Composition of the Torah

The composition of the Torah (or Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) was a process that involved multiple authors over an extended period of time. While Jewish tradition holds that all five books were originally written by Moses sometime in the 2nd millennium BCE, leading scholars have rejected Mosaic authorship since the 17th century.

The precise process by which the Torah was composed, the number of authors involved, and the date of each author remain hotly contested among scholars. Some scholars, such as Rolf Rendtorff, espouse a fragmentary hypothesis, in which the Pentateuch is seen as a compilation of short, independent narratives, which were gradually brought together into larger units in two editorial phases: the Deuteronomic and the Priestly phases. By contrast, scholars such as John Van Seters advocate a supplementary hypothesis, which posits that the Torah is the result of two major additions—Yahwist and Priestly—to an existing corpus of work. Other scholars, such as Richard Elliott Friedman or Joel S. Baden, support a revised version of the documentary hypothesis, holding that the Torah was composed by using four different sources—Yahwist, Elohist, Priestly and Deuteronomist—that were combined into one in the Persian period.

Scholars frequently use these newer hypotheses in combination with each other, making it difficult to classify contemporary theories as strictly one or another. The general trend in recent scholarship is to recognize the final form of the Torah as a literary and ideological unity, based on earlier sources, likely completed during the Persian period (539-333 BCE).

Date of composition

Classical source criticism seeks to determine the date of a text by establishing an upper limit (''terminus ante quem'') and a lower limit (''terminus post quem'') on the basis of external attestation of the text's existence, as well as the internal features of the text itself. On the basis of a variety of arguments, modern scholars generally see the completed Torah as a product of the time of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (probably 450–350 BCE), although some would place its composition in the Hellenistic period (333–164 BCE).

External evidence

The absence of archaeological evidence for the Exodus narrative, and the evidence pointing to anachronisms in the patriarchal narratives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, have convinced the vast majority of scholars that the Torah does not give an accurate account of the origins of Israel. This implies that the Torah could not have been written by Moses during the second millennium BCE, as Jewish tradition teaches.

Manuscripts and non-biblical references

Concrete archaeological evidence bearing on the dating of the Torah is found in early manuscript fragments, such as those found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The earliest extant manuscript fragments of the Pentateuch date to the late third or early second centuries BCE. In addition, early non-biblical sources, such as the Letter of Aristeas, indicate that the Torah was first translated into Greek in Alexandria under the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–247 BCE). These lines of evidence indicate that the Torah must have been composed in its final form no later than c. 250 BCE, before its translation into Greek.

There is one external reference to the Torah which, depending on its attribution, may push the ''terminus ante quem'' for the composition of the Torah down to about 315 BCE. In Book 40 of Diodorus Siculus's ''Library'', an ancient encyclopedia compiled from a variety of quotations from older documents, there is a passage that refers to a written Jewish law passed down from Moses.Diodorus Siculus ''Library''
Chapter 40.3-8
/ref> Scholars have traditionally attributed the passage to the late 4th-century Greek historian Hecataeus of Abdera, which, if correct, would imply that the Torah must have been composed in some form before 315 BCE. However, the attribution of this passage to Hecataeus has been challenged recently. Russell Gmirkin has argued that the passage is in fact a quote from Theophanes of Mytilene, a first-century BCE Roman biographer cited earlier in Book 40, who in turn used Hecataeus along with other sources.

Elephantine papyri

The Elephantine papyri show clear evidence of the existence c. 400 BCE of a polytheistic Jewish colony in Egypt who show no knowledge of a written Torah or the narratives described therein. The papyri also document the existence of a small Jewish temple at Elephantine, which possessed altars for incense offerings and animal sacrifices, as late as 411 BCE. Such a temple would be in clear violation of Deuteronomic law, which stipulates that no Jewish temple may be constructed outside of Jerusalem. Furthermore, the papyri show that the Jews at Elephantine sent letters to the high priest in Jerusalem asking for his support in re-building their temple, which seems to suggest that the priests of the Jerusalem Temple were not enforcing Deuteronomic law at that time.

