Did Moses Author the Pentateuch?

1. Did Moses Author the Pentateuch?

2. Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677) • He was a Jewish pantheist • The laws of nature are immutable. • Miracles are impossible. • Prophecy is evidence of God supernaturally intervening. • Therefore, nothing is truly prophetic in the Pentateuch. • Moses did not write the Pentateuch.

3. Outline: • Ancient Jewish testimonies to Mosaic authorship • History of the Documentary Hypothesis • Some critiques of the Documentary Hypothesis • A defense of Mosaic authorship

4. Exodus 24:4: • “And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord.”

5. Deuteronomy 31:9: • “Then Moses wrote down this law, and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and to all the elders of Israel.”

6. Deuteronomy 31:24-26: • “When Moses had finished writing down in a book the words of this law to the very end, Moses commanded the Levites who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying, ‘Take this book of the law and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God; let it remain there as a witness against you.”

7. Joshua 1:7-8: • “Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to act in accordance with all the law that my servant Moses commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, so that you may be successful wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it.”

8. Joshua 8:30-31: • “Then Joshua built on Mount Ebal an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel, just as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded the Israelites, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, ‘an altar of unhewn stones, on which no iron tool has been used’; and they offered on it burnt-offerings to the Lord, and sacrificed offerings of well-being.”

9. Joshua 23:6: • “Therefore be very steadfast to observe and do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, turning aside from it neither to the right nor to the left…”

10. 1 Kings 2:3: • “And keep the charge of the Lord your God, walking in his ways and keeping his statutes, his commandments, his ordinances, and his testimonies, as it is written in the law of Moses, so that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn.”

11. Mark 12:26-27: • “And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the story about the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is God not of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong.” • Exodus 3:6: “He said further, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’” 

12. Luke 24:44: • “Then he said to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’”

13. Josephus, Against Apion 1.8.38-39: • “For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from and contradicting one another [as the Greeks have] but only twenty-two books, which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine; and of them five belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind until his death.”

14. Philo of Alexandria, On the Creation 6.26: • “Moses says also, ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth’”.

15. Reasons for Rejection of Mosaic Authorship: • The Pentateuch contains information Moses “could not possibly have written” • Parallel accounts or “doublets” • Different literary styles • Different divine names for God

16. The Documentary Hypothesis: J,E,D, and P Dates • J (around 850 B.C.) • E (around 750 B.C.) • D (around 622 B.C.) • P (around 570 B.C.)

17. Jean Astruc (1753 ) • He argued that Moses had combined two documents in the creation account in Genesis since Astruc observed Gen. 1 called God Elohim and Gen. 2 mostly called God Jehovah.

18. Johann Gottfied Eichhorn (1780-1783) • In his Introduction to the Old Testament Eichhorn applied J and E to the rest of Genesis in addition to chapters 1 and 2. • He also attributed different sections of the first two chapters in Exodus to J and E.

19. Willem Martin Lebrecht De Wette • He equated Deuteronomy with the “D source”. • He speculated that Deuteronomy was the legal code that the high priest Hilkiah discovered in the Jerusalem Temple during King Josiah’s reform (2 Kings 22).

20. Heinrich Ewald (1823) • In The Critical Investigation of the Composition of Genesis he argued that many idioms and expressions recur throughout Genesis, illustrating a general unity of perspective and style within Genesis. • Ewald promoted the Supplementary Hypothesis, which is different from Eichhorn’s old Documentary Hypothesis • Ewald argued that only one original document, E, emerged between 1050 and 950 B.C. • J’s author made additions and supplements to E, but J’s author also left the E content mostly unaltered when he combined his work with E.

21. Hermann Hupfeld (1853) • He challenged the Supplementary Hypothesis • He proposed the Modified Documentary Hypothesis instead: a hypothetical redactor rearranged J and E material found in Genesis through Numbers. • Hupfeld also divided E into E1 and E2. • E2 consisted of material that closely resembled J and E1 included content that did not match elements in J. • The E1 document later became known as the P document.

22. Karl Heinrich Graf (1866) • Argued that P (Priestly Code) contained legal material that postdated D since D allegedly betrays no familiarity with P’s legal code. • Graf thought P did display knowledge of J and E. • Graf dated P’s legal material to the time of the Exile (587-539 B.C.), but he considered the historical sections of P to be much earlier. • He placed the documents in the following chronological order: historical P, E, J, D and lastly, the legal aspects of P.

23. Abraham Kuenen • Contended that P’s legal content could not be severed from its historical portions. • Kuenen concluded that all of P was post-exilic. • The new order resulting from Kuenen’s revision was: J, E, D, and P.

