Within the Judeo-Christian tradition, the faithful often have great reverence for the scriptures as a Divine Book given to humanity by God. With such respect, the Bible is many times regarded as a supernatural piece of literature and one with an equally supernatural origin. Sometimes the devout followers of the faith imagine that the Holy Book dropped out of the sky one day in one complete package for the benefit of the believer. Indeed this kind of thinking was held by the traditional Jews who believed that the Torah (or first five books of the Bible) was given directly by God to Moses, either handed in finished form to the prophet or dictated by the mouth of God on Mount Sinai.
Such charming images of how the scriptures were delivered certainly engender warm sentiments among the pious, for they support the high esteem that they hold for the Bible. Indeed, it is not uncommon for the faithful to view the Divine Book as the verbatim Word of God as if the Almighty had whispered the text directly into the prophets’ ears.
However, while we commend the zealous believer for his lofty view of the Bible, we must take a less fanciful approach to how the scriptures came to be. While we should rightly view the Bible as a collection of highly spiritual writings, we need to be careful how we regard this standard of the Christian faith, remembering that it is not only a collection of the writings of many authors throughout the ages but was also importantly a bona fide “work in progress” for many centuries leading up until the time of Christ.
While the books of the New Testament had been more or less static since they were penned in the first century, this was not the case with the Old Testament. Evolving for well over a thousand years, what we may call the Jewish scriptures is an amalgamation of many threads that were compiled together and then revised and editorialized on a number of occasions before it became the document we know today.
This is not to say that there is no genuine inspiration behind them, but we need to acknowledge the all too human element that forms an integral part of the package we now possess, one that reflects the culture, politics, theology, and very realistically the biases of various authors over the course of a number of centuries. Indeed the apostle Paul said in his first letter to the Corinthians that “the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.” By this we rightly understand that the words a prophet speaks and the sentences he pens are without a doubt subjective and bear the mark of his own personality and views.
We begin our look at the making of the Old Testament by considering the foundation of the whole work, namely the Pentateuch or Torah. Widely known as the Law of Moses, as indicated earlier this collection of books is generally attributed to the great prophet. In the most traditional and what we would call simplistic view, Moses received the sacred text on one occasion directly from the hand of God. In another more moderate view, the prophet wrote the five works over the course of his life chronicling his supernatural revelations and journeying in the wilderness with the Israelites.
And while to a certain extent both of these views have some validity to them, we believe that a third synopsis more accurately captures how the Pentateuch has come down to us in the modern age. That is to say, Moses was not the sole author of the text. Rather, he drew from earlier writings and traditions to which he had access, modified them to meet the needs of his hearers, and then added his own material. Then later after his own demise, others came and edited his writings adding yet additional material so that what has been passed down to us after many centuries is an amalgamation of the works of many authors, compiled, revised, and woven together.
Moses was a highly educated man, and we are told by the Apostle Paul that “he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” Naturally as the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter this was the case. The great prophet had been trained in the ancient historical and spiritual knowledge of the Egyptians, and such ancient wisdom became a foundation of his writings, particularly the earlier parts of Genesis which come from the distant past. Though the Egyptians weren’t his only source of ancient knowledge; Moses of course was a Semite and through that connection he also was able to tap into what had been passed down from Mesopotamia, the region of his ancestors. Presumably through his extensive dealings with his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian did he come to learn a good deal about the tradition of his people.
It seems almost certain that the story of the Flood in the early chapters of Genesis derives from the Semitic tradition as we have very similar stories coming out of Mesopotamia that can be dated to many hundreds of years before Moses ever put his pen to parchment. After the end of the last Ice Age some 10,000 years ago, sea level began to rise and with it many significant episodes of local flooding became a part of the tradition of the Mediterranean peoples and those of people much further eastward. One prominent tale had been traced by archaeologists to a major flood in the city states of Sumer in southern Babylonia around 3900 B.C. Known as the Epic of Gilgamesh, the story presents as a semi-historical narrative about this disaster with theological overtones woven into the tale as a means of offering an explanation for why the catastrophe occurred.
Naturally, the epic is polytheistic deriving from a time when that was the norm throughout the world. The account speaks of how the gods were annoyed with mankind because with their increasing numbers on the earth and the noise they were producing, the gods could hardly get any sleep. And perhaps to a 3rd century B.C. mindset this was a valid reason especially with how deities were greatly anthropomorphized in ancient times. So conspiring together, the gods and goddesses planned to wipeout men through a flood. However one of the gods dissenting from the others secretly informed a favorite mortal about the grisly plan and instructed him to build a ship to escape the calamity.
In this ark he was to take in the seed of all living things to escape being purged out of the land. So the man began construction making the boat with multiple decks to house the many occupants that would be journeying in it. He caulked it inside and out to make it seaworthy. Then when it was time to board the ark, he entered in with all of his kin, the craftsmen who built the boat, and all the wild creatures of the field. Giving the word at the final hour, he had the hatches of the ship sealed for the storm ahead.
