Subject: Authorship of the Torah
Date: 16 Feb 1999 07:09:21 GMT
From: Chris Ho-Stuart <>
Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian

[note a change of subject line. Was previously: To Nigel and Greg, love
one another, or something similar]

The Torah, also called the Pentateuch, consists of the first five
books in the bible.

At the outset, let me say that I am not out to change the mind of
those who are likely to be major participants in the thread. I do
not think that is a likely outcome, and will be content to have the
various questions and answers aired so that the general readership
may know more of the debate.

Les Brown <> wrote:
> Chris Ho-Stuart <> wrote in
> aus.religion.christian:
>
> >Excuse me for ruining a good joke... I can't resist pointing out that
> >the tradition that Moses wrote the verse in question, although a well
> >established tradition, is not a biblical tradition. The verse is from
> >Numbers, which is an anonymous work. It is recognized by all serious
> >scholars as not written by Moses; the only exceptions are those who
> >require as a matter of doctrine that Moses is the author of the Torah.
> >This doctrine is not from the bible.
>
> There are serious bible scholars of all shades. I'm not sure about the
> Christians, but the Jewish scholars were convinced of the Mosaic
> origins of Numbers as divinely inspired and written. It was not a
> matter of doctrine, it was a matter that was constantly tested and
> proved by scholars over 3,300 years as well as the Oral Torah..
> Wellhausen and others could only claim such critical examination for no
> more man 250 years and it's still evolving!
>
> The Jewish approach is different and provable, so I am told. I have
> never gone down this alley before and would welcome the opportunity to
> explore it.

There is no one "Jewish" approach. Opinion amongst Jewish scholars,
whom I hope to cite extensively as the thread progresses, is
pretty much as I have already described.  Mosaic authorship has a
large amount of traditional support; but there is effectively no
credible scholastic support from Jewish scholars who publish and
study at a postgraduate level in generally accredited institutions.

The claim of Mosaic authorship for the Torah (and the claim
for 3,300 years of continuous scholarship, for that matter) is
a strictly traditional view without evidential support. It is
defended primarily as a default which can be trusted if prevailing
academic views are discredited.

The newsgroup where this issue is usually discussed is
soc.culture.jewish. Reading the threads will quickly demonstrate
that there is no one Jewish position.

> Now, if you're willing, I'd seriously like to continue this debate.

I am indeed willing, particularly since you have joined. An
informed Jewish input is very relevant to this debate. Thanks.

You speak of the modern approach being only 250 years old and
still evolving. This is, of course, quite true; the same can be
said for modern approaches to most disciplines in science and
history. There remains a great deal of debate within academia on
the details, and there will never be unanimity on every point.
However, over time the academic community has reached something
approaching consensus on broad details.

The mainstream consensus is that the Torah retains evidence of
earlier sources from which it is derived. These early sources
were written during the monarchy from the time of David up to the
exile, and combined into their present form as a single unified
document possibly during or after the exile.

We will need to bear in mind several distinct positions. First,
there is the classic JEPD model. In this model there are four
sources pre-dating the current form of the Torah. J (Yahwehist)
is the oldest, dating perhaps to the time of David or Solomon.
E dates from the later monarchy, possibly the time of Jeroboam,
and quite possibly never existed as a distinct document from J.
The Priestly source (P) reflects concerns of a Priestly class
in the later monarchy, and Deuteronomy (D) is a fourth document,
possibly from the time of Josiah.

This model is often credited to Wellhausen, who was the most
influential of a group of German scholars who first proposed
this division in the nineteenth century, including Vatke, Reuss
and Graf.  Wellhausen gave the most detailed exposition of the
model, but his own original contribution was mostly concerned
with dating the early sources; dates which are now generally
considered much too late.

Within this academic mainstream there are many areas of dispute.
For example, in the early days there was a rather wild trend to
splitting up the sources still further, so that J1, J2 and J3,
E1, E2, S, L, etc have been proposed. Such comprehensive splitting
does not have strong support at present.

