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Started this article, because the phrase "Mosaic authorship" is mentioned ni quite a few articles dealing with biblical scholarship but the article describing it does not exist.
The term 'Mosaic authorship' would seem to be a mistake because nobody believes that Moses authored the Bible; Jews, Christians and Muslims all believe that the authorship is Divine. Moses merely transcribed the Torah — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:6500:A043:47F9:5464:7345:968A:9E2B ( talk) 10:14, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
This has been written off the top of the head and is intended simply to scetch the broad outline of what the article needs to cover. Please feel free to amend, improve, add references, etc etc.
PiCo 01:24, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
From NEJ (Encyclopedia Judaica)on Hoffmann: "His biblical investigations, too, were directed against biblical criticism. These writings, which occupied him for many years, were viewed by Hoffmann as "a holy undertaking… an obligatory battle to answer decisively these new critics who come as oppressors to violate the holy Torah." In his work opposing Wellhausen, Hoffmann rejected the theories of "sources," but he did not formulate an original method of biblical investigation, relying on the basic assumption of "Torah from heaven." In his commentaries to Leviticus and Deuteronomy he relied on rabbinic homiletical and exegetical interpretations for an understanding of these books, as well as offering his own innovative ideas, often based on comparisons between biblical Hebrew and other Semitic languages. While his approach to biblical investigation was essentially the result of the conditions of his time and place, they have stood the test of time and are still studied."
On Jacob Benno: "His principal field of activity in biblical research was the Pentateuch. Although he was not a fundamentalist, his conclusions, as a result of his study of the text rather than on religious grounds, were a complete denial of modern Bible criticism – both textual criticism and Higher Criticism with its documentary hypothesis. He regarded the traditional text more reliable than the ancient translations. He considered the arbitrary textual emendations of Higher Criticism to be unscientific because their only purpose was to validate the latter's own assumptions. Moreover, he accused the school of Higher Criticism of antisemitic trends and of prejudices against Judaism. His opinions were propounded in Der Pentateuch, exegetischkritische Forschungen (1905) and Quellenscheidung und Exegese im Pentateuch (1916). He clarified biblical ideas and expressions which had not been properly understood in Im Namen Gottes (1903) and Auge um Auge, eine Untersuchung zum Alten und Neuen Testament (1929). He also developed a theory concerning the internal rhythm of the Bible, which is expressed by the repetition of key words in set numbers in the narratives of the Torah and its laws, in Die Abzaehlungen in den Gesetzen der Buecher Leviticus und Numeri (1909). His major exegetical work is Das erste Buch der Torah: Genesis, uebersetzt und erklaert (1934). While Jacob did not accept the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch nor the dogma of literal inspiration, he found in its composition so much literary unity and spiritual harmony that all search for its "sources" appeared to him an exercise in futile hypothesis. His comprehensive commentaries on Exodus and a section of Leviticus are extant in manuscript. (An excerpt from the commentary on Exodus was published in Judaism, 13 (1964), 3–18.)" Note, as a Reform Rabbi Jacob dis not believe in MA, but his work is used by Nechama Liebowitz and others to bolster MA.
See also this guy [1].
And don't forget about the Hertz Chumash Wolf2191 01:05, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
He considered the arbitrary textual emendations of Higher Criticism to be unscientific because their only purpose was to validate the latter's own assumptions. An example of this is the pair saq-amtahat, the first characterizing E and the second J according to nearly all critics. the appearance of saq in Gen 42:27 contradicts the source-critical division into documents. The "solution" to this is either to emend saq to amtahat or to attribute its appearance to the Redactor. (In progress) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wolf2191 ( talk • contribs) 02:30, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
David Zvi Hoffman has a decent article already. I will work on a Jacob article. In terms of MA Hoffman is basically THE main player on the Orthodox side which is why his work need be mentioned. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wolf2191 ( talk • contribs) 03:27, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
[3] good source. Wolf2191 05:50, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
To use Students own words "It's all a (poorly written) summary of an essay by R. Menachem Mendel Kasher in the addenda to one of the volumes of Torah Shelemah." Will try to work on it some other time Wolf2191 14:32, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I like very much this article but would like the mention of some of the oldest manuscripts of the torah so as to show that the latest possible date for the writing of the torah i know there are manuscripts predating that of the dead sea scrolls but I am not sure what they are named-- 75.43.79.238 11:56, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
I found one notable manuscript at Ketef Hinnom was found a manuscript dating to 600 BCE i will finish writing this later-- 75.43.79.238 11:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
In 1979, two silver scrolls that were used as amulets, inscribed with portions of the well-known Priestly Blessing of the Book of Numbers were discovered in a burial cave near Jerusalem. These scrolls have been dated to close to 600 BCE based on late Iron Age artifacts found in the undisturbed area of the tomb where they were located. Also based on paleographic evidence Erik Waaler, in his book "A revised date for Pentateuchal texts?" published in 2002, dates the amulets somewhat earlier than the other artifacts in the cave (725-650 BCE). Should these datings be correct than the dating of Torah to the time of Ezra would be incorrect and the date of the Torah would be much older than what most Biblical critics think it is, it would also mean it would be more likely for the Torah to have been written because of this earlier date.-- 129.115.38.13 12:33, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
In general, Wiki articles try to avoid lists and use normal prose instead - do you think you could re-write your new section as paragraphs, using lists only when you need to? (Or at the very least, introducing lists with short prose paragrpahs explaining what they mean) PiCo ( talk) 17:41, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Java, you really do have a repeated line - your 8th dot-point reads: "The Torah uses phrases which are of Egyptian origin in which the words are translated verbatim", and your 10th: "Furthermore, the Torah uses phrases which are of Egyptian origin in which the words are translated verbatim". The footnotes for both refer to the same book and same page-number. PiCo ( talk) 02:59, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Java, IMO it reads much better this way. I wonder if you could go even further - under the subheading "Other", some points deal with archaeological evidence, others with critical views, and some with linguistic evidence - perhaps the linguistic material could be joined with the Egyptian material and two new subheadings made for the other material? (Incidentally, this illustrates why prose is so often preferred to dot-points - it helps to structure the material, as well as in constructing an "argument", although of course we're not supposed to argue cases on Wiki). PiCo ( talk) 03:15, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Later: Congratulations on your hard work on this. I'll just make a few comments that you might or might not like to take up:
I hope this is a help to you - I don't like to touch it myself as you'd probably revert anything I did! PiCo ( talk) 07:43, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
According to what I know, the Torah's language lead people to believe it was written during the era of the Second Temple... Siúnrá ( talk) 17:24, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
"although in none of these is it unambiguously stated that the five books of the modern Torah are meant, as opposed to 'instruction' in its more general sense."
In truth in these sources the reference is to תורה הזאת - THIS Torah - Its certainly referring to a specific and well-known (must be a better term) document - not instruction in the general sense.Are you sure your statement isn't OR? Wolf2191 ( talk) 03:06, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Sorry! I should have started a new section, I was commenting on the statement, not on Siunra. My point was that in some of the verses the term Torah simply can't be referring to instruction "in the general sense". It refers to a SPECIFIC document - whether the Pentateuch , D or some other document.