A minority of scholars such as Niels Peter Lemche, Philippe Wajdenbaum, Russell Gmirkin, and Thomas L. Thompson have argued that the Elephantine papyri demonstrate that monotheism and the Torah could not have been established in Jewish culture before 400 BCE, and that the Torah was therefore likely written in the Hellenistic period, in the third or fourth centuries BCE (see ). By contrast, most scholars explain this data by theorizing that the Elephantine Jews represented an isolated remnant of Jewish religious practices from earlier centuries, or that the Torah had only recently been promulgated at that time.

Ketef Hinnom scrolls

In 1979, two silver scrolls were uncovered at Ketef Hinnom, an archaeological site southwest of the Old City of Jerusalem, which were found to contain a variation of the Priestly Blessing, found in . The scrolls were dated paleographically to the late 7th or early 6th century BCE, placing them at the end of the First Temple period. These scrolls cannot be accepted as evidence that the Pentateuch as a whole was composed before the 6th century, however, because it is widely accepted that the Torah draws on earlier oral and written sources, and there is no reference to a written Torah in the scrolls themselves.

Linguistic dating

Some scholars, such as Avi Hurvitz (see below), have attempted to date the various strata of the Pentateuch on the basis of the form of the Hebrew language that is used. It is generally agreed that Classical Hebrew and Late Biblical Hebrew had distinctive, identifiable features and that Classical Hebrew was earlier. Classical Hebrew is usually dated to the period before the Babylonian captivity (597-539 BCE), while Late Biblical Hebrew is generally dated to the exilic and post-exilic periods. However, it is difficult to determine precisely when Classical Hebrew ceased being used, since there are no extant Hebrew inscriptions of substantial length dating from the relevant period (c. 550-200 BCE). Scholars also disagree about the variety of Hebrew to which the various strata should be assigned. For example, Hurvitz classifies the Priestly material as belonging to Classical Hebrew, while Joseph Blenkinsopp and most other scholars disagree.

Another methodological difficulty with linguistic dating is that it is known that the biblical authors often intentionally used archaisms for stylistic effects, sometimes mixing them with words and constructions from later periods. This means that the presence of archaic language in a text cannot be considered definitive proof that the text dates to an early period. Ian Young and Martin Ehrensvärd maintain that even some texts that were certainly written during the post-exilic period, such as the Book of Haggai, lack features distinctive of Late Biblical Hebrew. Conversely, the Book of Ezekiel, written during the Babylonian exile, contains many features of Late Biblical Hebrew. Summing up these problems, Young has argued that "none of the linguistic criteria used to date iblicaltexts either early or late is strong enough to compel scholars to reconsider an argument made on non-linguistic grounds." However, this position has been rejected by other scholars, such as Ronald Hendel and Jan Joosten, who criticize that Young and others exclusively use the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible to carry out their linguistic analysis of the biblical texts, apart from undertaking other errors in the fields of textual criticism and historical linguistics.

For their part, Ronald Hendel and Jan Joosten hold that the Hebrew contained in the Genesis-2 Kings saga corresponds to the Classical Hebrew of the pre-exilic period, which is supported by the linguistic correspondence with the Hebrew inscriptions of that period (mainly from the 8th and 7th centuries BC), so that they consequently date the composition of the main sources of the Torah to the period of Neo-Assyrian hegemony.

Historiographical dating

Many scholars assign dates to the Pentateuchal sources by comparing the theology and priorities of each author to a theoretical reconstruction of the history of Israelite religion. This method often involves provisionally accepting some narrative in the Hebrew Bible as attesting to a real historical event, and situating the composition of a source relative to that event.

