Who Wrote the Pentateuch?

1
Who Wrote the Pentateuch?
2
Was Moses the Author?

• By the time the First Testament was canonized
  (AFTER the beginning of the Christian movement),
  it was generally held that Moses was the author
  of all five books of the Torah.
• Suggestions to the contrary were dismissed or met
  with hostility until the 1800s.
• Currently, most scholars do not think Moses wrote
  all five books and would question whether he even
  wrote very much of any book.
• What is the evidence from the texts themselves?

3
Textual evidence for Mosaic authorship

• Some texts in the Torah and the rest of the
  Jewish Bible say that Moses wrote some narratives
  and a legal code. (Exodus 1714, 244, 3427-28
  Numbers 332, Deuteronomy 319, 24-26 Joshua
  831-34, 1 Kings 23, 2 Kings 146, 2 Chronicles
  2318, 2 Chronicles 254, 2 Chronicles 3512,
  Ezra 618, Nehemiah 81, Nehemiah 814, Nehemiah
  131).
• None of these texts say that Moses wrote all or
  even most of Genesis-Deuteronomy.

4
Later Jewish Tradition and the New Testament

• The practice of attributing everything in these
  books to Moses in Jesus day does not necessarily
  mean that anyone knew this for a fact or stopped
  to think about whether the attribution was fully
  accurate.
• This was a way of telling people where they could
  find the text being quoted.
• Jews, Jesus (who was a Jew, of course) and early
  Christians did assume that Moses (and Gods!)
  authority lay behind all of these texts.
• That is not an historical claim but a theological
  one.

5
Problems with assuming that Moses is the
author anachronisms and contrasting doublets

• There are a number of anachronisms
• Moses is always referred to in the third person.
• Would the most humble of men, the humblest man
  on earth (Numbers 123) write that about
  himself?
• Deuteronomy repeatedly uses the phrase to this
  day (e.g., 314 346).
• How did Moses recount his own death and burial,
  in the past tense?
• Whoever wrote about Moses death seems to write
  in the same style as the rest of Deuteronomy and
  later books (Joshua through 2 Kings).
• Never since has there arisen in Israel a prophet
  like Moses (Deuteronomy 3410) sounds like an
  assessment made after other prophets arose.
• Genesis repeatedly mentions at that time the
  Canaanites were in the land (e.g., 126 137),
  which implies that they are no longer there at
  the time of writing (but they were there before
  the Israelites occupied Canaan).
• Passages refer to lands east of the Jordan as
  beyond the Jordan (Genesis 5010 Numbers 211)
• Genesis refers to kings who ruled before any
  king reigned over the Israelites (Genesis
  3631).

6

• Besides anachronisms, there seem to be a
  considerable number of doubletsstories or
  laws that are repeated in the Torah, sometimes
  identically, more often with notable
  differences in detail Richard Elliot Friedman,
  The Bible with Sources Revealed (San Francisco
  HarperSanFrancisco 2003), p. 27.
• Friedman lists 31 doublets (sometimes triplets).
• Well look at three.

7
Genesis 1-2 seems to have two versions of
creation, with different names for God and a
different order of events.

• Genesis 1
• Elohim
• Six days
• Heavens and earth (heaven focused)
• Creates by speaking
• Follows a blueprint
• Plants
• Animals
• Humans male/female

• Genesis 2
• YHWH Elohim
• One day
• Earth and heavens (earth focused)
• Works with hands, breath
• Improvises
• Human (adhamearthling?)
• Plants
• Animals (possible spouses!)
• Splits human into male/female

8
Genesis 6-8 seems to interweave two flood stories
which make perfect sense, but dont match, when
separated by the name used for God.

• Version 1
• Elohim
• Unemotional
• One pair of every animal
• Noah/family enter ark on the same day the flood
  begins
• Flood lasts 150 days

• Version 2
• YHWH
• Sorry about creating humans
• Seven pairs of all clean animals/birds one pair
  of all unclean animals
• Noah/family enter ark seven days before the flood
  begins
• Flood lasts 40 days

9
There seem to be actually three versions of the
crossing of The Red Sea (Yam Suf), which hang
more or less together when separated (Exodus
1317-1431)

• Version 1
• YHWH
• Israelites flee
• Pharaoh responds
• Egyptians pursue
• A pillar of cloud stands between Israel the
  Egyptians
• Sea pushed back from shore by a wind
• Egyptians thrown into panic
• Egyptians flee onto dry seabed are drowned when
  the sea returns

• Version 2
• Elohim
• Israelites permitted to leave
• Pharaohs Egyptians minds are changed
• Egyptians pursue
• Angel of Elohim stands between Israel and the
  Egyptians
• Nothing happens to the sea.
• Angel clogs Egyptians chariot wheels they cant
  pursue (but are not killed)

• Version 3
• YHWH
• Israelites leave
• YHWH hardens Pharaohs heart
• Egyptians pursue
• Moses splits sea, creating a path with walls of
  water on both sides
• Egyptians pursue Israelites into the path
• Moses closes sea, drowning the Egyptians

10
Parting the Sea One of THREE Versions?
11
The Documentary Hypothesis Stage 1

• To account for the anachronisms and these
  contrasting doublets (and triplets), scholars
  eventually came up with The Documentary
  Hypothesis.
• In the 1700s three scholars, working
  independently, noticed a pattern Many of the
  doublets used a different name for God in each
  version (YHWH, Elohim).
• This led to the distinction between the J and E
  sources. J stands for JHWHthe German spelling.

12
The Documentary Hypothesis Stage 2

• Scholars still found doublets in E (e.g., the
  crossing of Yam Suf), so, following the same
  logic, they hypothesized a third source.
• They noticed that some of the doublets in E were
  preoccupied with priests, so they used that to
  distinguish a Priestly source, P, from the rest
  of E. It includes almost all of Leviticus.
• Then scholars noticed that this scheme seemed to
  be making more sense of Genesis-Numbers, but not
  of Deuteronomy, which seemed to have its own
  independent style, so they hypothesized a fourth
  source, D.

13
The Documentary Hypothesis Stage 3

• This still did not account for everything (e.g.,
  God is called YHWH Elohim in Genesis 2 3, but
  nowhere else in the entire Pentateuch), but
  scholars could always attribute anomalies like
  that to one or more Redactors (i.e., editors).
• After all, somebody had to weave these sources
  together.

14

• J the Jahwist. J describes a human-like God
  called Yahweh who speaks directly to people. J
  has a special interest in Judah and in the
  Aaronid priesthood. J has an extremely eloquent
  style. J uses an earlier form of the Hebrew
  language than P.
• E the Elohist. E describes a human-like God
  initially called Elohim, and called Yahweh
  subsequent to the incident of the burning bush.
  In E God tends to communicate through dreams. E
  focuses on the northern kingdom of Israel and on
  the Shiloh priesthood. E has a moderately
  eloquent style. E uses an earlier form of the
  Hebrew language than P.
• P the Priestly source. P describes a distant
  and unmerciful God, sometimes referred to as
  Elohim or as El Shaddai. P partly duplicates J
  and E, but alters some details, and also consists
  of most of Leviticus. P has its main interest in
  an Aaronid priesthood and in King Hezekiah. P has
  a low level of literary style, and has an
  interest in lists, precise measurements, and
  dates.
• D the Deuteronomist. D consists of most of
  Deuteronomy. D probably also wrote the
  Deuteronomistic history (Josh, Judg, 1 2 Sam, 1
  2 Kgs). D has a particular interest in the
  Shiloh priesthood and in King Josiah. D uses a
  form of Hebrew similar to that of P, but in a
  different literary style.

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Friedmans Assessment (p. 28)

• The different names of God in contrasting
  doublets were the starting point for the
  hypothesis. But the most compelling case comes
  from the convergence of other patterns which were
  later noticed.
• When we try separating contrasting doublets
• This also results in the resolution of nearly
  all the contradictions.
• The name of God divides consistently in all but
  three out of more than two thousand occurances.
• The terminology of each hypothesized source
  remains consistent within that source. Friedman
  lists 24 examples of terms which are consistent
  through nearly four hundred occurances.
• This produces continuous narratives that flow
  with only a rare break.
• The Hebrew of each source fits consistently with
  what we know of the Hebrew of each period from
  archeology.

17
Friedmans assessment (continued)

• Therefore
• The most compelling argument for the hypothesis
  is that this hypothesis best accounts for the
  fact that all this evidence of so many kinds
  comes together so consistently.
• To this day, no one known to me who challenged
  the hypothesis has ever addressed this fact.
• In fact, Friedman argues, no scholar is clever
  enough to make all the evidence line up in this
  way.
• So it cannot be dismissed as, say, a secular
  humanist conspiracy of scholars setting out to
  find the results they wanted to find.