For six days and six nights the storm raged and we are told that the surge covered the tops of the mountains. When it was over, the man opened up a hatch and the light fell down upon his face. He observed that the waters were beginning to subside and the tops of 14 so-called “region-mountains” became visible. The ark came to rest on the top of one of them, and by the seventh day it was holding fast. To test the degree of water recession, the man sent forth a dove but it returned to him, because it found no rest for its foot. Then he let forth a swallow which likewise returned. But finally when he sent out a raven, it did not return to the boat because it found food and presumably dry ground.
The man proceeded to open up all the hatches and offered up a sacrifice of some of the animals to the gods, and we are told that the deities smelled the sweet savor of the oblation.
So ends the Gilgamesh story of the Great Flood. Anyone who is somewhat familiar with the Biblical narrative will recognize at once the strong parallels between the two accounts. While there is obviously some variation in detail, Moses simply recrafted the story in a monotheistic framework as was his goal in forging the Jewish faith. Though Moses’ rendition has its own useful theological perspective, if anything, the original tale helps us to better understand the historical basis of the legendary story, for the Gilgamesh epic includes a key detail in understanding the extent of the flood. Both stories talk about the waters covering the tops of the mountains, a physically impossible scenario when considering the sheer quantity of water that would be necessary to accomplish that feat. We learn from the epic tale that in reality these “mountains” were really mounds upon which the city-states of Sumer were built. There were 14 of them upon which cities were built. In light of this archaeological knowledge, that the waters covered these small hills to a certain depth is much more realistic to describe a serious localized flood that occurred nearly six millennia ago in southern Mesopotamia.
Learning about the similarities between the Biblical Flood Story and the disaster in Sumer, we wouldn’t be surprised to know that an additional part of the Gilgamesh epic is very reminiscent of another popular Genesis narrative. In the epic is the tale of the creation of primitive wild man who lived in the wilderness along with the wild animals who were his companions. Fashioned out of a piece of clay by the goddess, he was clothed with nothing more than the hair on his body. He ate vegetation in the fields with gazelles and drank from watering holes with the other animals.
One day he was discovered by a hunter who was utterly frustrated by the wild man’s attempts to protect his friends, the animals from his grasp. Conspiring with others, the hunter arranged to seduce the man with a prostitute to break his link with the animals. When she approached him and laid herself bare before him, he slept with her for six days and seven nights. The effects of his physical contact with the harlot were pronounced. The wild man lost his hairy appearance and his physical strength so that he could no longer keep pace with the animals. The beasts of the field ran away from him in horror seeing that he was changed.
But for this loss there was something more important to be gained. The text says that he had acquired judgment and had become wiser. The harlot then told him, “You have become wise; you have become like a god.” Then the woman invited him to leave the pristine wilderness behind and come with her to civilization. We are told that the harlot’s suggestion “penetrated his heart.” She gave him a garment to cover his nakedness, took his hand and led him forth out his former habitation never to return again. Finally she gave him the food of civilization, bread and beer which he consumed and he became a normal man as any other.
As if these details are not enough to show the Mesopotamian origin of the Adam and Eve story, we also learn a little later on in the Gilgamesh epic about a snake who steals a plant of immortality (Tree of Life) from the hero of the story. Clearly Moses worked with more ancient Semitic written or oral traditions in crafting the early parts of Genesis to his particular goals.
While it is unclear that other early narratives of the Pentateuch also have an origin in Babylon, it seems likely that stories like Cain and Abel may have stemmed from the region as well. Ostensibly an account of two brothers, a farmer and a herdsman, the tale may have been spun as a result of the tensions between the Semites and the Sumerians. The former who conquered the latter in around the 24th century B.C. were keepers of the flock while the vanquished were consummate tillers of the field.
Scholars also feel that the well known Genesis account of the Tower of Babel has its roots in the land of Sumer, for what is considered an unfinished tower in the Biblical account probably was written with the ancient ziggurat in mind. A flat topped, stepped pyramid, this structure was a place of worship in the Fertile Crescent, and sacrifice was routinely offered on top. For those observing these buildings from a distance, they undoubtedly appeared incomplete like an Egyptian pyramid still under construction. And so quite possibly this is the historical basis for the story that comes down to us in the Bible.
Though by no means certain, the fantastic ages in the genealogies that Moses provides for us in the first book of the Pentateuch may also have been fashioned after a Semitic tradition. It was fairly common to record the lifespans of the Babylonian kings as tens of thousands of years long perhaps as a sign of respect for the forebears of the nation. Of course the ages that Moses records are at most nearly a thousand years, but it could be that he was following along the same train of thought when he drafted those texts.
Finally, we make mention of the Creation story at the very beginning of the Bible and suggest that it too was borrowed at least in part from the land further to the East. Many scholars assert that the seven day week that we now adhere to the world over comes again from Mesopotamia. Particularly it seems to have accompanied the mingling of the Semites with the Sumerians at the time of the latter’s conquest as a result of the merging of the pantheons between those two peoples. Before that time there was a twelve day week in Sumer just as there was in China until very recently, but the influx of Semites produced a new system based on the 7 planetary deities each one attributable to the sun, moon, and five visible planets.