The trend seems to be in the reverse direction. It is now widely
considered that E never existed as an independent document: and
we should speak of J followed later by the combined document JE.
On the other hand, it is recognized that there was a wide body
of traditions and sources in use, and that the major JEPD strands
may incorporate material from older shared traditions. A trend to
de-emphasize the splitting of the Torah into sources, and to focus
on the entire edifice is sometimes mistaken as a return to the
notion of a single author: care needs to be taken to distinguish
an emphasis on cohesion and the hypothesis of single authorship:
they do not necessarily go together.

Another area of ongoing dispute is the matter of dating of the
sources.  It is not hard to find quotes from respected academics
stating views such as "Wellhausen's documentary hypothesis is
dead", or something of the sort. These statements usually refer
to the details of Wellhausen's formulation, especially his late
dating scheme, which has indeed been superseded.

The existence of J, E, P and D strands representing four distinct
writers at different times continues to be the general view for
authorship of the Torah by the vast majority of academic scholars,
Jewish scholars most definitely included.

It is not hard to find some fairly drastic criticism of the
JEPD model. Names frequently cited in this respect include
Jewish scholars Umberto Cassuto, Isaac Kikawada, Benno Jacob and
others. These are all rather dated; I am hoping for some more
modern references from others as this thread progresses. There
are two important points to bear in mind. First, these scholars
do argue against the documentary hypothesis, but they do not
present Mosaic authorship as the alternative. None of them accept
the simple tradition of Mosaic authorship, which is dead in the
water as far as serious scholarship is concerned. Second, these
scholars have not been persuasive. Time has not vindicated their
efforts, and (as far as authorship of the Torah goes) their views
are now little more than historical curiosities.

> I say I have a tradition that is old and well proven that all the Five
> Books of Moses that we all know as the Pentateuch, that far from it
> being anonymous, Numbers was written by Moses who was divinely
> inspired and who had revealed to him, what was to be written. That is
> my position. It is based upon the fact that the Pentateuch is an
> interlocking work; that you cannot remove one book without destroying
> the meaning of the others. If there is another author, not Moses, he
> would have had to have written the other four books as well.

Caution there: the Torah is most definitely anonymous. This
should not even be a matter of debate. You concede as much with
your last sentence, where you speak of the notion that there was
some other single author. The Torah nowhere names its author,
which makes it, by definition, an anonymous work.

Your primary concern seems to be with the unity of the Torah, and
then secondly with Moses being a single author. Is this correct?
These are two questions.

On the subject of Mosaic authorship, there were questions raised on
this subject long ago. The most obvious difficulty is the record
of Moses' own death at the end of Deuteronomy. The traditional
view is either that Joshua wrote the last eight verses: or the
Moses wrote them prophetically "with tears in his eyes". However,
there are many other similar problems, some of which have been
known for centuries, and have been used even in antiquity to argue
that the Torah includes some minor editorial changes subsequent
to the time of Moses.

In Genesis 14:14, we hear of Abram pursuing four kings to Dan.
However, in Judges 18:29 we learn than the town was renamed from
Laish to Dan after the time of Moses. This is not necessarily a
contradiction; Genesis was plainly written after the time of Abram
and so it is fair to use names (like Dan) which were familiar to
readers rather than were used by Abram himself. However, the use
of "Dan" shows that the intended audience for Genesis was after
the time of Moses.

In the same way, Deuteronomy 3:13-14 describes allocation by
Moses of land for Manasseh. The text includes a fairly obvious
descriptive passage which is an insertion into Moses' own words,
and which mentions that Jair of the tribe of Manasseh captured
certain villages in the allocated land. However, Jair actually
captured the villages in question after the time of Joshua. See
Judges 10:3.

The first six verses of Deuteronomy introduce a great final speech
by Moses. The Torah gives the time and the place for the speech,
speaking always in the third person, before going on to recount
the words of Moses himself. In this introduction, the place
of the speech is described as "beyond the Jordan". This phrase
(which appears also in Genesis 50:10, and Deuteronomy 4:47) is
from the perspective of a reader to the west of the Jordan, a
region which Moses never reached.