For example, the Deuteronomist source is widely associated with the staunchly monotheistic, centralizing religious reforms of King Josiah in the late 7th century BCE, as described in 2 Kings. Starting with Julius Wellhausen, many scholars have identified the "Book of the Law" discovered by Josiah's high priest Hilkiah in with the Book of Deuteronomy, or an early version thereof, and posited that it was in fact ''written'' by Hilkiah at that time. Authors such as John Van Seters therefore date the D source to the late 7th century. Similarly, many scholars associate the Priestly source with the Book of the Law brought to Israel by Ezra upon his return from exile in Babylonia in 458 BCE, as described in . P is therefore widely dated to the 5th century, during the Persian period.

This method has been criticized by some scholars, however, especially those associated with the minimalist school of biblical criticism. These critics stress that the historicity of the Josiah and Ezra narratives cannot be independently established outside the Hebrew Bible, and that archaeological evidence generally does not support the occurrence of a radical centralizing religious reform in the 7th century as described in 2 Kings. They conclude that dating Pentateuchal sources on the basis of historically dubious or uncertain events is inherently speculative and inadvisable.

Arguments for a Persian origin

In the influential book ''In Search of 'Ancient Israel': A Study in Biblical Origins'', Philip Davies argued that the Torah was likely promulgated in its final form during the Persian period, when the Judean people were governed under the Yehud Medinata province of the Achaemenid Empire. Davies points out that the Persian empire had a general policy of establishing national law codes and consciously creating an ethnic identity among its conquered peoples in order to legitimate its rule, and concludes that this is the most likely historical context in which the Torah could have been published. Franz Greifenhagen concurs with this view, and notes that most recent studies support a Persian date for the final redaction of the Pentateuch. Since the Elephantine papyri seem to show that the Torah was not yet fully entrenched in Jewish culture by 400 BCE, Greifenhagen proposes that the late Persian period (450-350 BCE) is most likely.

Louis C. Jonker argues a connection between Darius I's DNb inscription and the Pentateuch, particularly the Holiness Legislation.

Possibility of a Hellenistic origin

The idea that the Torah may have been written during the Hellenistic period, after the conquests of Alexander the Great, was first seriously proposed in 1993, when the biblical scholar Niels Peter Lemche published an article titled ''The Old Testament – A Hellenistic Book?'' Since then, a growing number of scholars, especially those associated with the Copenhagen School, have put forward various arguments for a Hellenistic origin of the Pentateuch.

Notably, in 2006, the independent scholar Russell Gmirkin published a book titled ''Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus'', in which he argued that the Pentateuch relied on the Greek-language histories of Berossus (278 BCE) and Manetho (285-280 BCE) and therefore must have been composed subsequently to both of them. Gmirkin further argued that the Torah was likely written at the Library of Alexandria in 273-272 BCE, by the same group of Jewish scholars who translated the Torah into Greek around the same time. While Gmirkin accepts the conventional stratification of the Pentateuch into sources such as J, D, and P, he believes that they are best understood as reflecting the different social strata and beliefs of the Alexandrian authors, rather than as independent writers separated by long periods of time.

In 2016, Gmirkin published a second book, ''Plato and the Creation of the Hebrew Bible'', in which he argued that the law code found in the Torah was heavily influenced by Greek laws, and especially the theoretical law code espoused by Plato in his ''Laws''. He further argued that Plato's ''Laws'' provided the biblical authors with a basic blueprint for how to transform Jewish society: by creating an authoritative canon of laws and associated literature, drawing on earlier traditions, and presenting them as being divinely inspired and very ancient. Philippe Wajdenbaum has recently argued for a similar conclusion.