Moses of course promulgating monotheism could not replicate a story with references to multiple gods. Perhaps creatively he tailored the Babylonian precursor to link a particular creative act of God to a day of the week in keeping with the relatively new weekly calendar. In any event, the polytheistic origins of the creation account still leave there mark in Moses’ account, for in the Pentateuch (and throughout the Old Testament for that matter) the Hebrew word Elohim is used for God. In reality this is plural word literally translated as “gods,” and so whether we realize it or not, vestiges of the polytheistic theology of Mesopotamia have nonetheless spilled over into the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Without a doubt, the great prophet of Judaism drew from both Egyptian and Semitic traditions to which he had access in writing the prehistoric parts of Genesis as well as the history of the family of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Jewish forebears. Though we must concede that the chronology of the Exodus and the wandering in the wilderness belong to Moses, the prophet was undoubtedly greatly influenced again in the law that he imposed upon the Israelites.
We need not question that the core of this law was supernaturally revealed by God but much of it seems to have been borrowed once again from the land of Babylon. A few centuries before the Exodus, the sixth Babylonian king enacted a very famous and comprehensive rule of law which not only had a widespread impact in his time but continues throughout the world to this day. That old world standard has come to be the foundation of justice for many legal codes including the Western World. We are speaking of what is commonly known as the Code of Hammurabi.
Without a doubt, aspects of the Babylonian Code were adapted if not borrowed directly into the Mosaic system, and we can cite many examples of parallels and similarities between the two systems. For example, western criminal law has become predicated on the idea of innocence until proven guilty, and it was certainly Hammurabi who prominently demanded witnesses before prosecution throughout his code. Similarly the Law of Moses underscores the importance of witnesses saying, “One witness is not enough to convict a man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. (Deut 19:15.)
In general, both systems follow closely the concept of justice and retribution, the idea of an “eye for an eye” and a “tooth for a tooth” as Moses and Hammurabi both express it. (See Code of Hammurabi #196 & 200.) The penal code within the Mosaic Law can be seen to reflect that of the Code of Hammurabi particularly in the matter of stealing. Common to both is the sense that fair restitution entails the thief compensating the victim not merely exactly what was taken but several times the amount that was stolen. In the Torah, if a stolen animal is found alive, amends must be made to the owner for twice what was taken, and in the event that the beast was slaughtered and sold, a five times restitution was required. (Exodus 22:1,4) In a similar way, Hammurabi prescribes different repayment factors though in the Babylonian system, the amount of compensation was based more on the social standing of the one who was robbed rather than the circumstances of the theft. For example, a 30 times restitution was mandated for those who stole from the court while a relatively smaller 10 times the amount was stolen was due to ordinary freemen. (Code of Hammurabi #8.)
Besides the same general principle for the punishment of thievery, there exists within both codes some very analogous ordinances of what we could call more than a general law. Interestingly, both systems have a law to deal with injury to a pregnant woman. In the Babylonian Code a woman with child who is struck by a man and subsequently miscarries is to be compensated so many shekels of silver (Code of Hammurabi #209-214,) and it seems that Moses appropriated this in his own system, for he speaks of the case where men are fighting and hit a pregnant woman so that she gives birth prematurely. In that event the offender is fined whatever the court will allow. (Exodus 21:22)
Both legal systems also have a peculiar ordinance about marriage and remarriage to the same person (which though rare in the Western world) is without modern equivalent. In the Law of Moses, a man may not remarry a woman whom he has divorced and has subsequently been the wife of another man (Deuteronomy 24:1-4.) This prohibition seems to have been predicated by Code of Hammurabi # 136 which states that “If any one leave his house, run away, and then his wife go to another house, if then he return, and wishes to take his wife back: because he fled from his home and ran away, the wife of this runaway shall not return to her husband.”
Many other parallels exist between the Babylonian code and the Law of Moses such as laws about incestuous family relations (compare Leviticus 18 and Code of Hammurabi #150-160) and the penalty for sexually violating a young woman (see Exodus 22:16,17 & Deuteronomy 22:28 and Code of Hammurabi # 155&156.) Suffice it to say, the similarities between the two systems are great, and evidence is strong that Moses adapted many of the points of the earlier code for his Jewish Law.
It should be clear at this point that Moses, the great prophet of Judaism did not pen the Torah in a vacuum. Working with earlier oral and written traditions that were available to him during his lifetime, he drew from other sources to forge most of what we know as the Book of Genesis as well as the legal system that is found within the rest of the Pentateuch. However this is not to say, that the prophet wasn’t original in any of the five books. It is certain that he did receive a special revelation from God on Mount Sinai which formed the foundation of the Mosaic system, and it should not be doubted that the chronicles of the children of Israel out of Egypt and into the wilderness belong to him.
