The Pentateuch

Day 1

Over the years there has been much controversy over just who wrote the Pentateuch. The Pentateuch consists of the first five books of the bible; Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The books composing the Pentateuch are actually only one book. The first part of the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus) is preparing the people of Israel for the Law that is to come. Leviticus sets down that law and establishes the manor in which the people of Israel were to worship God. The last two books (Numbers, Deuteronomy) expound on the law and set down some of the history of the practice of the law.

Any good book you read today will flow from the first page to the last. The Pentateuch has this same flow. If you selected five books written on the same subject today they would all come to the same conclusion, but they would use far ranging ideas that would not come together enough to create they same flow of events. The Pentateuch is also called the “Law of Moses,” the “Book of the Law of Moses,” and the “Book of Moses.” The Jewish names are the “Torah,” or the “Law.”

There is one group of people (scientists) who claim to have done a scientific study of the original materials and have found the Pentateuch was written by several people. They attribute different sections of the Pentateuch to different (unnamed) people. and they say this can be proven because of the difference in style of writing. These scientists also used Carbon Dating to establish that the Pentateuch was actually written about 1000b.c. This means it was written in the time line of King David. Also, there are many scholars who believe the only way Moses could have written the Pentateuch was to have carved it on stone tablets because the Ten Commandments were carve on a stone tablet. Now let us examine these theories one by one.

Stone Tablets: When Moses went to the mountain top, he didn’t know what to expect so he didn’t go prepared with pen and paper. God wrote the Ten Commandments, not Moses. It would have been natural for God to have used stone to preserve the Commandments for the generations to come. Stone lasts longer than paper.

Carbon Dating: To write the bibles of today, we use the LXX and other documents we call, “original documents.” They are not. They are copies. No one knows where the originals are because they have never been found.

In today’s society we tend to compare everything to today. They didn’t have computers, copiers, nor mimeograph machines at that time, believe it or not. These inventions came a few thousand years later. They did everything by hand. These copies were hand written so they would have looked authentic, but were copied many years later. The method of preservation at that time was just as crude as everything else so the originals may have been torn or destroyed after they were copied.

We know that Papyrus paper existed in the time of Moses because we have bits of Papyrus in museums that date as far back as 3000b.c. According to historians, Moses was born in 1526b.c.  We can assume from this that Moses could have written on paper.

Different Writing Styles: We have to remember that the documents we have today are copies. Perhaps several people were given different sections of the Pentateuch to copy. This would easily explain the difference in writing styles. If you will look closely at the books of the 

New Testament you will find several differences in style of writing. That does not say they were not inspired by God, it simply demonstrates they were penned by different people.

              In Romans 16:22 we find that Tertius, not Paul, penned the book of Romans. As many executives do today, Paul told Tertius what to write and Tertius wrote it down on paper. It’s called dictation.

Now for the “Proof Positive,” that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. Jesus said he did (Matthew 5:17, 18; 19:8; 22:31, 32; 23:2; Mark 10:9; 12:26; Luke 16:31; 20:37; 24:26, 27, 44; John 3:14; 5:45, 46, 47; 6:32, 49; 7:19, 22). As Christians we know Jesus was God incarnate in the form of man. Who else would know better than He? To say that Jesus was wrong about Moses writing the Pentateuch, is to deny every belief we have. We would be saying that there really is no salvation and no hope for eternity.

Daily Bible Readings

Genesis 15

Exodus 12: 31-51

Matthew 5: 17-20