could moses have written the first five books of the bible

If you write a book which is technically a collection of material attributed to one author, either de facto by writing or de jure by authority, by up to three different prior royal editions and a massive collection of single scrolls, yes that person is the author. You are the editor. You will probably leave some kind of markings to show which parts you had to edit and you will also preserve the markings left by prior teams of scribes.Let's say for example that you make a Shakespeare collection. You include everything from the first folio, some additional material collected from the sonnets, and also a stage draft of Chris Marlowe's Faust that doesn't suck and that you suspect has been touched by Shakespeare. (You might be wrong, but it's not just a conspiracy theory, this particular draft has corrections signed Wl Shkspr).Oh, and you update all the spelling and replace some archaic words.Is the author Shakespeare or you?If you are the author of "your" Shakespeare, then Paul isn't the author of any of his letters, even Romans Vice-versa if the scribal teams commisioned by Solomon, Hezekiah, and Josiah hadn't attributed the traditions they were expounding to Moses and confirmed them against the existing ancient scrolls, they would have said so! J specifically tells us in Numbers when he stops using the "Moses" material for his narrative and resorts to another source. Again, let's say you go all around the world and write up a collection of all the sayings that are attributed to Santa Claus. Sure, you are the author, in some sense. The people who claim to have heard from Santa are the authors, in some sense. But the book is a Book of Santa.This message has been edited by Iblis, 01-04-2006 07:40 PM