Criticism of Hellenistic origin theories

John Van Seters criticized Gmirkin's work in a 2007 book review, arguing that ''Berossus and Genesis'' engages in a straw man fallacy by attacking the documentary hypothesis without seriously addressing more recent theories of Pentateuchal origins. He also alleges that Gmirkin selectively points to parallels between Genesis and Berossus, and Exodus and Manetho, while ignoring major dissimilarities between the accounts. Finally, Van Seters points out that Gmirkin does not seriously consider the numerous allusions to the Genesis and Exodus narratives in the rest of the Hebrew Bible, including in texts that are generally dated much earlier than his proposed dating of the Pentateuch. Gmirkin, by contrast, holds that those parts of the Hebrew Bible that allude to Genesis and Exodus must be dated later than is commonly assumed.

Nature and extent of the sources

Virtually all scholars agree that the Torah is composed of material from multiple different authors, or sources. The three most commonly recognized are the Priestly (P), Deuteronomist (D), and Yahwist (J) sources.

Priestly

The Priestly source is perhaps the most widely accepted source category in Pentateuchal studies, because it is both stylistically and theologically distinct from other material in the Torah. It includes a set of claims that are contradicted by non-Priestly passages and therefore uniquely characteristic: no sacrifice before the institution is ordained by Yahweh (God) at Sinai, the exalted status of Aaron and the priesthood, and the use of the divine title El Shaddai before God reveals his name to Moses, to name a few. In general, the Priestly work is concerned with priestly matters—ritual law, the origins of shrines and rituals, and genealogies—all expressed in a formal, repetitive style. It stresses the rules and rituals of worship, and the crucial role of priests, expanding considerably on the role given to Aaron (all Levites are priests, but according to P only the descendants of Aaron were to be allowed to officiate in the inner sanctuary).

P's God is majestic, and transcendent, and all things happen because of his power and will. He reveals himself in stages, first as Elohim (a Hebrew word meaning simply "god", taken from the earlier Canaanite word meaning "the gods"), then to Abraham as El Shaddai (usually translated as "God Almighty"), and finally to Moses by his unique name, Yahweh. P divides history into four epochs from Creation to Moses by means of covenants between God and Noah, Abraham and Moses. The Israelites are God's chosen people, his relationship with them is governed by the covenants, and P's God is concerned that Israel should preserve its identity by avoiding intermarriage with non-Israelites. P is deeply concerned with "holiness", meaning the ritual purity of the people and the land: Israel is to be "a priestly kingdom and a holy nation" (Exodus 19:6), and P's elaborate rules and rituals are aimed at creating and preserving holiness.

The Priestly source is responsible for the entire Book of Leviticus, for the first of the two creation stories in Genesis (Genesis 1), for Adam's genealogy, part of the Flood story, the Table of Nations, and the genealogy of Shem (i.e., Abraham's ancestry). Most of the remainder of Genesis is from the Yahwist, but P provides the covenant with Abraham (chapter 17) and a few other stories concerning Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The Book of Exodus is also divided between the Yahwist and P, and the usual understanding is that the Priestly writers were adding to an already-existing Yahwist narrative. P was responsible for chapters 25–31 and 35–40, the instructions for making the Tabernacle and the story of its fabrication.

While the classical documentary hypothesis posited that the Priestly material constituted an independent document which was compiled into the Pentateuch by a later redactor, most contemporary scholars now view P as a redactional layer, or commentary, on the Yahwistic and Deuteronomistic sources. Unlike J and D, the Priestly material does not seem to amount to an independent narrative when considered on its own.

Date of the Priestly source

While most scholars consider P to be one of the latest strata of the Pentateuch, post-dating both J and D, since the 1970s a number of Jewish scholars have challenged this assumption, arguing for an early dating of the Priestly material. Avi Hurvitz, for example, has forcefully argued on linguistic grounds that P represents an earlier form of the Hebrew language than what is found in both Ezekiel and Deuteronomy, and therefore pre-dates both of them. These scholars often claim that the late-dating of P is due in large part to a Protestant bias in biblical studies which assumes that "priestly" and "ritualistic" material must represent a late degeneration of an earlier, "purer" faith. These arguments have not convinced the majority of scholars, however.

