Am I right in saying that turning to the Documentary Hypothesis as evidence for their claim is an odd idea, or is the Church nowadays welcoming of the DH, so there's nothing wrong there?
I offer this as to where the Church stands on the DH theory only.
With the rise of historical criticism, scholars began to use the doublets and inconsistencies as clues to different authors and traditions.
By the late nineteenth century, one theory of the sources of the Pentateuch had been worked out that proved acceptable in its main lines to the majority of scholars (apart from Christian and Jewish conservatives) then and now.
It can be quickly sketched. In the premonarchic period of the Judges (ca. 1220–1020 B.C.), the twelve tribes had an oral form of their story from creation to the taking of the land. With the beginnings of monarchy in the late eleventh and tenth centuries, the oral material was written down, being known as the Yahwist account (from its use of the divine name Yhwh). Its abbreviation, “J,” comes from the German spelling of the divine name. In the following century, another account took shape in the Northern Kingdom (called E after its use of Elohim as a divine name); some believe the E source is simply a supplement to J. After the fall of the Northern Kingdom in 722/721 B.C., the E version was taken to Jerusalem where it was combined with the J version to produce J-E. During the exile (conventionally dated 587–539 B.C.) or thereafter, an editor recast J-E to make it relevant for the exiled population. This editor is conventionally known as P (= Priestly) because of the chronological and ritual interests apparent in the work. P can also designate archival material and chronological notices. The audience for the Priestly edition no longer lived in the land and was deeply concerned about its survival and its claim on the land.
Deuteronomy (= D) stands alone in style, genre (preaching rather than narrative), and content. How did it come to be the fifth book of the Pentateuch? The J-E narrative actually ends in Numbers, when Israel arrives at the plains of Moab. Many scholars believe that Deuteronomy was secondarily attached to Numbers by moving the account of Moses’ death from its original place in the J-E version in Numbers to the end of Deuteronomy (chap. 34). Deuteronomy was attached to Genesis–Numbers to link it to another great work, the Deuteronomistic History (Joshua to Kings). Deuteronomy is now the fifth book of the Pentateuch and the first book of the Deuteronomistic History.
The ”P” document was the last of the traditions to be put into written form. It contains the legal traditions of the Jerusalem priesthood and is generally held to have been composed from very ancient sources, attaining its present status sometime in the sixth century. Possibly as late as the 5th century an editor fused into one the “P” document and the already fused “JB” documents. To this combination of “JEP” was appended the “D” document making a diatesseron of four documents “JEPD”.
As such, if their argument genuinely hinges on
Genesis 1:28 being a minority judgment or polemic of "P", then it's kind of - "
and? So what? It's divinely revealed as given anyway, no matter if you're right about how it's composition came about".
Fill the earth and subdue it: the object of the verb “subdue” may be not the earth as such but earth as the territory each nation must take for itself, just as Israel will later do. The two divine commands define the basic tasks of the human race—to continue in existence through generation and to take possession of one’s God-given territory. The dual command would have had special meaning when Israel was in exile and deeply anxious about whether they would continue as a nation and return to their ancient territory. Have dominion: the whole human race is made in the “image” and “likeness” of God and has “dominion.” Comparable literature of the time used these words of kings rather than of human beings in general; human beings were invariably thought of as slaves of the gods created to provide menial service for the divine world. The royal language here does not, however, give human beings unlimited power, for kings in the Bible had limited dominion and were subject to prophetic critique.
Gen 1:29
According to the Priestly tradition, the human race was originally intended to live on plants and fruits as were the animals, an arrangement that God will later change in view of the human inclination to violence.