Nonetheless, the Pentateuch is not merely the product of Moses and the source writers before him. Just as Moses reworked earlier legends, stories, and legal codes to accomplish his purpose, others coming after him did likewise and made their own additions so that the Torah is in reality an agglomeration of the contributions of many authors far pre-dating and far post-dating Moses. We have considered a number of evidences for the former and we shall examine quite a few proofs of the latter
While we will present several arguments for the post-Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, we begin by citing the core rationale for this claim which centers around the physical limitations of writing in ancient times. Unlike in modern times where a book can be very large constituting even thousands of pages bound in one volume, this was not the case in Old Testament times. Typically one would write his work on a scroll of parchment or papyrus which was practically limited in size. The maximum size of such scrolls in ages past was roughly about the size of the largest books that now comprise the Old Testament like the works of the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah.
With this in mind, we should note that throughout the Bible there are many references to the writings of Moses alluded to under various phrases including the “Book of the Law of Moses”, the “Book of the Law of the Lord”, the “Book of the Law of God,” or the “Book of the Law.” References like this are mentioned a short time after Moses’ death to many hundreds of years after his life such as during the time of King Josiah when the priest Hilkiah discovered this important book hidden away in the temple. And later, at the return from the Exile, Ezra the priest brought out this book and read from it to the people.
The point being made is that at various times in the Old Testament, the scope of the writings of Moses constituted only one book or scroll no larger than a book of one of the Major Prophets. With this in mind, what we now have as the Pentateuch, a collection of five large books was unquestionably not the same document that was under consideration in ancient times. Rather, what was attributable to Moses among the ancient Jews was a much smaller work only a fraction of the size of what we have today.
And so this scenario necessitates an expansion of Moses’ original writings by subsequent authors into the larger collection of five books that we have today in our modern bibles. While it is impossible to trace in any detailed way the evolution of the “Book of the Law of Moses” into the modern form, it seems that revisions and additions occurred in three main periods of Jewish history before the Torah became solidified into the version we know today.
The first such editing of the prophet’s writings can probably be attributable to Samuel and his school of the prophets. Over 300 years after the death of Moses, the prophetic school known as the “Sons of the Prophets” was founded by Samuel the seer in order to promulgate mystical contact with God among a body or adept Israelites. While the exact scope of revision to the Law of Moses at this time is unknown, there is evidence to suggest that Samuel and his students sought to modernize the text to the ears of people living centuries after the events. Certainly this would have constituted changes in wording that might have become archaic, but in particular it involved changing place names from before the time original Canaanite towns changed over to Israelite hands. And very significantly, it involved recasting political borders in a modern context that would be relevant to Samuel’s contemporaries.
Another major revision of the text is believed to have occurred during the time of King Josiah. As mentioned a little earlier, his priest Hilkiah rediscovered the Book of the Law in the temple, apparently after it had fallen into disuse and been neglected for perhaps centuries. Conceivably many of the numerous editorial comments that dot the lines of the Pentateuch stem from this time, and by this we refer as well to much of that which is written as parenthetical citations in our modern bibles.
Finally the last major and apparently final revision occurred after the Exile by the Hasidim who largely compiled the Old Testament into final form. Ezra the priest and those who would come after him made many modifications though it seems that a driving motivation was accommodating their Persian overlords who followed the Zoroastrian religion. Additionally, there was also a strong interest in differentiating the religion of the returning Exiles from that of their half-blooded brothers, the Samaritans against which a strong rivalry continued until the time of Christ.
In terms of the specific content of the revisions, there is much that can be referenced in support of the Pentateuch as a long term “work in progress,” and we begin by alluding to the many brief editorializations that are found throughout the document. A number of them employ a key phrase that indicates they are much later commentaries on the text. The expression “to this day” occurs nine times in the Books of Genesis and Deuteronomy to emphasize to the reader that the events described in the narratives has persisted not just for a few years but for centuries after the facts.
At the end of the chapter on Jacob wrestling with the angel there is an explanation given to a long standing tradition of the Jews of which the reader may be unaware of its origins. Because the angel touched Jacob’s hip and put it out of joint, we are told, “Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip.” It is not clear for how many centuries the Israelites were following this custom with its origin long obscured, but the editor apparently found it useful to insert this side note for the benefit of the reader.
Making use of the same phrase, in the account of the death of Rachel the narrative says, “Over her tomb Jacob set up a pillar, and to this day that pillar marks Rachel’s tomb.” Admittedly, if Moses penned this entire sentence he was clearly doing so centuries after the fact, but we cannot comfortably attribute this addendum to him because it betrays a knowledge that the prophet could not have had. Moses never set foot in the land of Canaan and clearly could not have known that the pillar was still intact. Only later after his death the Israelites would rediscover their ancestor’s tomb and be able to make this postdated claim.