Regarding the language question - this is the subject of disagreement among scholars. The acccepted view at the moment is that the language is consistent with Hezekiah's time but these things are "liable to change withou warning". Wolf2191 ( talk) 17:21, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
"Instruction in a general sense" might imply oral instruction - I'd prefer "as opposed to an earlier document that was later incorporated into the Pentateuch" or something along those lines. What do you say? Wolf2191 ( talk) 01:12, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
I see your point. This is the full passage: "Statements implying belief in Mosaic authorship of torah (instruction) are also found in Joshua,[3] Kings,[4] Chronicles,[5] Ezra[6] and Nehemiah,[7] although in none of these is it unambiguously stated that the five books of the modern Torah are meant, as opposed to "instruction" in its more general sense." Perhaps the answer is simply to shorten the passage, like this: "Statements implying belief in Mosaic authorship of torah (instruction) are also found in Joshua,[3] Kings,[4] Chronicles,[5] Ezra[6] and Nehemiah,[7] although in none of these is it unambiguously stated that the five books of the modern Torah are meant." I think this is a bit more elegant (as English). What do you think? PiCo ( talk) 05:55, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Done! Thanks.
Wolf2191 (
talk) 13:12, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Catholic Encyclopedia specifically says that the Torah itself says Moses wrote this, there is no reason what so ever to remove this -- Alpha166 ( talk) 09:50, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Easton's Bible Dictionary says the exact same thing. -- Alpha166 ( talk) 09:57, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Hi Alpha. Thanks for coming to the talk page. I'll paste your edited version of the lead in here and then explain the problems with it.
So, I hope you can see the points I'm making. Your additions/changes are based on the use of an inappropriate source (the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia - it's scholarship is seriously outdated), and on an inappropriate appeal to authorities which are not recognised as authoritative in this context (the New Testament, Josephus etc).
Please let me know how you react to this - and remember, we are all trying to achieve the same thing, no matter how much we might disagree, so let us be civil and civilised, ok? PiCo ( talk) 10:26, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Looking at it, it seems to have been authored by single-purpose accounts almost exclusively, and it really shines through. Most statements are oozing with POV, either one way or another. There's a huge balance problem as well, as the pro-Mosaic side of the issue dominates the article. Furthermore, almost the entirety of the giant "Possible evidence of Mosaic authorship" section is sourced to a single work that is anything but accepted scientific consensus even among the pro-Mosaic scholars. The article simply reads as "the Torah was written by Moses, and here's why". All dissent is criticized and marginalized. Instead of educating the reader on the scope of the issue, the article consistently tries to hammers home a single viewpoint.
For an article with such a major exposure, being in the Bible infobox that appears on untold number of important articles, the situation needs to be addressed. I'll try a hand at giving this a neutral treatment. Flyboy Will ( talk) 03:18, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
I saw how brief the Mosaic Authorship article is compared to the Documentary Hypothesis article, so I added this category. I would assume that most college students, like me, are bombarded with the JEDP hypothesis and its apologetic concessions. Too often, apparent contradictions are portrayed as absolute, and the documentary hypothesis is portrayed as "What all modern scholars accept". I also read that there used to be an evidence category- it might be nice to get that back. We could use the same format as the the second website's format, embellishing it with details from a variety of books and websites. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.167.18.184 ( talk) 09:41, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
From the introduction: "Among scholars, Mosaic authorship continues to be defended by some conservative religious scholars, who seek to reconcile it with modern scholarly findings."
Although the preceding statement makes it clear that "some conservative religious scholars" still believe in and defend Mosaic authorship, what it does not make clear enough is that the large majority of modern scholars deny the possibility that Moses wrote the Torah. In other words, there is an accumulating body of archaeological and linguistic evidence in support of the notion that multiple authors wrote the Torah, whereas there is little or no evidence that it was authored by a single person, namely Moses.
76.123.177.103 ( talk) 23:42, 28 August 2010 (UTC)AgainstMosaicAuthorship
you are right. We can treat the idea as a venerable tradition, no need to attack or debunk it, but we need to state clearly that it has no credibility in historical scholarship. -- dab (𒁳) 11:42, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
This passage doesn't seem to make sense - can someone explain what it's saying?
"At least one Rabbinic tradition ( Baraitha) teaches that "...even if he asserts that the whole Torah is from Heaven, excepting a particular verse, which [he maintains] was not uttered by God but by Moses himself, he is included in 'because he hath despised the word of the Lord.'" [1]"
What exactly is "he" being included in? (I think this needs to be changed from a quote to a paraphrase). PiCo ( talk) 22:49, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
sigh. This is a direct quote of a translation of a medieval Talmudic text. It is completely out of the question to put such stuff in Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia may be cryptic sometimes, but it certainly isn't a dumping ground for uninterpreted Talmud passages.
The gist of the passage is that whoever speculates on the possibility that a single verse of the Torah is of human authorship is guilty of "despising the word of the Lord". Instead of quoting the entire thing, it would suffice to say that Baraitha teaches divine inspiration of the text of the Torah, period.
Sine Baraitha isn't even a specific text but an entire tradition, and the passage isn't reference, this paragraph needs to be removed as random cruft copied from the internet (israelect.com). -- dab (𒁳) 11:47, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
This article lacks any sort of reference on where this tradition first originates. The problem is that the Hebrew term torah just means "instruction". The text of the Pentateuch itself records that Moses receives "istruction" from God. The five books of "the Torah" are named after this instruction, and they contain this instruction. But the idea that the torah (instruction) is equal to the verbatim text of "the Torah" needs to be pinpointed. This likely happened during the medieval period, but we need references. -- dab (𒁳) 11:57, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
Someone added a "please discuss" tag to this statement: "This tradition first appears in rabbinic literature of Late Antiquity."
So far as I know this is correct. Ezra-Nehemiah mentions the "law of Moses", as do a few even earlier works, but it's not clear that they mean anything more than the law - i.e., it's not evident that they mean the narrative of the five books. Nevertheless, these early mentions are pre-Rabbinic and worth mentioning. But the first mention of "books of Moses" comes in 4 Ezra, from the Hellenistic period. This also is worth mentioning. After that it's mentioned again in Sirah and then by Josephus - there may be a few other mentions as well, but all from the Classical period. Then the Babylonian Talmud, about 160 AD, codifies the entire bible by author - but that's very late of course. Anyway, a History section sketching all this out would be a useful addition. What does everyone think? PiCo ( talk) 12:23, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
The question is, when did the idea arise that the entire narrative of Genesis and Exodus, except for nine verses discussing Moses' death, were directly written by Moses.
Some useful sources:
PiCo ( talk) 12:50, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
My impression is that the idea is flying around in the Babylonian Talmud, but just as one of many speculative possibilities. When we attribute the idea to Late Antiquity we need to state that it was speculation, not a widespread belief. Then when did it become mainstream? It must have happened at some point during the 6th and the 16th century, but when? -- dab (𒁳) 09:06, 14 January 2011 (UTC) The standard history of the Documentary Hypothesis mentions Abraham Ibn Ezra as having to make only veiled suggestions about non-Mosaic authorship because by the 11th century Mosaic authorship was already unquestionable. I don't know how accurate this "standard history" is. (My experience with "standard histories" in other fields is that nobody has bothered to check it out, but it just gets repeated anyway.) TomS TDotO ( talk) 13:03, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
This does a nice job of summarizing the basis for the Jews' belief of Mosaic-authorship; however, the Christian perspective is missing. Perhaps it would be appropriate to address the viewpoint of Christians, since Christianity is an Abrahamic faith that uses the Torah. The section could address the belief of Jesus and the New Testament writers that Moses was the author of the Torah. Stratman42 ( talk) 18:24, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Refs #9-19 can be cited as 1 source if anyone has the time. Post any objections at my talkpage. Wekn reven i susej eht Talk• Follow 08:42, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
The entire sub-section: "Text of the Torah in Talmud and rabbinic tradition" cites one source, Marvin Zelkowitz, a University of Maryland professor. Unfortunately, his professorship is in computer science, and this paper was written for the University of Maryland Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, a program of the University of Maryland that requires no entrance exams or anything of the like, according to its website. He taught a course in 2006 on the origins of the bible. I think it highly suspect that the whole section of such an important topic is based on an article (whose one of three sources is wikipedia) authored by a professor writing outside of his field of specialty, and on the subject of the documentary hypothesis. More reliable sources (ideally primary) should be referenced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.102.144.172 ( talk) 23:16, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
I added the "Modern conservative Christian scholarship" section a few months ago, on the basis that any discussion of Mosaic authorship should mention Allis. William F. Albright called it "perhaps the most scholarly defense of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch". But the section has been removed per WP:FRINGE. I think we need to discuss whether that applies here. This is raising a bigger question of how conservative scholarship is reported here on Wikipedia. Obviously many evangelical Christians (and scholars) would accept Mosaic authorship - what does it take to call something "fringe". St Anselm ( talk) 20:13, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
It should not be dismissed as a fringe opinion. While it should be noted that virtually all critical (i.e. secular or liberal) scholars have rejected Mosaic authorship, many evangelicals still hold to it, either in part or in whole. In fact, William D. Barrick, Old Testament professor at The Master's Seminary argued to the Evangelical Theological Society that "Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch should be preserved as one of the boundary markers of evangelicalism." Hokie RNB 17:45, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
{{
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: CS1 maint: date format (
link)I'm coming a bit late to this, but I do agree that Christian scholarship on Mosaic authorship is an appropriate thing to consider...if it exists. I'm not convinced it does - most of what I've seen from conservative Christian sources is just repeating what Jewish scholars have said. I'd prefer to combine them as modern scholarship or something like that. PiCo ( talk) 07:27, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
Modern "Christian scholarship" does not even consider Moses a historical figure to begin with, this rather prejudices the "Mosaic authorship" question. There may be some conservative Christians who defend "Mosaic authorship", but I am not sure this should qualify as "scholarship"; if it does, it is certainly fringe scholarship. -- dab (𒁳) 12:24, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
The newest version is riddled with pov material - here's one section:
"However the idea that the view of Mosaic authorship began only in the era of the 2nd Temple is difficult to conceive of. Ezra, who lived at the turn of the 4th century BCE, wrote a book of the Torah before the second temple was built . It is completely implausible that Ezra, who was the spiritual leader of the Jewish people, would not have known that the claim that Moses wrote the Torah started less than 100 years before, and furthermore would not have known the history of this book. In addition intrinsic to the view of Mosaic authorship is also the belief that the Torah was dictated to Moses by God, the only book in the world on which there is such a belief. It is almost inconceivable that a complete nation should without a basis come to believe this about any book, let alone a book that was published only several centuries earlier and whose authorship at the time was known to all. It has never been contemplated about any other book whose author/s' were known at the time of publication that it has been falsely held by the nation in which that book was published that the author was somebody completely different, let alone that that author wrote it 1500 years earlier." Dougweller ( talk) 09:59, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
That section has been removed. L69 ( talk) 06:24, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
The Neutrality template on top of the article referred to this issue and has been there for many months. If nobody has any objections I will remove it in one week. L69 ( talk) 04:31, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
(Material moved here as interim step while editing)
The Babylonian Talmud (Gittin 60a), records two Amoraic opinions as to how the Torah was transmitted to Moses. Yochanan bar Nafcha asserted that "the Torah was given in a series of small scrolls." This means that the Torah was written gradually throughout the 40 years that the Israelites were in the desert as it was dictated to Moses, and at the end of the 40 years when the dictation was complete Moses wrote the entire Torah in a single scroll. [2] Shimon ben Lakish holds that the entire Torah was written at one time, at the end of the 40 years that the Israelites were in the desert and immediately preceding the death of Moses, based on what was dictated to Moses over the 40 years. [3]
The Mishnah (Talmud Sanhedrin 90a) includes the belief in the divinity of the Torah, meaning that it was dictated by God, as an essential element of Judaism. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 99a) says that this means that even if a person were to say that a single verse in all of the Torah was written by Moses on his own, and not dictated by God, lacks this essential belief. According to this passage Mosaic authorship applies to each verse in the Torah.
The Babylonian Talmud (tractate Shabbat 115b) states that a peculiar section in the Book of Numbers (10:35 — 36, surrounded by inverted Hebrew letter nuns) in fact forms a separate book. On this verse a midrash on the book of Mishle states that "These two verses stem from an independent book which existed, but was suppressed!" Another (possibly earlier) midrash, Ta'ame Haserot Viyterot, states that this section actually comes from "the book of prophecy of Eldad and Medad". [4]
Also in the Talmud, Judah ben Ilai held that Joshua wrote the final 8 verses of the Torah because Moses could not have possibly written "and Moses died", because even though the words of the Torah were dictated and were not Moses' own words, it would have been a lie to for Moses to write it. The Talmud says that according to this opinion the final 8 verses are not considered part of the Torah. (Talmud, B. Bat. 15a and Menah. 30a, and in Midrash Sipre. 357). [4]
In the 12th century the commentator Joseph ben Isaac Bekhor Shor noted close similarities between a number of wilderness narratives in Exodus and Numbers, in particular, the incidents of water from the rock and the stories about manna and the quail. He hypothesised that both of these incidents actually happened once, but that parallel traditions about these events eventually developed, both of which made their way into the Torah. [4]
Abraham ibn Ezra writes [5] that certain descriptions may have been added later to already existing verses. He gives three instance of this,
However Ibn Ezra completely rejects any suggestion that a whole account in the Torah could have been written at a later time. In Genesis 36:31, where the Bible tells of the kings of Edom, Ibn Ezra cites a commentator that suggested that the whole account was written later in the days of Jehoshaphat, a king of the house of David. Ibn Ezra writes "God forbid to say that this was written later and his book is suitable for burning".
In the 13th century Hezekiah ben Manoah noticed the same textual anomalies that Ibn Ezra had noted; thus Hezekiah's commentary on Gen 12:6 notes that these words "are written from the perspective of the future". [4]
In the 15th century, Yosef Bonfils, while discussing the comments of Ibn Ezra, noted: "Thus it would seem that Moses did not write this word here, but Joshua or some other prophet wrote it. Since we believe in the prophetic tradition, what possible difference can it make whether Moses wrote this or some other prophet did, since the words of all of them are true and prophetic?" [4]
I've substantially rewritten the article in what I hope is a better version. My big problem has been treating Christianity - Christians have pretty much ignored the question of who wrote what in the Bible right up to the Enlightenment. This, I think, was simply because it wasn't thought important - for Jews, the Torah is the centre of their relationship to God, but for Christians that role belongs to the NT. The NT books certainly have numerous passages stating that Moses wrote the Law, but the people who wrote those were really Jews and were restating a commonplace of 1st century Judaism (as the article already notes). The only reference I could find to any of the Church Fathers paying attention to the question is Jerome, who again simply restates what the rabbis were saying (Jerome was in close touch with Jewish thought). Then nothing really until the Reformation, when either Calvin or Luther, I forget which, has a few things to say, and this was because of the role written scripture played in early Protestantism - they rejected reliance on Christian tradition and so had to find an alternative reason for believing that the New Testament was the word of God, and they found this in the idea that the scriptures had been passed down intact from the earliest times. The Enlightenment then subjected the scriptures to systematic critical study (something the rabbis had never done), and by the end of the 19th century only a tiny minority of ultra-conservative Christian scholars continued to defend Mosaic authorship - using arguments that had been advanced centuries before by the rabbis, with the exception of those based on the New Testament. So maybe all this could e put into our article, but it's actually very hard to find - what I've written here is based on the impressions I've gained, not on explicit passages in reliable sources. PiCo ( talk) 22:59, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
A few days ago User:StAnselm changed back the date fromat from BCE/CE to BC/AD. I don't know if this has ever been discussed here before, but I think there is a really good case to be made for use of BCE/CE in this article, since (1) the topic, while of interest to Christians, is also very closely (more closely in fact) associated with another religion that does not use this era format, and (2) religious studies departments in universities prefer the BCE/CE formatting, such as here and here. Also pinging User:PiCo since this is one of the rare cases where the original author of the article is not only still active on Wikipedia but still editing this page. I don't know who initially tried to change the era-formatting from BC/AD to BCE/CE, but they should probably be invited too. Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 03:13, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
To editor Alephb: You undid an edit of mine where I slashed the reference to the Pentateuch as a "charter myth", for who knows what reason aside from you somehow viewing yourself as a strong character that is not afraid to offend others. Needless to say, the Pentateuch being mythical is in fact a "point of view" shared by those who do not believe in the Pentateuch, but not by those who believe in it (which constitute many billions), thus to place in a Wikipedia article that it is in fact a myth violates NPOV, because it's merely a point of view that has absolutely no relevance to a Wikipedia article. Another thing that is needless to be pointed out is that, although proving exact events mentioned in the Pentateuch is virtually outside of the realm of archaeological possibility, hundreds of Pentateuchal cities, regions and areas have had their existence established, as well as the fact that events that the Pentateuch places in the Middle Bronze Age, actually synchronize specifically with the Middle Bronze Age, as shown by scholars like Kenneth Kitchen. So, not only is placing Wikipedia's position on the Pentateuch as mythical a total violation of NPOV, ridiculously biased, but it contradicts the fact that the enormity of Pentateuchal geography has been established by scholars, and therefore that the Pentateuch is a "charter myth" is also factual garbage, whether or not you want to consider certain narratives as allegory or not. Korvex ( talk) 22:56, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
The article uses historical-critical approaches as the default point of view throughout, using high quality sources, but then suddenly in one place contains the remarkable statement "This was shown to be a wrong understanding by Ellicott." A quote from a traditional commentary over 100 years old then follows. Hmm. 2601:647:4900:F234:74BD:D8BA:A920:F552 ( talk) 06:42, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
DH did get cracks in the mainstream academia. But the situation for the Mosaic authorship did not get better, if anything it got worse. Many mainstream Bible scholars see DH as not radical enough.
No. It's a historical question. And by "theological points of view", you're not referring to the mainstream theological position but what is essentially a fringe theory held by fundamentalist theologians. The purpose of theological study of the bible is hermeneutical - it's about interpretation, and most respected theologians accept that Genesis was written somewhere between the reign of King David (c. 1000 BCE) and the exile period (560 BCE). Claritas ( talk) 14:11, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
You misunderstand WP:NPOV; it's not about finding a compromise between academia and religion. It is about accurately representing what academics say about religion. Jeppiz ( talk) 18:07, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
The more serious problem in your arguments above is that you continously imply we should find some middle road between faith and scholarship. We should not, as that would be the opposite of WP:NPOV. I know many people misunderstand NPOV and think it's about meeting halfway. It is not; it's about representing the most reliable sources as accurately as possible. Jeppiz ( talk) 09:52, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
Quotes for Jaredscribe. Cassuto was a great scholar, but he died 70 years ago, which means ages in mainstream Bible scholarship. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 03:42, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
@
Jaredscribe: It's not Biblical minimalists hold that the development of the Torah began in the
Babylonian Captivity around 600 BCE
, the overwhelming majority of mainstream Bible scholars do that, including Jews.
We tell it the Ivy Plus way, the Bar Ilan University way and the Tel Aviv University way. See e.g. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/01/3-things-i-would-like-to-see-evangelical-leaders-stop-saying-about-biblical-scholarship/
Richard Elliott Friedman and Shaye J. D. Cohen agree that, academically speaking, the Mosaic authorship is dead in the water. So do Baruch Halpern, Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman.
You complain that this is anti-Jewish. Are BIU and TAU anti-Jewish universities? Tgeorgescu ( talk) 07:56, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
Thank you all for contributing and helping to improve wikipedia. Jaredscribe ( talk) 03:26, 10 April 2021 (UTC)Umberto Cassuto in the The Documentary Hypothesis and the Composition of the Pentateuch (Hebrew, Torat HaTeudot, 1941; English translation, 1961) undertook a critical examination of the "five pillars" of the hypothesis. Cassuto argued first of all that the supposed terminological, grammatical and stylistic traits indicative of separate documents actually were common in Hebrew language and literature and were shared with other biblical and post-biblical Jewish literature whose essential unity was not seriously questioned, including liturgical, midrashic, medieval and even modern Jewish religious writing.
When there's lots of solutions, that means there's a problem to be solved. ... Rabbis were like all over all of this and they pointed to all of these things and they came up with explanations for them. But again the fact they needed to explain something indicates that there was a problem. ... You can see later biblical authors and texts reading the Pentateuch and trying to figure out what they're supposed to do with contradictions in it.
— Joel Baden
anti-jewish propagandato point that out.
There is one sentence I have an issue with.
“ Scholarly consensus sees the biblical Moses as a mythical figure, while retaining the possibility that a Moses-like figure existed.[13][14][15][16]”
I read through the sources cited in that sentence and I couldn’t see them directly saying there is a consensus. Sure they do say the existence of Moses is unlikely but, it’s original to say there is a consensus when they don’t directly say that. CycoMa ( talk) 15:28, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
For User:GenoV84: you're obviously puzzled as to why I reverted your edits. I'll divide this into two parts, as one section is much ;longer than the other. First the minor edits:
Next the rather long subsection on Moses, which I've deleted entirely. This was added some time ago by a friend of mine, but I'm deleting it because it's poorly written and largely redundant (i.e., it repeats material already in the article). Incidentally, were you aware that I wrote the article? I'll go through it line by line:
Incidentally, this sentence is interesting: "The great battleground is the Torah (the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses): is the Torah the earliest biblical book, revealed by God to Moses shortly after the Exodus, around 1300-1200 BCE, or one of the latest, not completed until the exilic period – or later? (see Kugel)" The great battleground of what? There's no battle over Mosaic authorship, it's as popular as flat earth. Nor is there any debate over whether the Torah was completed around 1200 BCE - nobody believes anything so silly. Achar Sva ( talk) 07:51, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
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Started this article, because the phrase "Mosaic authorship" is mentioned ni quite a few articles dealing with biblical scholarship but the article describing it does not exist.
