How Jews and Christians Interpret Their Sacred Texts: A Study in Transvaluation

How Jews and Christians Interpret Their Sacred Texts

A Study in Transvaluation

Charles David Isbell

How Jews and Christians Interpret Their Sacred Texts

A Study in Transvaluation

Copyright © 2014 Charles David Isbell. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Preface

Abbreviations

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Sacred Texts of Judaism and Rabbinic Instruction

Chapter 2: The Sacred Texts of Christianity: Early Authors

Chapter 3: Early Jewish Principles of Interpretation

Chapter 4: Hermeneutics of the New Testament, the Early Church, and Beyond

Chapter 5: Jewish Transvaluation

Chapter 6: New Testament and Early Christian Transvaluation

Conclusion

Bibliography

For Leslie, my hero

Preface

In the flood of books and articles that have appeared in the twenty-first century about Judaism and Christianity, a starting point for many analysts has been the belief that radical or fundamentalist adherents of each system are dedicated to a literal reading of the holy books of their faith. I believe that such an assumption is demonstrably false.

Some recent books about Christianity have focused on distinctions between Christianity and radical Islam, typically without proper understanding of the latter. Others have denounced the failures of the Christian faith to achieve its own goals in the world; of course these goals vary widely depending upon the viewpoint of the author enumerating them.¹ Christianity has been divided over a wide array of issues: abortion, gay marriage, and a myriad of other political and social questions. Both sides of these internal Christian debates accept the assumption that the fundamentalist or conservative Christians are the ones who take the Bible literally. To be sure, this is a perception that fundamentalist Christians prefer to advance about themselves, often in ignorance of the fact that proponents of many different perspectives within Christianity remain convinced that a simple reading of the Bible supports their cause. Indeed, one of the fastest growing branches of Christianity witnessed by the new century has been the explosion of non-denominational congregations, with loyalties only to their own local group. The common way such groups describe themselves is, we believe exactly [and only] what the Bible says.

Current Jewish scholarship has seen a great number of books discussing anti-Semitism and the Shoah, Jewish history around the world, a political and religious perspective of modern Israel, and of course biblical and rabbinic exegesis. Orthodox Jews also seem anxious at every turn to presume that their positions are self-evidently the one true Judaism, and even liberal or non-practicing Jews often seem content to assume that Orthodox Jews are correct in announcing that their views of the Bible and the Talmud are somehow more Jewish than the stances of Conservative, Reform, or Reconstructionist Jews.

No book of which I am aware has tackled the question that forms the central focus of my work here, for no author has attempted to explain the methodology of interpreters who offer their nostrums to the world in the name of one sacred book or another. Always the focus is upon what is being taught rather than on the methodological route traveled to arrive at those teachings. Believing their sacred texts are inerrant and bear only a single meaning, such writers are invariably led to the specific interpretation that conforms in the most consistent fashion to the teachings of their particular group. However, when methodology is examined, it becomes clear that so-called literal readings are not literal at all, but are personal interpretations based upon the political or theological agendas of their authors and the communities they represent. Accordingly, this book is my attempt to illustrate the classical rules of interpretation that allowed both Jews and Christians to move beyond the literal meaning of their respective sacred texts in search of interpretations that supported the social and political needs of their co-religionists two millennia ago. This is an issue that commentators have addressed only tangentially if at all.

To describe this process of appropriation, it is necessary to distinguish between literal interpretation and inerrancy,² the presumption that a sacred text contains no error of any kind—historical, scientific, moral, or political. This view often presumes that there must be one and only one correct meaning for the Bible, in the process ignoring the wide-ranging interpretations that began to appear even within the pages of the biblical text itself.³

But there are differences between what a biblical text meant in its original context and what it has come to mean in the hands of post-biblical, and now modern interpreters. To describe the process by which these differences occur, I have chosen to speak of transvaluation, by which I mean attempts to retain the core values of classical sacred texts that are bound to specific times and Sitze im Leben, while seeking to extrapolate from those ancient texts teachings believed relevant to faith and praxis in the lifetime of the interpreters. Transvaluation presupposes the necessity of re-interpreting perceived timeless teachings in light of historical, sociological, theological, and political developments that occurred long after the composition of the text itself. Another way to say this is that religious symbols, sacred texts in this case, remain constant, retaining a fixed literary form over centuries of time. However, the interpretations (plural!) of the text/symbol shifted in response to new knowledge learned from other, often non-religious spheres of life. It is thus especially significant to demonstrate exactly how classical faith texts are being used by post-classical interpreters, and then by modern-day adherents, themselves often quite ignorant of the original context and historical roots of the faith they espouse, as support for a particular social or political agenda.

