The Origin & Authors of the Old Testament
The stories of creation, Adam and Eve, the fall of men and the flood are far older than the Pentateuch (first 5 books of the Old Testament). Let us have a look at some of the other ancient civilizations.
» The Persians God created the world in six days, a man called Adama and a woman called Evah, and then rested.
» The Etruscan, Babylonian, Phoenician, Chaldean and the Egyptian stories are much the same.
» The Persians, Greeks, Egyptians, Chinese and Hindus have their Garden of Eden and the Tree of Life.
» So the Persians, the Babylonians, the Nubians, the people of Southern India, all had the story of the fall of man and the subtle serpent.
» The Chinese say that sin came into the world by the disobedience of woman.
» And even the Tahitians tell us that man was created from the earth and the first woman from one of his bones.
Christians are quick to try to use these facts as “proof” that the biblical stories are true, but they refuse to consider the fact that the biblical writers could have copied and adapted these stories to fit into their specific religion. The bottom line is that Christians believe these stories, not on a basses of fact, scientific proof and collaboration, but because they “choose” to believe it through faith alone.
We know also that the story of the flood is much older than the book of Genesis. Almost all the stories in Genesis were copied from the “Chaldean”. There you find all about the rain, the ark, the animals, the dove that was sent out three times, and the mountain on which the ark rested. So the Hindus, Chinese, Parsees, Persians, Greeks, Mexicans and Scandinavians have substantially the same story.
All these stories of the other civilizations are equally authentic and of equal value to the world, and all the authors were equally inspired. The difference is that the stories of these other (older) civilizations are much older that that of the Pentateuch.
The Pentateuch
The first 5 books of the Old Testament are claimed by most Christians and Jews to have been written by Moses. But any proper educated pastor or minister knows that it is not true. Moses did not write any of the books of the Old Testament. If he did participate, it would have been only partially.
There are several variants of the claim that Moses wrote these books:
» Traditional Judaism and fundamentalist Christianity believe that the text was dictated by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, letter for letter (or pretty much letter for letter).
» Other religious groups still ascribe authorship to Moses, but use words like "divinely inspired" rather than "dictated letter for letter."
» Still others say Moses was the sole author, but there is nothing "divine" about it except in the sense that all great works of literature and poetry are "inspired."
Among the objections why Moses was not the author of the Pentateuch:
» Several stories are repeated, with different characters or different emphasis (called "doublets"). For instance, there are two different creation stories (Gen 1 and Gen 2). There are three stories of a patriarch travelling among pagans and pretending his wife is his sister. There are two stories of Moses striking a rock to produce water. There are two versions of the Ten Commandments (one in Exodus, one that Moses recaps in Deuteronomy) with slightly different wording. There are, in fact, many of these doublets.
» There are internal inconsistencies. The number of days of the Flood story does not add up right. At one point, Noah takes two of each animal; at another point, he takes two of some, seven of others. Joseph sold into slavery to the Ishmaelite in one verse, to Midianites a few verses later. The Mountain of Revelation sometimes called Sinai and sometimes Horeb. Moses' father-in-law sometimes called Yitro and sometimes Ruel, and so on.
These will be looked at in more detail later.
Mosaic authorship would mean the five books were written around 1280 to 1250 BCE, the most commonly accepted range of dates for the exodus from Egypt, give or take 30 years.
A few inconsistencies and contradictions throw a sceptical influence over the authorship of Moses. Scholars in late 18th century Germany noted that in most of the duplicated stories, one set described God using the Hebrew word Elohim (usually translated "God") while the other set tended to use God's four-lettered Name Y-H-W-H (usually translated "Lord," sometimes miscalled "Jehovah.") This gave rise to the theory that there were two different authors, one called E and one called J (German for Y), whose works were somehow combined to form a single text.
Later analysis of the grammar, vocabulary, and writing style provided evidence for two other authors; called P for the Priestly author (mostly Leviticus, and lots of the genealogy) and D for the Deuteronomist, since the book of Deuteronomy seemed different (grammatically and politically) from the earlier books. The multiple-author view has come to be called the "Documentary theory".
Richard E. Friedman "Who Wrote the Bible?" presents the best interpretation of the Documentary theory in his book. The following is a summary from the book. (Most dates are rough approximations):
1250 to 1000 BCE - Conquest of the land of Canaan begins before 1200 BCE, and the tribes of Israel form a loose confederation. The histories of the tribes of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses are told orally, handed down from generation to generation.
+/-1000 to 950 BCE - The tribes united under King David. The author J. writes many of the stories down. These stories describe the creation of the universe, the birth and history of the tribes and their special relationship with God. The stories have an intense focus on morality, on examples of behaviour, reward and punishment. Even the ancestral heroes depicted as having human faults and weaknesses.
920 to 722 BCE - Following the death of Solomon (around 920 BCE), the kingdom splits in two, Judah in the south with the royal capital at Jerusalem, and Israel/Ephraim in the north with major shrines at Shechem and Bethel. The J-stories primarily reflect the Davidic (southern) point of view. In the north, some stories begin to accumulate twists reflecting the political situation there. The stories from the south stress the importance of Jerusalem, Aaron and the priesthood, and the centralization of sacrifice. Those from the north are about sacrifices conducted anywhere and de-emphasize Aaron in favour of Moses. The essence of the stories remains the same but the details vary. In the north, the mountain of significance is Horeb, not Sinai, and greater emphasis placed on Joseph, his mother, and his son Ephraim (one of the largest of the northern tribes). In the southern version, Judah (head of the chief tribe of the south) saves Joseph from being killed by the other brothers; in the northern version, it is Reuben (head of the chief tribe of the north.)
