Writing the Bible, Repeatedly

THE FIRST FIVE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE, called the "Pentateuch", or the "Torah", were, until the middle of the nineteenth century, universally believed to have been written by Moses. Today, almost all devout Jews and Christians still believe this, but they are deceiving themselves, and there is no serious Biblical scholar who does adhere to Mosaic authorship, because they know better. Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918), the most influential Bible scholar of his time, conducted an extensive analysis of historical time frames, Biblical story sequences, writing styles, and religious themes to demonstrate that there were at least four distinct source documents, all written at different times, all with a different point of view and philosophical framework, which were later combined into a single narrative, the five Mosaic books we have today, which begin with two very different versions of the creation of the world (Genesis 1 @ 2) and continue until the Hebrew nation prepares to enter the promised land. One of these sources refers to God as "Yahweh", while another uses the name "Elohim". The Torah could not have been written by Moses, because in the thirty fourth chapter of Deuteronomy (34:6) it says: "and he buried Moses in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor: but no man knows of his sepulchre unto this day." This passage makes it obvious that Moses died long before the Torah was written. Interestingly, anyone, yesterday or hundreds of years ago, could easily have noticed this, and we needn't deceive ourselves about this matter, we have never needed to. But we still do. People rarely read the Bible from start to finish, and keep track of what is actually going on. Lay bible study always consists in skipping around, picking and choosing, and accepting, a priori, not only attributed authorship, but divinely inspired authorship. Nobody knows who Moses was, or whether he existed. Nobody knows who wrote anything in the Old Testament; its all speculation, and an analysis of probable but unconfirmed authors. The same is true of the New Testament. Of the twenty seven books in the New Testament, nineteen, including all four gospels, are of unknown authorship. Throughout the past two thousand years, so many clerics have edited, amended, and reorganized the Bible that it can only be said that thousands of people, almost all of whom are unknown, participated in its current New Standard Revised Edition format. Note the term "NEW REVISED". We just cannot seem to stop trying to make a good thing better. But since the Bible was from the beginning a shadowy, collaborative project, it might as well remain that way..............PLEASE SHARE THIS WEBSITE WITH OTHERS. WE SEEK ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTIONS.