Thank you for the question on the authorship of Moses in writing the first five books of the Bible called the Torah or the Law.
In the last 200 years, the authorship and authority of the Bible have been contested by science, archaeologists, and critics of the Scriptures. There is a concerted effort to disprove the authorship and historicity of the Bible. If the Bible can be disproven, then there is no God, no salvation, but the laws of nature and the man-made laws. Death is the end of life with nothing beyond the last breathe.
It has been traditional held that the first five book of the Bible has been written by Moses. Modern scholars are now asserting that Moses didn’t write those books but different authors at different time periods. The authorship of Moses is a valid question to ask and I am fine with the pursuit of that question.
I cite this source for one understanding of the Documentary Hypothesis by Answers. “Various sections of the Pentateuch are assigned to various authors who are identified by the letters J, E, D, and P. Hence, it is called the documentary hypothesis (or the JEDP model3). As this hypothesis was developed by a number of Jewish and theologically liberal Christian scholars in the late 17th to the late 19th centuries, there were a number of different proposals of who wrote what and when. But by the end of the 19th century, liberal scholars had reached general agreement. The letters stand for:
- J documents are the sections, verses, or in some cases parts of verses that were written by one or more authors who preferred to use the Hebrew name Jahweh (Jehovah) to refer to God. It is proposed that this author wrote about 900–850 B.C.
- E documents are the texts that use the name Elohim for God and were supposedly written around 750–700 B.C.
- D stands for Deuteronomy, most of which was written by a different author or group of authors, perhaps around the time of King Josiah’s reforms in 621 B.C.
- P stands for Priest and identifies the texts in Leviticus and elsewhere in the Pentateuch that were written by a priest or priests during the exile in Babylon after 586 B.C.
Then around 400 B.C. some redactors (i.e., editors) supposedly combined these four independently written texts to form the Pentateuch as it was known in the time of Jesus and modern times.”
What the JEDP theory does is cast doubt on the authorship and historicity on Books of Moses. According to this theory, the Laws of Moses were a fabrication by individuals who wrote that one should not bear false witness and that it was fine with them to compose a history of Israel that has no historical bases. In my opinion, no orthodox Jew or rabbi nor Christian would fabricate such an account for Christians are commanded to speak the truth in love, to avoid falsehood. This would mean that the Ten Commandments are not from God, but made up by man who attributed it to God. The JEDP theory calls for the discrediting of the Bible as being from God and without any historicity since it was written by men in the 10th century BCE. Furthermore, there is the presumption that there isn’t the Temple built by Solomon. For if there was a temple built by him that would mean that there must be some form of religious ceremonies otherwise the Priestly document wouldn’t be valid for the rebuilding of the Temple. The Jewish people who returned from the Exile wouldn’t have been unable to build the Temple if there was nothing there. Ezra records that about 43,000 people returned to the Promised Land to rebuild or build the Temple with the walls broken down. The people living in the land before the exiled Jews returned didn’t rebuild the wall or the temple. It was a devastated city in ruins. It is unlikely that 43,000 people having to provide for them, cut stones and timber to build the Temple from nothing seems unreasonable. Something must have been there so that they can use whatever material to reconstruct the Temple. That’s more plausible for me.
The recent discovery at the Fortress Elah being dated to 1050–910 BCE or so with a potsherd writing indicates that the Jewish people were a highly organized people. An inscription on a shattered potsherd refers to orphans, widows as well as judge and a king. This may indicate that there were already laws in place well before the dating by the Priestly document around 621 BCE. The excavation around the Temple Mount is currently prohibited for the most part by the Muslims because of their holy site to affirm or deny the existence of Solomon’s Temple.
In my view, the JEDP theory seeks to discredit the authorship and authority of Scripture as being from God and asserting that it is mam-made. The result is that the Bible is false and irrelevant. There is no God based on that view. I reject that perceived interpretation on my part of the JEDP theory. Moses wrote most of the Laws in the 40 years of wandering and before his death he restated the commands of God to a new generation who will enter and possess the Promised Land. I can concede that the Laws were written by Joshua or even by Levi since they were the closest associates with Moses. As one reads Exodus and Deuteronomy, the text states that Moses wrote things down as in Exodus 24:4, “Moses then wrote down everything the LORD had said.” See also 34:27, Lev. 26:46, 27:34, Deut. 1:1, 6:1, 27:1–68.
SUMMARY: JEDP theory asserts that man wrote the Books of Moses and that it did not come from God or through Moses. It is all man-made.
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