The northern stories, let us call them E-stories, written down and become the E-document. Northern prophets such as Amos (2:9) and Hosea (12:2-6) use the E-stories in their messages to the people. By the eighth century BCE, then, we have two sets of stories, E-versions (northern) and J-versions (southern), both evolved from a single tradition.
722 BC - Israel is conquered by Assyria and the ten tribes of the north are scattered and exiled. Many refugees flee to Judah in the south. Although they are all Israelites, those from the north have somewhat different versions of stories from those in the south. Both texts viewed as ancient and sacred, so someone combines the two to form a single document, called JE. As they are sitting around hearing the consolidated story read, the people from the north hear familiar phrases and elements and say, yep, that is the story my grandpa told me, all right. The people from the south, ditto. The combined text helps the process of social integration and tribal distinctions disappear.
The JE version subordinates the E-stories to the J-stories, since Judah (the southern kingdom) was politically dominant. Some of the E-stories may have been lost at this time; there are not separate versions of all the stories. Perhaps in some cases there were not any differences. Perhaps the southern authors who combined the stories dropped northern variants they could not accept. We do not know, and some say the absence of a complete E-document is a weakness in the Documentary theory.
770 to 600 BCE - A third work appears, mostly concerned with Temple rites, sacrifices, priestly garb, genealogy (focused on the priestly tribe), etc. This identified as the P-document. The P-stories in all likelihood are very old and handed down from oral tradition. Arguably, many of them were compiled as a pro-Aaron response to the anti-Aaron slant of E. Where JE mentions God speaking to Moses, P mentions God speaking to Moses and Aaron. Where JE talks of the staff of Moses, P talks of the staff of Aaron. P accounts for the largest amount of text in the Torah, containing most of the legal sections, rules of sacrifice, genealogies, and priestly matters.
The dating of the P document is hotly debated among Documentary scholars. Some date P as late as Second Temple times (after 580 BCE), but we find Friedman's argument compelling, that it appeared in response to JE.
640 to 609 BCE – The reign of King Josiah. The book of II Kings (23:8-13) describes how a "lost" scroll of Moses was found by Halkiah around 622 BCE and read to King Josiah. Most scholars argue (based on internal evidence) that this was the book of Deuteronomy; in fact, this suggested by the early Church fathers, including Jerome. (Traditionalists usually say the entire written Torah had been lost, the people had strayed so far.) Deuteronomy largely recapitulates the other books, but also contains new material. The Documentary theory labels this last author D, the Deuteronomist.
The content of Deuteronomy is very old, although the literary style seems to be from the later period of Josiah. The D-author, in attributing the writings to Moses himself, certainly felt he was simply reviving Moses' teachings, as understood 600 years later. In much, the same way a modern biographer might put together a collection of the sayings of Thomas Jefferson for a modern audience.
So at this point, there are three different texts: JE, P, and D. There were doubtless other texts as well (Genesis refers to the "Book of the Wars of the Lord," for example) which are long lost.
587 to 536(?) BCE - The southern kingdom of Judah conquered by Babylon in 587 BCE. The people exiled for 50 years and then return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple and restore their religion. There is no longer a king of the line of David, but a high priest. The process is not easy. Other exiled peoples, assimilated by their conquerors and disappeared; the Israelites remained faithful to their homeland and their God, but the religion weakened by the exile, needed to be strengthened and consolidated.
+/- 450 BCE - This is perhaps the most remarkable part of the story, as the Redactor emerges on the scene. He sees the need for religious revival and renewal, for strengthening and centralization. So he combines the three documents (JE, P, and D) into one smooth flowing narrative, the five books of Moses.
The Redactor did lots of cutting and pasting. Genealogies that probably started all together in a P-text were interspersed throughout JE, acting as bridging material or section dividers. Materials that told the same story from pro-Aaron and anti-Aaron viewpoints (for example) were neatly woven together.
The Redactor was respectful of his sources and kept them largely intact. These were all sacred and ancient texts/traditions, so the Redactor presumably did not drop material, duplication was preferable to omission. Sometimes he combined the different texts; sometimes he left the two stories side by side.
The single document became the centre of the Israelite religion, under the prophets Ezra and Nehemiah. Authorship ascribed to Moses. This was not deception. The Redactor in all likelihood knew nothing of the prior 500-year history of authorship and honestly believed the material he was editing all handed down from Moses.
From 450 BCE on the document was unchanged. The oldest existing parchments, the Dead Sea scrolls, date from around 100 BCE. They are almost word-for-word identical to the versions we have today (although there are occasional transcription errors, most so small only an experienced scholar would notice them).
No one knows who wrote these documents. Just a few basic examples are that towns mentioned, did not exist when Moses was alive. Money mentioned, was not coined until centuries after Moses death. What scholars know is that the first five books were not written in the same generation and by default not by the same person. Let us have a quick look at the authors of the other Old Testament books. The Jews did not know themselves which of the books of the Old Testament were inspired or authentic until, they made a decision, the second century after the death of Christ! The idea of “inspired scriptures” had a slow growth and that those with an agenda determined the inspiration theory.
