The Authorship of the Pentateuch

The Authorship of the Pentateuch – The “Documentary Hypothesis” and other theories 

Assignment: Discuss the “Documentary Hypothesis” about the authorship and the oral and literary sources of the “Pentateuch” (Torah). List and discuss the traditional reasons that Moses has been assumed to be the author of Genesis through Deuteronomy, and also the reasons that more recent Biblical interpreters have questioned Moses’ authorship. What role if any, might Moses have played in the formation of the Pentateuch? Summarize the content and characteristics of the four major sources that modern Biblical interpreters have theorized. To what extent might “oral tradition” have played a role in the development of such sources? 

The Problem of Authorship 

Though the centuries the idea of Moses’ authorship for the first five “books” of the Hebrew Bible has been met in various quarters with apathy, with strong affirmation, or with strong denial. But we must remember that ancient peoples had no copyright legislation, and they were largely indifferent to questions about the authorship of books. Authorship has become a concern only in more modern times. Usually the life of a person in Biblical times was so taken up with his or her own people and nation and faith-community that the matter of just which individual, if any, wrote or composed the Torah was of little consequence. Their overriding assertion seems to have been, “This is our story” rather than, “This is his book.” 

I. The Testimony of the Hebrew Bible 

In the period after about 500 BCE, the so-called “post-exilic” era, the name of Moses came to be linked with these books that Jews have called “Torah” (Hebrew: = “instruction,” “guidance,” “teaching,” “revelation,” “law”). In Nehemiah 8:1-3 we find the priest Ezra becoming the center of a movement to focus the life of the post-exilic community on obedience to “The Torah of Moses”: 

When the seventh month arrived—the Israelites being [settled] in their towns—the entire people assembled as one body in the square before the Water Gate, and they asked Ezra the scribe to bring the scroll of the Torah of Moses with which Yahweh had charged Israel. On the first day of the seventh month, Ezra the priest brought the Torah of Moses before the congregation, men and women and all who could listen with understanding. He read from it, facing the square before the water Gate, from the first light until midday, to the men and women and those who could understand; the ears of all the people were given to the scroll of Torah. 

Furthermore, such passages as Ezra 6:18 and Nehemiah 13:1 explicitly refer to “the Book of Moses,” and Daniel 9:11 indicates that the “Torah of Moses” was a written entity. Likewise, Ezra 3:2 and 7:6 suggest that by about 400 BCE there were many Jewish scribes who credited Moses with having written the “Torah” that was binding on all Israel. Of course, all of these references are found in very late writings, long after the time of Moses himself. 

In the Pentateuch itself several verses indicate that Moses knew how to write (Exodus 17:4; 24:4; 34:27-28; Numbers 33:2). Although a century or so ago some interpreters were suggesting that writing had not even been invented as early as the time of Moses, more modern archaeological investigations have shown that conclusion not to be the case. 

More specifically, within the Pentateuch there are passages such as Exodus 24:3-4, 7, where we are told that Moses “wrote down” all the commands of Yahweh, referring specifically to those commands given in Exodus 20-23 (the so-called “Book of the Covenant”). Likewise, in Deuteronomy 31:9, 26, Moses is said to have written down the “Torah,” and the reference apparently is to the contents of Deuteronomy 12-26, the so-called “Code of Deuteronomy”). Furthermore, Exodus 34:27-28 reports that Moses wrote down “the words of the Covenant.” And Exodus 17:14 says that Moses wrote down a report about the war with the Amalekites; Numbers 33:2 tells that Moses wrote down a list of the encampments in the wilderness; and Deuteronomy 28:61 and 31:24 refer to “this Book of the Torah” and to Moses writing “the words of this Torah,” with particular reference to the contents of Deuteronomy 12-26 (the “Code of Deuteronomy”). 

II. The Testimony of the New Testament 

In the Christian “New Testament” a passage like Acts 15:21 makes clear the common opinion of the time: 

. . . For in every city, for generations past, Moses has had those who proclaim him, for he has been read aloud every Sabbath in the synagogues. . . . 

In Mark 12:26 Jesus quotes Exodus 3:6, indicating he is quoting from “the Book of Moses.” In Romans 10:5 Paul quotes Leviticus 18:5 as the words of Moses. And there are a number of other passages in the New Testament that clearly infer the common view of the New Testament characters and writers that Moses was the author of the first five books of the Bible. 

