My Old Testament (OT) Bible teacher was a dignified cosmopolitan man with a mixed British accent (I don’t hold that against him). He stood out a bit from his peers, because of his European culture and verbal lilt. Everyone else was typically midwest or southern in culture, with rich southern accents that drip like molasses. But my OT teacher stood out from his peers in another way.
Despite the fact that this liberal arts university was a conservative Christian school, and despite that fact that it was fixed like a buckle on the Bible belt of America, this teacher taught something surprising for his field. He taught that Jesus wasn’t God.
He taught us the Documentary Hypothesis. Also known as “JEDP theory” or the “Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis” this theory, simply put, says that Moses didn’t write the first five books of the Bible as Jewish and Church tradition have customarily accepted. But, instead, those books are composites derived from the collective effort of four different schools of writing/editing.
Simply put, the problem is that:
If Moses didn’t write the books that Jesus said he did, then Jesus is a liar. If Jesus is a liar, then Jesus isn’t God.
Ideas have consequences, and the idea that the first five books were misattributed all the way up to and including Jesus, that idea has some faith-shaking consequences. Fortunately, there are plenty of great reasons to believe Jesus on this one and doubt the JEDP theory.
Examine the details here.