The term 'Mosaic authorship' would seem to be a mistake because nobody believes that Moses authored the Bible; Jews, Christians and Muslims all believe that the authorship is Divine. Moses merely transcribed the Torah — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:6500:A043:47F9:5464:7345:968A:9E2B ( talk) 10:14, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
This has been written off the top of the head and is intended simply to scetch the broad outline of what the article needs to cover. Please feel free to amend, improve, add references, etc etc.
PiCo 01:24, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
From NEJ (Encyclopedia Judaica)on Hoffmann: "His biblical investigations, too, were directed against biblical criticism. These writings, which occupied him for many years, were viewed by Hoffmann as "a holy undertaking… an obligatory battle to answer decisively these new critics who come as oppressors to violate the holy Torah." In his work opposing Wellhausen, Hoffmann rejected the theories of "sources," but he did not formulate an original method of biblical investigation, relying on the basic assumption of "Torah from heaven." In his commentaries to Leviticus and Deuteronomy he relied on rabbinic homiletical and exegetical interpretations for an understanding of these books, as well as offering his own innovative ideas, often based on comparisons between biblical Hebrew and other Semitic languages. While his approach to biblical investigation was essentially the result of the conditions of his time and place, they have stood the test of time and are still studied."
On Jacob Benno: "His principal field of activity in biblical research was the Pentateuch. Although he was not a fundamentalist, his conclusions, as a result of his study of the text rather than on religious grounds, were a complete denial of modern Bible criticism – both textual criticism and Higher Criticism with its documentary hypothesis. He regarded the traditional text more reliable than the ancient translations. He considered the arbitrary textual emendations of Higher Criticism to be unscientific because their only purpose was to validate the latter's own assumptions. Moreover, he accused the school of Higher Criticism of antisemitic trends and of prejudices against Judaism. His opinions were propounded in Der Pentateuch, exegetischkritische Forschungen (1905) and Quellenscheidung und Exegese im Pentateuch (1916). He clarified biblical ideas and expressions which had not been properly understood in Im Namen Gottes (1903) and Auge um Auge, eine Untersuchung zum Alten und Neuen Testament (1929). He also developed a theory concerning the internal rhythm of the Bible, which is expressed by the repetition of key words in set numbers in the narratives of the Torah and its laws, in Die Abzaehlungen in den Gesetzen der Buecher Leviticus und Numeri (1909). His major exegetical work is Das erste Buch der Torah: Genesis, uebersetzt und erklaert (1934). While Jacob did not accept the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch nor the dogma of literal inspiration, he found in its composition so much literary unity and spiritual harmony that all search for its "sources" appeared to him an exercise in futile hypothesis. His comprehensive commentaries on Exodus and a section of Leviticus are extant in manuscript. (An excerpt from the commentary on Exodus was published in Judaism, 13 (1964), 3–18.)" Note, as a Reform Rabbi Jacob dis not believe in MA, but his work is used by Nechama Liebowitz and others to bolster MA.
See also this guy [1].
And don't forget about the Hertz Chumash Wolf2191 01:05, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
He considered the arbitrary textual emendations of Higher Criticism to be unscientific because their only purpose was to validate the latter's own assumptions. An example of this is the pair saq-amtahat, the first characterizing E and the second J according to nearly all critics. the appearance of saq in Gen 42:27 contradicts the source-critical division into documents. The "solution" to this is either to emend saq to amtahat or to attribute its appearance to the Redactor. (In progress) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wolf2191 ( talk • contribs) 02:30, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
David Zvi Hoffman has a decent article already. I will work on a Jacob article. In terms of MA Hoffman is basically THE main player on the Orthodox side which is why his work need be mentioned. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wolf2191 ( talk • contribs) 03:27, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
[3] good source. Wolf2191 05:50, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
To use Students own words "It's all a (poorly written) summary of an essay by R. Menachem Mendel Kasher in the addenda to one of the volumes of Torah Shelemah." Will try to work on it some other time Wolf2191 14:32, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I like very much this article but would like the mention of some of the oldest manuscripts of the torah so as to show that the latest possible date for the writing of the torah i know there are manuscripts predating that of the dead sea scrolls but I am not sure what they are named-- 75.43.79.238 11:56, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
I found one notable manuscript at Ketef Hinnom was found a manuscript dating to 600 BCE i will finish writing this later-- 75.43.79.238 11:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
In 1979, two silver scrolls that were used as amulets, inscribed with portions of the well-known Priestly Blessing of the Book of Numbers were discovered in a burial cave near Jerusalem. These scrolls have been dated to close to 600 BCE based on late Iron Age artifacts found in the undisturbed area of the tomb where they were located. Also based on paleographic evidence Erik Waaler, in his book "A revised date for Pentateuchal texts?" published in 2002, dates the amulets somewhat earlier than the other artifacts in the cave (725-650 BCE). Should these datings be correct than the dating of Torah to the time of Ezra would be incorrect and the date of the Torah would be much older than what most Biblical critics think it is, it would also mean it would be more likely for the Torah to have been written because of this earlier date.-- 129.115.38.13 12:33, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
In general, Wiki articles try to avoid lists and use normal prose instead - do you think you could re-write your new section as paragraphs, using lists only when you need to? (Or at the very least, introducing lists with short prose paragrpahs explaining what they mean) PiCo ( talk) 17:41, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Java, you really do have a repeated line - your 8th dot-point reads: "The Torah uses phrases which are of Egyptian origin in which the words are translated verbatim", and your 10th: "Furthermore, the Torah uses phrases which are of Egyptian origin in which the words are translated verbatim". The footnotes for both refer to the same book and same page-number. PiCo ( talk) 02:59, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Java, IMO it reads much better this way. I wonder if you could go even further - under the subheading "Other", some points deal with archaeological evidence, others with critical views, and some with linguistic evidence - perhaps the linguistic material could be joined with the Egyptian material and two new subheadings made for the other material? (Incidentally, this illustrates why prose is so often preferred to dot-points - it helps to structure the material, as well as in constructing an "argument", although of course we're not supposed to argue cases on Wiki). PiCo ( talk) 03:15, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Later: Congratulations on your hard work on this. I'll just make a few comments that you might or might not like to take up:
I hope this is a help to you - I don't like to touch it myself as you'd probably revert anything I did! PiCo ( talk) 07:43, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
According to what I know, the Torah's language lead people to believe it was written during the era of the Second Temple... Siúnrá ( talk) 17:24, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
"although in none of these is it unambiguously stated that the five books of the modern Torah are meant, as opposed to 'instruction' in its more general sense."
In truth in these sources the reference is to תורה הזאת - THIS Torah - Its certainly referring to a specific and well-known (must be a better term) document - not instruction in the general sense.Are you sure your statement isn't OR? Wolf2191 ( talk) 03:06, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Sorry! I should have started a new section, I was commenting on the statement, not on Siunra. My point was that in some of the verses the term Torah simply can't be referring to instruction "in the general sense". It refers to a SPECIFIC document - whether the Pentateuch , D or some other document.