Unquestionably the stories of Genesis were ancient even in Moses’ day. However the content of the other four books of the Torah were all contemporary with the prophet. In this respect, the phrase “to this day” only makes sense as an insertion from a later author. This is the case where the expression is found in Deuteronomy. In particular there is one account early in the chapter (3:14) where a comment is found speaking of the land East of the Jordan which the Israelites conquered before entering Canaan. A man named Jair was said to have added territory in the region of Manasseh, and while at first this doesn’t seem so noteworthy, we learn later in the Book of Judges that this man was a judge of Israel who lived 300 years after the time of Moses. The passage in Deuteronomy says, “Jair, a descendant of Manasseh, took the whole region of Argob as far as the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites; it was named after to him, so that to this day Bashan is called Havvoth Jair.” Without a doubt this is a postscript, for a nearly identical comment is found in the Book of Judges (10:3-4) regarding this leader who lived centuries after the time of Moses.
Finally at the very end of Deuteronomy we come to the story of the death of Moses which suffice it to say could not have been written by the prophet. We will look a little closer at this shortly, but for now we note that the writer of this section was definitely not speaking contemporaneously with Moses’ demise, for he writes, “[God] buried him in Moab in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is.” Once again this phrase appears to emphasize a condition that has not changed in a very long period of time, and when we look closer at this last chapter of the Torah we will see why it was necessarily penned many centuries after the fact.
In this same class of brief editorializations we find what in our modern bibles are presented as parenthetical citations. Naturally in the original Hebrew versions such markers like this do not exist, but the translators of the bible considered them significant enough interruptions in the flow of the text to put them in parenthesis, and so we acknowledge them as later inserts by commentators wishing to expound or explain something more clearly for a later readership.
One example of this kind of interpolation can be found in a narrative in the Book of Numbers in which Moses’ brother and sister, Aaron and Miriam were complaining about their brother because of his special privilege as prophet of the Lord. The passage reads, “’Has the Lord spoken only through Moses?’ they asked. ‘Hasn’t he also spoken through us?’ And the Lord heard this. (Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.) At once the Lord said to Moses, Aaron and Miriam, ‘Come out to the Tent of Meeting, all three of you … ‘”
It is fairly obvious that this interjection about Moses’ humility was not written by the prophet himself, for otherwise it would be a contradiction of his genuine meekness. Rather, someone added it in at a later date to make it clear that the idea that Moses might have been arrogant and covetous of his special position was completely unreasonable. The editor wished to convey that the charge against the prophet was completely unfair, and so it sets the tone for the punishment allotted to Aaron and Miriam that follows next in the passage.
A fair number of parenthetical citations exist in the Books of Moses to make these general clarifications, but as mentioned a little earlier, the purpose of other such interpolations was to modernize the text by updating place names from the original. It would seem that when Moses wrote his narratives, he used the Canaanite name of the town or city, for that was the only way such places were known in his day. However, when the Israelites conquered Canaan, they renamed a number of localities for various reasons. We see these references particularly in Genesis where the sojourns of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are recorded among the Canaanites. One old city of the region was known as Kiriath Arba which later became changed to Hebron under Israelite control, and in a couple accounts we read about this place and its alias. In one passage it says, “Jacob came home to his father Isaac in Mamre, near Kiriath Arba (that is Hebron,) where Abraham and Isaac had stayed.” And similarly, the elucidation is made for a later generation of Israelites in speaking of the death of Sarah, for we are told, “Abraham buried his wife Sarah in the cave in the field of Machpelah near Mamre (which is Hebron) in the land of Canaan.
The same kind of clarification is inserted about other towns and cities, and we cite a story about Jacob who was said to travel to the old Canaanite city of Luz. The account says, “Jacob and all the people with him came to Luz (that is Bethel) in the land of Canaan.” And likewise we could make mention of the town of the Savior which is referred to in Genesis regarding the death of Rachel where we learn, “Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is Bethlehem.)”
Such attempts to bring the scriptures up to date for a later generation are plentiful, though it is not just the renaming of towns and cities which was in view for the revisionists of the Pentateuch, editors centuries later would also seek to reclassify entire political entities so that their contemporaries could better identify with the stories.
In the 13th century B.C., as the Bronze Age drew to a close, fierce raiders began to attack the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean. Like the Vikings who descended on mainland Europe a couple thousand years later, these aggressive bands infiltrated the coasts of North Africa and Canaan. Known as the Sea Peoples, this coalition of maritime groups seriously threatened to take over Egypt in around 1175 B.C. But Pharaoh Ramses III was successful in subduing them and transported the captives to southwestern Canaan were they were settled in fortresses. Several groups of these aggressive marauders were relocated to the Levant, but the most well known of these were what we know especially from Biblical history as the Philistines.
From the archaeological excavations of their pottery, it seems likely that they came from the Aegean, particularly deriving from the Greek Mycenaean culture. That they were indeed immigrants to the shores of Canaan seems almost certain, for even the Bible attests in at least three references (Deut. 2:23, Jer. 47:4, Amos 9:7) that the Philistines migrated from Caphtor. Best identified with Crete, this island was certainly infused with the surrounding Greek language and culture, and the claim that this was the Philistine ancestral homeland seems reasonable.
