could moses have written the first five books of the bible

I have a question that I hope someone can help me with. Did the exodus occure during the bronze age or the iron age? The reason I ask, is that if it occurred during the bronze age then the references to iron and iron tools in the first five books of the Bible would cast serios doubt to the fundementalist belief that Moses was the author. The references to iron would point to a later unknown author, and undermine the authority of any creation stories it contained.

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

First, what do you mean by bronze or iron age?Secondly, Moses did not write the first five books of the Bible...the Levites or the High Priests put together what Moses wrote down in the first five books of the Bible which consisted of the creation history, the evolution of the Hebrew people, and the Law of God. Again, it was not Moses who wrote the Torah per se...but the Torah consists of what was the Prophet Moses' revelations of God for mankind.Also, books were not even around at the time...that came about in Babylon or Persia,I believe, when the Bible of the time was first put into scrolls actually. But before then everything Moses wrote was actually in stone...the Levites, who were chosen by Moses under God's command, put his writings together and kept it in the ark of the covenant...eventually they were translated into scrolls in either Persia or Babylon during Israel's captivities.
As far as the Prophets, they were put into scrolls during these captivity times mostly written by the Prophets servant who devoted their lives to serve the Prophet and learn from him.

there is no evidence for this model.however, there is sufficient evidence that at least 5 distinct groups wrote the torah, one of which could be the levites.moses also could not have compiled genesis, although he may have contributed to it:

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we all know where abraham was from: ur of the chaldeans. when were the chaldeans in ur? about 900-600 bc.

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want some more evidence? look at the heavy babylonian influences: one creation account, the story of noah and the tower of babel are prime examples. noah's often debated, as is creation, so lets look at babel.

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there really is a tower of babel. if i recall correctly, it's where we get the name "babylon" from. bab-el means ladder of the gods (or "stairway to heaven" if you will). it was completed at some point (a few millenia before christ), but fell into disrepair and crumbled, leaving only the first few levels of the ziggurat. around 600 bc, king nebuchadnezzar (remember him?) set about to rebuild and it was never finished. so we have an ancient babylonian temple, that "reached to the heavens" and a failed attempt to rebuild it by a very famous king.

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...and a story in the bible that makes fun of it. you see, the tower of babel story is a JOKE. balal means "confusion" and SOUNDS like babel. and so the hebrews reading this story, and looking at nebuchadnezzar's project are laughing. "god must have confused him or made him stupid," they would say.

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it's entirely too much of a coincidence for there to be a project to rebuild the babel ziggurat while the hebrews are there for it to NOT indicate that it influenced the writing.

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now, i can't begin to point out all of the anti-babylon subtext in genesis. but it's sure there in abundance. this one was just a really good example. re-read genesis and watch for slander of babylon. if moses wrote the book, you'd think it'd be anti-egyptian, not anti-babylonian. i don't think the hebrews were even concerned with babylon until they were forced into subjugation.

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so i think it makes a lot more sense to say that good portion of genesis was written IN babylon, or compiled and editted in babylon. i suspect a large motivation in doing this was to preserve certain oral legends, myths, and stories, so that the hebrew tradition would stay alive and isolated in a foriegn land. although i'm also pretty sure that certain parts of it date much, much earlier.

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the point is that moses couldn't have written about the chaldeans, probably didn't write about the tower of babel, and certainly didn't care about the babylonians in the slightest. and so those bits at least must date much later than his lifetime.

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it was offtopic in the other thread, but here's a good place for this post.see also my thread on the forgery of deuteronomy, because there is evidence that it was written during the reign of josiah (which is in the book of kings).

Two points. If God didn`t dictate the history of the human race to that point to Moses on the Mount, it had to be transmitted orally or by clay tablets. No mention of either in the bible.
Secondly, since Hebrew didn`t exist as a written language, and Moses (if the Exodus tale has any veracity) only understood pictographs like hieroglyphics and hieratic (from his upbringing in the royal household), it follows that he would only understand the tablets if they were written in either of the above. Thus we should find almost pure Egyptian characters in Hebrew. Does this happen?