Regarding the language question - this is the subject of disagreement among scholars. The acccepted view at the moment is that the language is consistent with Hezekiah's time but these things are "liable to change withou warning". Wolf2191 ( talk) 17:21, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
"Instruction in a general sense" might imply oral instruction - I'd prefer "as opposed to an earlier document that was later incorporated into the Pentateuch" or something along those lines. What do you say? Wolf2191 ( talk) 01:12, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
I see your point. This is the full passage: "Statements implying belief in Mosaic authorship of torah (instruction) are also found in Joshua,[3] Kings,[4] Chronicles,[5] Ezra[6] and Nehemiah,[7] although in none of these is it unambiguously stated that the five books of the modern Torah are meant, as opposed to "instruction" in its more general sense." Perhaps the answer is simply to shorten the passage, like this: "Statements implying belief in Mosaic authorship of torah (instruction) are also found in Joshua,[3] Kings,[4] Chronicles,[5] Ezra[6] and Nehemiah,[7] although in none of these is it unambiguously stated that the five books of the modern Torah are meant." I think this is a bit more elegant (as English). What do you think? PiCo ( talk) 05:55, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Done! Thanks.
Wolf2191 (
talk) 13:12, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Catholic Encyclopedia specifically says that the Torah itself says Moses wrote this, there is no reason what so ever to remove this -- Alpha166 ( talk) 09:50, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Easton's Bible Dictionary says the exact same thing. -- Alpha166 ( talk) 09:57, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Hi Alpha. Thanks for coming to the talk page. I'll paste your edited version of the lead in here and then explain the problems with it.
So, I hope you can see the points I'm making. Your additions/changes are based on the use of an inappropriate source (the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia - it's scholarship is seriously outdated), and on an inappropriate appeal to authorities which are not recognised as authoritative in this context (the New Testament, Josephus etc).
Please let me know how you react to this - and remember, we are all trying to achieve the same thing, no matter how much we might disagree, so let us be civil and civilised, ok? PiCo ( talk) 10:26, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
Looking at it, it seems to have been authored by single-purpose accounts almost exclusively, and it really shines through. Most statements are oozing with POV, either one way or another. There's a huge balance problem as well, as the pro-Mosaic side of the issue dominates the article. Furthermore, almost the entirety of the giant "Possible evidence of Mosaic authorship" section is sourced to a single work that is anything but accepted scientific consensus even among the pro-Mosaic scholars. The article simply reads as "the Torah was written by Moses, and here's why". All dissent is criticized and marginalized. Instead of educating the reader on the scope of the issue, the article consistently tries to hammers home a single viewpoint.
For an article with such a major exposure, being in the Bible infobox that appears on untold number of important articles, the situation needs to be addressed. I'll try a hand at giving this a neutral treatment. Flyboy Will ( talk) 03:18, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
I saw how brief the Mosaic Authorship article is compared to the Documentary Hypothesis article, so I added this category. I would assume that most college students, like me, are bombarded with the JEDP hypothesis and its apologetic concessions. Too often, apparent contradictions are portrayed as absolute, and the documentary hypothesis is portrayed as "What all modern scholars accept". I also read that there used to be an evidence category- it might be nice to get that back. We could use the same format as the the second website's format, embellishing it with details from a variety of books and websites. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.167.18.184 ( talk) 09:41, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
From the introduction: "Among scholars, Mosaic authorship continues to be defended by some conservative religious scholars, who seek to reconcile it with modern scholarly findings."
Although the preceding statement makes it clear that "some conservative religious scholars" still believe in and defend Mosaic authorship, what it does not make clear enough is that the large majority of modern scholars deny the possibility that Moses wrote the Torah. In other words, there is an accumulating body of archaeological and linguistic evidence in support of the notion that multiple authors wrote the Torah, whereas there is little or no evidence that it was authored by a single person, namely Moses.
76.123.177.103 ( talk) 23:42, 28 August 2010 (UTC)AgainstMosaicAuthorship
you are right. We can treat the idea as a venerable tradition, no need to attack or debunk it, but we need to state clearly that it has no credibility in historical scholarship. -- dab (𒁳) 11:42, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
This passage doesn't seem to make sense - can someone explain what it's saying?
"At least one Rabbinic tradition ( Baraitha) teaches that "...even if he asserts that the whole Torah is from Heaven, excepting a particular verse, which [he maintains] was not uttered by God but by Moses himself, he is included in 'because he hath despised the word of the Lord.'" [1]"
What exactly is "he" being included in? (I think this needs to be changed from a quote to a paraphrase). PiCo ( talk) 22:49, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
sigh. This is a direct quote of a translation of a medieval Talmudic text. It is completely out of the question to put such stuff in Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia may be cryptic sometimes, but it certainly isn't a dumping ground for uninterpreted Talmud passages.
The gist of the passage is that whoever speculates on the possibility that a single verse of the Torah is of human authorship is guilty of "despising the word of the Lord". Instead of quoting the entire thing, it would suffice to say that Baraitha teaches divine inspiration of the text of the Torah, period.
Sine Baraitha isn't even a specific text but an entire tradition, and the passage isn't reference, this paragraph needs to be removed as random cruft copied from the internet (israelect.com). -- dab (𒁳) 11:47, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
This article lacks any sort of reference on where this tradition first originates. The problem is that the Hebrew term torah just means "instruction". The text of the Pentateuch itself records that Moses receives "istruction" from God. The five books of "the Torah" are named after this instruction, and they contain this instruction. But the idea that the torah (instruction) is equal to the verbatim text of "the Torah" needs to be pinpointed. This likely happened during the medieval period, but we need references. -- dab (𒁳) 11:57, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
Someone added a "please discuss" tag to this statement: "This tradition first appears in rabbinic literature of Late Antiquity."
So far as I know this is correct. Ezra-Nehemiah mentions the "law of Moses", as do a few even earlier works, but it's not clear that they mean anything more than the law - i.e., it's not evident that they mean the narrative of the five books. Nevertheless, these early mentions are pre-Rabbinic and worth mentioning. But the first mention of "books of Moses" comes in 4 Ezra, from the Hellenistic period. This also is worth mentioning. After that it's mentioned again in Sirah and then by Josephus - there may be a few other mentions as well, but all from the Classical period. Then the Babylonian Talmud, about 160 AD, codifies the entire bible by author - but that's very late of course. Anyway, a History section sketching all this out would be a useful addition. What does everyone think? PiCo ( talk) 12:23, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
The question is, when did the idea arise that the entire narrative of Genesis and Exodus, except for nine verses discussing Moses' death, were directly written by Moses.
