Thursday, February 10, 2022

Richard E. Averbeck on Mosaic Authorship and Post-Mosaic Elements of the Pentateuch

  

Spinoza was particularly concerned with the post-Mosaic features of the Pentateuch. He was right to point out that no one should argue that Moses wrote every word of the Pentateuch as we now have it. The Torah itself does not allow this. Aside from the report of Moses’s death (Deut 34), Deut 2:12b tells us that the Edomites “destroyed the Horites from before them and settled in their place, just as Israel did in the land the LORD gave them as their possession.” This is clearly written from a postconquest point of view. Similarly, at one point the Esau genealogy in Gen 36 tells us that “these are the kings who ruled in the land of Edom before a king ruled over the Israelites” (v. 31). This verse is written from a historical point of view after there were kings over Israel; therefore, long after Moses. Apparently, a later writer added this section into the genealogy from some other source, whether it be the parallel passage in 1 Chr 1:43-50 (cf. Gen 36:31-39) or some other unknown source common to both. These are just a few examples. On the one hand, therefore, we know from the text itself that Moses did not write every word of the Pentateuch as we now have it. On the other hand, the text plainly tells us that Moses wrote down certain—sometimes major—portions of the Pentateuch (e.g., Exod 17:4; 24:4, 7”; the scroll of the covenant”; Deut 31:9 “Moses wrote this Torah,” and vv. 19, 22, 30, which refer to him writing down הַאֲזינוּ, the magnificent poem record in Deut 32:1-43). In many other places the text tells us that God spoke to and through Moses. What should we make of this? Although many in the academy would deny that Moses ever existed, or that if he did, he had nothing or very little to do with the actual composition of the Pentateuch, many others take Moses seriously as a historical person and author of the Pentateuch. The point here is that the text itself no doubt claims there was a historical Moses, and that he had a good deal to do with the origin and composition of the Pentateuch. (Richard E. Averbeck, “The Exodus, Debt Slavery, and the Composition of the Pentateuch,” in Exploring the Composition of the Pentateuch, ed. L. S. Baker Jr., Kenneth Bergland, Felipe A. Masotti, and A. Rahel Wells [Bulletin for Biblical Research Supplement 27; University Park, Pa.: Eisenbrauns, 2020], 30-31)