Bible Criticism (online resources)
Since the beginning of the 20th century, scholars have attempted to demonstrate, in practical terms, what the consequences of source criticism would be when applied to the actual text of the Bible: how would it read? From an early stage, beginning with the work of Paul Haupt and his 1900 Polychrome Bible, which presented the Hebrew text in different colors for each source, scholars have used print technology to do this. The most recent example is Richard Elliott Friedman's color-coded English translation, The Bible With Sources Revealed, which still follows the same principles as Haupt's, a century later. Perhaps surprisingly, bible scholarship has been slow to adapt to the new resources that electronic media make available. A notable exception is the NETbible, which provides a fresh English translation and extensive philological notes from an Evangelical viewpoint, but is ambivalent AbOUT source criticism.
Biblecriticism.com by Tzemah Yoreh
The first online presentation of Biblical sources is Biblecriticism.com. The author is Tzemah Yoreh, a student of the Israeli source critics Israel Knohl and Baruch Schwartz at Hebrew University and currently a professor at American Jewish University. Yoreh's account differs from famous source critics, from Wellhausen to Friedman, in using the supplementary hypothesis, most prominently argued for by John Van Seters. This hypothesis has two main arguments in its favor: 1) It relies on Occam's razor, the idea that the best explanations use as few assumptions as necessary. In this case the explanation is that the Bible comes not from an assembly of fragmentary sources but a series of interpretive additions, as religious thinkers collectively wove and rewove traditional texts they considered sacred. Like the process of inner-biblical interpretation illuminated by scholars like Nahum Sarna, Michael Fishbane, Bernard M. Levinson, and Benjamin Sommer, each source wrote with scripture by building on the sources it found. 2) The supplementary hypothesis is simpler and arguably more coherent than the fragmentary hypothesis which has come to dominate European scholarship. Under this hypothesis—-summarized by Kevin Wilson—-the Priestly source wove together five fragmentary blocks of tradition, that were sometimes aware of each other and sometimes not.
References
- On the Supplementary Hypothesis
- Redford, Donald B. 1970. A Study of the Biblical Story of Joseph (Genesis 37-50). Supplements to Vetus Testamentum v. 20. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
- Van Seters, John. 1994. The Life of Moses: The Yahwist as Historian in Exodus-Numbers. 1st ed. Louisville, Ky: Westminster/John Knox Press.
- Weisman, Zeev. 1986. From Jacob to Israel (Hebrew: Mi-Yaʻaḳov Le-Yiśraʾel: Maḥazor Ha-Sipurim ʻal Yaʻaḳov Ṿe-Shiluvo Be-Toldot Avot Ha-Umah). Sidrat sefarim le-ḥeḳer ha-Miḳra mi-yesodo shel S. Sh. Peri. Jerusalem: Magnes/Hebrew University.
- Yoreh, Tzemah. 2005. "Jacob's Struggle." Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 117: 95-97.
- Yoreh, Tzemah. 2006. "How many sons did Jacob have according to E?" Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 118: 264-268.
- On the broader context of supplementation
- Levinson, Bernard M. "The phenomenon of rewriting within the Hebrew Bible: a bibliographic essay on 'inner-biblical exegesis' in the history of scholarship" in Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel. New York: Cambridge, 2008.