III. References in Jewish Writers and Traditions 

The Jewish philosopher, Philo of Alexandria, and the Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, both of whom played important roles in Jewish life of the first century CE, accepted Moses as the actual author of the Pentateuch. Latter Rabbinic tradition held the same opinion. The Mishnah, the codification of Jewish oral laws and traditions from about 200 CE, says: 

Moses received the Torah from Sinai, and transmitted it to Joshua, Joshua to “the Elders,” and ‘the Elders” to ‘the Prophets.” And “the Prophets” transmitted it to “the Men of the Great Synagogue” . . . (Tractate Pirke Aboth, 1:1). 

And in a Midrash (Hebrew = “commentary”) from the sixth century CE, Genesis Rabbah 8:8, we are told: 

Rabbi Samuel bar Nahman said in the name of Rabbi Jonathan: “When Moses was engaged in writing the Torah, he wrote a portion each day . . . ” 

Thus, the traditional title for the first five books of the Bible, in the King James Version of the Bible, and in others, “The Five Books of Moses,” has generally suggested to readers that these books not only are about Moses, for the most part, but also that they were written by Moses as well. 

Questions Concerning Moses’ Authorship 

With such a strong line of tradition behind such a view, why have the majority of devout Biblical interpreters, in the last two centuries especially, shifted from affirming to doubting that Moses wrote Judaism’s most ancient and sacred books? The answer to this question is certainly not that they simply decided in a perverse way that they would attempt to undermine Biblical authority. For in fact, the great majority of them were very devout believers, as are their successors to this day. 

But their conclusions came gradually, out of their attempts to understand and to explain some things that readers encounter when they read those five books. They encountered three primary categories of problems: (1) historical and literary inconsistencies; (2) unnecessary repetitions of material; and (3) peculiarities of literary style. These suggested to those interpreters that the five books of the Pentateuch, as we now have them, are the result of the gradual combining by later hands of materials from at least four major and several minor strands of oral and written traditions, over a period of several centuries. 

Before examining their findings it is perhaps necessary to remind ourselves at the outset, however, that the authority and the spiritual value of the Bible does not (and never did!) depend upon the human authorship of a particular section or book of the Bible, but rather upon the reader’s opinion of, and belief/trust, in the ultimate origin of the book—whether a person believes/trusts that ultimately, God “inspired” the writing, compilation, and preservation of the book in question. Such a faith cannot be “proved” by any scientific methodology, of course—it is a matter of faith, and not of sight. 

Furthermore, despite the many references we have cited within the Pentateuch itself that suggest that Moses may have been responsible for some portions of the work, there is nowhere within the Pentateuch a single instance of a claim that Moses wrote or compiled the entirety of it. And it is also clear that when the Pentateuch provides descriptions of events that took place in Moses’ own lifetime, they do not purport to be his own eyewitness accounts, but they are written about Moses in the third-person. 

As for the New Testament, one may certainly hold that Jesus, Whom Christians believe to have been the perfect Son of God, might very well have been gifted with supernatural knowledge of all things, down to and including the name of the author of the Pentateuch. But even devout Christians often differ concerning the extent of Jesus’ knowledge in light of the belief of many that in taking on the role of a human being, Jesus might have in fact subjected Himself to all of the limitations of human beings, including limitations of the common “knowledge” of His generation. Certainly Jesus exhibits in the New Testament, no knowledge of things related to twenty-first century astronomy or biology or history, etc. 

I. The Problem of Historical and Literary Inconsistencies 

A. Moses praising himself as humble. 

A close look at the details of the Pentateuchal narratives reveals many clear inconsistencies that apparently point away from sole authorship by Moses himself, as the material now stands. The writer/compiler seems to have no desire to be regarded as the same person as Moses. Otherwise he would not write about him in the third person, as noted above. Neither would Moses have given us some of the descriptions of himself as we find therein. For example, Numbers 12:3: 

Now the man Moses was very humble, more than anyone else on the face of the earth. 

Someone else might say such a thing about Moses, but is it likely that he would have said it himself—that would be like praising yourself for your own humility, and lying in the process! Likewise, it is not likely that Moses would have spoken of himself the way Exodus 11:3 does: 

Moses himself was a man of great importance in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s officials, and in the sight of the people. 

Another example is Deuteronomy 34:10-12, which clearly was written after Moses’ death: 

Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom Yahweh knew face to face. He was unequaled for all the signs and wonders that Yahweh sent him to perform in the land of Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his servants and his entire land, and for all the mighty deeds and all the terrifying displays of power that Moses performed in the sight of all Israel. 

