Talk:Jahwist

Yahwist/Yahvist/Jahwist/Jahvist

In the US, UK and in most English theologic literature one finds the term Yahwist much more commonly than Jahwist. The origin of the term Yahwist/Jahwist derives from the English transliteration of the Hebrew word Yahweh.Yahweh It is again Yahweh which is the preferred spelling in English. J source derives from Jahwist but it was Germans who started the terminology.

I don't know why we have taken the tack of using the less preferred spelling(Jahwist) here on Wikipedia.

Yahwist's Landscape: Nature and Religion in Early Israel, The Theology Today, Apr 1997 by Werner E Lemke[1]

Farming for God: a religion of the soil? - The Paradise of God: Renewing Religion in an Ecological Age. By Norman Wirzba; The Yahwist's Landscape: Nature and Religion in Early Israel. By Theodore Hiebert; The Ethos of the Cosmos: The Genesis of Moral Imagination in the Bible. By William P. Brown - Book Review [2]

Online Dictionaries referencing Yahweh and Yahwist

http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/yahweh?view=uk http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/Yahwist http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=jahwist http://www.infoplease.com/ipd/A0498730.html http://www.bartleby.com/61/22/Y0002200.html

Mansell 19:34, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

The only problem I see with this is that it is the J source, I have never seen it referred to as the Y source. Though, I also agree, transliterating the yod of the tetragrammation should be done with a Y. I think it comes down to some sense of academic tradition, unfortunately. abexy 18:37, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree that Jahwist looks odd in English. Since the few German words beginning with Y tend to be taken from other languages and are ordinarily pronounced the same as J, perhaps they chose J so that students could remember Jawist/Judah. Jim Lacey 17:42, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

year?

Anyone have a good idea for when J was written? 900 BCE? 800? Jonathan Tweet 01:28, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Between approximately 922 (break-up of the united kingdom) and 722 BC (fall of the northern kingdom of Israel). Friedman points out that J (given to word-games) makes multiple use of the root r-h-b - six times in J, never in E - which is the root of Rehoboam, first king of the southern kingdom of Judah. PiCo 05:28, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

A more accurate date is between 850 and 722. I did the correction just now. See Who Wrote the Bible? pp. 87. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.86.200.65 (talk) 18:20, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

The Jahwist source isolated, at wikisource

This has been deleted from wikisource: Former Page and Proposed Deletion Log. Should we delete the remaining link in External links, or find a new source? And if we choose a new source, what's a reputable one? Fufthmin 21:48, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

It should be put back as a source text, it's essential to treating the DH (although if there's some other online source that can be used as an external link I'd be happy with that). PiCo 05:29, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

All of the KJV DH material at wikisource has been deleted on the grounds that it is not source material,and hence violates their inclusion policy. :(

Can somebody point to an online source that lists the verses for each of the sources? 67.136.147.115 21:48, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Example under 'Nature of the Yahwist text'

In the third paragraph, third sentence: "For example, concerning the activities in Sodom and the other cities of the plain, J presents God as about to destroy the cities, but gradually being dissuaded by Abraham, until God consents to save it if there are even only as few as 10 worthy individuals within it." The representation that God is dissuaded by Abraham would seem inaccurate if your source is Torah/Pentateuch. The story starts at Genesis 18:23 and Abraham begins by asking if He would destroy the righteous with the wicked alike. Before God responds Abraham asks, if there are 50 righteous would He destroy it and God responds that He would spare it for 50. Then Abraham asks if God would spare it for 45 righteous people and God says He would spare it for 45 (and so forth). There is nothing to indicate that God was originally intending on destroying any righteous with the wicked, thus it should likely not be summarized as a dissuasion. I would also like to suggest that rather than a "human-like" figure, God is presented as a 'personal' figure by the Yahwist author(s) and that this story serves as an excellent example. Source: http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/OTpdf/gen18.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.224.129.156 (talk) 02:48, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

It has been a month since I posted this commentary on the article and no response has appeared in this discussion or any change in the article. I will give it a little more time and if no response is presented and the article remains unchanged I will add a short commentary within the article below the section in question regarding this inaccurate summary of the exchange between Abraham and God. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.224.129.156 (talk) 03:32, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

