“A Judaism That Does Not Hide”: Teaching the Documentary Hypothesis in a Pluralistic Jewish High School

Abstract

This article analyzes the experiences of students at a pluralistic Jewish high school learning the documentary hypothesis in biblical scholarship as an approach to reading the biblical text. The author examines selected student writings, locating her analysis of student experience in the context of her particular institution. She classifies student experience by type, and argues that for all students, learning the documentary hypothesis is ultimately not only defensible but beneficial to their theological and intellectual growth. The author responds to a number of possible concerns about the risks of this curricular choice.

Notes

¹This conclusion is based on phone interviews and e-mail correspondences with heads of Judaic Studies or Bible teachers in eight community high schools in North America. While most of these schools do not teach the documentary hypothesis or source criticism at all, two of them study the assumptions of source criticism, but do not ask their students to practice applying them to texts.

²Ibn Ezra seemingly purposely did not express his belief in a straightforward fashion. Nahum Sarna (2000) states that the commentator thought this information should stay in the hands of the elite. Ibn Ezra believed that those who knew it should remain silent; anyone who publicly doubted the Mosaic authorship of the Torah should be burned (p. 153).

³In Hellenistic times, Jews used methods of establishing and interpreting that were parallel to Greeks ways of reading classic texts. For a discussion of this see Lieberman, 1950, pp. 47–82.

⁴A former student reflected on what these opportunities meant to him, as he grappled with the new material he was learning: Our 12th grade class had a two-fold mission: to teach biblical criticism, but also to teach knowledgeable and passionate Jews how to understand and relate to biblical criticism. This second aspect is missing in a university course. Anyone can teach biblical criticism, but only Jewish day schools have the opportunity to teach young Jewish adults how to make such methods fit into their Jewish lives. The environment of our 12th grade class was a safe place where I was able to ask questions of the instructor, my peers and myself. I was confronted with very difficult material but was provided a forum in which to discuss how I felt about the material. I would say that we spent just as much time discussing how we felt about biblical criticism as actually learning what it was. And I can confidently say that these discussions are what helped me come to terms with what it is.

⁵This similarity though is not as meaningful as it might initially seem. After all, the lenses through which the texts are interpreted can be very different. For example, studying Exodus 3 through the lens of medieval Jewish exegesis or through the lens of form criticism will yield different foci and therefore different possible meanings of the text. While a Jewish exegete might focus on why God chose to appear in a burning bush, the form critic will compare Moses' call to prophecy with those of other prophets, such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. In addition, while the Masoretic text is shared in the University and high school setting, in a college class the professor might suggest some textual emendations based on other textual witnesses, for example, the Septuagint. This would most likely not occur in a high school Tanakh class.

⁶Scheffler, 223.