Such self-praise by Moses about himself is clearly unlikely. And even later Jewish tradition admitted that Moses could not have written an account of his own death. Yet the writing style does not change from what went before. 

B. Inconsistencies in Chronology – Anachronisms 

There are also many anachronisms—inconsistencies in chronology—throughout the Pentateuch, most of which have been noted by Jewish and Christian interpreters from the earliest times, with various suggestions made to account for them. They are inconsistent on any assumption that these materials were written as early as the time of Moses (c. 1330 – 1240 BCE). 

1. At least eight verses in Genesis, for example (Genesis 10:14; 21:32, 34; 26:1, 8, 14, 15, 18), refer to the Philistines as residing in the land of Canaan. But both modern archaeological records and the extant Egyptian records (written in “hieroglyphics”) that have been recovered clearly support the conclusion that they certainly were not residing in Canaan as early as the time of Abraham and Isaac as described in the Book of Genesis (c. 1800-1700 BCE), and that they did not migrate from their original homelands near Crete and the surrounding Greek islands until about 75-100 years after the time of the Exodus from Egypt (c. 1290 BCE), as it is described in Exodus. This would have been shortly after 1200 BCE, during the reign of the Pharaoh Rameses III, grandson of the probable Pharaoh of the Exodus, Rameses I. And some Biblical interpreters have placed the time of the Exodus as much as 200 years earlier than Rameses I. 

2. In Genesis 36:31-39 there stands a list of the rulers of Edom, south and west of Canaan. Verse 31 states that all of these rulers reigned there “before any king ruled over the Israelites,” i.e., before the time of King Saul (c. 1020-1000 BCE), and long after the time of Moses. Yet the narrator of that list was clearly aware of a time when Israel did have a king. 

3. In Genesis 12:6 and 13:7 there appears the statement that, “at that time the Canaanites were in the land,” which clearly implies that these narratives were set down at a time when the Canaanites no longer were in the land, or at least, were no longer in control of it. This would have to be after the Israelite conquests in Canaan under Joshua and others in the generations after the Exodus, and most probably after the reigns of Kings David and Saul, who completed their subjugation and/or “ethnic cleansing” by about 960 BCE. 

4. According to Genesis 14:14 Abram pursued the captors of his nephew Lot “as far as Dan,” the northernmost city in Palestine, a town that did not receive that name until the tribe of Dan settled there and changed the name from its original name, Laish (Judges 18:29), again during the conquest and settlement (c. 1250-1020 BCE), and long after the time of Moses. 

C. Other chronological inconsistencies in Pentateuchal Narratives 

1. According to Genesis 12:11, 14, Abram was married to an attractive woman named Sarai. Yet the reader is at a loss upon attempting to relate the comments about her beauty with indications in the texts about her age. Genesis 12:4, for example, indicates that Abram was 75 when he migrated from Haran to Canaan. Soon after that they traveled to Egypt, where Sarai impressed the Egyptians with her beauty. Later, Genesis 17:17 discloses that when Abraham was 100 years old, his wife Sarah was age 90. This would mean that Sarah was age 65 when Abram feared her beauty would get them in trouble. Then, the same thing happens to this couple again (!), in Genesis 20, when 90-year-old Sarah sets aflutter the heart of the Philistine ruler, Abimelech! Shades of Joan Collins and Elizabeth Taylor! 

2. In Genesis 27:1-6 the reader encounters the patriarch Isaac, son of Abraham and Sarah, lying on his deathbed, ready to pronounce his final blessing on his two sons, Esau and Jacob. Earlier, Genesis 25:26 indicated that Isaac was 60 years old when the twins were born. And Genesis 26:34 indicated that Esau was forty years old when he got married, so Isaac at that time would have been age 100. After these events, Genesis 27:46 has the complaint of Isaac’s wife Rebekah, following Isaac’s deathbed blessing, that Jacob needs to seek a wife in Haran, and not marry outside their clan, as Isaac had done. Jacob therefore travels to Haran, marries Leah and Rachel, and stays there some twenty years (Genesis 29:18, 27, 28, 30; 31:38) and then returns to find his father still alive (!), according to Genesis 35:27, and then, in the following verse (35:28), the reader is told that Isaac finally died at the ripe old age of 180! So Isaac apparently stayed on his deathbed between 20 and 80 years! 

One does not need to be an unbeliever to have serious questions about such chronological inconsistencies. 