Deuteronomist

The Deuteronomist source is responsible for the core chapters (12-26) of Book of Deuteronomy, containing the Deuteronomic Code, and its composition is generally dated between the 7th and 5th centuries BCE. More specifically, most scholars believe that D was composed during the late monarchic period, around the time of King Josiah, although some scholars have argued for a later date, either during the Babylonian captivity (597-539 BC) or during the Persian period (539-332 BC).

The Deuteronomist conceives of as a covenant between the Israelites and their god Yahweh, who has chosen ("elected") the Israelites as his people, and requires Israel to live according to his law. Israel is to be a theocracy with Yahweh as the divine suzerain. The law is to be supreme over all other sources of authority, including kings and royal officials, and the prophets are the guardians of the law: prophecy is instruction in the law as given through Moses, the law given through Moses is the complete and sufficient revelation of the Will of God, and nothing further is needed.

Importantly, unlike the Yahwist source, Deuteronomy insists on the centralization of worship "in the place that the Lord your God will choose." Deuteronomy never says where this place will be, but Kings makes it clear that it is Jerusalem.

Yahwist

John Van Seters characterizes the Yahwist writer as a "historian of Israelite origins," writing during the Babylonian exile (597-539 BCE). The Yahwist narrative begins with the second creation story at . This is followed by the Garden of Eden story, Cain and Abel, Cain's descendants (but Adam's descendants are from P), a Flood story (tightly intertwined with a parallel account from P), Noah's descendants and the Tower of Babel. These chapters make up the so-called Primeval history, the story of mankind prior to Abraham, and J and P provide roughly equal amounts of material. The Yahwist provides the bulk of the remainder of Genesis, including the patriarchal narratives concerning Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph.

The Book of Exodus belongs in large part to the Yahwist, although it also contains significant Priestly interpolations. The Book of Numbers also contains a substantial amount of Yahwist material, starting with . It includes, among other pericopes, the departure from Sinai, the story of the spies who are afraid of the giants in Canaan, and the refusal of the Israelites to enter the Promised Land – which then brings on the wrath of Yahweh, who condemns them to wander in the wilderness for the next forty years.

Criticism of the Yahwist as a category

The Yahwist is perhaps the most controversial source in contemporary Pentateuchal studies, with a number of scholars, especially in Europe, denying its existence altogether. A growing number of scholars have concluded that Genesis, a book traditionally assigned primarily to the Yahwist, was originally composed separately from Exodus and Numbers, and was joined to these books later by a Priestly redactor. Nevertheless, the existence and integrity of the Yahwist material still has many defenders; especially fervent among them is John Van Seters.

History of scholarship

In the mid-18th century, some scholars started a critical study of doublets (parallel accounts of the same incidents), inconsistencies, and changes in style and vocabulary in the Torah. In 1780 Johann Eichhorn, building on the work of the French doctor and exegete Jean Astruc's "Conjectures" and others, formulated the "older documentary hypothesis": the idea that Genesis was composed by combining two identifiable sources, the Jehovist ("J"; also called the Yahwist) and the Elohist ("E"). These sources were subsequently found to run through the first four books of the Torah, and the number was later expanded to three when Wilhelm de Wette identified the Deuteronomist as an additional source found only in Deuteronomy ("D"). Later still the Elohist was split into Elohist and Priestly ("P") sources, increasing the number to four.

These documentary approaches were in competition with two other models, the fragmentary and the supplementary. The fragmentary hypothesis argued that fragments of varying lengths, rather than continuous documents, lay behind the Torah; this approach accounted for the Torah's diversity but could not account for its structural consistency, particularly regarding chronology. The supplementary hypothesis was better able to explain this unity: it maintained that the Torah was made up of a central core document, the Elohist, supplemented by fragments taken from many sources. The supplementary approach was dominant by the early 1860s, but it was challenged by an important book published by Hermann Hupfeld

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