always had the thought in my head of “does it matter if god is real?” I’ve thought about it a lot, how can I live and breathe the same experiences as my mom and she attribute the outcome to god and me attribute said outcomes to fate and chance? Furthermore, does it matter if there is really a god interacting with her life? After all, she perceives her experiences as though god is guiding her, so to her god is real, just as real as I think he isn’t. To some extent, it doesn’t matter what the truth is, if she truly believes god is real, then if I were to step into her shoes he’d be real to me too. And the inverse is true too. So. Am I an atheist. Yes, but it’s more complicated. It’s not useful to me to conceptualize god, or any other deity for that matter, as “fake” when those next to me see god as real, as real as flesh and blood. If I disregard that completely, treat believers as ignorant or misled, then I myself am sacrificing my own ability to understand my closest companions truly. “Your own personal Jesus”, as Johnny cash put it, god is unique to all of us. We are all creatures who do not perceive reality as it truly is. We can’t see all wavelengths, we fall for illusions, we conjure stories of factious characters in factious worlds and empathize with them as though they’re real. I think “the divine” is a personal story everyone tells themself, sometimes it’s fantastical, sometimes it’s rigid. For me it’s fate. That’s my divine, a series of steps that have lead me to this point, but each step was my own decision. For my mom is a somewhat fundamentalist perception of god. I digress, seeing not someone, but a whole church dedicated to and willing to hear and accept the Bible for what it is, a collection of books written by humans, and still having such a beautiful and unique perception and faith in god not only helped me wrestle with my own feelings, allowing me to divorce this idea I had that equated religion to ignorance and inspired me to challenge my own conceptualizations of the divine. Much love ❤ from Georgia

[@canisronis2753]

I believe progress is made once one can reject nominalism. In other words recognize pure experience and let go the words used to describe them.

[@mosleythehoesley]

@@canisronis2753 I love that

[@thetexadian]

I am a proponent of the Documentary Hypothesis. However I don't see it as an either/or question. The books were written as you said mostly just before or in the secobnd temple period. However many orf the stories come from the Bronze Age and earlier. So in a way all the authors were redactors, The first books written were the Histories comprising 5 books (7 in the Christian view) Deuteronomy Joshua Judges Samuel and Kings. They ar the only ones that may have had a single author--Jeremiah and/or Baruch his scribe. They were written just after the Assyrian invasion. Their purpose was to justify the annexation of the now defunct northern kingdom by the David dynasty. The the "J"texts "E" texts were written in Babylonia or just after the return of the elites to Canan. The stories assigned to "J" represent the Founding myths of Judah. And basically come originally from Mesopotamia. The ones assigned to "E" are there myths of Israel and have sources in Hittite and Egyptian stories. They were probably written at the same time by the same group or at least related group, but are retelling of existing myths and legends. as you said this group represents the Davidic dynasty who are in competition for superiority with the religious groups you called priests. There never was a combined kingdom. It was made up by "D" to. justify the annexing of the defeated north by the House of David. Your presentation was very thought provoking.

[@MrDalisclock]

As someone who no longer believes, I appreciate these lectures and think John does a good job of making these topics easy to follow. I'm slowly working through the back catalog and look forward to more.

[@Facerip]

As someone who’s never really believed (at least not in scripture), i agree.

[@GroundThing]

A bit off topic to the Pentateuch/Torah focus of this lecture, but I'm curious about the Johannine Authorship brought up as an example. Do you know of any place where I could find either an annotated version of the text that would highlight "this is most likely from the Signs Gospel/John1/John2", or otherwise a book where I might be able to read more? It also seemed like, based on the sections that you showed, that the beginning of the Gospel "In the beginning was the Logos [...]" was John2, but you say that you consider John2 to be a lesser writer; is that the case? Because I feel like that first chapter of John is among some of the more powerful writing within John.

[@exoplanet11]

Very informative.

[@davidfolts5893]

Off-topic question for John Hammer: Would you consider a lecture discussing the visions of Jesus, his disciples experienced after his death, and others discussed in the Bible? What other historical documents besides the Bible mention these experiences?

[@bothewolf3466]

Yikes. How do we get such quality weekly. John must never sleep. #WorkEthic

[@russellmillar7132]

If Abraham lived before Aaron, how was he able to make a sacrifice?

[@HamerToronto]

It's not a story told by the Priestly author. The sacrifice of Isaac is an Elohist story.

[@russellmillar7132]

@@HamerToronto Okay, I see. Thanks for your reply.

[@tamjammy4461]

Excellent as always.

[@suelingsusu1339]

Very nice lecture....👏👏👏👏👏👏👌👌👌👌👌👌🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🖖🖖🖖🖖🖖🖖🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

[@VSP4591]

Mulțumim!

[@centre-place]

Many thanks for supporting the channel with this donation!

[@user-wj9hx8ww3z]

Superb, ty👍

[@meditativehypnosen-dr.ho-oq7zq]

Your use of the term Occams razor is not quite correct. The documentary hypotheses is perhaps more complex, but complexity is not identical to the introduction of unnecessary entities.

