Summarized arguments against the Documentary Hypothesis of the Pentateuch as detailed in The Documentary Hypothesis and the Composition of the Pentateuch by Umberto Cassuto. (See also argument 3)
4 – Duplications and Repetitions
1. Duplications
Pro:
Duplicate stories are conclusive proof that a Redactor had before him various sources that told the same story in different ways.
Con:
A. Official and folkloric traditions
Like every other society, stories were likely handed down through sages/philosophers as well as more simple-minded commoners. Torah likely made use of both. While this doesn’t deny the possibility of different sources, it shows that a single source or author can draw from multiple traditions.
B. Many duplications
are not duplications
In the case of the supposed creation story doublets
, the first story is cosmological, but the second, which does not reference the sun, the moon, the stars, the sea, or even the creatures of the sea, cannot be cosmological. Stories which do not even fit into the same literary genre, therefore, cannot be duplications.
C. Many duplications
are complimentary, not contradictory
Parallel stories serve to add detail to or expand on something already said. They do not, therefore, require an additional author. When the first creation story says the heavens and earth were made in six days and then the second story says in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens
, there is no contradiction. In the day
is not a reference to a single day of creative activity. It means at the time
. Thus, although Moses spoke with God on Sinai for forty days and forty nights, we see in Numbers 3:1, in the day when the Lord spoke with Moses on Mount Sinai.
2. Repetitions
Pro:
Repeated occurrences or motifs are conclusive proof that a Redactor had before him different presentations or versions of the same ancient tradition.
Con:
A. Literary purpose
Repeated motifs and occurrences serve a purpose and design in the story as a whole, which shows they were not pieced together from disparate authors and documents.
B. Different traditions do not require different authors
The Roman historian Livy, when writing of the father and son—Decius Mus—who gave their lives in battle to ensure victory, included parallel accounts of both father and son in the same work, despite similarity of accounts. That in no way destroys the unity of Livy’s book.
C. Torah explains its own repetitions
Genesis 41:32 says, And for that the dream was doubled unto Pharaoh twice, it is because the thing is established by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass.
We are, therefore, told explicitly that something recurs because it is fixed by god. This is a matter of intentional recapitulation, not the work of separate authors and a Redactor.