RE: Who Wrote the Torah?
January 15, 2015 at 12:37 pm
(This post was last modified: January 15, 2015 at 12:38 pm by Minimalist.)
There is a difference between composition and writing. I lean to the concoction of oral tales in the Persian period based on various bits of local folklore and elements borrowed from Babylon. As Philip R. Davies suggests in "In Search of Ancient Israel" the primary function of the religion was to give legitimacy to the newly-arrived Persian overlords. There would have been no compelling need to reduce any of it to writing given the small population/geographic area involved and like many religions the priest class would have jealousy guarded their knowledge. It seems that it was the Greeks who let the cat out of the bag by copying down these oral traditions in what we now know as the Septuagint in the 3d century BC.
It was not until the mid 2d century BC that any recognizable independent jewish state began to form in the region which may have made use of written texts and that seems to be when we get all the rest of the nonsense being scribbled down.
It was not until the mid 2d century BC that any recognizable independent jewish state began to form in the region which may have made use of written texts and that seems to be when we get all the rest of the nonsense being scribbled down.