II. Apparently Unnecessary Repetitions of Material in the Pentateuch 

Another factor leading to the questioning of Moses authorship of the Pentateuch as it currently stands, and the rejection of any single author, for that matter, is the number of repetitions—duplications and even triplications—of incidents and legal materials that have many curiously common features. 

A. General 

1. We encounter in Genesis three versions of the story about a patriarch pretending that his wife is his sister, and giving her into the harem of a local ruler. In Genesis 12:10-20 it is Abram and Sarai and an Egyptian Pharaoh. In Genesis 20:1-18 it is Abraham and Sarah and the ruler of the Philistines, Abimelech. In Genesis 26:1-14 it is Abraham and Sarah’s son Isaac, Isaac’s son Rebekah, and Abimelech again! It seems unlikely that this kind of incident happened three times, twice with the same couple, twice with the same ruler. It seems more likely that the reader has encountered in the text three versions of the same story. 

2. We encounter two narratives concerning the expulsion of Abraham’s concubine, Hagar, in Genesis 16:4-14 and 21:9-21. While there are different features in each account, yet the two stories are curiously alike. In one case Hagar flees from Sarai before the birth of her son Ishmael (16:6 ff.), and in the other she is expelled at the wish of Sarah after the birth of Ishmael (21:9 ff.). But in both cases the narrative culminates in an incident that takes place near a well in the wilderness/desert, and in both cases there is an angelic visitation and a promise of greatness for Ishmael. 

3. There are also two versions of God’s call of Moses, and of the revelation to Moses of God’s special Name “Yahweh” ( = “The LORD”), in Exodus 3:14-15 and 6:2-3. And there are two versions of the Israelites’ crossing of the Sea of Reeds (“Red Sea”) intertwined in Exodus 14, two versions of the story of Noah and the great flood intertwined in Genesis 6-9, and two versions of the creation story, one in Genesis 1, and another in Genesis 2-3. And in Genesis 37-45 there are at least two intertwined narratives about Joseph and his brothers. 

Many more instances could be cited. Such passages have led devout Biblical interpreters of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries to question whether Moses or any other single author would have persisted in repeating himself in this way. On the other hand, they have suggested that some later compiler(s) of the oral and written traditions of the Hebrews, encountering various parallel versions of the same early traditions, and having no way of knowing just which was original, nor wanting to leave out anything important, might have decided to include them all and place them in the most logical places in the narrative that were possible. 

B. Apparent Disagreements in Parallel Materials 

Perhaps even more notable are the cases of actual disagreement that appear in duplicated materials. Sometimes these disagreements are encountered in separate narratives that can be compared side-by-side. But other duplicate narratives appear to have been combined or intertwined into a single narrative from more than one versions, and the apparent disagreements within the single narrative have been taken as evidence that more than one version was originally used. 

1. In the first two chapters of Genesis, for example, we find somewhat duplicate accounts of the creation. According to Genesis 1:1 – 2:4a, God created male and female human beings at the same time, after the creation of all of the birds and the animals, and God created them as the crown and climax of God’s creative work. But in Genesis 2:4b-24, God creates the human creature before creating the animals and birds, and then afterward creates a female from the human creature’s rib, thus differentiating male and female human beings. In this account, the female human appears to be the crown and climax of God’s creative activity. 

2. In the story of the great flood in Genesis 6-9 the reader now finds a single narrative where there originally seem to have been two. According to Genesis 6:19 f. God commanded Noah to take a single pair of every species into the ark, whereas in Genesis 7:12 Yahweh bids Noah to take seven pairs of the “clean” species, and only a single pair of the “unclean” species. Genesis 7:8 f. even emphasizes the contradiction with its specific statement that, of the “clean” and the “unclean,” only a single pair went into the ark! 

Similarly, there is disagreement on the duration of the flood. According to Genesis 7:12 the rains lasted 40 days and 40 nights, and after this time, according to Genesis 8:6 ff. Noah waited for certain periods of seven days before the waters abated. But according to Genesis 7:24 the waters prevailed for one-hundred-fifty days, and were not finally abated until a year and ten days after the beginning of the flood (Genesis 8:14; cf. 7:11). 

3. Genesis 37:27 Judah proposes that the brothers should sell Joseph to some Ishmaelites, and the following verse states that they did this; later, Genesis 39:1 indicates that the Ishmaelites sold Joseph to an Egyptian master. But in the very same narrative Genesis 37:28a introduces Midianites, who passed by the pit and kidnapped Joseph from it, without his brothers’ knowledge (Genesis 37:29 f.)! And then in Genesis 37:36 the reader is told that the Midianites sold Joseph to Potiphar. Midianites and Ishmaelites were by no means the same people.