24. Julius Wellhausen (1876,1878) • Developed the New Documentary Hypothesis. • His version of the Documentary Hypothesis was rooted in both Darwinian evolutionary-based philosophy and George Hegel’s philosophy of history. • Wellhausen applied evolutionary thinking to the Hebrew religion by believing animism was the earliest form of religion that gradually evolved into monotheism by the post-exilic period.

25. Julius Wellhausen Continued… • He also tried to prove there was a progression from simple legal codes and religious rituals to more complex legal codes and rituals. • He concluded that the portions of the Pentateuch that convey elements of monotheism, complex legal code and complex religious rituals must date to a considerably later date.

26. George Hegel’s View of History • Hegel was well-known for his philosophical view of dialecticism. • Allan MacRae summarizes Hegel’s philosophical view of history by explaining Hegel’s dialecticism is: • “the idea that you find a certain force active in history and then an opposing force arises and this will result in a synthesis between the two.”—Allan A. MacRae, JEDP: Lectures on the Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch (Hatfield, Pennsylvania: Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute, 1994), 112.

27. Hegel’s Philosophy and the Pentateuch • This principle was applied to the Pentateuch by supposing that the J document was authored by someone living in Judah, who was writing in opposition to the kingdom north of Israel’s establishment.

28. G. Herbert Livingston Explains: • “The purpose of J, then, was to provide Judah with a ‘historical’ document that would justify Judah’s and Jerusalem’s claim to be the governmental center of all Israel. Likewise, E would be the antithetical production of the kingdom of north Israel, led by the tribe of Ephraim, to show that there were historical antecedents in the Patriarchs and in Joshua for the governmental center to be located in the north.”—G. Herbert Livingston, The Pentateuch In Its Cultural Environment (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1974), 228.

29. Assuming Hegel’s Philosophy is Applicable to the Pentateuch: • Some unknown individuals around 650 B.C. decided to combine the J document with the E document, because they believed E was too useful to lose. • The JE document was the result, and the D document was believed to have been the JE’s opposition. • Eventually, the D document’s views emerged victorious and some priests in the Babylonian exile purportedly produced the P around 400 B.C.

30. Wellhausen’s Views Concluded • Finally, the P document was used as the framework for creating the entire Pentateuch. • Wellhausen arranged the documents in the same chronological order as Graf: J, E, D, and P. • Many Old Testament scholars persist in relying on Wellhausen’s ideas.

31. 20th Century Scholars Express Doubts About Wellhausen’s Ideas • Hans Heinrich Schmid and John Van Seters argue that J needs to be redated • Although Wellhausen believed J was the earliest source, these scholars contend that J was probably written during the exilic period or even later. —Ernest Nicholson, The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Julius Wellhausen (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 132.

32. Was “P” a Real Source? • In his monograph Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (1973) Frank Moore Cross argues that P should be viewed as more of a redaction than a source.—Antony F. Campbell & Mark A. O’ Brien, Sources of the Pentateuch: Texts, Introductions, Annotations (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 10. • Cross makes his case by claiming P omits key narrative material that is found within Genesis (humanity’s rebellion against God before the Flood), and that these omissions should not occur if P was a separate source.”—Ernest Nicholson, The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century, 200.

33. Was “P” a Real Source? • Erhard Blum concurs with Cross that P was not an independent source, but Blum did not consider P to have been a source or a redaction.—Ernest Nicholson, The Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century: The Legacy of Julius Wellhausen (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 202.

34. The Documentary Hypothesis’s Faulty Presuppositions and Assumptions

35. John Van Seters Concludes: • “The use of the term redactor in the discussion of the creation or production of new literary works in antiquity is an anachronism.”—John Van Seters, The Edited Bible: The Curious History of the “Editor” in Biblical Criticism (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 21. • In other words, the mechanism of textual development that higher critics rely on for their treatment of the Pentateuch is an anachronism.

36. Wellhausen’s Faulty Evolutionary Presuppositions • “His evolutionary presuppositions have been largely rejected as has his supposition that the documents reflect more the times of their writing than the time they were writing about.”—Henry J. Flanders, Jr., Robert W. Crapps, David A. Smith, People of the Covenant: An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible. Fourth Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 87.

37. Was the Israelite Religion Really “Primitive”? • Archaeologist and Near Eastern scholar C. H. Gordon challenged the Wellhausen assumption that Israelite religion and culture were initially primitive. • In lieu of his study of Ugaritic material, Gordon realized that the residents of Canaan prior to the Hebrews possessed a considerably advanced culture. • Thus, Gordon’s findings revealed that advanced culture was not the product of a gradual movement from primitive to more complex religions and cultures.

