Documentary Hypothesis Thoughts

So today was my first real day of Jewish History class and I am honestly looking forward to every day of class very much. We talked about where to begin in Jewish history, due to how difficult it is as a class we still haven’t determined an answer. On the other hand, we did begin to discuss the Tanakh, where it came from, and different hypothesis of who wrote it. My favorite hypothesis that we discussed was the Documentary Hypothesis; It pretty much states that the Tanakh is actually a combination of 5 different authors, and it is multiple similar stories smushed together to create one stories. For Example; The story of Noah’s ark has a major contradiction, It Begins in Genisis 6 by saying “…You shall take two of each into the ark…” (6:19). We know this, Noah took pairs of animals, Right?  But then in Genisis 7 it states “ Of every clean animal you shall take seven pairs, males and their mates…” (7:2). Often Times we don’t hear about this passage. This is the reason why it is believed that similar stories were combined into one story like Noah’s Ark. Personally I accept this hypothesis, with a modern twist. I think that there were more than just 5 authors, I think that over time people kept adding things and removing things from the stories with their own bias. This can often times cause contradiction, as seen in Noah’s Ark. So that’s just a short summary of my JHist class. I’m very excited for more classes and learning more about the history of the Tanakh and the Jewish people. I’m also willing to talk about the things that I learn at great length if anyone wants to hear more! 

Here is a beautiful picture of the spice garden just cause.