Anyone somewhat familiar with the Old Testament recognizes that the Philistines play a major role in the story of Israel, and this is particularly true in the 11th and 12th centuries when many conflicts between the two peoples are narrated in the Bible. Obviously there is no problem with this from a historical or biblical perspective. However, it is not only in the wars between the Philistines and Israelites that this popular band of Sea Peoples appears in the Old Testament. Many centuries earlier they are also featured in the earlier parts of the Torah. In what is certainly an anachronism, the Philistines are mentioned in four distinct accounts in both the Books of Genesis and Exodus.
The first story involving this group of Sea Peoples allegedly took place around 2000 B.C. when Abraham was said to have made a treaty with Abimelech the king of the Philistines after a dispute. Then a little later in Genesis, there is another account involving his son Isaac. In a narrative bearing striking similarity to an earlier one in the life of Abraham, we are told that Isaac and his wife went down to Abimelech king of the Philistines to escape a famine that was plaguing the land. (Compare Genesis 26 and Genesis 12:10-20.)
Later in Exodus taking place some three hundred years before the historical appearance of the Philistines in Canaan, there is another reference to this Sea People. The passage describes the path of the Israelites out of Egypt saying, “When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter.” And finally in outlining the borders that the Israelites would possess in the land of Canaan, another passage states, “I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the desert to the River.”
Certainly the many references to the Philistines that come later in the Books of Samuel are very credible, but what are we to make of those that appear in the Pentateuch and in the books preceding the settlement of the Sea Peoples in southwestern Canaan? The answer to the question is undoubtedly linked with another revisionist reworking of the Books of Moses. Seeking to once again make the text immediately relevant to a more modern readership, the editor intended to recast older stories in the context of the geography of his day.
This should not surprise us, for we do it all the time both in oral and written practice. It is like how one might refer to Italy in the 15th century as if it were a unified nation like it is today. Of course up until the 19th century the Peninsula was comprised of a number of nation-states that had not yet become one political entity. Likewise one might also speak of Croatia in describing events of life under the Iron Curtain when the political entity at the time was in fact Yugoslavia. Or to drive home the point one last time, it would be like a person speaking of France in the 1st century when it was really the land of the Gauls until several centuries later. Certainly the biblical editor wasn’t exactly true to the facts, but nonetheless his early allusions to the Philistines were meant to serve as a proxy for a region and people that would have been otherwise unrecognizable to those at the time of the revision.
Now we have been considering only those brief changes and insertions by later editors that weave throughout the Books of Moses, but of course the scope of revisions was much wider than these simple alterations. The evidence is strong that whole passages were added along the way so that originally what started out as a single scroll from the great prophet became augmented to five distinct scrolls by the time of the intertestamental period.
We return again to look a little closer at the last chapter of the Pentateuch, Deuteronomy 34 which describes the death of Moses. That the account was written by someone other than Moses is more or less self-evident (unless as some fundamentalists suggest such details of the prophet’s demise were revealed to Moses prior to his death and he wrote the final chapter shortly before his death.) But we will reject the view that Moses described his own death at the close of the Pentateuch as an unnecessary and fantastic claim.
While it would seem likely that the prophet’s successor Joshua penned the last chapter as many suggest, the passage in its current form bears the marks of an editor many centuries after the fact. Earlier we alluded to the verse which says, “to this day no one knows where his grave is” as an evidence that someone a long time in the future was commenting on how Moses’ final resting place had still not been discovered. But this is not the only clue that the last chapter comes to us from a very late date. The author’s reflection in the final paragraph also supports that the account dates from centuries after the life of Moses.
That final section laments, “Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, who did all those miraculous signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt – to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.” The prophet in this context is a specific allusion to an individual Moses spoke of several chapters before that would appear sometime in the future to lead the nation of Israel. The prediction is found in Deuteronomy 18:15 and reads, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him.”
Of course it wouldn’t make any sense for Joshua to write such a commentary in a relatively short time after Moses’ death, for a whole chain of prophets would yet appear in the land spanning the history of the nation. Rather the passage is in fact a retrospective view after a millennium had past bemoaning that no one the caliber of Moses had appeared in Israel’s lengthy history. It communicates almost a sense of disbelief that at that late date someone should still come around to fill the great prophet’s shoes. If in fact the editor was writing at the beginning of the intertestamental period, such a forlorn conclusion might seem inevitable, because at that time the Hasidim in conjunction with the Jewish priesthood successfully disbanded their longtime critics, the prophets, putting an end to any further revelations for the Jewish Canon.
