Did Moses write the Torah?

[otseng]

There are two main views regarding the authorship of the Torah (Pentateuch). The traditional view holds that Moses wrote it during the Exodus from Egypt, around the 15th or 13th century BC, depending on the early or late date of the Exodus. The scholarly view proposes that the Torah was compiled during the post-exilic period in Persia, between approximately 539 and 333 BC.

Debate topic: Did Moses write the Torah?

[POI]

But you didn't answer my questions...
1) Do you raise an eyebrow to any of these claims?
2) Or do you accept them just because scientists claims these things?

I did answer your questions. Here they are again:

1) I remain skeptical about any claim which has never been demonstrated.
2) See my answer above.

That's because you're limiting the definition of supernatural to fit your needs.

You asked me "How do you define what is natural and what is supernatural?". You did not ask me how Cambridge, Webster, etc. define it. When I am referring to the term "supernatural", I mean any claim which would insinuate an intentional conscious invisible agency, who is claimed to be the working catalyst for such said event(s).

I agree there are supernatural claims in the Bible - angels killing firstborn sons, crossing the Red Sea, manna from heaven, etc. Now, it could be there are naturalistic explanations for all of these, but it's not necessary for me to reject these claims if there are no naturalistic explanations.

My ultimate question was "do you think both you and I would likely agree as to which claims in the Torah are deemed 'supernatural'?" I believe you did not answer here because you already know we would agree as to which claims are deemed 'supernatural'.

Have angels, and all the other supernatural agents, (as mentioned in the Bible), been demonstrated? I doubt it. And the Bible makes many many many claims to the "supernatural". After a while, more than an 'eyebrow' gets raised.

Let me turn the question around and make it relevant to this topic. Do you know who JEPD are? What confidence do you have such authors actually exist? As far as I'm aware, these are all hypothetical authors and no scholar has been able to pinpoint them to any individual or group.

No, I asked first, and my question is relevant, as if Moses does not exist, then believers have major problems. And if Moses likely did not exist, then he logically could not have authored the Torah.

As compared to other stated figures from ancient antiquity, how does the claim for the existence of Moses far to all others from antiquity -- (low, medium, high, other)?

And what parts then are based on actual historical events?

Well, apparently, not much. And this is while using your frequently used source --> (Wiki).

How much of it has to be true?

Further, I ask again, how many of these demonstrable/indemonstrable supernatural claims, initiated by an invisible agency, does the Torah place forth exactly?

[Difflugia]

Debate topic: Did Moses write the Torah?

No.

It is generally accepted multiple authors over a span of time are involved in the writing of the Torah.

Yes. In fact, I'd say that this view is consensus and if we need to prove that to some standard of consensus, I'm confident we can. The reason I'm making this point is I get the feel from reading your overall set of opening statements that a lack of consensus on details about the construction of the Torah is going to turn into the idea that Mosaic authorship is a viable alternative to any of the other competing theories. So, just to start off, I'm asserting that academic consensus is certainly that Moses himself didn't write any significant part of the Torah.

I also think that Moses wasn't real, but what will make this fun is that Richard Elliott Friedman very desperately wants Moses to have been real. While laying out his position in The Exodus, he says this:

In any case, an essential question for all historians is whether someone would make this up. It still applies here, and it argues in favor of the exodus, because there are other parts of the story that seem even less likely to be made up than slave ancestors. Why make up that Moses was married to a Midianite? Why make up that his father-in-law was a Midianite priest? Why make up that Israel’s priesthood was not indigenous? There are some other parts of the story that I, too, would acknowledge were made up. But these basics—some Egyptian experience, the Midianite connection—appear to me to be shoes, not magic pumpkins.

Previously, the documentary hypothesis (DH) was very popular.

However, modern scholars have moved away from the classical DH model because of its many problems.

The consensus around the classical documentary hypothesis has now collapsed.

