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?

[bluegreenearth]

Are you saying just because scholars don't believe Moses wrote it? This would be the appeal to authority fallacy. What I'm asking for is the evidence for their position.

Technically, an exception to the Appeal to Authority Fallacy is granted when someone merely defers to a consensus of legitimate experts in a relevant field. Otherwise, to casually dismiss a conclusion shared by a consensus of applicable experts would be a form of Denialism, not Critical Thinking. Even though it is possible for a consensus of experts to be mistaken on occasion, someone who tentatively accepts one of their thoroughly tested conclusions is not committing a reasoning error unless that individual possesses the necessary disconfirming evidence. In other words, the argument is not that the claim must be true simply because it is endorsed by a consensus of experts but because it is reasonable to presume the appropriate tests were performed by those experts to determine if it was false. Of course, this justification only applies when the claim is falsifiable. An exception to the Appeal to Authority Fallacy cannot be granted when the claim is unfalsifiable. Indeed, it would be an Appeal to Authority Fallacy for someone to conclude that an unfalsifiable claim is true based on an opinion shared by a consensus of experts.

[otseng]

What I'm saying, is that if myself, or Diffugia, would have submitted the exact same response as Historia, you would have at least responded. And you would have likely informed us about how the response was "fallacious," when you stated in post 48 -- "Are you saying just because scholars don't believe Moses wrote it? This would be the appeal to authority fallacy." So why not extend equal courtesy to Historia?

There is no requirement that I need to respond to every single post. And it's not that I'm not wiling to engage in a debate with historia, but if he presents evidence, I'm certainly willing to engage him.

Technically, an exception to the Appeal to Authority Fallacy is granted when someone merely defers to a consensus of legitimate experts in a relevant field.

It is entirely possible for a consensus of scholars to be wrong:

Scholars in the nineteenth century thought that the Tabernacle was a fiction, but in the twentieth century and in the present century archaeological evidence and internal biblical evidence mutually pointed to the historicity of the Tabernacle in ancient Israel.

Given the consensus of scholars do not believe this historicity of Moses, shouldn't it be easy to present their evidence?

[bluegreenearth]

It is entirely possible for a consensus of scholars to be wrong:

That objection was preemptively addressed in my original post.

[otseng]

There had to have been a single common source for J, E, and P for Genesis and Exodus, given the sheer number of doublets and triplets.

I think this is true, or at least close enough. The "single common source" is cultural tradition, which changed as it spread across time and space like the telephone game.

OK, good, we have agreement.

For purpose of debate, let's call the common source for JEPR to be O (origin). It could be from Moses, another person, or a group of people.

Given we have a source O that JEPR derived from, some questions is when and where was O written?

Since J was written 10th-9th century and E was written 9th century, it's reasonable O is 10th century or earlier. This would make it consistent with O being written during the united monarchy or earlier. When the kingdom was split around 930 BC, the J source derived from a southern interpretation of O and the E source derived from a northern interpretation of O. It also seems they both held O to be a sacred text and did not significantly alter the main points, though they did introduce their own biases in how they interpreted O. Some examples of this from the book:

In J Abraham lives in Hebron/Mamre (Gen 13:18; 18:1). Hebron was Judah’s capital.
In J the scouts whom Moses sends see only Hebron and other locations in Judah; they see nothing of what became the northern kingdom of Israel (Num 17–20,22–24).
In that story, the sole scout who has a positive view is Caleb. The Calebite territory was located in Judah and included Hebron.
In J—and only in J—Judah is a significant figure.
The J story of the massacre at Shechem also casts a negative light on the acquisition of the city of Shechem. Shechem was the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, built by Jeroboam I, the king who had rebelled against Judah.

In E Israel acquires its territory at the city of Shechem, the future capital of Israel, by a purchase rather than by violence (Gen 33:18–19).
In E the stories of the births and namings of the brothers do not include Judah (or Reuben, Simeon, and Levi), but they do include all the tribes that were part of the northern kingdom of Israel: Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin. And in E the birthright is awarded to Joseph—and since the birthright is a double portion, this results in two tribes being created from Joseph: Ephraim and Manasseh, which were the two largest tribes of the kingdom of Israel.
In E Reuben is the one who saves Joseph from their other brothers’ plans to kill him (Gen 37:22), and it is Reuben who assures Jacob that he will see that Benjamin will safely go to and return from Egypt (Gen 42:37).

[Difflugia]

Given we have a source O that JEPR derived from, some questions is when and where was O written?

Since J was written 10th-9th century and E was written 9th century, it's reasonable O is 10th century or earlier. This would make it consistent with O being written during the united monarchy or earlier.

As long as "consistent with" isn't treated as evidence that it actually was, then sure. I mean, if J is older than E, then O might just be J.

When the kingdom was split around 930 BC, the J source derived from a southern interpretation of O and the E source derived from a northern interpretation of O. It also seems they both held O to be a sacred text and did not significantly alter the main points, though they did introduce their own biases in how they interpreted O.

