Documentary Hypothesis

Textual analysis is an inexact science. This is why I highly doubt that the Documentary Hypothesis (DH) will ever be definitively proven, barring surprising new archaeological discoveries of the earlier texts. In fact, there are many competing versions of DH explaining the details of the compilation of the text, each with some advantages and deficiencies. However, there are a multitude of questions that DH in general explains even if we will never know the exact chain of development. As an illustration, consider the multitude of "doublets" in the Bible. These are stories that are appear two (or more) times in the Pentateuch but differ in some important details, or consist of two different narrative strands woven together. A partial list includes:

Creation
Abraham/Isaac Journey to Egypt/Gerar
Hagar Vision
Esau's Wives
The Ten Commandments
Inaugurating the Tabernacle
Moses Striking the Rock
The Death of Aaron

See Also: http://www.2think.org/hundredsheep/bible/dh.shtml

Believers almost always reject the documentary hypothesis because of it replaces infallible Divine authorship of the Bible and a cadre of human writers sometimes working at cross purposes. Religious Judaism is especially incompatible, since the Talmud often makes important scriptural exegetical derivations based on a single extra word or letter. They say that claiming multiple authors for the Bible is based on gross speculation, and there a degree of truth to that. Proponents of DH often have to invoke the actions of a later "redactor" to fix inconsistencies in particular theory. However, traditional authorities themselves often have to rely on strained ad hoc explanations to resolve contradictions and doublets in the Bible. It seems to me that the only way to believe that the Bible is the product of a single author is to start with that assumption and find a way to justify it with a creative reading of the text. In other words, an unbiased observer starting without a preference for either the Documentary Hypothesis or the Traditional explanation would likely conclude that although there is conclusive evidence for any one documentary theory, the premise is much more sound than belief sole author.