I believe that scholars of religion will benefit from this work as will lay members of both faiths who need to examine the methodological assumptions that operate in the minds of those who write their textbooks and sermons, their manuals and their devotional literature. I believe further that departments of religion in public institutions will utilize the material I have assembled, even when their instructors disagree with my conclusions. Rabbinical colleges and Christian seminaries will be able to use this work to supplement their courses on inter-faith dialogue, as well as in more general course work in hermeneutics.

I have worked from the primary sources in every case, taking my examples from the Hebrew Bible, the Hebrew and Aramaic Talmud, and the Greek New Testament. In a large number of cases I have worked from the original languages of the secondary literature as well, whether the Hebrew of the post-Talmudic rabbis or the Greek and Latin of the church fathers. The translations throughout are my own, except where indicated, and I have also noted places where original sources were not available to me.

I have tried to read current scholarly analyses, but my purpose is not to deal with current secondary literature so much as to allow the classical texts to speak for themselves as the basis for my argument that their voices are not, and never were, unchallenged, literal sources for Jewish or Christian theology. Because contextual and political needs have informed the interpretations given to classical texts from the outset, modern interpreters should understand that they have at their disposal acceptable historical models that allow for tolerance and respect even in the face of apparently rigid and unbending formulations found in their respective sacred texts.

1. On fundamentalist expressions of goals for America, see Chris Hedges, American Fascists.

2. Those who believe in inerrancy argue that while no one can deny the presence of errors in the texts we now possess, the original manuscripts (autographs) were inerrant. I fail to see how it solves the problem to argue that God originally gave humanity an inerrant text that no one has ever seen and thus cannot be read or studied.

3. To cite only a few examples, the biblical narratives offer creation occurring in two different sequences, fail to agree on the number of animals taken into the ark by Noah, and even offer two different ideas about when the sacred name of YHWH (Yahweh) first began to be used among the early Israelites.

Abbreviations

ABD: Anchor Bible Dictionary. 6 vols. Edited by David Noel Freedman. New York: Doubleday, 1992.

ANET: J. B. Pritchard, editor, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, Third Edition with Supplement. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969.

Arndt & Gingrich: A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.

BAR: Biblical Archaeology Review

BCE: Before the Common Era

CBQ: Catholic Biblical Quarterly

CCAR: Central Conference of American Rabbis

CE: Common Era

EJ: Encyclopedia Judaica

HTR: Harvard Theological Review

IDB: Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. 4 vols. Edited by George Arthur Buttrick. Nashville: Abingdon, 1962.

IDBSup: Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Supplementary Volume. Edited by Keith Crim. Nashville: Abingdon, 1976.

ISBE: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. 4 vols. Edited by Geoffrey W. Bromiley et al. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979–88.

JBL: Journal of Biblical Literature

JBQ: Jewish Biblical Quarterly

JPS: Jewish Publication Society

JSOT: Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

LXX: The Septuagint

MT: The Massoretic Text

TB: Babylonian Talmud

TJ: Jerusalem Talmud

TDNT: Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. 10 vols. Edited by Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964–76.

TDOT: Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. 14 vols. Edited by G. Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley et al. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974–2004.

WAB: D. Martin Luthers Werke Briefwechsel, edited by K. Burdach et al. Weimar, Germany: 1930.