4. In the narratives of God’s revelation of His special Name “Yahweh,” ( = “The LORD”) the account in Genesis 3:14-15 suggests, while the account in Exodus 6 explicitly states (6:3) that prior to the time of Moses God had never disclosed the Name “Yahweh” to the Israelites. Yet Genesis 4:26 suggests that people knew that special Name for God by the time the first human being, “Adam” had a grandson. Moreover, passages like Genesis 12:8; 14:22; 15:2, 7-8; 18:14; and 24:3 all attest that Abram/Abraham knew that Name long before the time of Moses. And, in fact, the Name is said to have been known by Sarai/Sarah (Genesis 16:2), Laban (Genesis 24:31), Lot (Genesis 19:3), and Jacob (Genesis 28:13). 

5. In the legal materials of the Pentateuch there also are duplicated materials in which the reader encounters disagreements and/or inconsistencies. For example, in Exodus 20:24 it is laid down than an altar for sacrifice is to be set up in every place that Yahweh shall appoint. But in Deuteronomy 12:14 it is forbidden to offer sacrifices at any place except at the single legitimate sanctuary (thus foreshadowing the location of the one Temple in Jerusalem). 

Again, many more examples might be cited, both from the narratives and from the legal materials. Those cited above are only a small selection. But it does seem clear that material of similar nature occurred in different versions in the oral and written traditions of the Hebrew people, and those later compilers included them all without removing the discrepancies. 

III. Stylistic Peculiarities in the Pentateuchal Materials 

Another factor pointing away from a single person’s authorship of the Pentateuch concerns matters of literary style. When modern Biblical interpreters examine the Pentateuch as a whole, its diverse literary styles are apparent, and the chances of its having come from the hand of a single author are drastically reduced. Certainly it is likely that Moses might have known how to write. And any one person certainly would have the ability to write in more than one style, depending on the subject matter. For example, a modern attorney, who can employ extensive legal phraseology in the drafting of a legal document, certainly would not employ the same writing style when writing a letter to his wife or mother. And if he decided to write a novel or an essay on something other than law, he would not likely use legal terminology. Similarly, when a modern person encounters one style of writing in a narrative, and another in public speeches, and yet another in legal or ritual regulations, we need not necessarily assume a multiplicity of authors. 

But in the case of the Pentateuch the matter is not that simple. We encounter in the Pentateuch various passages that are devoted to the same or very similar events or topics, and yet those passages still exhibit strikingly different writing styles from each other. Of course, it is also true that a single writer may have a variety of words and expressions for the same idea or concept, if only for variety’s sake. And the mere fact that we encounter, for example, “male and female” in one passage, and “man and woman” in another, would not in itself have a lot of significance. But what we encounter in the Pentateuch is a whole series of alternative expressions of common ideas, vocabulary, and ways of narrating a story, and each set belongs together! 

Moreover, when we compare some of the larger units in the Pentateuch, differences in the use of proper names emerge. Sometimes God is referred to by the special Name “Yahweh,” ( = “The LORD”) and at other times by the more generic word for a god, “Elohim.” God’s special Mountain of Revelation is sometimes called “Sinai” and sometimes “Horeb.” The pre-Israelite dwellers of the “Promised Land” are sometimes referred to as “Canaanites” and sometimes as “Amorites.” Moses’ wife is named “Zipporah.” However, her father, the Priest of Midian, and Moses’ father-in-law, is sometimes called “Jethro,” other times “Hobab,” and still other times, “Reuel.” 

Furthermore, because various passages devoted to the same or a similar subject still reveal a strikingly diverse style and tone, the impression of multiple authorship is sharpened. For example, the Book of Deuteronomy is characterized by a kind of “oratorical” or “preaching” style, and by a whole series of stereotyped and often-repeated phrases. Other parts of the Pentateuch have a very dry and formal style, marked again by many characteristic stereotyped expressions and by frequent repetitions. There are yet other sections whose simple and artless style reveals the unsurpassed art of the storyteller. And these different styles and different ways of expression group themselves together. If these considerations do not clinch an argument for multiple authorship, they do tend to reinforce the doubt that the entire Pentateuch is attributable directly to Moses or to any other single person. 

