Yahwist tradition

Scheme of the documentary hypothesis.

The Yahwist Tradition, according to the documentary hypothesis, is one of the four main sources from which the books of the Tanakh (for Jews) or the Old Testament (for Jews) were written. Christians), dated to the 10th century B.C. C.. His stories represent half of Genesis and the first half of Exodus, as well as fragments of Numbers.

It is called yahvista (abbreviated J) because its authors usually designate the Jewish god with the name Yahweh (that is, the tetragrammaton «YHWH»); they usually describe that god with human reactions and attitudes, as a familiar and close god, and they have a special interest in the territory of the Kingdom of Judah and in people related to its history. Written during the Babylonian captivity (597-539 BCE), it was later incorporated into the Torah (ca. 400 BCE).

Background

The Yahwist author of Genesis was first identified in 1753, by the French physician, Jean Astruc (1684-1766) in his work Conjectures sur les mémoires originaux dont il paraît que Moïse s'est servi pour le livre composer de la Genèse ("Conjectures about the original memories apparently used by Moses to compose the book of Genesis"). The term became "Yahwist Tradition," or "Jehovist Tradition" for German scholars, according to the German transcription of Yahweh's name.

Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918) incorporated the hypothesis of the so-called Yahwist tradition source into his documentary hypothesis, which became the origin of historical criticism.

Nature of the Yahwist text

In this source, the name of the Jewish god is always written with the tetragram YHWH, which scholars transliterated in ancient times as Yahweh (or as Jahveh, in German spelling: Jahweh), and in modern times as Jehovah, or simply as Lord, which is the case in the King James translation. The translation of the Tetragrammaton by the Lord dates back to the first translation of the Torah or Pentateuch into Greek (III-century style="font-variant:small-caps;text-transform:lowercase">I BC) in the work known as the LXX Bible or Septuagint for the expression "kyrios" (Mister). Although previously the name of the Jewish god, out of reverential respect, was no longer used among the Jews of Israel, being replaced by the name "Adonai", which in Hebrew is also translated by the Lord.

The author (nicknamed J) has a special fascination with traditions relating to Judah, Jacob's fourth son, including those relating to his relationship with his neighbor Edom; he also supports the cause of the kingdom of Judah against that of Israel by suggesting, for example, that Israel lay its hand on Shechem (its capital) to massacre its inhabitants.

While he supports the priests descended from Aaron who settled in Jerusalem, the capital of Judah, he also treats the Jewish god as a human being, capable of thought, and of being deterred, who appears in person at certain events. In many cases, in J, that god is presented as about to wreak some terrible revenge on humanity, but is dissuaded. For example, in relation to the activities in Sodom and the other cities of the valley, J presents that god as about to destroy the cities but, gradually, that god is dissuaded by Abraham, until he agrees to save them if there were only ten people worthy within them. In the same way, during the exodus, J presents the complaints of the Israelites, and their refusal to obey the laws in a strict sense, that god as leader is about to abandon, destroy all of them, but he regrets the evil he intends to do when dissuaded by Moses (Exodus 32:14).

The Yahwist document is notable for its elegance and the richness of the emotions described.