Sure, there are books of the acts of various kings (government documents)
but in those cases, the Biblical writer is actually using a 'reference' for
the reader of his day to go check up his facts or read more. But these are
not the precursor documents for JEDP theory to the best of my knowledge.
>A case in point is 2
>Kings 22:8-10. Who knows what documents and books might have been in those
>libraries that could have served as the basis for the Pentateuch.
Most I have read say it was the pentateuch. Now, I would freely grant that
this would be somewhat speculative but not entirely out of line either.
>
>Granted we have no physical evidence of these precursor documents, but we
>also have no physical evidence for 90% or more of the missing Classical
>World documents mentioned by the few we do have. Yet the internal evidence
>within the documents we do have lead us to believe that the missing
>documents really existed, rather than were simply false attributions.
Most of the evidence I have seen revolves around the supposed inability of
a writer to use synonyms. That is a highly dubious basis for building an
ancient but non-existant library.
> Similarly the Bible contains evidence within its own vocabulary, grammar,
>sentence structure, motifs, etc., that the precursor documents we call J,
>E, D and P did exist. And thus it is from the study of the only surviving
>copy of these documents - the Bible itself - that we can answer the very
>questions you pose. Granted there is some subjectivity to whatever
>conclusions are drawn from this study, but no more so than there would be
>in the study of Melville or Dickens or Michener.
But what is fascinating to me, no one examines Melville, Dickens or
Michener, to determine what 4 sources they plagiarized.
>
>Oh, I almost forgot. Technically there is more evidence for the existence
>of JEDP than there is for leprechauns, but a good Irishman never discounts
>the Little People.
And since some of my ancestors go back to the Emerald isle, I wouldn't
discount them either. I think they run computers. That is why computer
rooms have raised floors. They are under there. :-)
glenn
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
Foundation, Fall and Flood
& lots of creation/evolution information
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm