Did Moses Produce the Torah? ("Debunking the 7 Myths that Deny Biblical Truth" Series)

Genesis Apologetics

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Myth number 6 is, Moses did not actually produce the Torah, the first five books of the

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Bible. They allege that Moses did not have the ability to write, or that the Hebrew language doesn't date back far enough for the events recorded in the

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Bible. Let's find out why these claims couldn't be further from the truth. To begin with, keep in mind that Jesus himself supported that Moses produced the

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Torah, stating in John 5, For if you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.

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But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words? When praying to the Father in John 17,

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Jesus said this, Sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth. Jesus had a high view of scripture, and he clearly believed in the

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Mosaic authorship of the Torah. New Testament authors mention Moses 80 times, and always give him credit for producing the

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Torah. Paul even noted in Romans 3 that God committed his oracles and teachings to the

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Jewish people and this came through Moses. But wait a minute, Moses wasn't present during the six days of creation recorded in the first chapter of Genesis.

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No one was, and Adam wasn't created until the end of creation week. Moses also didn't witness the flood, or the events leading up to it.

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In fact, Moses didn't even show up until at least 700 years after the flood. So just how did he write or compile the biblical history that came before him?

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The answer is quite simple, they were transmitted orally or in writing, or both. Interestingly, the first set of writings referenced in the

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Bible is the book of the Generations of Adam in Genesis 5. This book is actually one of 11 toldotes, which means histories or genealogies that are included in the book of Genesis, which is broken into 50 chapters in our

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Bibles today. While we don't know for sure, it's likely that these 11 toldotes were memorized, compiled, or both by the generations that are relevant to them, and handed like historical batons between generations.

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For example, the toldote from Genesis 5 .1 to 6 .8 includes 13 people listed by name.

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The next one, dealing with the flood, includes 9. The next toldote picks up in chapter 10 and describes

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Noah's sons and grandchildren, with over 70 people listed by name. The events of the toldote for Terah, Ishmael, Isaac, and Jacob even occurred during the period for which we have evidence of Hebrew writing.

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The Bible is clear and specific about the histories that predate Moses. It's hard to imagine how the birth, death, or lifespan years given for the 87 patriarchs in the first 11 chapters of Genesis was passed down through oral history alone.

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However, the ancients transmitted stories orally much more frequently than we do today, and they were often quite reliable when they did so.

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Also, remember that the Holy Spirit had no limitations for guiding Moses through the transmission process, as men being born along by the

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Holy Spirit spoke from God. Second Peter 1 .21. Another major clue that the early chapters of Genesis were preserved and given to Moses is found in Genesis 2.

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This chapter describes river systems that encircled certain areas that were rich with precious minerals and gems.

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Moses was not around to see this landscape, as it was completely reworked by Noah's flood which occurred long before his day.

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He knew about these things because they were passed down beforehand and given to him. So, if these accounts were preserved through the flood and preserved after the flood, it is conceivable that they were passed down from one generation to another by oral transmission or writing.

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Liberal scholars today promote the documentary hypothesis, which stands against the

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Mosaic authorship of the Torah, and suggested instead that it was a compilation of four originally independent documents, abbreviated as the

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JEPD sources. This idea originally was promoted by Julius Wellhausen in the 19th century.

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Creation Ministries International provides a thorough rebuttal of this hypothesis, showing even how modern scholarship does not support it.

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The evidence that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, often referred to in the Bible as the Law or the

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Torah in the Hebrew, is overwhelming. There are five things that strongly support

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Mosaic authorship. Number one, contrary to the views of Wellhausen and others, archaeological research has established that writing was indeed well known in Moses' day.

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That was one of their main premises. The JEDP, the documentary hypothesis, falsely assumes that the

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Israelites waited until many centuries after the foundation of their nation before committing any of their history or laws to written form, even though their neighbors kept written records of their own history and religion from before the time of Moses.

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Two, the author is obviously an eyewitness of the exodus from Egypt, familiar with the geography, the flora and fauna of the region.

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He uses several Egyptian words, and refers to customs that go back to the second millennium

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BC. So obviously the writer Moses would have been familiar with what the

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Egyptians did. Number three, within the Pentateuch, in many places, it indicates that Moses was the writer.

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When people write letters or emails and include their name at the bottom, it's an excellent indication that that person wrote the text.

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Why doubt them unless you have good reasons? Four, outside of the Pentateuch, many times in the rest of the

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Old Testament, Moses is said to have been the writer. Clearly the writers of those other books held to Mosaic authorship.

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Number five, in the New Testament, Jesus frequently spoke of Moses' writings, or the law of Moses.

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Jesus said that those who hear not, or reject Moses, would not be persuaded though one rose from the dead.

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In Luke 16 .31 we read that. Thus we see that those churches and seminaries that reject the historicity of Moses' writings often also reject the literal bodily resurrection of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus made that connection right there. And so for evangelicals to be accepting this, it's just, it's ridiculous.

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So of course other New Testament speakers, writers said the same thing, Moses is the author of the

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Pentateuch, another support for Mosaic authorship. Does that mean that Moses wrote

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Genesis without reference to any previous information? No, not necessarily. Genesis comprises narratives of historical events that occurred before Moses, long before he was born.

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Moses may very well have had access to patriarchal records and or reliable oral traditions of those events.

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In that case, such records would have certainly been preserved by writing, probably on clay tablets, that's the way they used to do it a long time ago, and handed down from father to son, from family to family, via the line of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and so on.

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You start through the flood with Noah and Shem. There are 11 verses in Genesis that read, these are, or this is the book of, the generations of.

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There's 11 statements like that. The Hebrew word Toledoth translates generations, translated, that's the word for generations, can also mean origins or history, or even family history.

