Who Wrote The Pentateuch?
Posted by Francesco Scinico on Saturday, October 27th, 2007
(11 votes, average: 4.82 out of 5)
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“The Bible is a complex book, written by more than forty authors over a period of 1,500 years”
A complex book like the Bible has always been subject to analysis and criticism. It was inevitable since it is a very complex and articulated book written by more than forty authors over a period of fifteen centuries. Furthermore, it is a book approaching many different aspects of life: philosophy, poetry, eschatology, prophecy, history, and above all, faith. Biblical scholarship arose because the Bible is a book written by human beings narrating human experiences and transcendental aspirations. We have presented two branches of biblical scholarship, the traditional Jewish and Christian one, and the one known as historical criticism; the latter gained ground and visibility in the nineteenth century and advanced thought-provoking theories and hypotheses on the biblical text. We have examined one of its conjectures, that is, that the five books of the Pentateuch or Torah, traditionally attributed to Moses, are to be ascribed to various authors covering a span of time of many centuries and thus reflecting different social and historical outlooks and frames of reference.
The Pentateuch is known as the “Book of the Law,” and many of these laws are repeated more than once, thus sowing doubts in the mind of the reader regarding possible repetitions, discrepancies and inconsistencies.It must be said that the postulates advanced by the documentary hypothesis are compelling and provoking, but however fascinating the theories elaborated within the historical criticism, it is our opinion that a multiple authorship of the five books of the Torah, written over a long span of time, generates more problems than it resolves.
Even critical scholars admit that some of their conclusions are in the realm of hypotheses. For example, one of the main reasons behind the documentary hypothesis is that it is possible to recognize two separate authors, or schools of authorship, (J and E), for the first four books of the Pentateuch, based on the fact that each one calls God with a different name. But, at a certain point, E starts calling God with the same name used by J. Why? It is controversial, and none of the answers are really satisfactory.
“Even critical scholars admit that some of their conclusions are in the realm of hypotheses”
Also, why are there so many similarities between J and E? The style is similar, the terminology is similar, the stories narrated are similar. How to explain this? And why were they merged into a single text? Some critical scholars answer that keeping the two texts separated after the re-union of the to kingdoms in 722 B.C. would challenge the authenticity of both. But a fusion of the two versions would not solve the problem. On the contrary, up to that moment, the peoples of the two kingdoms had been accustomed to listening to their received texts as written in a certain way, and suddenly these texts were pasted with a skillful work of scissors by a redactor. Such a fusion of the two versions would have produced a weaker, and not a more authoritative, text.
Moreover, why should the people of Judah have accepted the text coming from the northern kingdom of Israel? J in Judah and E in Israel had spent decades writing a text downgrading the other kingdom’s leaders and traditions. It seems unlikely that when the Israelites came to Judah as refugees fleeing from a conquered kingdom, Judah gladly and lightheartedly accepted a fusion of its sacred text with the one of its rival kingdom.
Also, since the documentary hypothesis requires a redactor, who did not seem to be overly worried about apparent contradictions, why do we discard the possibility that a single author might have been similarly unconcerned? And if the latter possibility is not discarded, could we assume that these contradictions are intentional, stylistic contrivances? And if this is the case, could these alleged doublets, contradictions and discrepancies not be themselves evidence of deeper unity and design? Why, rather than look for such unity and design, do we suppose that the redactor was unable to recognize such difficulties, which indeed were discussed in the Talmudic literature at least two millennia ago?
© 2007 Francesco Scinico
Works Cited
Dake, Finis Jennings. The Dake Annotated Reference Bible. Lawrenceville: Dake, 1999.
Friedman, Richard Elliot. Who Wrote the Bible? New York: Harper Collins, 1987.
Plaut, Gunther W. The Torah, A Modern Commentary. New York: U of American Hebrew Congregations, 1974.
Rofé, Alexander. Introduction to the Composition of the Pentateuch. Sheffield: Sheffield P, 1999.
Tanakh, The Holy Scriptures. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1985.
Tigay, Jeffrey H. et al. The JPS Torah Commentary. 5 Vols. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1996.
Technorati Tags: Bible,Moses,Julius Wellhausen,Historical Criticism,Pentateuch,Torah,who wrote the Bible,authors of the Bible
Filed in Faith |
Frank,
Your initial post obviously provides some logical arguments. There may be a slight misspelling where you identify E (because he calls God ELHOIM) which is spelled ELOHIM.
One would be hard-pressed (and your examples didn’t cross that line) to state Moses was not responsible for at least part of the Pentateuch as our Lord said “Moses gave you circumcision, John 7:22 and Acts 15:1, which is given in Genesis 17. Since creation myths are basic to pagan religions, it’s natural that Moses would have included the creation account opposing the pagan myths.
