Fact-Checking the Torah -- peer-reviewed support for DH

The only piece of archaeological evidence cited to support DH work is the Mesha stele. If you know differently, give us links to the DH paper that cites to the dig report written by the archaeologists so that we can avoid commentaries and perhaps translations. Now, given my arguments a long time ago about archaeological claims that rest on weak analogies, you might think I wouldn’t care about that.

In Wellhausen’s time, it was a really good thing. And of course, he died before Gilgamesh was published.

How do archaeologists relate to DH?

The American Schools of Oriental Research posts publications on the Jstor server and I have checked their papers and bulletins for references to DH. They have been publishing since 1900. I have also checked issues of the University of Chicago’s Journal of Near Eastern Studies. They have been publishing since 1884.

DH references in UChi’s Journal are by textual critics, who presuppose the DH, and are not archaeologists. References by archaeologists in ASOR publications are in reviews which negatively critique books that use the conclusions of DH.

Except for one ASOR article from 1963 which discusses Shchem and uses “northern (Elohist)” to describe one tradition about the city. In other words, the article is trying to provide orientation for supporters of DH, but the article does not claim that the findings support DH.

In fact, William Dever and others wrote starting in 1995: “The simplistic proposition that the final editors of an ancient narrative simply ‘invented’ the history that supposedly gave rise to the tradition is demonstrably false.”

In other words, cultura non facit saltus. Cultures have long histories that precede their first reference in text, and those histories may also precede writings reliably attributed to the cultures.

What cultures record of their histories cannot reliably be attributed to invention at the time the record is dated to.

Late invention of ancient written texts that refer to earlier times, is categorically a false proposition and the archaeologists have evidence to support that claim.

Wellhausen’s claim that J “dates from” a specific point in time cannot be true.

Have I said that enough ways to make it clear?

Oh, pleeze, just one more.

DH falsely claims that the material in its four documents was not invented until the culture was up and running.

Think back to the history of the Celts and the Sea Peoples. If DH is going to claim that nothing in Judaism dates before 800 BCE, it ignores the Merneptah stele of 1227 BCE and the hilltop settlements, and makes a claim of unusual processes in the formation of one ethnic group as compared to the Greeks and the Celts, so it requires a large amount of reliable data for support. The claim that the Israelites, as an ethnic group with its own norms of behavior, existed and were known to the Egyptians before the Merneptah stele was cut, is simpler and fits the facts.

If you know of dig reports since 1995, published in peer-reviewed periodicals, that specifically say that the finds confirm DH, that’s important info. Please post links to them or at least give us the citation.

I have one -- well, two -- that go the other way.

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