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And each verse comes either before or after a description of the historical events that involved the person that's named, this is the generation of so and so.

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The most likely explanation is that Adam, Noah, Shem, etc. each wrote an account of the events that occurred either right before or during his lifetime.

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And Moses, it's kind of like a signature almost, or a heading, that kind of thing. Same thing with Moses, under the infallible inspiration of the

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Holy Spirit, selected, compiled, and edited these to produce Genesis in its current, present, cohesive form.

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Next, we have the many instances in the Bible where Moses recorded the commands or words of God.

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For example, in Exodus 17, 14, the Lord said to Moses, write this for a memorial in the book and recount it in the hearing of Joshua.

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Exodus 24, 4 states that Moses wrote all the words of the Lord. And verse 7 records that Moses took the book of the covenant and read it to the people.

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We also have Deuteronomy 6 that indicates the Israelites were using writing, being directed by God to write his commandments on the doorposts of their houses and gates.

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Then there are the Ten Commandments, where God instructed Moses, come up to me on the mountain and be there, and I will give you tablets of stone, and the law and commandments which

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I have written, that you may teach them. Exodus 32, 15 even says that these tablets were written on both sides.

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So, it looks like God himself was writing in a language that the Israelites would understand. Many Christians and Jews alike believe that this interchange occurred in ancient

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Hebrew. But to compile a work like the Bible, you need the flexibility of an alphabet. While opinions vary, many secular scholars today hold that the

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Phoenicians developed the world's first alphabet around 1050 BC. How can this be when most biblical scholars hold the view that Moses wrote the

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Torah in the 15th century BC? In filmmaker Tim Mahoney's movie, Patterns of Evidence, The Moses Controversy, he answers this question thoroughly.

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In this movie, Mahoney establishes the Mosaic authorship by looking at evidence that answers four key questions.

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One, could Moses have written the Torah in a language by the time of the Exodus? Two, in the region of Egypt?

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Three, using the power of an alphabet? And four, in a form of writing like Hebrew? This movie documents over two hours of evidence that supports the biblical case.

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We'll review some of the highlights covered by the movie. While visiting Brian Brickett, I asked him how emphatic the

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Bible's claims are for Moses writing its first books around the time of the

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Exodus. Exodus 17, 14, it says, the Lord said to Moses, write in a book, write this in a book.

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And then it goes on, and when Moses produces the tablets, God tells him to do that too.

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So you have references in the Torah and all throughout the Bible that describe Mosaic authorship to the text, and it claims for itself that it is the product of Moses writing as a result of what

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God told him to do. I remembered that almost all the books of the

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Bible reference back to the writings of Moses. Jesus talks about Moses and references

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Moses. And if Moses didn't exist, then what does that do to, really, the credibility of Jesus?

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Yes, John 5 provides five witnesses to Jesus's divinity. He concludes his argument by saying this in John 5.

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If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?

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So there it looks like you have a definitive statement from Jesus that Moses produced the

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Torah and he's staking an awful lot on that reality. Well, Moses himself says that these things were given to him by God.

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God told me, God spoke to me, God commanded this. He clearly says that what he is writing is what

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God revealed. It's not just a matter of historical curiosity, well,

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Moses wrote these books and not some anonymous figure. It is that Moses is the chosen man of God.

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He is the man who spoke to God as a man speaks to his friend. And so Moses has great authority and that is why

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I think Jesus and the apostles, when they spoke of the books of Moses, they referred to him by name because he was

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Moses. He was this chosen man of God. In 1905, the great pioneer of archaeology,

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Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie and his wife Hilda went to the Sinai Peninsula searching for evidence of ancient

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Egyptian activity. Petrie had already found the famous Merneptah Stela near Thebes.

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At the time, it contained the oldest known reference to the people of Israel. It boasted that they had been subdued by the pharaohs.

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The Petries began to discover many hieroglyphic inscriptions. Then on the walls of one of the mines, they saw writing that appeared different from the rest.

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Petrie's work in the Sinai is incredibly important. He uncovered a group of inscribed objects, inscribed with a script which was unknown elsewhere in Egypt.

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The Griffith Institute holds the handwritten archives of the man responsible for identifying the source of these inscriptions.

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His name was Sir Alan Gardner and he was one of the world's preeminent experts in ancient languages.

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He determined that not only was this script made by Semitic people, it was made up of individual letters that formed the world's oldest known alphabet.

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The case for the alphabetic character of the unknown script is overwhelming. The meanings of these names, translated as Semitic words, are plain or plausible in 17 cases.

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The inscriptions found by the Petries and others confirm that the Proto -Sinaitic script is the earliest known alphabet, and it appeared centuries earlier than even

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Phoenician. An alphabet would make learning to read and write easy, allowing the

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Israelites to teach their children the words of God, as Moses instructed. And this alphabet was

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Semitic, which means that it was in the same family as Hebrew. Therefore, it was a form of writing like Hebrew.

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This writing, existing by the time of the Exodus and in the region of Egypt, could have provided the tool needed for Moses to express the nuance and detail found in the early books of the

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Bible. There are several distinctively Hebrew words that are not found in any other

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Semitic language that are contained in the 15 Hebrew inscriptions that I've translated. Moses had written down all the instructions from God, as well as the history of his people, beginning with the creation of the world.

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When Moses had finished writing the words of this law, in a scroll, to its very end,

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Moses commanded the Levites, who carried the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, he said,

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Take this book of the law and put it by the side of the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your

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God. Looking for answers about what the

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Bible teaches about creation, the fossil record, dinosaurs? Download the Genesis Apologetics app from the iTunes or Google Play stores for answers to these questions and more.