Who Wrote the Torah?

Who wrote the Torah?

In Exodus 20, we read of the Law being given by YHWH to Moses.  But who wrote the Torah, the so-called Five Books of Moses?  Tradition has that, like the law, all of it was written by Moses.  But the author is not identified in Scripture and there are numerous opinions, some traditional, some relatively new (that is, within the last two centuries.)

The Five Books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, were named in Greek, The Pentateuch (which means "five books".)  The term "Book of the Law of Moses" appears in Joshua 8: 31-32, but it is not clear what is meant there -- surely it is not the full Five Books?  The same term appears in Joshua 23: 6.  Although the Law is given at Mt. Sinai to Moses, it is not clear if he wrote additional material.  And at the end of the book of Deuteronomy we read of the death and burial of Moses.  Apparently the Talmud taught that that final paragraph was added by Joshua.

Those of us who believe the Torah is Scripture have no obligation to believe the traditional statements that surround this question. There is evidence of some editing done at a later stage, possibly when the five books were brought together to present to Israel.  Without appealing to Hebrew, one can see hints of this -- beyond the paragraph on the death of Moses -- when, in Genesis 34: 7,  the author (or editor?) write "Shechem had done an outrageous thing in Israel ... a thing that should not be done."  The phrase, "in Israel", which I have put in italics, jumps out as a statement about a nation, not a family.  The author/editor says, in Genesis 36: 31, in describing the descendants of Esau, "These were the kings who reigned in Edom before any Israelite king reigned."  The writer seems aware of kings reigning in Israel, a comment presumably made by someone at least as late as Samuel. 

There are numerous places in the Five Books in which an appeal is made to something that "remains to today." The tomb of Rachel, mentioned in Genesis 35: 20 is one of many examples.  The author knew of the locations of these places (such as Rachel's tomb) and so seems relatively close to her time.  This could have been written by Joshua or Samuel, some centuries later, for example.  (Later Old Testament books will have similar statements, displaying the authors' expectations of readers, at the time of the writing.)

The Documentary Hypothesis

One does not read far in a commentary on any of these five books before one learns of the more "modern" Documentary Hypothesis for the Pentateuch.  The documentary hypothesis, dating from the late nineteenth century, claims that the Pentateuch has four independent sources.  Two of the sources are distinguished by their name for God: the J (Jehovah) document uses YHWH as the name for God while the E (Elohim) source uses Elohim, the more generic Hebrew word for "God".  As we read through the Five Books, we will see that Deuteronomy repeats significant parts of the earlier books and so the documentary hypothesis claims a third writer, D, writing much of Deuteronomy.  A fourth writer, P, from the Priestly class supposedly focuses more on the liturgy and ritual of ceremonies and sacrifices.  The Five Books were then supposedly put together by editors ("redactors") into a common Hebrew manuscript.

The arguments for the Documentary Hypothesis often lean on subtleties in Hebrew words, subtleties in the word usage in one passage as opposed to the word usage in another. Although I do not read Hebrew, I recognize in this discussion -- from my life as a university professor -- the scholarly desire to pick apart any concept, at times ad nauseum, in a sequence of papers or doctoral dissertations. In some places this can be very beneficial. (I love Hubbard's discussion of the word hesed in his commentary on Ruth and Ime's discussion of YHWH's name in her class on Exodus.)  In other places, conjecture spirals into more conjecture, without clear insight (at least to me.)  

The Wikipedia article on the Documentary Hypothesis (see link above) claims that this view has now collapsed and that there are a number of more recent viewpoints on how the Five Books came together, either as an original coherent document with a little bit of editing, or as a number of documents compiled by an editor. Robert Alter (not a Christian, but a Jewish scholar) attacks the Documentary Hypothesis because, in his opinion, the Hebrew text shows more coherence than that hypothesis admits.

Authors and editors

The question, "Who wrote the Torah?" can easily be expanded to all of the Old Testament.  Who wrote the book of Ruth? Who wrote The Psalms? The Psalms show very clear evidence of compilation and editing; many editorial notes appear in the text of a psalm, just before the first verse.  

Similar questions arise in the New Testament -- the clearest example, requiring no knowledge of Greek, is the case of the first three Gospels, the Synoptic Gospels, presumably relying on a common source before they were written down.  John, in his Gospel, is aware of either that common source or (more likely) one of the other gospels, for he writes down important episodes that the first three writers left out!  Ah, but I digress ... let me return to the Old Testament...

Pointer to Messiah

I find all of the questions interesting but not deeply significant.  I have no obligation to support any particular viewpoint on Pentateuch authorship and the text does not make a claim.  I do intend to read the Old Testament with at least as much respect as I would give any historical document, that is, I assume it is relatively coherent and is a source for our understanding of historical events.  As a Christian, I assume that YHWH has, in these documents, a message for His People, using the Torah and later writings to point to the Jewish Messiah, Yeshua.  With that expectation, I find the writings moving and powerful ... and humbling.  I am immensely enjoying my study in the Old Testament!