Some useful sources:
PiCo ( talk) 12:50, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
My impression is that the idea is flying around in the Babylonian Talmud, but just as one of many speculative possibilities. When we attribute the idea to Late Antiquity we need to state that it was speculation, not a widespread belief. Then when did it become mainstream? It must have happened at some point during the 6th and the 16th century, but when? -- dab (𒁳) 09:06, 14 January 2011 (UTC) The standard history of the Documentary Hypothesis mentions Abraham Ibn Ezra as having to make only veiled suggestions about non-Mosaic authorship because by the 11th century Mosaic authorship was already unquestionable. I don't know how accurate this "standard history" is. (My experience with "standard histories" in other fields is that nobody has bothered to check it out, but it just gets repeated anyway.) TomS TDotO ( talk) 13:03, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
This does a nice job of summarizing the basis for the Jews' belief of Mosaic-authorship; however, the Christian perspective is missing. Perhaps it would be appropriate to address the viewpoint of Christians, since Christianity is an Abrahamic faith that uses the Torah. The section could address the belief of Jesus and the New Testament writers that Moses was the author of the Torah. Stratman42 ( talk) 18:24, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Refs #9-19 can be cited as 1 source if anyone has the time. Post any objections at my talkpage. Wekn reven i susej eht Talk• Follow 08:42, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
The entire sub-section: "Text of the Torah in Talmud and rabbinic tradition" cites one source, Marvin Zelkowitz, a University of Maryland professor. Unfortunately, his professorship is in computer science, and this paper was written for the University of Maryland Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, a program of the University of Maryland that requires no entrance exams or anything of the like, according to its website. He taught a course in 2006 on the origins of the bible. I think it highly suspect that the whole section of such an important topic is based on an article (whose one of three sources is wikipedia) authored by a professor writing outside of his field of specialty, and on the subject of the documentary hypothesis. More reliable sources (ideally primary) should be referenced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.102.144.172 ( talk) 23:16, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
I added the "Modern conservative Christian scholarship" section a few months ago, on the basis that any discussion of Mosaic authorship should mention Allis. William F. Albright called it "perhaps the most scholarly defense of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch". But the section has been removed per WP:FRINGE. I think we need to discuss whether that applies here. This is raising a bigger question of how conservative scholarship is reported here on Wikipedia. Obviously many evangelical Christians (and scholars) would accept Mosaic authorship - what does it take to call something "fringe". St Anselm ( talk) 20:13, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
It should not be dismissed as a fringe opinion. While it should be noted that virtually all critical (i.e. secular or liberal) scholars have rejected Mosaic authorship, many evangelicals still hold to it, either in part or in whole. In fact, William D. Barrick, Old Testament professor at The Master's Seminary argued to the Evangelical Theological Society that "Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch should be preserved as one of the boundary markers of evangelicalism." Hokie RNB 17:45, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
{{
cite web}}
: CS1 maint: date format (
link)I'm coming a bit late to this, but I do agree that Christian scholarship on Mosaic authorship is an appropriate thing to consider...if it exists. I'm not convinced it does - most of what I've seen from conservative Christian sources is just repeating what Jewish scholars have said. I'd prefer to combine them as modern scholarship or something like that. PiCo ( talk) 07:27, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
Modern "Christian scholarship" does not even consider Moses a historical figure to begin with, this rather prejudices the "Mosaic authorship" question. There may be some conservative Christians who defend "Mosaic authorship", but I am not sure this should qualify as "scholarship"; if it does, it is certainly fringe scholarship. -- dab (𒁳) 12:24, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
The newest version is riddled with pov material - here's one section:
"However the idea that the view of Mosaic authorship began only in the era of the 2nd Temple is difficult to conceive of. Ezra, who lived at the turn of the 4th century BCE, wrote a book of the Torah before the second temple was built . It is completely implausible that Ezra, who was the spiritual leader of the Jewish people, would not have known that the claim that Moses wrote the Torah started less than 100 years before, and furthermore would not have known the history of this book. In addition intrinsic to the view of Mosaic authorship is also the belief that the Torah was dictated to Moses by God, the only book in the world on which there is such a belief. It is almost inconceivable that a complete nation should without a basis come to believe this about any book, let alone a book that was published only several centuries earlier and whose authorship at the time was known to all. It has never been contemplated about any other book whose author/s' were known at the time of publication that it has been falsely held by the nation in which that book was published that the author was somebody completely different, let alone that that author wrote it 1500 years earlier." Dougweller ( talk) 09:59, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
That section has been removed. L69 ( talk) 06:24, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
The Neutrality template on top of the article referred to this issue and has been there for many months. If nobody has any objections I will remove it in one week. L69 ( talk) 04:31, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
(Material moved here as interim step while editing)
The Babylonian Talmud (Gittin 60a), records two Amoraic opinions as to how the Torah was transmitted to Moses. Yochanan bar Nafcha asserted that "the Torah was given in a series of small scrolls." This means that the Torah was written gradually throughout the 40 years that the Israelites were in the desert as it was dictated to Moses, and at the end of the 40 years when the dictation was complete Moses wrote the entire Torah in a single scroll. [2] Shimon ben Lakish holds that the entire Torah was written at one time, at the end of the 40 years that the Israelites were in the desert and immediately preceding the death of Moses, based on what was dictated to Moses over the 40 years. [3]
The Mishnah (Talmud Sanhedrin 90a) includes the belief in the divinity of the Torah, meaning that it was dictated by God, as an essential element of Judaism. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 99a) says that this means that even if a person were to say that a single verse in all of the Torah was written by Moses on his own, and not dictated by God, lacks this essential belief. According to this passage Mosaic authorship applies to each verse in the Torah.
The Babylonian Talmud (tractate Shabbat 115b) states that a peculiar section in the Book of Numbers (10:35 — 36, surrounded by inverted Hebrew letter nuns) in fact forms a separate book. On this verse a midrash on the book of Mishle states that "These two verses stem from an independent book which existed, but was suppressed!" Another (possibly earlier) midrash, Ta'ame Haserot Viyterot, states that this section actually comes from "the book of prophecy of Eldad and Medad". [4]
Also in the Talmud, Judah ben Ilai held that Joshua wrote the final 8 verses of the Torah because Moses could not have possibly written "and Moses died", because even though the words of the Torah were dictated and were not Moses' own words, it would have been a lie to for Moses to write it. The Talmud says that according to this opinion the final 8 verses are not considered part of the Torah. (Talmud, B. Bat. 15a and Menah. 30a, and in Midrash Sipre. 357). [4]
In the 12th century the commentator Joseph ben Isaac Bekhor Shor noted close similarities between a number of wilderness narratives in Exodus and Numbers, in particular, the incidents of water from the rock and the stories about manna and the quail. He hypothesised that both of these incidents actually happened once, but that parallel traditions about these events eventually developed, both of which made their way into the Torah. [4]
Abraham ibn Ezra writes [5] that certain descriptions may have been added later to already existing verses. He gives three instance of this,
However Ibn Ezra completely rejects any suggestion that a whole account in the Torah could have been written at a later time. In Genesis 36:31, where the Bible tells of the kings of Edom, Ibn Ezra cites a commentator that suggested that the whole account was written later in the days of Jehoshaphat, a king of the house of David. Ibn Ezra writes "God forbid to say that this was written later and his book is suitable for burning".