My class about to reach this text so checked out Wiki as possible assignment. Rather measured article, all in all. As for "human-like" why not use the familiar term "anthropomorphic," which suggests but does not stipulate? Best, Profhum (talk) 08:25, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Killing animals

killing animals so as to clothe Eve and Adam with their pelts, Killing animals is not in the Bible. He could have created the clothes instead of killing animals, skinning, tanning and going through all the bother of making clothes.Nitpyck (talk) 22:28, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

YHWH

The first part states: "The Jahwist, also referred to as the Jehovist, Yahwist, or simply as J, is one of the "sources" of the Torah.[1] It is found in the books of Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers, but not in Leviticus or Deuteronomy. The Yahwist source gets its name from the fact that it characteristically uses the term Yahweh (more accurately, YHWH) for God in the book of Genesis (it changes to Elohim from Exodus onwards).[2] In most English Bibles it is replaced with "the LORD", or sometimes "GOD", but in fact it is simply God's name.[3]" It is unclear if the "It" in the second sentence is referring to. The second paragraph seems to indicate that "It" refers to YHWH. If that "It" refers to YHWH, it is an incorrect statement. I checked Young's Analytical Concordance and found that YHWH is found in Lev. and Deut.! Of course if "It" refers to something else, the first sentence needs clarification.Occidensylvania (talk) 05:55, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

"It" in the second sentence refers to the Yahwist source - it's not found in those two books. I'll clarify it. PiCo (talk) 06:40, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Why the scare quotes around 'sources' in the lede?

Seems a little POV-pushy to me. . . 66.135.109.102 (talk) 17:06, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

That struck me too - I've removed them and added a little context taken from one of the other "sources" pages. Verloren (talk) 14:09, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

The DH Proposed Sources

Was looking at the sections of the article in which PiCo had made some recent changes.

First thing I have noticed is that E is stripped out of any mention in the Scope section. Yes, some people do think that E didn't exist on its own, but this is one of the various opinions, and the pro-E-exist camp certainly is not (at least not yet) in a minority. Personally (which does not count here on Wikipedia, but just throwing it in to disclose where my bias lays) I can't see how there could not have been an E in comparison to J.

Although there are several proposed breakdowns, an incomplete breakdown of the chapters of Exodus (just as one example) usually comes out as: 1 mostly E; 2 mostly J; 3 J&E mixed; 4-5 E; 6 P (or P & "Book of Records"); 7 P&E; 9-11 E; 12 E&P; 13 E; chap 14 has J,E,&P heavily intermixed; 15 has a song imbedded in J; 16 P; 17-18 E; 19 J&E; 20 has the Ethical Decalogue embedded in E; 21-23 is the Covenant Code embedded in E; 24 E; 25-31 P; 32-33 E; 34 has the Ritual Decalogue embedded in J (only one explicitly called the Ten Commandments, verse 28); 35-40 is all P.

As far as books, Gen is heavy on J&P, Exo is heavy of P&E, Lev is almost all P, Num is heavy on P (with a bunch of E and a little J), and Deut is almost all deuteronomist authors/editors.

Additional bit. It has been long asserted that chapter 1 of Genesis (plus a few beginning versus of 2) are from the P source. I've maintained for years that — to me — it does not read as P at all (but I was an extreme minority here). However, the recent computer assisted study (2011, Koppel/N.Dershowitz/I.Dershowitz/Akiva — Bar-Ilan University) has also asserted that Gen 1 was not written by P. It will be interesting to see responses/rebuttals to this in the coming year. :)

Returning to the lack of E mentioned in the Scope subsection, if people here are deadset against E (why?), would going with JE (the proposed combined text) for sections that include E be an acceptable compromise? One could easily say Exo chaps 1-5 was JE, for example.

Apologies for long comment here. — al-Shimoni (talk) 21:06, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

No need to apologise for a long post. As for what you say, I did get the impression while researching that most scholars today treat E as a subset of J. Maybe the question needs to be addressed here. But there's also an article on EW and another on J/E which might be the places to go into more detail (I've never edited those ones). PiCo (talk) 03:04, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Characteristics

People totally ignorant of millennium of wars between us Hebrew and Aramaic Yahwists and Elohists and Nazi Germany, do not write these deliberate lies in these articles on Wiki. We Yahwists worship Yahweh as our Creator and Elohists who err and wrongly worship Elohim as their Creator, like the Nazi Germans tell lies, and outlaw the name Yahweh, and like Cain, try to murder us because their works are evil, and ours righteous. Here the falsely accuse Yahweh of doing, when the Elohim did the evil, I said you are Elohim, means you are not the Creator Yahweh. And Elohim did these evil in the Hebrew Scriptures, not Yahweh, Elohim, are evil men of Belial, later the mount of Esau, his mate a daughter of Babylon, these are called men of Belial called Elohim, after Esau and Jacob birth, doing violence unto all Jacob, the Elohim made War and confounded the languages at Babel, (Baghdad the Capital of Babylon,) but these deliberate lies against Yahweh, are written by his enemies that are Elohim, setting up and murdering the righteous.