Old Testament

Gen: Genesis

Ex: Exodus

Lev: Leviticus

Num: Numbers

Deut: Deuteronomy

Josh: Joshua

Judg: Judges

1 Sam: First Samuel

2 Sam: Second Samuel

1 Kgs: First Kings

2 Kgs: Second Kings

Isa: Isaiah

Jer: Jeremiah

Ezek: Ezekiel

Hos: Hosea

Joel: Joel

Amos: Amos

Obad: Obadiah

Jonah: Jonah

Micah: Micah

Nah: Nahum

Hab: Habakkuk

Zeph: Zephaniah

Hag: Haggai

Zech: Zechariah

Mal: Malachi

Pss: Psalms

Prov: Proverbs

Ruth: Ruth

Song: Song of Songs

Eccl: Ecclesiastes

Lam: Lamentations

Esth: Esther

Dan: Daniel

Ezra: Ezra

Neh: Nehemiah

1 Chron: First Chronicles

2 Chron: Second Chronicles

New Testament

Matt: Matthew

Mark: Mark

Luke: Luke

John: John

Acts: Acts

Rom: Romans

1 Cor: First Corinthians

2 Cor: Second Corinthians

Gal: Galatians

Eph: Ephesians

Phil: Philippians

Col: Colossians

1 Thess: First Thessalonians

2 Thess: Second Thessalonians

1 Tim: First Timothy

2 Tim: Second Timothy

Titus: Titus

Phlm: Philemon

Heb: Hebrews

Jas: James

1 Pet: First Peter

2 Pet: Second Peter

1 John: First John

2 John: Second John

3 John: Third John

Jude: Jude

Rev: Revelation

Talmudic, Tractates, and Rabbinic Sources

Ar.: Arakhin

A.Z.: Avodah Zarah

B. Bat.: Baba Batra

Bek.: Berakhot

Ber.: Bekhorot

Bik.: Bikkurim

B.M.: Baba Metzia

B.M.R.: Ba-Midbar Rabbah

B.Q.: Baba Qamma (or B.K. – Baba Kamma)

Ed.: Eduyyot

E.R.: Ecclesiaster Rabbah

Erub.: Erubin

Gem.: Gemara

Git.: Gittin

Hag.: Hagigah

Hal.: Hallah

Hor.: Horayot

Hul.: Hullin

Kel.: Kelim

Ker.: Keritot

Ket.: Ketubot

Kil.: Kilayim

Mak.: Makkot

Makh.: Makhshirin

M.R.: Midrash Rabbah

Meg.: Megillah

Menah.: Menahot

Miq.: Miqvaot

Naz.: Nazir

Ned.: Nedarim

Neg.: Negaim

Nid.: Niddah

Oh.: Ohalot

Or.: Orlah

Parah: Parah

Peah: Peah

Pes.: Pesahim

Qidd.: Qiddushin

Qinnim: Qinnim

R.H.: Rosh ha-Shanah

S.A.: Shulhan Arukh

Sanh.: Sanhedrin

S.H.: Sefer ha-Hinnuch

Shab.: Shabbat

Shav.: Shavu‘ot

Shev.: Shevi‘it

Sheq.: Sheqalim

Sifra: Sifra

Sotah: Sotah

S.S.: Sifrei Shoftim

Sukkah: Sukkah

Tamid: Tamid

TB: Babylonian Talmud

Tem.: Temurah

Ter.: Terumot

TJ: Palestinian (Jerusalem) Talmud

Tos.: Tosephta

Toh.: Tohorot

Yad.: Yadayim

Yal.: Yalqut

Yebam.: Yebamot

Yoma: Yoma

Zabim: Zabim

Zev.: Zevahim

Introduction

This manuscript is an exploration of the ways in which rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity perceived and interpreted their sacred books. When I began my research, I assumed that the early interpreters of these two faith systems must have employed radically different methods of exegesis in order to arrive at conclusions that were so different as to be mutually exclusive. This attitude is exemplified in the theological treatment of Judaism and Christianity by virtually all scholars, and is articulated most sharply by Professor Hartmut Gese of Tübingen. Gese argues that the Old and New Testaments of the Christian Bible form a single closed corpus or continuum of tradition, the New Testament forming the completion of the process of divine revelation begun in the Old. In Judaism, Gese maintains, the Pharisees enacted a reduction of the available written traditions by excluding numerous works⁴ from the third major section of the Hebrew Scriptures (Ketuvim). In short, for Gese, as also for other Christian theologians, Judaism and Christianity treated their common tradition in radically different ways. Judaism reduced the old tradition and initiated a new one that contrasted sharply with all that had preceded it. Christianity completed the ancient stream of tradition and, despite the name of its own sacred works, contributed nothing new methodologically, simply continuing the flow of ideas that issue from the Old Testament.

