Did Moses write the Torah?

[lee_merrill]

Source: Reasons to Believe

The notion that Moses actually lived and wrote the first five books of the Bible has long been rejected in academic circles and is now being increasingly questioned among conservative Old Testament (OT) scholars. However, since Mosaic authorship is the traditional view of the church, it would be unwise for Bible believers to reject Moses’s involvement in the production of the Torah (or Pentateuch, the first five books). Indeed, while the Torah probably did not come into its final form until the sixth century BC, there are at least five good lines of internal evidence suggesting that Moses (thought to have lived around the fifteenth century BC) authored the Torah.

(Parts 1 and 2 here and here)

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They then give five reasons to subscribe to Mosaic authorship of the Torah, for example:

Source: Reasons to Believe

Lot lifted up his eyes and saw all the valley of the Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere—this was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah—like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt as you go to Zoar. (Genesis 13:10, NASB)

This passage implies that its author and his readers/hearers knew what Egypt was like, but were not very familiar with Palestine. It is difficult to see how or why a tenth century BC (or later) author, living in Palestine and writing to an audience born and raised in the land of Israel, would want to express himself in this way. However, this text makes sense if Moses wrote to a primarily Egyptian-born audience. In this connection, the author of Genesis tells his readers about “the city of Shechem in Canaan” (Genesis 33:18). Why would a postexilic (after 538 BC) writer, or even a writer living in tenth century (BC) Palestine, feel the need to explain what Shechem—one of the most prominent cities north of Jerusalem—was?

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Blessings,
Lee

[Faber]

That sorta narrows it down to about 603,550 possibilities. (Numbers 1:44-46)

[lee_merrill]

That sorta narrows it down to about 603,550 possibilities. (Numbers 1:44-46)

Well, the fifth reason is that there is evidence that Moses, not someone else, wrote the Torah.

Source: Reasons to Believe

The Pentateuch itself, at least implicitly, tells us that Moses wrote the entire Torah. Quite a few passages within the Torah list Moses as their author. For example, we are told that Moses “wrote down all the words of YHWH” (Exodus 24:4). Then we see that Moses took “The Book of the Covenant” and read it to the people of Israel (Exodus 24:7).

Source

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Blessings,
Lee

[Faber]

Maybe he did. Or at least a major part of it. Maybe Moses was extensively quoted by somebody else. Maybe Joshua. But I definitely would hesitate to say that Moses wrote his own obituary.

[lee_merrill]

But I definitely would hesitate to say that Moses wrote his own obituary.

Probably not! And (as they say) it does seem to have been edited to bring the grammar up-to-date, except for the poetry.

Blessings,
Lee