Did Moses really write the first few books of the bible?

[T.J.]

It's always been a popular belief that Moses wrote, if I remember correctly, the first five books of the bible. But a documentary I watched at Larned said that the Jews didn't even begin writing the bible until after their exile by Babylon, so how could Moses have written the first five books if the bible didn't even start until years later when Babylon fucked their shit up? Or did they mean that was when the books, already written, were included in a single structure called the bible?

[Angrboda]

Given the anachronisms in them, it's more likely that the Priestly authors combined oral accounts with new material to justify their hegemony.

[Mister Agenda]

Abraham and Moses are amost certainly fictional characters, as are probably most or all of the rest of the OT characters. They're oral traditions combined with mythmaking to give the Hebrews in captivity a grand history where God always helped them overcome their trials.

[T.J.]

Abraham and Moses are amost certainly fictional characters, as are probably most or all of the rest of the OT characters. They're oral traditions combined with mythmaking to give the Hebrews in captivity a grand history where God always helped them overcome their trials.

That makes sense. I wasn't sure if there was any evidence that a Moses ever existed or not. I'm not even sure if there's evidence that Jesus even existed, but most places I go to seem to assume that he was real. Just not the son of God.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Assuming that Moze was a real person, and further assuming that he was literate enough to write, and still further assuming that he is responsible for writing the Torah, he could not possibly have written the last chapter of Deuteronomy, since it describes his death, burial and eulogy. Since we know there’s bits of it he couldn’t possibly have written, it’s a stretch to assume he wrote any of it.

Also, the Torah parts concerning Moze are all written in the third person. If he wrote it himself, why?

Boru

[Jehanne]

Outside of Christian fundamentalist schools, I do not know that any scholar, believer or otherwise, holds to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch.

[Anomalocaris]

Assuming that Moze was a real person, and further assuming that he was literate enough to write, and still further assuming that he is responsible for writing the Torah, he could not possibly have written the last chapter of Deuteronomy, since it describes his death, burial and eulogy. Since we know there’s bits of it he couldn’t possibly have written, it’s a stretch to assume he wrote any of it.

Also, the Torah parts concerning Moze are all written in the third person. If he wrote it himself, why?

Boru

The combination of megalomania and narcissism?  A desire to portray how he would like himself to be seen as an objective authoritative fact rather than a mere claim?   That an hagiographic account of a person known to be very full of himself is written in the third person is certainly no strong evidence that he didn’t write it himself.   Caesar for example wrote of himself consistently in the third person in the Commentarii de Bello Gullico.

[Soberman921]

Check out "Who Wrote the Bible" by Richard Friedman for an in depth discussion of this, but as stated above, the overwhelming consensus of biblical scholars agree the Pentateuch was not written by Moses or any single author but represents a compilation of the works of several authors and one or more redactors weaving the disparate stories into what appears a cohesive whole.

[T.J.]

Check out "Who Wrote the Bible" by Richard Friedman for an in depth discussion of this, but as stated above, the overwhelming consensus of biblical scholars agree the Pentateuch was not written by Moses or any single author but represents a compilation of the works of several authors and one or more redactors weaving the disparate stories into what appears a cohesive whole.

Cool. I didn't know that before. I wonder how many people accepts the belief that Moses wrote the Pentateuch?

[Soberman921]

It's church tradition so probably quite a few of the faithful. But among critical scholars I would say none. The evidence against it is simply too overwhelming. There's also the problem that so much of what these books relate is strongly rebutted by the archeological record. For example, we have no evidence for a historical Exodus which if it had indeed been a historical event would have left clues everywhere.