There is lots of evidence in the Bible that is simply a redaction of many, many oral histories. This is particularly evident in the OT, for example the multiple versions of the creation story, the different versions of the flood myth and the differences in how GOD is described throughout. It is also seen in the NT with the inclusions and copies from Gospel to Gospel but in the later case, there may have been written records as well.There is no indication of a connection between Hebrew and any of the Pictographic languages such as Egyptian or Chinese. It's more likely that Hebrew was influenced by the Phoenicians and other Semitic languages.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

actually, there's no mention of any of the three in the bible. it never once says that moses wrote genesis, for instance.how jar is partly correct. there is textual evidence that the torah is woven together under a redactor or group of redactors, from five original sources. i disagree that the original stories were unwritten, however. i think they show signs of being finalized before redaction and COPIED almost wholesale into the torah. this point is 100% wrong. the hebrews at the time of moses could indeed write. we have a steele or two written on protosemitic, which is probably what they wrote. and it's more closely related to pheonician than anything else. (a language based on phonics).however, we do find the occasional egyptian word in hebrew.

[q]this point is 100% wrong. the hebrews at the time of moses could indeed write. we have a steele or two written on protosemitic, which is probably what they wrote. and it's more closely related to pheonician than anything else. (a language based on phonics).
however, we do find the occasional egyptian word in hebrew.[/q]How is this 100% wrong? Proto-hebrew, proto-cannanite, proto-phoenician doesn`t mean that Moses was instructed in its use. I imagine the royal household wouldn`t teach any of the protos. Did Moses receive instruction in his sojourn in Midian? I suppose anything is possible, but there is no evidence a pastoral society there produced a source to teach Moses.
Any Egyptian word could be absorbed from trading influences, but is there any Egyptian core to the Hebrew language?

no, it doesn't. but the torah is not written in egyptian. had it been, i would say that's case for the authorship of the torah by moses. no, and that's exactly my point.

Hi Arach,I am familiar with the J, E, P, and D sources for the Torah.Could you tell me what the other one is considered to be, and perhaps give one or two verses that are considered to be from that source?Also, can you give me any scholars who support the fifth source so I can have a little look into this fifth source?Cheers.Brian.

The most obvious reason that the Pentateuch could not have been written by Moses is the fact that Deuteronomy contains a description of the funeral of Moses.It's very hard to do that when you're dead.Now, on a low-level analysis, that a few verses at the very end of the set isn't that big of a deal, but it does set a precedent: If this part was not written by Moses, what else wasn't written?Of course, this assumes that Moses even existed. There is absolutely no evidence of his presence in Egypt let alone a mass exodus of half the population of Egypt.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Hi Rrhain,One of the most telling anachronisms in the Pentateuch is Genesis 36:31, which actually has two anachronisms. These were the kings who reigned in Edom before any Israelite king reigned This really needs to have been written during or after the beginning of the monarchy, about 450 years after the Exodus by biblical dating. So there is no way that Moses could have written this.Also, there is no evidence of any kingdoms of Moab or Edom before c. 1300 BCE. Therefore, we have two anachronisms in the one statement, neither claim could have been made by Moses. I also find it surprising that the Bible does not record the full name of Judaism's greatest ever prophet.Brian.

h, for holiness code.and pick any verse in the second half of leviticus, and you've probably nailed an example.

Hi Arach,I was under the impression that the 'Holiness code' came from the 'P' source.Is the Book of Leviticus the only place where the 'h' source can be found?Cheers.Brian.

i was too, actually. the p source is more concerned with lineage than anything else. when you read genesis, try removing the sections of begats, and notice that story still mostly makes sense.sections with great organization to them (such as genesis 1) are probably also from p. i'm not sure, actually.