Who wrote the books of the Old Testament? (Mainly the Torah)

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StTommyMore said:
I personally hold that the authorship of the Torah is largely Moses, though there may have been later additions. I do not accept the JEDP hypothesis due to lack of evidence.
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Out of curiosity, what evidence do you rely on to say Moses wrote the Torah?
 
Splinker said:
Out of curiosity, what evidence do you rely on to say Moses wrote the Torah?
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Traditional testimony. Examination of other ANE texts can easily deconstruct support for JEDP, and the structure of Genesis itself shows it is not a redaction, but has a single aithor with beautifully constructed chiasms.
 
StTommyMore said:
You have obviously never read Kinship by Covenant. Granted many of his books are for ar general audience, but that does not diminish him as a Bible Scholar. As far as “antiquated opinions,” I will take the antiquated opinions of the Fathers over liberal Jesuits like Rahner and his ilk.
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One doesn’t have to be liberal in order to recognize that Hahn’s (sloppy) cut-and-paste editorial work on the Ignatius Study Bible runs counter to serious scholarship, call it modern or not. The entire Sacra Pagina commentary series refutes nearly every introduction (authorship, date, setting, audience) which Hahn and Mitch wrote for the lauded study bible. And that’s just one (moderate) Catholic-influenced commentary series.
 
Epistemes said:
One doesn’t have to be liberal in order to recognize that Hahn’s (sloppy) cut-and-paste editorial work on the Ignatius Study Bible runs counter to serious scholarship, call it modern or not. The entire Sacra Pagina commentary series refutes nearly every introduction (authorship, date, setting, audience) which Hahn and Mitch wrote for the lauded study bible. And that’s just one (moderate) Catholic-influenced commentary series.
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Why so bitter? Did Dr. Hahn steal you lollipop?
 
Epistemes said:
Look around you.
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So I looked up the Sacred Pagina’s Gospel of Mark. The product description’s first paragraph reads:

“In The Gospel of Mark Fathers Donahue and Harrington use an approach that can be expressed by two terms currently used in literary criticism: intratextuality and intertextuality. This intratextual and intertextual reading of Mark’s Gospel helps us to appreciate the literary character, its setting in life, and its distinctive approaches to the Old Testament, Jesus, and early Christian theology.”

The Gospel of Luke’s Amazon product description reads:

“What makes this commentary on Luke stand apart from others is that, from beginning to end, this is a literary analysis. Because it focuses solely on the Gospel as it appears and not on its source or origin, this commentary richly and thoroughly explores just what Luke is saying and how he says it.”

The main shortcoming I see, Epistemes, is that there’s more to Biblical analysis/scholarship than literary analysis/criticism. In fact the Vatican (IIRC) issued a statement/document comparing the different types of approaches to understanding the Bible, and gave a critique of each type. I had researched this last year when I first became acquainted with JEPD. All of the approaches had shortcomings.

For my NT learning this year, I read the Ignatius Study Bible for the text, the footnotes and commentary, and then I turn my attention to the footnotes and commentary in the NAB study Bible. This adds a lot of time, but I get a lot out of the different approaches. I have to say without a doubt that reading of the moral and theological interpretations of the Scripture from the Church Fathers adds significantly to my understanding.

I recently purchased Raymond Brown’s huge book on the NT, and it adds clarity as well.
 
Epistemes said:
And it’s the realm of theology where Hahn ought to remain, not discussing New Testament scholarship of which he can only espouse antiquated opinions.

And Hahn is far from a “scholar,” much less one involved in the on-going debate concerning OT or NT authorship. He is, at best, a press-friendly author and apologist trapped by the expectations which other fundamentalist Catholics press upon him.
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Ah…I have not been reading along with you folks here…but I glanced at this.

Dr. Hahn is very much a Scholar…and his area IS Biblical Theology. Your charge is rather untrue. And I would kindly ask you to refrain from such in the future.

Also I would point all to Pope Benedict XVI (for example Jesus of Nazareth) …
 
StTommyMore said:
Traditional testimony. Examination of other ANE texts can easily deconstruct support for JEDP, and the structure of Genesis itself shows it is not a redaction, but has a single aithor with beautifully constructed chiasms.
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I don’t know what you mean by traditional testimony. There is no one, as far as I am aware, that testified in writing or otherwise, that they saw Moses write the Torah. Other than the Torah stating that Moses wrote (and how much he wrote is not clear), I don’t know of any other evidence. Indeed, it has to be taken on faith that Moses existed at all.
 
Splinker said:
I don’t know what you mean by traditional testimony. There is no one, as far as I am aware, that testified in writing or otherwise, that they saw Moses write the Torah. Other than the Torah stating that Moses wrote (and how much he wrote is not clear), I don’t know of any other evidence. Indeed, it has to be taken on faith that Moses existed at all.
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It has been Traditionally held until the last couple of centuries that Moses wrote the Torah. Without compelling evidence to the contrary, I take the traditional view.
 
Perhaps it is you who does not understand my post # 15. Yet, I see you now find the value of my post.
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I think you thought StTommyMore was referring to the first part of your post:
Which also means, the Jews did heavily rely on oral traditions.
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When he was referring to the second part:
Which appears to be a deathblow to modern chrisitanity.
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By the way this second part is baffling. Most Christians are not fundamentally opposed to oral tradition.
 
dswearin said:
The search function hasn’t been working right for me, so I haven’t been able to see if this has been answered. I’ve been reading from a St. Joseph edition NAB and in the footnotes it seems to advocate that the Torah was compiled by several editors. I’m somewhat familiar with this theory, but as a conservative Protestant I always held tightly to Moses as author. I know related theories place other prophetic books as being compiled or written by someone else. The footnotes also mention anachronisms, like the reference “Ur of the Chaldeans”. I thought that Catholicism believed the scriptures were inerrant? Or does this inerrancy only refer to the original manuscripts (I have no issue with that line of thought)?
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Considering that Moses’ death (and post-death) is recorded at the end of Deuteronomy (chapter 34), it would be literally impossible for him to have been the sole author of the Pentateuch (unless you want to argue that he wrote about his death before he died).

It also makes you wonder about say Deut. 34:10: “Since then no prophet has arisen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face.” If Moses was the writer, do we conclude that he was simply stroking his own ego? It seems much more likely that someone else was remembering how great Moses was (and it doesn’t really fit Moses’s personality to be self-praising, considering how close to God he was).
 
StTommyMore said:
What I mean is that some of the evidence used to support JEPD can be used to support single authorship
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Some evidence can point to children having autism from vaccinations. That evidence is about the same evidence as taking a solo cup and filling it up with water from the ocean to present as data to determine anything about hammerhead sharks.
 
StrawberryJam said:
Some evidence can point to children having autism from vaccinations. That evidence is about the same evidence as taking a solo cup and filling it up with water from the ocean to present as data to determine anything about hammerhead sharks.
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Actually, the evidence in support of single authorship is quite compelling in some points
 
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