From: "Heard, Christopher" <Christopher.Heard AT pepperdine.edu>
To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Author of the Torah
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 12:08:55 -0700
(By the way, my mail program seems not to use standard quoting
characters. I am not sure why and I will investigate, but I apologize
for any confusion.)
On Jul 29, 2005, at 10:55 AM, Gene Gardner wrote:
> I do believe that Moses wrote the majority of the
> Torah.
Okay, but the question "Why?" remains to be answered. As Jim
observed, albeit incompletely and with his own inimitable rhetorical
flourishes, the only things Moses is credited *in the text of the
Torah itself* with writing down are:
(1) The book of the covenant, giving כל־דברי יהוה [KL-DBRY
YHWH, "all the words of YHWH"] the most expansive possible reading
reasonable in the context of Exod 24:4 (although the phrase might
refer to something more immediate in the text, and much shorter,
namely the prohibition against going up the mountain per Exod 24:2).
(2) The ritual decalogue, according to Exod 34:27-28 (Jim missed this
one).
(3) The Israelites' itinerary from Egypt to Mount Hor, according to
Num 33:2 (Jim missed this one).
(4) The laws written in the book of Deuteronomy, according to Deut
31:9, 24.
(5) The "song of Moses," according to Deut 31:22.
(6) In Exod 17:14, God tells Moses to write down the (self-defeating)
words, 'I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under
heaven.'" The narrator declines to mention whether Moses actually did
so, though readers who assume that Moses did follow this instruction
may surely be indulged.
In brief, the point of this recitation is that out of 37 occurrences
of the verb כתב [KTB, "to write"], only eight or nine have
reference to Moses. The canonical form of the Torah, read as a
continuous narrative, ascribes to Moses *some* writing activity. Even
if we were to accept these narrative claims as reliable historical
testimony, we would still not be justified in inferring from those
claims that Moses also wrote the claims themselves, that is, that he
wrote the stories about him writing things down. In fact, I would
regard the third-person narrative technique to be quite strong
evidence that Moses did not write the Torah, not even the book of
Deuteronomy in its canonical form. Again, for the sake of this
analysis, assume that Moses wrote everything that Deuteronomy says he
wrote; the book is still presented in its canonical form within a
third-person narrative frame that distinguishes the author from Moses
himself.
There is other internal evidence that distinguishes the author(s) of
the Torah from Moses, but for now I will just stick to direct
statements about Moses' writing activity. The simple fact is that the
Torah does not contain any claim that Moses wrote it. The Torah does
contain claims that Moses wrote a few texts that are incorporated in
or served as some sort of source for the canonical Torah (and
important ones at that--the Book of the Torah isn't just a
"scribbling," Jim!), but even the most credulous possible reading of
these texts cannot support a claim for Mosaic authorship of the
canonical Torah as a whole, but only for a select few sources lying
behind the canonical Torah.
As for external evidence, like Jim, I don't put much stock by
traditional authorship ascriptions that are first attested centuries
after the text is likely to have been composed. There are, however, a
few lines in other parts of the Tanakh that probably ought to be
addressed.
(a) Joshua 8:31-32 refers to "the book of the law of Moses" and to
Joshua writing out a copy of "the law of Moses, which he had
written." The reference would appear to be to the book Moses is said
to have written according to Deuteronomy 31:9, 24, because Joshua is
carrying out instructions for the recopying of the law given by Moses
(Deuteronomy 27:8) and the quotation given in Josh 8:31 is a slightly
altered version of a phrase from Deuteronomy 27:5 (influenced by
27:6). The text of Joshua gives readers no reason to believe that
"the book of the law of Moses" corresponds to the canonical Torah.
Indeed, the (narrative) fact that Joshua writes the law on stones
suggests a relatively short text, especially since he first builds an
altar, then copies "the book of the law of Moses" *while the
Israelites stand there and wait*, then reads *every word* of the law
to the people. I don't think he could accomplish all that on one
occasion if "the book of the law of Moses" were the canonical Torah
(or even the canonical book of Deuteronomy).
(b) I suppose that "the book of the law of Moses" mentioned in Joshua
23:6 is either the source text or the copy-on-stones mentioned in (a).
(c) References to "the law of Moses" in 1 Kings 2:3; 2 Kings 14:6;
21:8; 23:25; 2 Chron 23:18; 25:4; 30:16; 33:8; 34:14; Ezra 3:2; 7:6;
Neh 8:1, 14; 9:14; 10:29; Daniel 9:11, 13 certainly show that Moses
was regarded as a great lawgiver--but we knew that already. In my
judgment, these verses do not have much evidentiary force in
determining authorship of the canonical Pentateuch, chiefly because
we cannot demonstrate that the "law of Moses" referenced in these
passages is identical to the canonical Torah. Moreover, only a few of
these passages mention writing or a book; several have phrases more
like "the law given through/by Moses" or "the law that the Lord
commanded Moses," etc., which removes these data even further from
the status of evidence for an authorship claim.
As far as New Testament quotations of the Torah, introduced using
Moses' name, are concerned, I regard these simply as standard methods
of introducing Torah quotations, not as "authorship claims." In any
event, Jesus only refers to Moses *writing* on two occasions, as far
as I can tell; one involves the levirate marriage law from
Deuteronomy 27 and the other is the enigmatic phrase in John 5:45
"Moses ... wrote about me." These are far from being explicit claims
that Moses wrote the canonical Torah.