The list of Edomite Kings in Genesis 36:31-39 begins by stating
that these Edomite kings lived before there were any kings
in Israel.  There would be no point in writing such a qualifier
unless it was written after there were kings in Israel.

A similar clue in Genesis 12:6 is the phrase "At that time the
Canaanites were still in the land". This is useful information
only after the Canaanites were not in the land -- which was after
the time of Moses.

Deuteronomy 3:11 is another obvious editorial inclusion, inserted
into the words of Moses, describing the coffin of King Og of
Bashan.  King Og had been killed in Numbers 21:33, shortly before
the time of Moses' last farewell. However, in Deuteronomy 3:11
we are told that the coffin of Og can be seen in a certain city
"to this day".  This is information addressed to people who see
the defeat of Og as history; not to people who had just recently
defeated him!

Deuteronomy is largely written as words spoken by Moses, always
prefixed by "Moses said", suggesting a third biographer. More
significantly, the text attributed to Moses is interspersed with
many such asides directed to later readers from time Deuteronomy
was written down in its present form. Most bibles place such
inclusions in parentheses, to set them apart from Moses' own words.
Many of these passages show that the anonymous biographer wrote
some time after the land had been settled.

Note carefully -- none of the examples above are presented as
problems or errors in the bible. The question at issue here is
only when the text was written. The examples show it was written
after the time of Moses, a view which is entirely in accord with
the biblical witness.

On the subject of unity: let me mention briefly one example. The
ten commandments are recorded three times in the Torah. The
references are

Exodus 20:1-17

Exodus 34:1-28

Deuteronomy 5:1-21
In comparing the passages, we can look at the similarities, or we
can look at the differences. A complete view looks at both. The
hypothesis that these passages were written at different times
and by different writers does not deny that they are all part of
the Torah.

> Your position is that it was written by one (or more?) writer (s), not
> divinely inspired, and you can base it on the
> following................

I do not consider the matter of whether of not the author(s)
were divinely inspired.

I limit myself to two claims. First, the Torah was put together in
its present form substantially after the time of Moses. Second, the
present form of the Torah is derived from the work of more than
one human writer. I do not wish to defend or dispute the matter
of inspiration for those who were involved in writing the Torah.

Cheers -- Chris

Subject: Re: Authorship of the Torah
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 08:42:22 GMT
From:  (Nigel B. Mitchell)
Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian

In <>, Chris Ho-Stuart
<> wrote:

>I limit myself to two claims. First, the Torah was put together in
>its present form substantially after the time of Moses. Second, the
>present form of the Torah is derived from the work of more than
>one human writer. I do not wish to defend or dispute the matter
>of inspiration for those who were involved in writing the Torah.

Thanks for the excellent work you put into this post, Chris. I think
you have erred on the side of caution and conservatism in some of the
points you have made, but overall you have provided an excellent
summary or the scholarly consensus on the authorship of the Torah. 

I do not think that anyone would seriously argue against the
proposition that someone other than Moses was the final editor of the
Torah. The passages you listed which descibe events after Moses'
lifetime illustrate this very well. The question for Biblical scholars
is -  when was the final edition of the Torah complied, and by whom?

Most people would put the return from the Babylonian Exile, about 500
years before the time of Jesus, as the date of the final editing and
compilation of the Torah. In the JEDP scenario of Wellhausen et.al,
this corresponds to "P". The Priests of the second temple compiled,
edited and published Israel's sacred history in the form which has
survived to this day. When, where and by whom the earlier source
documents were written is much less clear than Wellhausen led us to
believe. Much of it was probably written in the court and Temple of
the David/Solomon dynasty. Some of it may even date back to Moses
himself. 

FWIW, I am also quite confident that the final editors, and probably
the other contributors as well, were inspired by God.

cheers

N+

Nigel B. Mitchell