Do Biblical Scholars Make Up Pentateuchal Authorship?

[@halfvisual]

Spot on. Thanks

[@FaptainCalcon750]

As much sense as all the evidence makes that the Penetuch possibly had dozens of authors and editors, people who are unwilling to take their head out of the dogmatic sand will ad hoc their way into sticking with Mosaic authorship. Anything you tell them will just be refuted with a "maybe/what if" argument with no data to back it up that doesn't involve a whole lot of other unwarranted presuppositions. It's just throwing eggs at a brick wall past a certain point with those people. Another great vid, super underrated channel, man.

[@abhbible]

Thanks for watching.

[@SynThenergy]

This is a fantastic video

[@seanmckeon4492]

I'm glad to hear you recommend Richard Elliott Friedman's 1987 book "Who Wrote the Bible?". That's where I started my journey into the study of the bible a few years ago. I haven't heard that book recommended by other content creators (Dan McClellan, Josh Bowen, etc) and, though I know it is not the final word and that the documentary hypothesis has been argued over, adapted and enhanced since then, I still think that book provides a clear, accessible explanation of the search for the bible's authors. Thanks for this clip - you cover a lot of ground in nine minutes!

[@JakobVirgil]

There is no biblical reason to think that Moses wrote the Pentetuch

[@abhbible]

@@JakobVirgil People cite John 5:46 to this effect. But I don’t think it’s a helpful way to read it.

[@tgrogan6049]

Except Jesus thought so😮😂

[@abhbible]

@@tgrogan6049 The author of John thought so, perhaps. He’s wrong, regardless.

[@tgrogan6049]

@@abhbible 👍

[@JakobVirgil]

@@abhbible I am not convienced by this passage that the author of John thought that Moses wrote the five books (including the one where he dies) just that he wrote something and that Jesus was mentioned in that thing. Where does the Tradition that Moses wrote the Torah come from? How old is it?

[@Screwtapello]

In the last chapter of Deuteronomy, Moses dies, so however much of the Pentateuch he wrote, he didn't write that part. There's at least one additional author/editor, and if they felt it was their place to add to the Pentateuch, what are the odds that this is the only thing they added? Your explanations of the neo-documentary hypothesis make a lot of sense to me, but as somebody who can't read ancient Hebrew, that last chapter was the thing that made me realise there was more going on.

[@abhbible]

@@Screwtapello Yea. Moses’ death is discussed in the Talmud too and even ancient Jews allowed for the possibility that Joshua wrote it. In the medieval period, a Jewish scholar named Ibn Ezra noticed other things that couldn’t have been worn by Moses too. Genesis 12:6 says the Canaanites were in the land “then,” implying they weren’t at the time the text was composed. Numbers 12:3 says Moses is the most humble man in the world. Deuteronomy 1:1 says these are the words Moses spoke “on the other side of the river,” implying the author is across from Moses. There’s a few things people have been noticing for a long time.

[@grantbartley483]

Does anything at all turn on whether Moses wrote the Pentateuch? I'm happy to think he wrote (unknown) bits of it.

[@MarcoH72]

Moses likely didn’t exist.

[@abhbible]

@@grantbartley483 Many fundamentalists think that biblical inerrancy depends on affirming Moses’ authorship of the Pentateuch because of verses like John 5:46.

[@grantbartley483]

@@MarcoH72 On what do you base that?

[@grantbartley483]

@@abhbible Thanks. I just looked that up. You can't get Moses's authorship from that verse, but only the idea that Moses delivered the law.

[@JakobVirgil]

@@grantbartley483 Like a lot of stuff that fundamentalists -of all stripes- believe it comes from tradition not the text.

[@TheSandyStone]

I've had lots of conversations with that creator. He's so hypocritical it's absurd. He has a PhD in physics and leverages that to "best" his dogmatic view of the world.

[@byrondickens]

PhD in physics from where? A Crackerjack box?

[@munbruk]

Evangelicals and protestant in general after they left the catholic tradition they are stuck with sola scruptura and they are struggling with the inerrancy of the Bible.

[@aperson4057]

The amount of Catholic bible scholars who reject Catholic dogmas is pretty high (they're just quiet about it). So no, this isn't a Protestant issue.

[@munbruk]

@@aperson4057 Very rare that catholics defend the inerrancy of the Bible, because they have something bigger; ie the holy spirit work through the pope and dogma.

[@aperson4057]

@@munbruk If the Bible is not "inerrant" (as per official Catholic dogma) or it contradicts papal statements, then yes, it has massive issues. If the entirety of the Catholic denomination is based solely on the pope, then thank God for Protestantism that takes scripture and the apostolic writings more seriously.

[@munbruk]

@@aperson4057 I am not catholic. Catholics were wrong on many things. But as I explained the sola scriptura requires a true scriptura to function. Catholics don't waist their times like protestans defending the Bible. They knew it is a lost battle.

[@zephlodwick1009]

"There's no evidence against Moses writing the Pentateuch" I'd start with all the evidence showing the Exodus to be mythical, which mostly precludes any figure recognizable as Moses to've existed.

[@zephlodwick1009]

Perhaps there's another universe where the four cannonical gospels got stitched together, and then centuries later someone claimed Jesus wrote this single Gospelbook.

[@zephlodwick1009]

The irony of the original vid saying biblical scholars make wild, unfounded claims while defending Moses's authorship is huge. XD

[@brygenon]

Worse, the creator singles out "*critical* scholars of the bible", not biblical scholars in general. The critical scholars are the ones that properly use results from other fields. It's the theologians that uncritically put dogma above all else and thus do not deserve the respect we give other disciplines.