The final chapter of the Torah is certainly an example of a significant later addendum to Moses’ original work, but there is a whole class of other major additions that we can consider now. Certainly, it is very reasonable to believe that Moses received a basic law from God on Mount Sinai, certain general principles to be given to the Israelites to follow. However, it is very unlikely that all the ordinances of the Pentateuch may be credited directly to the prophet. While wandering in the desert, Moses unquestionably provided the code of law to govern the people’s affairs as they made their way through the wilderness, but certainly he could not have anticipated all of the scenarios that would unfold once the Israelites made the transition from nomads to farmers once settled in the land of Canaan. Just as new laws continue to be enacted because of the ever increasing complexity of life in modern nations like our own, so too was it necessary for the civil and religious authorities who came after Moses to extrapolate his teachings to meet new situations as they came up in the course of the nation’s existence.
While it is impossible to know for sure which laws came originally from Moses and which ones came from his successors, we can speculate fairly well. And so we consider now a couple statutes found in the Pentateuch that are strong candidates for coming on the books centuries after his death.
When Gideon the judge defeated the Midianites with a mere 300 men, rescuing the Israelites from oppression, the people said to him, “Rule over us – you, your son, and your grandson – because you have saved us out of the hand of Midian.” But Gideon was not so fast to take them up on their offer. Responding to them with the wisdom of one who understood the unique identity of the nation of Israel, he said, “I will not rule over you, nor will my son rule over you. The Lord will rule over you.”
By this statement, the judge was reminding the Israelites that ever since the time of Moses, the government of the nation was not to be like that of all the other countries with a flesh and blood monarch sitting on a throne. Rather, the people were to be ruled by a completely other-worldly Being, an unselfish, wise, and benevolent King, namely God himself. In this way, Israel was to participate in a type of government known as a theocracy where divine edict held sway over any whim of man. Communicating his will to the people through mystical contact with certain individuals (i.e. prophets,) God was to govern the affairs of the children of Israel in a way far fairer, more just, and kinder than would be conceivable in any of the lands under the jurisdiction of mortals.
Though Gideon was emphatic in his response to the Israelites of the time, it would not be the last time that the people would hear such a rebuke on the subject. Barely a hundred years later, the Israelites would make another request for a human king to the prophet Samuel. They demanded, “Give us a king to lead us.” But we are told that not unlike Gideon, the request was very displeasing to Samuel as he realized it was not the plan for the governing of the nation.
He told the Israelites point blank that it was an evil thing they were doing asking for a human king, for he made it clear to them that by desiring a mortal to reign over them they were in fact rejecting God as their king. Samuel vehemently warned them about how a fellow man on the throne would ultimately be abusive to them seeking to satisfy his own selfish interests. But the people refused to hear his arguments instead wishing to have a human leader like all the other nations. Though he pled with them to recognize that the Lord their God was their king, they would not listen, and so conceding to their demands he anointed Israel’s first human king inaugurating the monarchy that would last 500 years.
Now despite these bitter protests on the parts of Gideon and Samuel, we ironically find a section in the Book of Deuteronomy with regulations pertaining to appointing a man over the nation as king. The passage makes several proscriptions about the person chosen to be the monarch insisting that he not be a foreigner. Additionally, we are told that the king should not acquire great numbers of horses or large amounts of gold and silver. And as if predicting the life of Solomon who was to come, the instruction forbids the king from taking many wives “or his heart will be led astray.”
That this section of the Torah was inserted much later among Moses’ original words seems almost certain, for not only do the instructions about the man to be king bear the wisdom of history in the abuses of King Solomon but they are in direct conflict with the sentiments of the judges and prophets who recognized that the nation was formed as a theocracy. Men such as Gideon and Samuel couldn’t even conceive of running the country another way, and so we can hardly see them as being so adamantly against the human kingship if there was already a provision for it in the Law of Moses.
It seems likely that the passage was written some 800 years after the time of Moses, sometime in or after the reign of King Josiah. It was at that time that the Book of the Law was rediscovered and a renewed reverence for Moses’ precepts became part of the general consciousness again. Interestingly, the end of the statute on the kingship instructs that the monarch upon taking his throne is to “write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the priests, who are Levites. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees …” With not even the hint of kings Saul, David, or Solomon observing this code despite having a fairly good record of their ascension to the throne, it is highly doubtful that this passage can in the least be attributable to Moses lest we wish to claim that all of these men were in violation of the ordinance.
Besides the issue of the kingship which we have shown to be very problematic as having an origin in the Law of Moses, we will also now consider the subject of worship which is just as equally charged. When Israel was in the desert, the priests routinely offered sacrifice at the mobile tabernacle that they transported with them in their journeying, but when they came into Canaan sacrifice became more of a decentralized practice throughout the country.
Since the time they crossed the River Jordan we have many records of communal and personal sacrifices being offered in various locations throughout the land. Shortly after the people entered Canaan, Joshua built an altar to the Lord on Mount Ebal constructing it of uncut stones according to the Law of Moses and there sacrificed burnt offerings to God in a ritual that entailed renewing the covenant that God had established with the Israelites.
In another record we have the father and mother of Samson making a personal oblation to God in their own hometown in the territory of Dan. His mother was sterile and an offering was made to God soliciting his favor that she should conceive a son. The passage from the Book of Judges tells us that an angel had come down from heaven to console the woman and encouraged her in her burnt offering to God.
On another occasion in the same general time period, the father and mother of Samuel would go up year after year to the town of Shiloh where the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle resided for hundreds of years. There they would bring sacrifices for the priests to offer seeking the favor of God, and analogous to the previous story, on one occasion, the Lord heard his wife’s prayer for a child, for she too was barren.
And considering one other example of worship at a random location in the country, we could recall the sacrifices of the prophet Samuel who frequently made offerings to God on the eve of battle to ensure victory for the Israelites. On one occasion, when the Philistines were about to attack the men of war assembled in Mizpah, Samuel sacrificed to the Lord a suckling lamb which we are told was accepted by God for the benefit of the people.
More than just stringing together some disjointed vignettes of the Old Testament, these four sketches of sacrifice throughout the land of Israel have been presented naturally as a backdrop for a certain statute in the Law of Moses that we are seriously calling into question. If anything, these short accounts have been submitted to establish that the worship of the Lord in sacrifice was clearly a decentralized activity spanning the entire length and breadth of the nation. But despite this normal practice of worship, there is a firm ordinance against local oblations found in the Book of Deuteronomy.
A whole chapter is dedicated to the topic, and in the passage of interest which was supposedly directed to the Israelites as they wandered in the wilderness, they were told, “You are to seek the place the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes to put his Name there for his dwelling. To that place you must go; there bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, what you vowed to give and your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your flocks herds and flocks … Be careful not to sacrifice your burnt offerings anywhere you please. Offer them only at the place the Lord will choose in one of your tribes, and there observe everything I command you.” (Deuteronomy 12)
Of course we can readily identify which place the passage is referring to. After over 400 years in Canaan, under the charge of King David the Israelites finally captured the city of Jerusalem and ultimately his son Solomon constructed a magnificent temple on one of the mountains that the city was built on. Naturally this great edifice became the most important place of worship in the land, but that we should believe it was intended to be the sole central location of sacrifice in the whole nation is at great odds with the general practice of the Israelites for centuries before and centuries after the construction of the Jerusalem temple.
We might rightly ask that if a central place of worship was really that important to Moses looking ahead, how was it that it should take nearly 500 years to acquire the property and then build the structure. Clearly the prophets and judges who led Israel in the years following the conquest of Canaan did not see it as a very important thing as we have illustrated, and in direct disregard for the alleged ordinance they made offerings wherever and whenever it was considered appropriate. And apparently as we have seen, God was pleased with these oblations, a scenario which we could hardly anticipate had they been in complete violation of a law he had given to Moses.
Why then would later editors of the Pentateuch desire to insert such a passage that contradicts the religious history of Israel? As just mentioned, as the most prestigious place of worship in the country, Jerusalem came to be regarded by all as the holy city. And those operating it naturally were zealous to maintain this prestige. Most likely seeking to put down threats to its importance, the priesthood at Jerusalem penned this chapter. Wishing to maintain widespread ecclesiastical power and control, they sought to append this law into the Books of Moses.
Especially in the time of the Divided Kingdom where rival places of worship were to appear in other cities like Samaria in the north, it was important for those in Judah to assert their dominant position. The injunction to worship at only this one location therefore represented a power play by the Jerusalem clerics on the subjects of the Northern kingdom forcing them to come to the holy city for their worship activities. Of course as we would expect money and material gain was an interest, for the passage speaks of bringing tithes, gifts, and choice animals from the flock to Jerusalem.
Despite this passage which seems to have originated at a very late date, there seems to have been little adherence to its directives, for as many may not be aware, there were authentic Jewish temples operated by real Jewish priests in other cities even outside of Israel itself. Most popular among these are the temples at Elephantine in Upper Egypt and at Leontopolis (near Alexandria) in Lower Egypt both founded by Jews of the Diaspora since the time of the Divided Kingdom and the Exile. The former was in existence in the 5th century B.C., while the latter continued to operate until a few years after the final destruction of the Jerusalem temple in A.D. 70. It was only closed by the Romans to avoid another uprising of the Jews. Both of these temple systems were detested by the ecclesiastical powers at Jerusalem, and they certainly withheld any and all support for them.
Suffice it to say, what has been presented in this discussion of the Books of Moses is only a portion of the evidence that suggests that the document we have today has been written, rewritten, and appended on a number of occasions. Rather than a cohesive text penned by one servant of God by divine edict, the Torah was for centuries an evolving work which for a variety of reasons underwent revision time and again. Nonetheless, we still regard the Pentateuch as a spiritual writing authored by prophets, priests, and other religious people. With the rest of the bible, we can certainly gain much spiritual understanding through studying its pages. But on balance we are careful to understand the context in which it was written realizing that the human element is just as present as the divine lest we draw unrealistic and sometimes damaging conclusions.