Was the Torah written around 1400–1200 BC by Moses as tradition says or is the Torah written much later between 1000 BC-500 BC and is a work that has multiple authors like many modern scholars believe? That is the question we will be taking a look at in this post. To remind my readers, the Torah is the first five books of the Bible. Those books are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Both in Judaism and in Christianity, it is traditionally believed that Moses wrote the Torah.
However, modern scholarship generally does not hold to this view. A lot of modern scholars hold to a theory known as the documentary hypothesis. The documentary hypothesis states that the Torah is a collection of different sources that have been compiled into one work. Scholars typically identify four sources of material that have been formed into the Torah. Those four sources often are seen as originating long after the time of Moses and the Exodus. These four sources are identified as Jawist, Elohist, Deuteronomy, and Priestly. I will link a New World Encyclopedia article about the documentary hypothesis here.
Both the traditional and modern views have their assumptions. The traditional view is working on the assumption that God exists and miracles can happen and so Mosaic authorship of the Torah is quite plausible. The modern view has a more secular view behind it. That view is that we should do academic subjects such as science and history with the assumption that God should not be invoked as an explanation and that miracles can’t happen. Since the Torah is all about God and is filled with miracles, modern scholars that work with a more secular framework reject the traditional view that Moses wrote the Torah. Indeed, many modern scholars and historians doubt whether or not Moses existed and whether the Exodus story actually happened. In a future article, I plan on looking at whether the Exodus happened or not. So, the documentary hypothesis seeks to understand the creation of the Torah in a more naturalistic sense. It sees the stories, customs, and traditions of the Torah as slowly evolving throughout the centuries in ancient Israel and finally being compiled into one text between 500–400 BC.
It should be noted, that most scholars who do still hold to the traditional view, believe that scribes have added bits and pieces and clarifications to the Torah. There can be no question that there are at least some scribal additions to the Torah. A good example of this can be found in the following scripture (Deuteronomy 34:5–6 NIV)“5 And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said. 6 He buried him in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is.”
Obviously, this portion of the Torah had to be written by someone other than Moses, since Moses wouldn’t be recording the details of his death and burial. So, it is clear that at least some portions of the Torah are not original with Moses, but someone writing later than Moses. So, the question remains, was the majority of the core content of the Torah written by Moses, or was it totally the work of later writers long after the time of Moses? What evidence do both sides present other than their assumptions?
The main evidence given by the proponents of the documentary hypothesis is that there are stories in the Torah that bear many similar events and circumstances to other stories in the Torah. For instance, Abraham in Genesis 12 lies to Pharaoh about Sarah being his wife. Abraham does the same thing in Genesis 20 to a Canaanite king. Abraham’s son, Isaac, lies also about his wife to a Canaanite king as well in Genesis 26. These similarities are supposed to demonstrate a Hebrew legend that has evolved and branched out into separate legends and these separate legends are now being compiled into one text. Another piece of evidence is that the Torah uses different words for God in the text. In some places, the Hebrew word Elohim is used and in other places, the Hebrew word Yahweh is used. This is again supposed to point to separate authors who used different words for God.
So, what about those who advocate for the traditional view? What evidence do they provide to demonstrate that Moses wrote the Torah? Most of the evidence provided is meant to demonstrate that the Torah can be dated around 1400–1200 BC. For instance, the Torah accurately gives the common price for a slave during the second millennium BC. James Hoffmeier wrote “When Joseph was sold to the traders, the cost is specified as twenty shekels of silver (Gen. 37:28). The shekel was a weight, not a coin, in the second millennium BC. Twenty shekels would have been around 9 ounces (260 g). As it turns out, this is the average price of a slave during the first half of the second millennium BC. In the second half of that millennium, the cost went up to thirty shekels, and in the early first millennium it shot up to fifty shekels.” (Hoffmeier, James Karl. The Archaeology of the Bible. Oxford: Lion, 2008. 46.)
It seems pretty unlikely for someone writing in 800 BC to get right what the average price of a slave was in 1700 BC. Another piece of evidence that is often given is that Deuteronomy is in a form of a treaty that was common in the Late Bronze Age but fell out of use by the first Millennium BC. Here is a link that goes over this in more detail. Again, this points toward the Torah being written during the lifetime of Moses (somewhere between 1400–1200 BC).
One more piece of evidence that is given for Mosaic authorship is that the Torah contains more Egyptian loan words than the rest of the Bible. Here is another link that details this. This could possibly support the idea that Moses (born, raised, and educated in Egypt) wrote the Torah and that the Hebrews really were enslaved in Egypt.
So, how does the traditional view react to the evidence that the more modern view brings to the table? They tend to focus on showing that the evidence demonstrates a unified Torah, rather than a Torah that is a sloppy compilation of various sources. For instance, in Exodus when the Hebrews are at Sini, instructions are given to build the tabernacle and at the end of the book, the tabernacle is built. In Leviticus, the priests inaugurate the tabernacle and begin their ministry in it. In Exodus, the Hebrews arrive in Sini, and in Numbers, they leave the Sini. This shows there is a very linear and unified aspect to the Torah and seems to refute the idea that scribes were collecting various, differing sources and compiling them into one text. As to the different names of God, the traditional view sees the different names detailing certain aspects of God’s nature. Yahweh would be speaking of God’s personal nature and His nature of being faithful to the covenants He makes with His people.
So, in the end, can we demonstrate and prove that Moses wrote the Torah? No, but there is good evidence that demonstrates that the Torah was written during the time of Moses and evidence that the writer(s)of the Torah used more loan words from Egyptian than any of the other Biblical authors. This means that the evidence certainly leaves the door wide open for the possibility of Mosaic authorship rather than closing the door on Mosaic authorship. I plan next on writing on the historical reliability of the Bible, as we take a look at the next batch of books in the Bible.