Another aspect of this scholarly view is the lip service given by almost everyone who authors a work of Old Testament Theology to the necessity of establishing a straight line link with the New Testament. That such a link is often strained and in fact virtually impossible from the starting point of responsible exegesis is a point well made by Professor James Barr.⁵ Yet the perception remains that the New Testament treatment of the Old Testament is so fundamentally different from the rabbinic reformulation of the same text that two competing methods of interpretation must be assumed. It was this assumption that led ultimately to the views of Gese, that the New Testament continued the theological traditions of the Old Testament, while the early rabbis broke with it entirely in order to create a totally different system.

At the beginning of my research, I began almost immediately to sense that this assumption is far too simplistic. Conclusions are one thing, but the methodology employed to reach those conclusions is something else entirely. Thus in the course of examining the methods of the early rabbis and then the New Testament and other early Christian authors, it became clear that the two faith systems had spoken from the outset a common hermeneutical language despite the radically different conclusions that began to shape the religious beliefs and practices in the two great faith traditions in the first- and second-century CE. Consequently, for later interpreters, the differing conclusions of the two systems served to obscure the similarities of method that had existed from the outset.

One shortcoming common to both Judaism⁶ and developing Christianity has been the failure to define the difference between principle and practice. That is, the ways in which individual Jews or Christians have appropriated the interpretations of their respective classical scholars have often become radically different from what the models of their own faith systems indicate they should do. In principle, both religions teach peace and love. But because adherents of Judaism and Christianity throughout the centuries have often been ill-informed not only about their sister faith, but also about their own, the temptation has been always to judge one’s own religion by appeal to its principles while condemning the faith of the other by citing the poor practices of some of its followers.

I do not wish to offer another in a long line of saccharine assurances that Judaism teaches social justice or that Christianity is a religion of love. I am concerned about the ways in which scholars of the two sister faiths operated from earliest times with stunning freedom to reach theological positions that suited their own social, religious, and political needs. And I am fascinated by the fact that this freedom always tied itself to canonical sacred literature no matter how ill-suited the ligatures might appear retrospectively to the modern mind. In the coming chapters, I will demonstrate the connections made between the Hebrew Scriptures, sacred to both Judaism and Christianity, by the Talmud and the New Testament, which became respectively the bases for all modern systems of the two faiths. Similar developments exegetically are attested in each case. First, a core canon of literature developed over time and was then proclaimed to be authoritative. Second, an equally authoritative corpus of interpretive reformulations was produced, either proclaiming itself (as the rabbis did) or being subsequently ratified (as was the case of the Church and the New Testament) as authentic explication of the initial core canon. Third, complicated interpretations of these original reformulations were produced by commentators whose backgrounds within the faith varied and whose conclusions were tied to regional or their own current cultural customs and practices. Finally, despite seemingly irreconcilable differences, and despite obvious interpretative movement well outside the sphere of the literal or plain sense of an original, sacred text, commentators in both faith systems continued to hold doggedly to the position that their conclusions were not only based firmly upon the initial authoritative text but were in fact a natural extension and continuation of it.

One important question is whether extreme passages from the canonical texts of the two religions can be wrenched from historical context and forged into an excuse for exclusionary social agendas or even violent actions. I will argue that it is not a simplistic and literal reading of literature that permits a particular sacred text to be forged into such uses. To the contrary, such reshaping occurs only by the implementation of long-standing and sophisticated interpretative methods. As stated in the Preface, to describe these classical and early post-classical appropriations, I have chosen to speak of the transvaluation of a text. My former Professor of Bible at Brandeis University, the esteemed Nahum M. Sarna, used the term Transformations.⁷

While it is absolutely essential to condemn the extremist interpreters of such texts, regardless of which faith system is represented, it is inappropriate to issue a blanket condemnation of an entire faith system merely by citing some of its texts that the civilized world now believes to be offensive. Furthermore, it is crucial that modern interpreters be required to recognize and acknowledge their own processes. They may indeed claim, and perhaps sincerely believe, that they are simply reading the plain sense of the Bible or the New Testament, but ideological agendas are easily detectable just below the surface. The issue is not that no one ever claims to be reading their own holy books literally, only that no one actually does so. I believe my research will illustrate that such readings not only are impossible in our modern era but that such has always been the case. In short, interpreters from the earliest moments of their engagement with the text recognized the need, and exercised the freedom, to go beyond a simplistic, literalistic understanding of sacred literature.