Jesus said, “Moses … wrote of me” (John 5:46). Jesus explained to His disciples on the road to Emmaus what the scriptures said about Him “beginning with Moses” (Luke 24:27). The Pentateuch itself tells of Moses decisive contribution to it: he wrote the great legal case, the Book of the Covenant (Ex. 24:3-7) and the exposition of the law recorded in Deuteronomy (Deut. 31:24-26).
As time has moved on since the theory of “J”, “E”, “D”, and “P”, additional historical findings has diminished the number of followers to the “several author” concept. In fact, it’s possible that the editors themselves may have collected and arranged earlier materials.
Moses probably used literary sources such as those clearly identified in places like Gen. 5:1 and Num. 21:14. In other places they may be inferred by identifiable literary styles like Gen. 1:1-2:3 and Gen. 2:4-25. In later times prophets who succeeded Moses in mediating God’s authoritative word (Deut. 18:15-20) kept the text up-to-date linguistically and historically, adding some material such as Gen. 36:31 and Moses obituary (Deut. 34:1-12).
Since Jesus decided not to completely tackle the thought that Moses wasn’t responsible for the Pentateuch and at least parts of the Pentateuch claim (along with tradition) that Moses is the author, for the time being I rest the subject there. I know for certain that the ultimate author of the Pentateuch is God and wheather Moses’ hand was in the five books or not, the truth is those pages is on solid ground.
Dad
Good points, Dad. It’s unfortunate that the academic environment is still stuck on those old theories. They might be a thing of the past in the real world, but colleges teach them to this day. Thank you.
I have never given much thought to such things because I have always had faith that the ultimate authorship of the divinely preserved Word of God as read in the King James Bible as being God Himself. But I have heard comments and seen inferences to these critical examinations of the texts and read about their conclusions. I classify such things into the same circular file as the false sciences, which also teach contrary to that very word. The truth is that they are not really interested in the truth at all. Their only goal is to discredit the possibility that there is a God that they must answer to. The Bible probably does not credit the writer for just this reason. It is accepted by those who received it as the very Word of God and if we are to be children of that God then this is also how we should receive it.
So in short, I really appreciate your labors and I highly commend the scholarly effort involved in this study. I hope that it persuades some that have lost faith in the true authorship of the bible to flee this error imposed by men after the traditions of men. But for me personally I do not care how many men it took to write or to preserve God’s Words. But I believe that all true history and science will prove itself out by that Word.
Lee,
“… All true history and science will prove itself out by that word”. That is a very fitting (and strong) end to your post remarks. Amen to that.
Many people appreciate, and buy in to, your belief that the King
James Version is God’s special authorized version. I believe that God’s Word is totally infallible in the original Greek and Hebrew writtings and the manuscipts that followed are very accurate (prior to the King James Version). Copying by scribes was done with great care in those days and because the text was regarded as sacred, the copyists were extremely painstaking.That said I believe the KJV is extremely accurate. And personally while I enjoy the KJV, I’m starting to lean more towards the English Standard Version. You probably have noticed I’ll use the ESV on most of my MySpace posts.
Below are a couple thoughts from the ESV website; http://www.esv.org/translation/philosophy.
The ESV is an “essentially literal” translation that seeks as far as possible to capture the precise wording of the original text and the personal style of each Bible writer. As such, its emphasis is on “word-for-word” correspondence, at the same time taking into account differences of grammar, syntax, and idiom between current literary English and the original languages. Thus it seeks to be transparent to the original text, letting the reader see as directly as possible the structure and meaning of the original.
In contrast to the ESV, some Bible versions have followed a “thought-for-thought” rather than “word-for-word” translation philosophy, emphasizing “dynamic equivalence” rather than the “essentially literal” meaning of the original. A “thought-for-thought” translation is of necessity more inclined to reflect the interpretive opinions of the translator and the influences of contemporary culture.
Lee, the old English of the KJV makes me stutter a bit (not in a tongue,
) and, at times, results in me missing or misunderstanding the text flow; the ESV is kinder to my ignorance 
. But you know what? I’ve used the KJV for so long I’m comfortable with it when another translation causes someone else to get uptight.
One more cut-n-paste, this time from Wikipedia.com. Sola scriptura (Latin ablative, “by scripture alone”) is the assertion that the Bible as God’s written word is self-authenticating, clear (perspicuous) to the rational reader, its own interpreter (”Scripture interprets Scripture”), and sufficient of itself to be the final authority of Christian doctrine.
I believe the King James Version is covered by the definition above, but not exclusive in its’ standing as God’s only authorized word put into the English language. For His people who are English speaking, there are a few acceptable versions on the market today. Peace.