This is why I'm curious about the direction you expect "consensus" to take. The problems with the Documentary Hypothesis are things like some portions of the Priestly Source seem to know different Exodus traditions than others, causing problems with dating. None of these problems, however, affect questions like whether or not Moses was involved. The new theories competing with one another are still in exactly as much agreement as before over the involvement of Moses. You may still insist that we show why Moses wasn't involved (and I'm sure you will), but don't make the mistake of thinking that a new lack of consensus about the Documentary Hypothesis also means a lack of consensus against any form of Mosaic authorship; it doesn't.

I believe there are two options we can rule out on the authorship of the Torah:
1. Moses wrote all of the Torah.
2. The Torah was fabricated out of thin air post-exile without reference to any past historical knowledge.

Are either of these even meaningful? All this establishes is that your threshold is somewhere above "not impossible."

Moses couldn't have written all of it because it talks about him dying. Obviously if you're dead, you can't write about your death.

The traditional view among rabbis that believe in complete Mosaic authorship is that God dictated those parts to Moses while Moses wrote them "with tears in his eyes."

Now, I have no problem thinking we can rule this out for the obvious reason that gods don't genuinely interact with people, but why do you think it can be ruled out? I want to at least understand what you mean.

Similarly, what do you mean by, "without past historical knowledge?" Do you mean something beyond shared tradition? I have no problem thinking that the Torah could have been, as you say, "fabricated out of thin air post exile." What I'm unsure about is how strictly you're interpreting the phrase "past historical knowledge." Would a modern story about Paul Bunyan qualify with its logging details?

Practically all scholars believe there is some element of truth behind the composition of the Torah. Even if it was written post-exile, the authors had extensive knowledge of Egyptian culture, linguistics, and history. So, somehow they had access to all that information. They could not have written the Torah without such knowledge and written it out of thin air.

My worry about this sentiment is that you're going to use words like "extensive" without quantifying them. I recall another particularly frustrating conversation that involved phrases like "massive erosion," "practically no erosion," and "general pattern" without quantifying them in a way that I could know what I need to rebut. Is "extensive knowledge" effectively rebutted if they got details wrong? If so, how many? At least some of your arguments in the past have actvely relied on vagueness and I'd like to avoid that here.

Or do you accept them just because scientists claims these things?

I accept that scientists are experts, at least within their own fields. As it relates to this discussion, I will accept the same thing about archaeologists, linguists, and the like.

Or is it only if it's claimed by non-scientists and religious sources do you raise your eyebrows?

Creation apologists universally get things ridiculously wrong in fields that I understand. When they do, I see no reason to trust them over scientists in areas that I don't know enough about. I'll let you know if I think one of your sources veers into that territory in this discussion.

Meaning, if we can be more confident that certain characters from antiquity existed over others, then where exactly does Moses line up within this (confidence barometer) -- low, medium, high, other?

Low. Moses is on the order of King Arthur. He is probably pure legend, but there might have been a historical character that was the seed for the legend. In any case, we have no reason to expect any of the legendary narrative to also be meaningfully historical.

Do you know who JEPD are? What confidence do you have such authors actually exist? As far as I'm aware, these are all hypothetical authors and no scholar has been able to pinpoint them to any individual or group.

I'm not sure what this means to you. You haven't turned it into a claim, so I don't know what to rebut, but it seems similar to things like Gospel authorship: we know Matthew didn't write Matthew. We also don't know who did, but we know somebody did.

As relates to the Pentateuch. We don't know who J, E, P, and D were, but we can identify regions of the text whose authors showed specific literary patterns. We don't know who they were, but we know somebody wrote those sections. Even with an extraordinarily naive understanding, at most one of those authors could be Moses. For reasons that I hope we'll get to, I'm pretty sure zero of them were Moses.

