Q&A: Who Wrote the Written Torah?
Who Wrote the Written Torah?
Question
I looked in the fifth booklet but didn’t find any discussion of who wrote the Hebrew Bible text.
It says in the Torah that Moses our teacher wrote “this Torah,” but how do we know that this means the Five Books of the Torah? Maybe it refers to the verses before or after? I’m not questioning belief in revelation—that I understood from your booklet—and maybe all the biblical descriptions are correct and reliable, but how do we know they were written prophetically by Moses our teacher?
Thanks in advance
Answer
That is what the tradition says. There may be exceptions, but as a rule the entire Torah was given through Moses (and perhaps edited later). I think proof-texts from the Bible can always be rejected, and without the tradition it would not really be convincing enough.
As for “this Torah” and “this song,” this has already been discussed as well in relation to the commandment of writing a Torah scroll: whether it refers to the book of Deuteronomy, the Song of Ha’azinu, or the entire Torah.