In the 13th century Hezekiah ben Manoah noticed the same textual anomalies that Ibn Ezra had noted; thus Hezekiah's commentary on Gen 12:6 notes that these words "are written from the perspective of the future". [4]
In the 15th century, Yosef Bonfils, while discussing the comments of Ibn Ezra, noted: "Thus it would seem that Moses did not write this word here, but Joshua or some other prophet wrote it. Since we believe in the prophetic tradition, what possible difference can it make whether Moses wrote this or some other prophet did, since the words of all of them are true and prophetic?" [4]
I've substantially rewritten the article in what I hope is a better version. My big problem has been treating Christianity - Christians have pretty much ignored the question of who wrote what in the Bible right up to the Enlightenment. This, I think, was simply because it wasn't thought important - for Jews, the Torah is the centre of their relationship to God, but for Christians that role belongs to the NT. The NT books certainly have numerous passages stating that Moses wrote the Law, but the people who wrote those were really Jews and were restating a commonplace of 1st century Judaism (as the article already notes). The only reference I could find to any of the Church Fathers paying attention to the question is Jerome, who again simply restates what the rabbis were saying (Jerome was in close touch with Jewish thought). Then nothing really until the Reformation, when either Calvin or Luther, I forget which, has a few things to say, and this was because of the role written scripture played in early Protestantism - they rejected reliance on Christian tradition and so had to find an alternative reason for believing that the New Testament was the word of God, and they found this in the idea that the scriptures had been passed down intact from the earliest times. The Enlightenment then subjected the scriptures to systematic critical study (something the rabbis had never done), and by the end of the 19th century only a tiny minority of ultra-conservative Christian scholars continued to defend Mosaic authorship - using arguments that had been advanced centuries before by the rabbis, with the exception of those based on the New Testament. So maybe all this could e put into our article, but it's actually very hard to find - what I've written here is based on the impressions I've gained, not on explicit passages in reliable sources. PiCo ( talk) 22:59, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
A few days ago User:StAnselm changed back the date fromat from BCE/CE to BC/AD. I don't know if this has ever been discussed here before, but I think there is a really good case to be made for use of BCE/CE in this article, since (1) the topic, while of interest to Christians, is also very closely (more closely in fact) associated with another religion that does not use this era format, and (2) religious studies departments in universities prefer the BCE/CE formatting, such as here and here. Also pinging User:PiCo since this is one of the rare cases where the original author of the article is not only still active on Wikipedia but still editing this page. I don't know who initially tried to change the era-formatting from BC/AD to BCE/CE, but they should probably be invited too. Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 03:13, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
To editor Alephb: You undid an edit of mine where I slashed the reference to the Pentateuch as a "charter myth", for who knows what reason aside from you somehow viewing yourself as a strong character that is not afraid to offend others. Needless to say, the Pentateuch being mythical is in fact a "point of view" shared by those who do not believe in the Pentateuch, but not by those who believe in it (which constitute many billions), thus to place in a Wikipedia article that it is in fact a myth violates NPOV, because it's merely a point of view that has absolutely no relevance to a Wikipedia article. Another thing that is needless to be pointed out is that, although proving exact events mentioned in the Pentateuch is virtually outside of the realm of archaeological possibility, hundreds of Pentateuchal cities, regions and areas have had their existence established, as well as the fact that events that the Pentateuch places in the Middle Bronze Age, actually synchronize specifically with the Middle Bronze Age, as shown by scholars like Kenneth Kitchen. So, not only is placing Wikipedia's position on the Pentateuch as mythical a total violation of NPOV, ridiculously biased, but it contradicts the fact that the enormity of Pentateuchal geography has been established by scholars, and therefore that the Pentateuch is a "charter myth" is also factual garbage, whether or not you want to consider certain narratives as allegory or not. Korvex ( talk) 22:56, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
The article uses historical-critical approaches as the default point of view throughout, using high quality sources, but then suddenly in one place contains the remarkable statement "This was shown to be a wrong understanding by Ellicott." A quote from a traditional commentary over 100 years old then follows. Hmm. 2601:647:4900:F234:74BD:D8BA:A920:F552 ( talk) 06:42, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
DH did get cracks in the mainstream academia. But the situation for the Mosaic authorship did not get better, if anything it got worse. Many mainstream Bible scholars see DH as not radical enough.
No. It's a historical question. And by "theological points of view", you're not referring to the mainstream theological position but what is essentially a fringe theory held by fundamentalist theologians. The purpose of theological study of the bible is hermeneutical - it's about interpretation, and most respected theologians accept that Genesis was written somewhere between the reign of King David (c. 1000 BCE) and the exile period (560 BCE). Claritas ( talk) 14:11, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
You misunderstand WP:NPOV; it's not about finding a compromise between academia and religion. It is about accurately representing what academics say about religion. Jeppiz ( talk) 18:07, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
The more serious problem in your arguments above is that you continously imply we should find some middle road between faith and scholarship. We should not, as that would be the opposite of WP:NPOV. I know many people misunderstand NPOV and think it's about meeting halfway. It is not; it's about representing the most reliable sources as accurately as possible. Jeppiz ( talk) 09:52, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
Quotes for Jaredscribe. Cassuto was a great scholar, but he died 70 years ago, which means ages in mainstream Bible scholarship. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 03:42, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
@
Jaredscribe: It's not Biblical minimalists hold that the development of the Torah began in the
Babylonian Captivity around 600 BCE
, the overwhelming majority of mainstream Bible scholars do that, including Jews.
We tell it the Ivy Plus way, the Bar Ilan University way and the Tel Aviv University way. See e.g. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/01/3-things-i-would-like-to-see-evangelical-leaders-stop-saying-about-biblical-scholarship/
Richard Elliott Friedman and Shaye J. D. Cohen agree that, academically speaking, the Mosaic authorship is dead in the water. So do Baruch Halpern, Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman.
You complain that this is anti-Jewish. Are BIU and TAU anti-Jewish universities? Tgeorgescu ( talk) 07:56, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
Thank you all for contributing and helping to improve wikipedia. Jaredscribe ( talk) 03:26, 10 April 2021 (UTC)Umberto Cassuto in the The Documentary Hypothesis and the Composition of the Pentateuch (Hebrew, Torat HaTeudot, 1941; English translation, 1961) undertook a critical examination of the "five pillars" of the hypothesis. Cassuto argued first of all that the supposed terminological, grammatical and stylistic traits indicative of separate documents actually were common in Hebrew language and literature and were shared with other biblical and post-biblical Jewish literature whose essential unity was not seriously questioned, including liturgical, midrashic, medieval and even modern Jewish religious writing.
When there's lots of solutions, that means there's a problem to be solved. ... Rabbis were like all over all of this and they pointed to all of these things and they came up with explanations for them. But again the fact they needed to explain something indicates that there was a problem. ... You can see later biblical authors and texts reading the Pentateuch and trying to figure out what they're supposed to do with contradictions in it.
— Joel Baden
anti-jewish propagandato point that out.
There is one sentence I have an issue with.
“ Scholarly consensus sees the biblical Moses as a mythical figure, while retaining the possibility that a Moses-like figure existed.[13][14][15][16]”
I read through the sources cited in that sentence and I couldn’t see them directly saying there is a consensus. Sure they do say the existence of Moses is unlikely but, it’s original to say there is a consensus when they don’t directly say that. CycoMa ( talk) 15:28, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
For User:GenoV84: you're obviously puzzled as to why I reverted your edits. I'll divide this into two parts, as one section is much ;longer than the other. First the minor edits:
Next the rather long subsection on Moses, which I've deleted entirely. This was added some time ago by a friend of mine, but I'm deleting it because it's poorly written and largely redundant (i.e., it repeats material already in the article). Incidentally, were you aware that I wrote the article? I'll go through it line by line:
Incidentally, this sentence is interesting: "The great battleground is the Torah (the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses): is the Torah the earliest biblical book, revealed by God to Moses shortly after the Exodus, around 1300-1200 BCE, or one of the latest, not completed until the exilic period – or later? (see Kugel)" The great battleground of what? There's no battle over Mosaic authorship, it's as popular as flat earth. Nor is there any debate over whether the Torah was completed around 1200 BCE - nobody believes anything so silly. Achar Sva ( talk) 07:51, 10 December 2021 (UTC)