Somewhat related, I'd also ask once again that you try to avoid rhetorical questions. In the conversation I mentioned earlier, you repeatedly asked rhetorical questions where you mistakenly thought we would share an answer. Considering the current subject matter, I expect that you'll rely on sources that you trust, but that state things as fact that I think are untrue. If you ask rhetorical questions assuming those sources' claims to be accurate, I'll likely not know what you're talking about. Instead, please just state your claims with supporting facts and where you got them. That's less exciting that an expected Socratic gotcha, but also much easier to understand.

If there's something that indicates that most likely he wrote it, then he probably wrote it.

I personally think that's a pretty high bar and you're going to have enough trouble with Moses maybe writing any of it. But we'll see.

[POI]

FYI, the quoted question you responded to here was mine, not Otsengs Anywho, moving forward.... Seems you have concluded that, when compared to other claimed figures from antiquity, Moses is low on the "totem pole" for probability. This seems to be historical consensus as well? Which begs another question... Why is he considered low on the "confidence barometer"?

Low. Moses is on the order of King Arthur. He is probably pure legend, but there might have been a historical character that was the seed for the legend. In any case, we have no reason to expect any of the legendary narrative to also be meaningfully historical.

I think it's time to bring in a bit of technology to move things along. I asked "AI" -- "what figures from ancient antiquity have very high probable proof(s) of existence?". Since the stated figures below have much higher levels of evidence to support their claimed existence, where exactly does Moses fall into this pecking order? Below is the AI result:

While historical certainty is difficult to achieve, some figures from ancient antiquity have a very high probability of existence based on multiple converging lines of evidence. Here are some examples:

1. Julius Caesar: Strong evidence: He is supported by multiple sources, including his own writings ("Commentaries on the Gallic War"), the writings of his contemporaries like Cicero and Sallust, archaeological findings like statues and coins bearing his image and name, and the identification of his assassination location. Historians' perspective: Historians widely accept Caesar's existence due to the sheer volume and varied nature of the evidence.

2. Alexander the Great: Strong evidence: Numerous historical texts, including those written by contemporaries, detail his life and conquests. Multiple cities were named after him, suggesting his significant impact on the region. Historians' perspective: While some details of his life might be embellished, historians consider his existence highly probable given the widespread evidence of his influence and the unlikelihood of a widespread historical conspiracy to invent him.

3. Augustus Caesar: Strong evidence: As the first Roman Emperor, Augustus's reign is well documented through historical texts, including the writings of people like Plutarch and Appian. He is also known from physical objects like inscriptions.

4. Biblical Figures (with strong archaeological support):

Pontius Pilate: His existence is confirmed by an inscription discovered in Caesarea.

David: A stone bearing the inscription "House of David" and "king of Israel" has been found, supporting the existence of this key figure.

Many others: Archaeology has confirmed the existence of figures like Herod the Great, Caiaphas, and numerous kings of Israel and Judah.

Important Considerations: Absolute proof of a figure's existence from ancient times is impossible, as eyewitness accounts or direct recordings are unavailable. Historians prioritize figures with multiple independent sources of evidence to corroborate their existence. Sources close in time to the historical figure or event are considered more reliable.

*******************************

1) Okay Otseng, or any other believers, how does the veracity of Moses stack up to other claimed figures from antiquity?

2) Is it (more or less reasonable) to doubt Mose's existence?

[Difflugia]

FYI, the quoted question you responded to here was mine, not Otsengs

My mistake. Thanks for the clarification.

Anywho, moving forward.... Seems you have concluded that, when compared to other claimed figures from antiquity, Moses is low on the "totem pole" for probability. This seems to be historical consensus as well? Which begs another question... Why is he considered low on the "confidence barometer"?

For me, there are a few concrete details that specifically put him in the category of legends.

First, his name is kind of Egyptian, but not really. Moses means something like, "begotten of." Thutmose, Ahmose, and Rameses are names that include "-moses," but Moses itself sounds more like somebody's idea of what sounds Egyptian.

Second, the "Law of Moses" is supposed to be foundational to the culture of Israel, but only seems to have become important shortly before or during the Exile. Even in the Deuteronomistic History, it's not mentioned before 1 Kings, just before David died. Most scholars think 2 Kings 22:8 is referring to at least a portion of Deuteronomy as "the Law" that was "found" in the Temple. The prophets barely mention Moses at all, let alone "the Law" and Amos seems to know of a completely different Exodus tradition that didn't involve animal sacrifice. The Law seems to be most important to Ezra/Nehemiah, which itself is most closely associated with the compilation of the Bible as a document.

So, prior to King Josiah, Moses seems to have been a well-known, but barely mentioned folk hero. The Exodus and the Law seem to have been barely known by the prophets, from the time of Samuel through the entire history of Israel and Judah until the return from exile by Nehemiah, at which point it suddenly had always been incredibly important. It looks to me like it was basically created during the reign of Josiah and carried into Exile, but didn't become popular enough for the prophets to think much of it until the Persian period. Given that, it's hard to see how any details at all of a real Moses were retained. If he was a real guy, then all we likely know about him was his name, and even that might be a shortened corruption of his real name in the first place.

[historia]

Debate topic: Did Moses write the Torah?

No. I think the evidence points to multiple authors, and, as you noted, the scholarly consensus is against Mosaic authorship.

[otseng]

You asked me "How do you define what is natural and what is supernatural?".

You can define it however you like, but to address your comment...

Hmm? Maybe any claimed event which is said to have been initiated from an invisible agency could be what is defined as "supernatural", like a god(s), or a ghost, or a spirt, or a demon, or other? And I do not think 'science' is claiming any demonstrated or undemonstrated events are being initiated by an invisible agency?

Science is not colliding with the supernatural per your definition. But per dictionary definitions, I assert they are. If one is to be consistent with dictionary definitions and reject the supernatural, then it applies to both the Bible and even the sciences.

I agree there are supernatural claims in the Bible - angels killing firstborn sons, crossing the Red Sea, manna from heaven, etc. Now, it could be there are naturalistic explanations for all of these, but it's not necessary for me to reject these claims if there are no naturalistic explanations.

My ultimate question was "do you think both you and I would likely agree as to which claims in the Torah are deemed 'supernatural'?" I believe you did not answer here because you already know we would agree as to which claims are deemed 'supernatural'.

I don't know what you would consider to be supernatural in the Bible. If you agree "angels killing firstborn sons, crossing the Red Sea, manna from heaven" are supernatural events, then we can agree.

But of what relevance does it make in who wrote the Torah?

Have angels, and all the other supernatural agents, (as mentioned in the Bible), been demonstrated? I doubt it. And the Bible makes many many many claims to the "supernatural". After a while, more than an 'eyebrow' gets raised.

If you raise your eyebrows also with modern science, then sure.

Let me turn the question around and make it relevant to this topic. Do you know who JEPD are? What confidence do you have such authors actually exist? As far as I'm aware, these are all hypothetical authors and no scholar has been able to pinpoint them to any individual or group.

No, I asked first, and my question is relevant, as if Moses does not exist, then believers have major problems. And if Moses likely did not exist, then he logically could not have authored the Torah.

Are you making the claim Moses did not exist? On what basis do you make that claim?

At a minimum, we have a person named Moses that claims to have written the Torah.

Exodus 24:4
Moses then wrote down everything the LORD had said. He got up early the next morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and set up twelve stone pillars representing the twelve tribes of Israel.

Numbers 33:2
At the LORD’s command Moses recorded the stages in their journey. This is their journey by stages:

Deuteronomy 31:24
After Moses finished writing in a book the words of this law from beginning to end,

As compared to other stated figures from ancient antiquity, how does the claim for the existence of Moses far to all others from antiquity -- (low, medium, high, other)?

Depends on who you ask. But Moses is treated as if he did exist by many and is not just some mythical person.