In the light of our examination of the interpretation methods used over the centuries by sages within the two faith systems, we can see also the unavoidable consequences that have always flowed, not from literal readings of the difficult pre-modern sacred texts that are present in all religions, but from the wide-ranging freedom each system allows methodologically. The use of physical violence (terror) or political blackmail to achieve political agendas is one of the most pressing religio-political issues of the twenty-first century, and the history of both faiths has much to teach the world about terror founded upon a sacred text. Both Judaism and Christianity had to learn by sober experience the consequences of reading their own texts monolithically as an excuse for exclusion, hatred, and violence.

Extremist Jews started an unwinnable war against Rome in 67 CE, a conflict that led to the destruction of Jerusalem, the slaughter of scores of thousands of Jews, the expulsion of Jews from their own holy city and its sacred sites, and a 1900-year forced exile from the land of Israel. Extremist Christians witnessed the sending forth of children on crusades to free the holy land from the infidels. Many of these children died and many others were enslaved in Muslim-controlled lands. Christianity also witnessed the results of numerous acts of murder and destruction against Jews who were officially regarded as their precursors in the faith, but who were tagged by literalist interpreters of Christian sacred texts as the killers of god. The final insanity of the Shoah (holocaust) so shook the Christian world that major theological changes have been issued from Rome and several Protestant bodies; despite the fact that Christian anti-Jewish feelings still exist, it is no longer defensible openly to espouse the killing or persecution of Jews on the supposed basis of a Christian canonical text.

Two-thousand years ago, the soul searching forced upon Judaism and Christianity alike by the fall of the Second Temple, and the unquestioned hegemony of pagan Rome, required both rabbis and early Christian authors to admit that their own sacred text (and it was the same text!) simply did not work literally in all situations and in every context. A fair reading of the interpretative history of Judaism and Christianity attests that the earliest scholars in both faiths knew this from the beginning, and the record of their earliest attempts to appropriate biblical truth for their day quickly sounded the death knell to all attempts at understanding them monolithically. To have insisted in the first century CE upon a literalistic hermeneutic by failure (or refusal) to acknowledge the time-bound and event-specific nature of biblical literature would have meant that both Judaism and Christianity would have failed to act responsibly to the realities of the changing world in which they lived and to which they declared their beliefs. Had they failed at this point, both faith systems might have died aborning.

Signs of hope for mutual respect and honest dialogue, not merely some vanilla form of tolerance, must be generated internally by each faith system. And in both Judaism and Christianity, such internal generation is apparent historically. Judaism witnessed the Haskalah, the teaching of Mordecai Kaplan, and a now 250-year-old Reform movement, all beamed in the direction of modernity. Christianity contributed to and benefited from the enlightenment that swept over Europe, inheriting rigorous new methods of textual and literary analysis as well as a fresh breeze of openness to critical thought. Yet to be decided is whether Judaism and Christianity facing new issues in our era will acknowledge the methodological openness exemplified by their earliest interpreters, who reformulated Scripture rigorously in light of their own times.

4. Gese mentions books like Tobit, Judith, the Wisdom of Solomon, the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, the books of Maccabees, ben Sira, and Enoch. His argument is spelled out in detail in Vom Sinai zum Zion,

11

–

30

.

5. The Concept of Biblical Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press,

1999

), passim.

6. As distinct from the early Yahwism of the Bible or the Judahism of a later era.

7. See his The Authority and Interpretation of Scripture in Jewish Tradition, C. Thoma and M. Wyschogrod, eds., Understanding Scripture,

9

-

20

.

1

The Sacred Texts of Judaism and Rabbinic Instruction

As stated in the Introduction, this book is an examination of hermeneutical methods employed to interpret the Bible by the early rabbis, the authors of the New Testament, and early post-New Testament Christian scholars. Because their work involved texts they believed were sacred and authoritative, it is necessary at the outset to describe what those texts were and how they developed into the written forms that Jews and Christians came to venerate as canonical before we proceed to describe the processes by which they went about the business of interpretation.