"J's YHWH is a warrior, as Exodus 15:3 declares. YHWH is not a benign God in heaven; he can be dangerous, as when he attempts to kill his newly chosen prophet Moses at the inn (see Zipporah at the inn), or arbitrary, preventing Moses from entering Canaan without giving reasons, or mischievous when he confuses mankind's language at Babel.[7]"

2001:558:6014:31:6162:1C0E:74DC:4405 (talk) 05:13, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

2001:558:6014:31:6162:1C0E:74DC:4405 (talk) 05:25, 21 August 2014 (UTC)
2001:558:6014:31:6162:1C0E:74DC:4405 (talk) 05:35, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Title of page

I can see on the talk page here this was discussed 8 years ago but noting came of it. Anyway, I think the title of the article should be "Yahwist", as this is by a long way the most common spelling. Although it is abbreviated as "J", a simple explanation of the German roots of the DH can be given. If there are no objections, I will go ahead and do this.Arswann (talk) 10:56, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Yahweh declares (The sexual union between the sons of God and mortal women) violation of the separation and limits the life span of their offspring.

No He didn't. God never declared this a violation in Genesis, and the limit to the offspring's lifespan refers to all humans beings, not just the nephilim. 86.23.8.194 (talk) 21:31, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

J, a woman?

R. E. Friedmans Who Wrote the Bible, tentatively and cautiously, proposed that J might be a woman. I could'nt find any other (scholarly) debate about this. Heiko242 (talk) 09:26, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Harold Bloom, The Book of J, discusses this. See the WP article on Bloom.

Pechmerle (talk) 10:25, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 11 July 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. Jenks24 (talk) 17:58, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

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Jahwist → Yahwist – "Yahwist" is by far the most common spelling in modern scholarship. "Jahwist" was generally only used in Germany in the 19th and early 20th centuries. --Relisted. George Ho (talk) 17:52, 18 July 2015 (UTC) Arswann (talk) 14:20, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

• Support, per this ngram. Fernando Safety (talk) 12:30, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose, this is the document known as "J", and "J" is widely known as one of the documents which were/are used to translate the Old Testament. The article itself uses the initial "J" repeatedly. Renaming the page seems at odds with that, its main usage. Randy Kryn 11:56, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

• That's an argument for calling the subject "J." The New Oxford Annotated Bible (2010), a standard academic (as opposed to religious) Bible reference, uses "Yahewistic source" and "Yahewistic tradition" repeatedly and throughout. It explains the usage this way: "Yahwistic source (“J” for German “Jahwist”)" (p. 8) The tetragammon is generally given as "YHWH" or "Yahweh." "Jahwist" is "at odds" with that practice. Fernando Safety (talk) 22:55, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

• Support, as clearly the correct title (i was very surprised to see this listed, so much would i have expected Yahwist to be the title ~ almost none of the literature has Jahwist, nor has done for years). Fernando Safety's link is helpful, as well. Cheers, Lindsay^Hello 11:10, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. Sources are divided, largely by date, and automated searches are bias to later dates. Google ngrams should be considered, but should not be ever considered the deciding factor, they are biased, including in unknown ways, and they include unreliable sources replete with repetition of the unreliable. This is a particularly traditional/historic topic, largely carried over from German/Latin, and the partial transliteration in embedded. Moving to Y would make the accepted abbreviation "J" make no sense. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:27, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. A line call, so we should leave it as is. Andrewa (talk) 12:04, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Harold Bloom

Should we add Harold Bloom's book The Book of J, in which he speculates that the primary author of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible was a woman, "either a princess of the Davidic royal house or else the daughter or wife of a court personage," with a genius for literary irony, to the bibliography of this article? 173.88.246.138 (talk) 19:27, 1 October 2023 (UTC)