And what parts then are based on actual historical events?

Well, apparently, not much.

I'm not asking how much, but what parts? This is commonly cited by DH adherents, but I've yet to see what they think is actual history.

Further, I ask again, how many of these demonstrable/indemonstrable supernatural claims, initiated by an invisible agency, does the Torah place forth exactly?

Again, I see no relevance with your question and looks like another red herring question to me. How does your question relate to who wrote the Torah?

[POI]

[Replying to otseng in post #16]

Well Otseng, rather than draw this out, not only do I defer back to post #3, but I have more to add....

According to your frequently used source (Wiki), the mere existence of Moses is suspect. Why does this bare repeating? Because if it is likely Moses did not exist, then of course Moses did not write the Torah, or anything else for that matter. (i.e.):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses

"Scholars hold different opinions on the historicity of Moses.[58][59] For instance, according to William G. Dever, the modern scholarly consensus is that the biblical person of Moses is largely mythical while also holding that "a Moses-like figure may have existed somewhere in the southern Transjordan" in the mid-to-late thirteenth century BCE, and that "archeology can do nothing" to prove or confirm either way.[59][10] Some scholars, such as Konrad Schmid and Jens Schröter, consider Moses a historical figure.[60] According to Solomon Nigosian, there are actually three prevailing views among biblical scholars: one is that Moses is not a historical figure, another view strives to anchor the decisive role he played in Israelite religion, and a third that argues there are elements of both history and legend from which "these issues are hotly debated unresolved matters among scholars".[58] According to Brian Britt, there is divide among scholars when discussing matters on Moses that threatens gridlock.[61] According to the official Torah commentary for Conservative Judaism, it is irrelevant if the historical Moses existed, calling him "the folkloristic, national hero".[62][63]

Jan Assmann argues that it cannot be known if Moses ever lived because there are no traces of him outside tradition.[64] Although the names of Moses and others in the biblical narratives are Egyptian and contain genuine Egyptian elements, no extra-biblical sources point clearly to Moses."

*******************************

As I stated in our previous exchange, ancient antiquity is tricky. This is why believers remain having a fighting chance, in that there is really no true way to falsify virtually any claim from this era.

Moving forward, we have to ask ourselves... What is the level of confidence that Moses even existed, as compared to other claimed figures from antiquity, such as "Alexander the Great" for instance, who is considered by many to have a fairly high probability of existence?

A) If it should turn out the level of confidence is HIGH, in that Moses actually existed, then cool, let's just go with him writing (some) of the Torah. Why not? At which case, no matter who wrote it, there is an enormous number of "supernatural" claims placed within it, which makes the claimed veracity of the Torah questionable regardless.

B) If it should turn out Moses likely did not exist, well then, it is game over for you.

*******************************

At the end of the day, I'm a little leery to accept that Moses was an actual character in history? Maybe you can change my mind? But even if you did, it does not matter who wrote the Torah, for the reason I stated above, in option A).

[otseng]

So, just to start off, I'm asserting that academic consensus is certainly that Moses himself didn't write any significant part of the Torah.

OK, let's start with this. What is the evidence to support this claim?

I believe there are two options we can rule out on the authorship of the Torah:
1. Moses wrote all of the Torah.
2. The Torah was fabricated out of thin air post-exile without reference to any past historical knowledge.

Are either of these even meaningful? All this establishes is that your threshold is somewhere above "not impossible."

It's just getting the the low hanging fruit out of the way. The debate will be where does the Torah fall between these two extremes? And determining where it falls on this spectrum will be based on the evidence and logical arguments both sides will be presenting in this thread.

Moses couldn't have written all of it because it talks about him dying. Obviously if you're dead, you can't write about your death.

Now, I have no problem thinking we can rule this out for the obvious reason that gods don't genuinely interact with people, but why do you think it can be ruled out? I want to at least understand what you mean.