The Bible

The Hebrew Bible is the basic holy book of Judaism. But the term book is misleading. As shown in the chart above, the Bible of Judaism includes three major divisions consisting of five, eight, and eleven smaller units, a total of twenty-four.¹ The first of these divisions is known by various names. In Hebrew it may be called the Humash (ḥȗmaš) meaning five or fifths, or simply Torah, a broad term signifying teaching or instruction. Its best-known English designation is Pentateuch, a compound word from two Greek terms meaning five scrolls.

The second major division of the Bible is the Prophets (nǝvȋ’ȋm), which includes two subdivisions: Former Prophets² and Latter Prophets.³ Because its subject matter deals with historical events, initially with the conquest and subsequent division of the land and then with the careers of the kings and prophets of Israel and Judah (spanning roughly six hundred years), the first of these subdivisions is often called Historical Books, especially by non-Jewish scholars. Yet the Former Prophets cannot be considered history by any objective reading of the text itself.⁴ These books present the prophetic interpretation of the religious significance or spiritual meaning of the period of Israelite history from the Conquest led by Joshua in the twelfth century BCE to the conquest of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587 BCE. What is more, the perspective of the work is unabashedly Judahite, slanted in favor of a Jerusalem capital, a Davidic king, and a national center of worship at the Temple in Jerusalem. Because of this Judahite preference, northern kings that were merely politically significant received only terse notice from the prophetic editors except in instances where their evil actions were chronicled in detail to explain a current political crisis, and great attention was given to kings whose spiritual deficiency created political problems. The best example of this lack of interest in matters that were merely political or military is found in the way that the career of Omri is treated. Omri was a significant monarch internationally,⁵ who founded a ninth-century dynasty that still bore his name one hundred years after his death,⁶ built an impressive new capital city at Samaria, and launched a series of successful military campaigns that brought significant territorial gains to the northern kingdom of Israel. But he was dismissed by the prophetic editors of Kings in a mere handful of verses in 1 Kings (16:16–28). On the other hand, kings like David and Solomon, Hezekiah, and Josiah, all of whom were perceived as spiritually significant leaders and all of whom were Judahite, received lavish praise and prophetic approval from the same editorial guild.

The other subdivision of the Prophets is known in Hebrew as the Latter Prophets, often referred to by scholars as the writing prophets. In this literature, the careers of prophetic giants are chronicled, some of their messages are set down in writing, probably by generations of students who studied in their wake,⁷ and additional prophetic opinions about political events are recorded. In the past two hundred years, there has been a good deal of scholarly debate about the true authors of these books. Earlier ultra-conservative scholars routinely held that most if not all of the books were written by the prophet whose name they bear. However, the majority of modern scholars view each book as a composite work that has come to its present form from numerous individual hands by a process of growth and development, sometimes lasting for several decades or more.

The third major division of the Hebrew Bible receives the name the Writings (kǝtȗvȋm), a designation that could also be taken to mean miscellaneous.⁸ This division includes literature ranging in subject matter from interpreted history to apocalyptic musings, from practical aphorisms (proverbs) to philosophical speculation about the true meaning of life and death.

From ancient times, the author of the entire Pentateuch was believed to have been a single individual, the great leader of the Exodus from Egypt named Moses. And yet, as early as one thousand years ago, a close reading of the text itself led some Jewish scholars to doubt such a simplistic explanation. First, throughout the Pentateuch, Moses is described in the third person, an awkward perspective for an author who is writing firsthand, especially if one tries to imagine such an author describing his own death in the past tense (Deut 34). Second, the entire work is in Hebrew, a language Moses almost surely did not know.⁹ The narrative of his life¹⁰ describes him as having been officially adopted and given a pure Egyptian name by the princess who found him floating on the Nile River. He was then reared in the Egyptian palace, where he would have received his education in the language of Egypt rather than in what would only later develop as a dialect (i.e., Hebrew) of Canaan, a place he never visited!

Third, some statements appear to have been written down much later than Moses could have lived. Statements like, the Canaanites were in the land at that time (Gen 12:6) obviously had to have been written at some time after the Canaanites were no longer in the land, and such a time was long after the death of Moses.

Fourth, Moses is described as the most humble man on the face of the earth (Num 12:3), a self-appraisal that a truly humble person could hardly have written about himself.

Fifth, parallel accounts (doublets) of numerous events contain differences in language and style, in important details, and even names by which God is known and