But if not Moses, then who might have been responsible for the Pentateuch’s content? Is it indeed possible to think of any single author as responsible for it? And if not some single person, then what person(s) or group(s) might have been responsible for the composition and content of the Pentateuch as we now have it. What theory or hypothesis might best explain the phenomena that we have noted above? 

The Hypothesis of Multiple Sources for the Pentateuch as We Have It 

The most commonly-held theory assumed by Biblical interpreters over the last two hundred years is that the Pentateuch as we currently have it is a blending of several sources, which may have been either oral, or written, or both, composed at different times, by different persons or groups, and containing similar, but not identical accounts of many of the same stories or laws. 

In the course of the last three hundred years of intensive examination and study of the Biblical texts in the original languages by devout Biblical interpreters seeking to explain the phenomena we have noted above, gradually a consensus has been reached. Certainly there are differences of opinion, and different interpreters may still differ on certain of the details, but the main line of the consensus is clear. These interpreters assume that there are at least four major strands of tradition in the Pentateuch that may be fairly clearly delineated, along with several less distinct minor ones, which were eventually woven together by about 400 BCE to form the Pentateuch as we now know it. These four major strands may be distinguished from one another by their distinctive theological and political/sociological points of view, by their characteristics of language, vocabulary, and style of expression, and, at least in Genesis and in the early chapters of Exodus, by their use of the names for God. 

This multiple-source consensus has generally been called the “Documentary Hypothesis.” In its generally accepted form the framework for this theory was worked out by Karl H. Graf about 1866, and more completely developed by Julius Welhausen, about 1883. Since that time, the theory has been both challenged and modified, as many interpreters have proposed more, or have insisted on fewer sources, and as opinions have differed as to whether they were oral sources, or written documents. This multiple-source hypothesis generally suggests that sometime in the last half of the fifth century BCE someone—perhaps the Priest Ezra from Babylon, or others associated with him—collected and edited from various ancient sources and traditions, many of which may indeed have been handed down from Moses, and primarily from at least four written “documents,” and compiled our present “Pentateuch.” It seems clear, however, that though there may have been four primary “documents,” these almost certainly were based on far more ancient oral or written traditions of the Hebrew people. 

As traditional stories, laws, and customs were handed down orally within the Hebrew community, they naturally would tend to reflect the special interests of the groups among which they circulated. And thus, the very same story told among people living in the northern parts of the “Promised Land,” (“Israel”/“Ephraim”), and in the southern areas (“Judah”/“David”) might, in the details, exhibit northern or southern interests, respectively, just as, in our own country, for example, Northern writers spoke of “The Civil War” as “The War of the Rebellion,” while Southerners would speak of it as “the War Between the States.” 

In the northern part of Palestine, for example, the sanctuary at Beth-El might have kept alive a set of stories linking Abraham and Isaac and Jacob (Israel) with events that occurred in the north. On the other hand, the priesthood at Hebron in the south might have preserved similar traditions about those same individuals, but linking their activities to locations in the south. 

Similarly, we might expect that some materials circulated strictly within priestly circles as part of the “continuing education” of the Israelite priesthood, and these would have had a rather different character from the popular stories recounted around campfires by tribal storytellers. And interpretations of the instructions of God that were handed down among the disciples of the great prophets might very well have had a more urgent, “preaching” tone, than teachings about legal/ritual niceties handed down among the priesthood. The wisdom teachers who compiled many of the psalms and the proverbs and works like Ecclesiastes, would naturally have had a more didactic style, while the musical and poetic traditions of the Levites who served in the Temple would have provided a greater sense of the emotional content of Israel’s faith. 

Thus, according to the theory of multiple sources, the books of Genesis through Deuteronomy in their present form are considered to be the result of a gradual, centuries-long coalescing of such traditions from may different circles. According to this theory, the priesthood of the Jews during the Babylonian Exile and afterward were the ones who gave final shape to the whole, as a means of helping the Jews preserve their identity as the people of God. In that process they preserved the character of the differing traditions, and made little attempt to eliminate what they would have considered minor discrepancies between them. 

It should be re-emphasized at this point that those who formulated the theory that we have outlined above were not doing so with the purpose of destroying the faith of believers in the inspiration of the Scriptures. Rather, they were very devout men seeking to understand and to explain what they discovered in Scripture, and they did not generally believe that they were being destructive, but that they were making a contribution to the faith of Jews and Christians. They believed that God was involved, not only in the composition and the writing of the words of Holy Scripture, but also in the preservation of the materials used in its composition, and in the preservation of the texts and transmission of Scripture through the ages.