The context is ruling out that Moses wrote all of the Torah. Since Deut 34:5-6 talks about the death of Moses, he couldn't have written that part. I am not ruling out he could have written most of it.

What I'm unsure about is how strictly you're interpreting the phrase "past historical knowledge."

One example is the use of Egyptian loanwords. This shows that whoever wrote the Torah had knowledge of the Egyptian language. So, just the presence of Egyptian loanwords shows they had knowledge of ancient Egypt, esp if the authors were post-exilic.

My worry about this sentiment is that you're going to use words like "extensive" without quantifying them.

There is a bit of subjectivity in how much evidence is considered to be extensive or unconvincing. There is no way anybody can objectively determine that for any side. But we'll just have to let the jury decide once all sides have provided their evidence.

Do you know who JEPD are? What confidence do you have such authors actually exist? As far as I'm aware, these are all hypothetical authors and no scholar has been able to pinpoint them to any individual or group.

I'm not sure what this means to you. You haven't turned it into a claim, so I don't know what to rebut, but it seems similar to things like Gospel authorship: we know Matthew didn't write Matthew. We also don't know who did, but we know somebody did.

The context of this is POI is arguing we can rule out Moses as an author of the Torah since we cannot first prove Moses actually existed. My counter to this is we as well don't know who J, E, P, and D are either. So, by his argument, we can also throw out JEPD as potential authors as well.

What I propose is we simply treat Moses as M. He's just a person between 1500 and 1200 BC. We don't need to attribute any special qualities to him, but simply a faceless person from that time period.

Somewhat related, I'd also ask once again that you try to avoid rhetorical questions.

I'm not going to avoid using the Socratic method. I find it a useful method to arrive at the truth.

We don't know who J, E, P, and D were, but we can identify regions of the text whose authors showed specific literary patterns.

Yes, we don't know who were JEPD. But I think it's also a big assumption we know what they wrote. As far as I know, we have no sources of what any of them individually wrote. It's not like we have a textual document that was written by a Jahwist that we've discovered. It's all a hypothesis of what any of them wrote based on a single text. And it's not like there's an objective way to determine this either since we see so many variations on what scholars attribute to JEPD.

[POI]

The context of this is POI is arguing we can rule out Moses as an author of the Torah since we cannot first prove Moses actually existed.

It's not this black and white, at all. We had a recent exchange about "the Exodus". In order for claims from "the Exodus" to demonstrate any veracity, Moses would also need to be a real and actual character, yes? If not, please explain?

I also acknowledge claims from ancient antiquity are a "B". I've asked, a couple of times in this thread now, that compared to other claimed characters from antiquity, (like Alexander, Pilate, etc.), where does the claim for an actual "Moses" character compare on the (confidence barometer) --- low, medium, high, other?

[Difflugia]

So, just to start off, I'm asserting that academic consensus is certainly that Moses himself didn't write any significant part of the Torah.

OK, let's start with this. What is the evidence to support this claim?

The claim that it's consensus? I'd have thought you'd accept that without issue.

In any case, Wikipedia refers to page 21 of John J. McDermott's book, Reading the Pentateuch:

Wellhausen's documentary hypothesis has not survived in its original form. However, virtually all scholars today accept the basic idea behind it, that the Pentateuch is not the work of one single author writing at one time, but was composed over several centuries by people responding to different circumstances.

Do you think that there's even a minority position among scholars that Moses was the author of part of the Pentateuch?

Since Deut 34:5-6 talks about the death of Moses, he couldn't have written that part.

My question is why you think that. God is represented as dictating other things to Moses, like the Ten Commandments. Do you think God couldn't have dictated that part? That He could have, but didn't? You're presenting this as though it's some sort of reasonable starting point, but what are your criteria for what's reasonable? Are we ruling out all supernatural intervention, or just what rises above some arbitrary threshold for silliness?

What I'm unsure about is how strictly you're interpreting the phrase "past historical knowledge."

