The Five Books of Moses(?)
The first five books of the Bible are known as the Torah or the "Five Books of Moses". This is kind of funny.
Did Moses write these books? Amazingly, I still run into some who believe this. Curious about this myself, I checked out a book at the local library titled, Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Elliot Friedman. Much of what you will find on this page I learned from that book. See the appendix from his book HERE, which shows which source produced each verse.
Credit given where it is due, let's see what we can learn about the process of discovery:
Scholars who had encountered problems in the Bible set out to examine the Bible in greater detail. It was believed for the first few centuries of the common era that any possible problems perceived in the Torah were made clear through extensive examination & interpretation. They believed that Moses was a prophet and was able to write about things that should have been unknown to him, and that these understandings answered any possible questions.This held up for centuries.
But in the eleventh century, a Jewish court physician in Muslim Spain named Isaac ibn Yashush publicly presented a problem that he felt was unreconcilable. He pointed out that a list of Edomite kings appearing in Genesis 36 named leaders who lived long after Moses had died. He suggested that this had been written by someone who lived after Moses. For this statement, he was later known as "Isaac the Blunderer".
The man who pinned this label on ibn Yashush was a 12th century Spanish rabbi named Abraham ibn Ezra, who suggested that ibn Yashush's book should be burned. Ibn Ezra, however, had doubts of his own as could be found in his writings. He alluded to a probable "alternate" author who wrote about Moses in the third person, described places that Moses had never been to, used terms that Moses would not have known, etc. He was not willing to make this claim outright though, for he wrote, "And if you will understand, you will recognize truth." He also wrote in reference to the same, "And he who understands will keep silent."
In fourteenth century Damascus, the scholar Bonfils accepted ibn Ezra's theory, but not the admonition to remain silent. In pointing to ibn Ezra's works he stated, "And this is evidence that this verse was written in the Torah later, and Moses did not write it; rather one of the later prophets wrote it." He still thought that it had been written by a prophet, but not Moses. Three and a half centuries later, his work was reprinted with this reference deleted.
In the fifteenth century, Tostaus, a bishop of Avila, said that certain passages must have been written by Joshua, Moses' successor. He overlooked the fact that many of the passages that he had made reference to had been written exactly like others that he credited to Moses.
In the sixteenth century, a Flemish Catholic named Andreas Van Maes pictured an original text written by Moses that later writers expanded. He suggested that an editor had inserted phrases, changed location names to the more modern names so it could be better understood by it's readers. Van Maes' book was immediately put on the Catholic Index of Prohibited Books.
Eventually the statement was made that Moses did not write the majority of the Pentateuch. Investigators concluded this outright with the first to say it being the Brittish philosopher, Thomas Hobbes in the seventeenth century.
Four short years later, a French Calvinist named Isaac de la Peyrère also said that Moses was not the author of the first five books of the Bible. He noted problems such as the usage of the words, "across the Jordan" in the beginning of Deuteronomy. The problem as seen by de la Peyrère was that "across the Jordan" seems to be written by someone who was in Israel or on the west side of the Jordan River. But Moses was not supposed to be in Israel in his life.
De la Peyrère's book was banned and burned. He was arrested and told that the condition of his release was that he recant this "blasphemy" and apologize to the Pope. He did.
Around the same time as de la Peyrère, the Dutch philosopher Spinoza published a critical analysis of the Pentateuch. He not only brought forth the same ideas presented in previous examinations, but also made a couple of newer examinations. First, that "the humblest man on earth" was not likely to make such a claim of himself as Moses would have had to had he witten these five books. Second, that it is written in Deuteronomy 34, "And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the lord knew face to face." Spinoza remarked that these were clearly the words of one who could see other prophets and make this comparison.
Spinoza remarked, ".....clearer than the sun at noon that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses, but by someone who lived long after Moses." Spinoza had been excommunicated by Judaism prior to this, and this work assured the enmity of the Protestants and the Catholics, as well. His book was also placed on the Catholic Index and 37 edicts were issued against it within just the first six years of its being published. An attempt was also made on his life.
Not long after this in France, Richard Simon, a protestant who had converted to Catholicism and became a priest, wrote a book intending to be critical of Spinoza. He made the assertion that the bulk of the Pentateuch was Mosaic, but there had been some later additions. He said that these additions were made by scribes, who Simon believed to be prophets guided by the divine spirit. He saw his work as a defense of the sanctity of the biblical text.
Simon's peers were not willing to accept the notion that any part of the Five Books were not from Moses' hand. Simon was attacked by his fellows and expelled from his order. His book was placed on the Catholic Index. Forty books, wriiten by Protestants, were published with arguments against Simon's book. Of the thirteen hundred copies of Simon's book printed, all but six were burned.
In the 18th century, three investigators arrived at similar conclusions on something that was later coined as a "doublet". A doublet is the same story being told twice. It was believed until then that the reason that there were often two stories was to teach us a lesson by any apparent contradictions. The doublets were viewed as complementary and not repetitive, and were without contradiction when examined closer.
Some examples of doublets are the two stories of the Creation, two stories of the flood, Abraham's covenant with God, the changing of Isaac's name, etc.
This was believed until it was discovered that in the cases of these doublets one always referred to the divinity as Yahweh (YHWH mispronounced Jehovah) and another simply as God (Elohim in Hebrew). After further investigation, it was put forth that there were other terms and characteristics that regularly appeared in one or the other group.
The three investigators responsible for this discovery were a German minister ( H.B. Witter), a French medical doctor (Jean Astruc), and a German professor (J.G. Eichhorn). It was primarily believed that the doublets were originally two sources that Moses wove together in his own words. Ultimately it was deemed that these had to be written after Moses had lived.
This theory was short lived for by the beginning of the 19th century another theory was put forward that there had been at least four authors! Two scholars found that in some cases that there are not only doublets of stories, but that there are also some triplets! And a German scholar, W.M.L. De Wette observed that Deuteronomy was amazingly unique in the language that it used. He put forth the theory that Deuteronomy was a fourth source, and this theory was accepted.
So, if we accept that there were four sources, there certainly must have been someone who put all of these together. Was it one of the four authors? This was not accepted for it became the common theory that there had been a redactor, or editor.
The five sources became identifiable thusly: J source, or Jehovah/Yahweh source. E source or God (Elohim) source. The P source, or Priestly source, which is the largest work including most of the laws. The D source, or Deuteronomy source, being the source found only in Deuteronomy. And the R source, or the Redactor, who is responsible for tying the four sources together by adding a verse here and there.
Can this be proven? Is there any way to know for sure who wrote these books, and when they did it? Can we know with any certainty? Many will answer this with a resounding "YES". I strongly disagree with this answer. I strongly say, "NO, we have no possible way to know the answers to these questions for sure." All we can do is look at the previous studies, and our own wisdom and knowledge to make our own assumptions. With the rest of the 66 books of the Bible, not only is the information presented suspect, but so are the sources.
That being said... let us begin.