Since I don't know where you're going with this, I don't know how pedantic to be at this point. I talked about "sacred text" earlier in a way that implied that redactors refused to change the words and word order, but were willing to interleave texts. That is a completely different idea than preserving the main points of the stories; this latter idea is treating the plots of the stories as important, rather than the words themselves. One might reasonably refer to these stories as "sacred" as well, but only with a radically different meaning of the word. "Sacred" for O has nearly the opposite meaning as the "sacred" of the JE redactor.

Another thing to consider is that both J and E share some anacronisms that put a limit on how early our O can be. JE, for example, routinely puts the Philistines in the world of the Patriarchs, but according to Israel Finkelstein in chapter 1 of The Bible Unearthed:

The Philistines, a group of migrants from the Aegean or eastern Mediterranean, had not established their settlements along the coastal plain of Canaan until sometime after 1200 BCE.

Since both J and E refer to interactions of the Patriarchs with Philistines, those stories must have reached their O form sometime after the beginning of the twelfth century.

[otseng]

I mean, if J is older than E, then O might just be J.

Doesn't Friedman argue J and E are different sources?

One might reasonably refer to these stories as "sacred" as well, but only with a radically different meaning of the word. "Sacred" for O has nearly the opposite meaning as the "sacred" of the JE redactor.

I'm using the word sacred in a general sense:

"highly valued and important"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sacred

"regarded with reverence"
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/sacred

"considered to be holy and deserving respect, especially because of a connection with a god"
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dic ... ish/sacred

How do you define sacred when you mentioned there could be a radically different meaning between the two?

Another thing to consider is that both J and E share some anacronisms that put a limit on how early our O can be.

Yes, I agree there are anachronisms. But it goes both ways. If the Torah was written recently, it contains anachronisms that are old. If it was written much older, it contains anachronisms that are recent. Of course, I believe in the latter.

Anachronisms were introduced by JEPR when they modified O to make it more understandable to their audience. Comments were added as well to speak to contemporaries. An example:

Genesis 36:31 - And these [are] the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel.

In my view, "before there reigned any king over the children of Israel" was added by J.

Since both J and E refer to interactions of the Patriarchs with Philistines, those stories must have reached their O form sometime after the beginning of the twelfth century.

If we take the term Philistines literally, then Abraham would also have lived in the 12th century, which I don't think makes sense in any view.

Gen 21:34 - And Abraham sojourned in the Philistines' land many days.

[Difflugia]

I mean, if J is older than E, then O might just be J.

Doesn't Friedman argue J and E are different sources?

Yes. E being a modification or corruption of J wouldn't change that. As they stand, J and E were apparently different sources. If they nevertheless share a common source, which is what we're postiing here, that common source might be J itself.

I'm using the word sacred in a general sense:

That's fine. Since I used sacred earlier in a very narrow sense (the redactor was unwilling to change the very words of the document), I just wanted to make sure we weren't setting up for an equivocation down the line. If it comes up again, I'll qualify how I use it.

Another thing to consider is that both J and E share some anacronisms that put a limit on how early our O can be.

Yes, I agree there are anachronisms. But it goes both ways. If the Torah was written recently, it contains anachronisms that are old. If it was written much older, it contains anachronisms that are recent. Of course, I believe in the latter.

What would a "recent anachronism" be? In modern terms, that would be like a futuristic character from 1940s sci-fi not knowing about computers. Is that what you mean? What's a biblical example?

Anachronisms were introduced by JEPR when they modified O to make it more understandable to their audience. Comments were added as well to speak to contemporaries. An example:

Genesis 36:31 - And these [are] the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel.

In my view, "before there reigned any king over the children of Israel" was added by J.

That's fine, but it doesn't really change anything. The anachronism means that the story as we have it was written during or after the period of the monarchy. You're asserting that there's an earlier source that Moses was connected to, but so far, that's just an assertion.

If we take the term Philistines literally, then Abraham would also have lived in the 12th century

I agree with you. That's why Abraham stories involving Philistines are an anachronism: details of the story don't fit the time in which it's set. Another similar anachronism is Abram/Abraham in possession of domesticated camels (Genesis 12:16, 24:10-11). Camels weren't domesticated in the Levant until the late 10th century BC.

which I don't think makes sense in any view.

It makes perfect sense if the story was composed sometime after the Philistines were established in the region by an author that didn't know when that was. It's like when the Nephites first landed in North America, they encountered wild horses (1 Nephi 18:25). Since horses had been exinct in North America for over ten thousand years, that's an anachronism. The author of The Book of Mormon apparently didn't know that horses weren't reintroduced into North America until the sixteenth century AD. I'll leave it to the reader to decide if that author was Joseph Smith in the nineteenth century AD or Nephi, the "O" of that part of the Book of Mormon, in the sixth century BC.