38. Was the Israelite Religion Really “Primitive”? • Wellhausen and his followers assumed that the laws within the Pentateuch were far too advanced for a group of wandering nomads to have contrived. • Consequently, they reasoned that later, more sophisticated authors living during the Israelite kingdom and exiles compiled the legal material.—G Herbert Livingston, The Pentateuch In Its Cultural Environment, 175.

39. Higher Critics’ Anti-Supernatural Bias • Higher Critics a priori reject the possibility that God was the original author of the Mosaic laws. • The ancient Hebrews’ ability to develop a complex law code system is irrelevant if one grants that God could have been the true author.—R. J. Thompson, Moses and the Law in a Century of Criticism Since Graf (Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1970), 41.

40. Other Ancient Law Codes • Archaeology has revealed that law codes resembling the law content in the Pentateuch were prevalent among ancient civilizations scattered throughout Mesopotamia and that at least some of the law codes predated the time of Moses. • The Code of Hammurabi (circa. 1728 B.C.), which was discovered in 1901, manifests laws similar to the laws within the Pentateuch.—G. Herbert Livingston, The Pentateuch In Its Cultural Environment,173.

41. Other Ancient Law Codes • King Urukagina of Lagash’s fragmentary laws (circa. 2380 B.C.) • The code of Bilalama of Eshnunna (circa. 1925 B.C.) • Hittite laws.—G. Herbert Livingston, The Pentateuch In Its Cultural Environment, 174.

42. The “Impossibility” of Mosaic Authorship? • Josephus, Philo, the Talmud, the Mishnah, and Jesus all believed Moses wrote the Pentateuch.—R. K. Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament, 497.

43. Egyptian Cultural Elements in the Pentateuch • If Moses and the Israelites were in Egypt prior to an exodus, one would expect to find traces of Egyptian culture preserved in the Pentateuch. • Egyptian practice of embalming the dead is referenced in Genesis 50:2. • There is an allusion to the Egyptian practice shaving in Gen. 41:14.—David MacDill, The Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch, 137.

44. The Pentateuch Contains Some Egyptian Names • Asenath, Moses, and Potipherah. • Asenath, Joseph’s wife’s name, has an Egyptian origin. • The name Moses contains the Egyptian word for son, mes or mesu. • Potipherah, the name of Joseph’s father-in-law, translates as gift of the sun.—David MacDill, The Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch, 193.

45. Moses Couldn’t Have Written Numbers 12:3? • Richard Friedman highlights Num. 12:3, which states: “Now the man Moses was very humble, more so than anyone else on the face of the earth.”—Richard E. Friedman, The Bible with Sources Revealed: A New View into the Five Books of Moses (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2003), 261.

46. Response: • William H. Green pointed out that if Paul could write “I labored more abundantly than they all,”: . . . it is altogether insupposable that Moses, who frankly relates his own backwardness towards to obey God’s call (Ex. iv. 10 ff.), his neglect to circumcise his child (vers. 24-26), and the sin which excluded him from the Promised Land (Num. xx. 12), should refer with equal impartiality and in no boastful spirit to the unexampled meekness displayed by him under circumstances of extraordinary provocation . . .”

47. Date of Green’s Response: • William Henry Green, Moses and the Prophets: The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, by Prof. W. Robertson Smith; The Prophets and Prophecy in Israel, by Dr. A. Kuenen; and The Prophets of Israel, by W. Robertson Smith, LL. D. Reviewed by William Henry Green (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1883), 61.

48. “Moses Wouldn’t Have Written in Third Person” • “It is well known that many of the classical authors, both Greek and Roman,—Xenophon, Thucydides, Julius Caesar, and others,—speak of themselves in the third person.”—David MacDill, The Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch: Defended Against the Views and Arguments of Voltaire, Paine, Colenso, Reuss, Graf, Kuenen, and Wellhausen (Dayton, Ohio: W. J. Schuey, Publisher, 1896), 31. • The first century AD Jewish historian Josephus wrote in the third person in his work The Jewish War.

49. Jeremiah and Isaiah Wrote in the Third Person • All the way back in 1883 William Henry Green emphasized that even other Biblical authors, such as Jeremiah and Isaiah, wrote in the third person. • D.H. proponents acknowledge that historical figures named Isaiah and Jeremiah wrote at least some portions of the books bearing their names.

50. Isaiah Wrote in the Third Person • Critics such as Henry J. Flanders, Robert W. Crapps, and David A. Smith all concur that the historical Isaiah wrote chapters 1-12, 13-23, and 28-31.—Henry J. Flanders, Jr., Robert W. Crapps, David A. Smith, People of the Covenant, 366. • Isaiah, therefore, wrote in the third person in: • Isaiah 1:1 • Isaiah 2:1 • Isaiah 7:3 • Isaiah 13:1 • Isaiah 20:2.