Graf, Karl Heinrich

(1815–69)

   Theologian.

   Graf was educated at the Protestant Seminary at Strasbourg and was a student of Edouard Reuss. He himself earned his living as a school-master. He came to the conclusion that the Pentateuch grew out of several earlier sources including P, a priestly document composed after the Babylonian exile. His theory was developed by Julius wellhausen, the biblical critic, who explained his ‘documentary hypothesis’ in his Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel published in 1883. Graf’s contribution to the theory was particularly important because it showed that neither the Book of Deuteronomy nor the Deuteronomic histories had any knowledge of the Priestly Code. The whole theory is often known as the ‘Graf–Wellhausen’ hypothesis.

   R.E. Clements, A Century of Old Testament Study (1983);

   W. Rogerson, Old Testament Criticism in the Nineteenth Century (1984).