[@Lyphatma]

1491 BC is not a bad date for the Exodus if you buy into the Hyksos thing.

[@BakedDrLuny]

I think the Hyksos period provides some of the original material of Exodus. Names like Jacob are among the Hyksos dynastic lineage. These bronze age histories could have been lost at several periods in the wake of the bronze age collapse and subsequent conquests. Eventually fragments of bronze age Canaanite dynastic history in oral tradition would have been reworked into a more coherent narrative that fit the society of the time, kings of city-states became patriarchs of pastoral clans. So the preservation of some memory of Canaanites being in power in Egypt, including some names, before the story moves back into Canaan indicates the extent of the history preserved in the Torah and provides a very loose framework for the Exodus narrative.

[@danieljohnmorris]

Got to be the same I think, the time frame is roughly right

[@IrrippiOntor]

On rods: a long tradition of 'beating about the bush'? =P

[@SackTheBoard]

We can assume the creation story happening twice was noticed by the persons that compiled the bible!! So the question must be what's the point of this?

[@JH-pt6ih]

The doublets and triplets in the Old Testament are covered multiple times in the different videos from this channel.

[@charlesmendeley9823]

By the time the editors redacted the Torah, both versions were already considered canonical, so neither could be removed. Moreover, the Israelites would not have considered the accounts contradictory as modern historians would.

[@langreeves6419]

It happens over and over The book of james contradicts Pauls letters. Ezra niamiyama contradicts ruth. Luke and matthew both were trying to replace the book of mark. The book of acts contradicts Paul's letters But all these books and letters got used by people for religious practice. Probably a lot of people just went .....God's way is so weird contradictions don't bother us Plus they probably focused on the meat of the books. So one guy praises david and another guy writes embarrassing stories about david. So we read these books and go hmmmm. David was righteous some of the time..... And he was quite sinful some of the time.

[@hygujiuy]

First

[@brygenon]

And how will you test your notion on the aim of the P author? The ratio of speculation to data here is staggering.

[@jeffkunce8501]

There is a ton of academic research and there are debates on every nuance. I think these lectures are more about introducing different points of view and broadening the perspective of regular people with interests in theology and history. John presents far more evidence for these positions than the average person ever hears for the views delivered from the pulpit at church. That said, I do think John goes out on a limb at times, especially when answering questions. I'm okay with that, as long as he regularly states that speaking as a well-educated teacher, but not [always] an academic expert.

[@HessianHunter]

Historical study is using a set of criteria and assumptions to determine what's most probable about the past. You rarely "prove" anything interesting - only basic who/when/where questions are so confidently demonstrated. The way to test the hypothesis about P's goal is to attempt to forward a counterfactual that requires fewer assumptions while creating fewer new problems. Speculation is part of studying anything. You just need to be clear in your confidence level from pure speculation to favored theory to a confident declaration. This lecturer isn't speaking as if he has the God-given truth - he says what he finds most compelling after presenting competing ideas and evidence.

[@brygenon]

​@@HessianHunter On another channel a professor told that archeological discoveries staring in the 1800's largely revolutionized scholarly historical study of the Bible. Other STEM methods also provide historical data that goes way beyond human speculation. This video is about the Documentary Hypothesis vs. Supplementary Hypothesis, and the data is the text of the Torah known and studied for centuries. Scholars try to infer the various sources that wrote which bits of the text from the text itself. We have some external data on how the language changed over time, but not on actual writers. We think this writer unlike others took this stance, and we infer there was such an author because some passages and not others take that stance. Then scholars test their theories by publishing for other scholars who use the same texts. Progress is measured by change in consensus of scholars who have no way of actually testing whether the consensus is correct. In most any field of study, data trumps speculation. What I find staggering on this topic is the vast amount of human labor invested in speculative arguments over exactly the same data.

[@langreeves6419]

John usually presents a good bit of the evidence that we have. Do you have some secret evidence that we don't know about? History requires speculation. As new evidence might be found , the speculation is revised. That's what this lecture was about. Two different hypotheses. He says he doesn't know which one is true. That's because nobody does. Have you done any study of ancient history before?

[@SackTheBoard]

Lets be clear here! Nobody can tell us what is true or fiction from 3500 years ago. I don't care why you think you know, you simply dont KNOW!!

[@JH-pt6ih]

Who are you talking to? People who think we know everything about the past (or know nothing) don't seem to follow this channel - they usually just make drive-by denunciations and move on.

[@canisronis2753]

@@JH-pt6ih I would suggest this comment reveals a closed mind dominated by emotion and cultural indoctrination. This person seems angry at ideas...as you say who are they talking to? To embrace the wisdom tradition one must first have an open mind .

[@meditativehypnosen-dr.ho-oq7zq]

Have you watched the lecture?

[@normative]

“I have a thing I want to believe, and if I SHOUT VERY LOUD maybe I won’t have to think about any of the scholarship that demonstrates it’s not true.”

[@spoddie]

I started to watch but there's no way I'm committing to 2+ hours

[@notanemoprog]

You should

[@jeffkunce8501]

There are some good tools (transcript, speed changer, skip ahead) that can make a long video shorter. I use those, at times, when John is rehashing some points that he has covered in other lectures.

[@meditativehypnosen-dr.ho-oq7zq]

The lecture lasts till 1:40, afterwards its question.

[@langreeves6419]

You don't have a commute? You don't spend any time preparing meals at home or washing dishes? Do you ever take walks? Personally I don't like listening to anything when i'm walking. But I'd shoot myself in the head on my commute if I didn't have stuff to listen to.

[@JH-pt6ih]

You can break it up into more than one viewing. It will be available after the live broadcast.