One example is the use of Egyptian loanwords. This shows that whoever wrote the Torah had knowledge of the Egyptian language. So, just the presence of Egyptian loanwords shows they had knowledge of ancient Egypt, esp if the authors were post-exilic.

OK. This is where I think we may end up running into problems with things like rhetorical questions later on; you're building assumptions into some of your statements that I don't think are warranted. Unless you can establish that the Egyptian loanwords are, for example, necessarily earlier than the seventh century BC, your claim of "knowledge of ancient Egypt" is without foundation. Remember that Josiah was killed by an Egyptian arrow, so obviously Egypt and Judah had at least enough cultural contact during the seventh century for a war. If "knowledge of ancient Egypt" is going to carry any meaning, you'll have to establish that it would be different than "knowledge of contemporary Egypt" from the point of view of exilic Judahites.

By the way, if you or anyone following along might find it handy to reference, I put together this chart of prophets and kings a while ago. I still find it useful.

My worry about this sentiment is that you're going to use words like "extensive" without quantifying them.

But we'll just have to let the jury decide once all sides have provided their evidence.

I guess I'll just have to keep that in mind.

The context of this is POI is arguing we can rule out Moses as an author of the Torah since we cannot first prove Moses actually existed. My counter to this is we as well don't know who J, E, P, and D are either. So, by his argument, we can also throw out JEPD as potential authors as well.

I see where you're going with this, but the problem with your reasoning is that "J" is whoever wrote the sections we attribute to "J." Moses, though, isn't just whoever wrote the Torah, even if we can establish a single author; he's also a character in the story. Whoever wrote J was undoubtedly at least one real person, even if we have no idea who she or they were. In the same way, Paul very likely didn't write 1 Timothy, but somebody did. We don't have to know who that actually was, though, to know that it almost certainly wasn't Paul.

What I propose is we simply treat Moses as M. He's just a person between 1500 and 1200 BC. We don't need to attribute any special qualities to him, but simply a faceless person from that time period.

The best that would get you is that one person wrote the Torah (or most of it, or a large minority of it, or whatever you're arguing). If your argument is that a specific character from the story named Moses wrote the Pentateuch, then that's a much higher bar than just "M".

Somewhat related, I'd also ask once again that you try to avoid rhetorical questions.

I'm not going to avoid using the Socratic method. I find it a useful method to arrive at the truth.

OK. I'll probably stop you and examine any unfounded assumptions that you build into your questions, though, so I guess we'll see how it goes.

We don't know who J, E, P, and D were, but we can identify regions of the text whose authors showed specific literary patterns.

Yes, we don't know who were JEPD. But I think it's also a big assumption we know what they wrote. As far as I know, we have no sources of what any of them individually wrote. It's not like we have a textual document that was written by a Jahwist that we've discovered. It's all a hypothesis of what any of them wrote based on a single text. And it's not like there's an objective way to determine this either since we see so many variations on what scholars attribute to JEPD.

There's some truth to that, but I think you're overstating the differences between scholars' opinions. Richard Elliott Friedman, for example, has published his conclusions in various forms (a list of verses in Who Wrote the Bible and a full color-coded translation in The Bible With Sources Revealed). There are certainly differences with other scholars, but even very early scholars agree with him over the vast majority of the text. The literary and cultural differences between the posited authors are real. Differences between scholars' opinions are also real, but it's not all or nothing and doesn't turn the entire endeavor into "big assumption."

If you haven't, I recommend reading the introduction to The Bible With Sources Revealed. It offers a concise summary of the Documentary Hypothesis and the basic form the evidence takes. It's available online in its entirety at Google Books. I'm not asking you to believe it, but a lot of apologetic material doesn't even show a basic understanding of the Documentary Hypothesis itself, let alone the subtle differences between that and derivatives like the Supplementary Hypothesis or Fragmentary Hypothesis.