LECTURE 1: Did Moses Write the Bible
In this lecture, I’ll tackle one of the oldest answers to the question “Who wrote the Bible?” For millennia, people have wondered if Moses wrote it. This was a tradition of long standing and remains the answer for some. But if, as most scholars now believe, Moses did not write the Bible, then who did? Could the Bible itself be a source for clues to its own formation?
God vs. Moses Writing the Law
Exod 31:18 and Deut 31:9
I mention that there are some laws that seem to regulate the same cases but with different prescriptions—another piece of evidence that the Bible is made up of different layers of tradition. Compare, for example, Exod 21:6 and Lev 25:40.
Moses is not described much as a writer, but there are some references to him writing in Exod 17:14, 24:4, 34:28; Num 33:2; Deut 31:9, 22. And there are references to “the Law of Moses” in Josh 8:30–31, 2 Kgs 14:6, Ezra 3:2.
Here’s the link to the Gallup poll that I mention at the start of Lecture 1.
Here’s the side-by-side comparison of the two Genesis creation accounts I mention in Lecture 1.
The scholarly project of identifying the sources of the Torah is known as source criticism. You can learn more about it here.
Speaking of sources, in other portions of the Bible, the Bible actually cites its sources, not that these have ever been found. Joshua refers to “the Book of Yashar” (Josh 10:13), for example, 1 Kings refers to “the Books of the Annals of the Kings of Israel” (1 Kgs 14:19), and so on. Since these have never been found, they may be fanciful, like a student boosting footnotes to show that this is a quality research paper, but, in any case, it shows that ancient authors were not reluctant to work with other sources.
Here’s a visual aid to help distinguish the sources of the Pentateuch.