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By Root 1355 0

“writers,” or groups of writers, there was probably another individual or group responsible for creating the Pentateuch and some of the other early books of Israelite history as they now stand. In some respects, this was the most extraordinary feat. R was the Redactor, or editor, who took the four existing strands, and spliced them together, probably around 400 BCE. Like the others, R’s identity is a mystery. No one even knows whether there was more than one Redactor. The work of the Redactor is fascinating because of the way so many different and even contradictory strands of scripture were woven together. But is also raises a beguiling question. Were there any parts that R edited out of the picture? That is a mystery that remains in the realm of speculation.

This a vastly simplified overview of a question that scholars have puzzled over for more than a hundred years. Of course not everyone agrees with this multiple-author theory. Many “true believers” reject it entirely. And some who accept the theory dispute those who say that the “Documentary Hypothesis” suggests that the Bible is just a collection of fables stitched together to suit each man who did the stitching. Historian Paul Johnson strikes this note in A History of the Jews:

The Pentateuch is not therefore, a homogeneous work. But neither is it, as some scholars in the German critical tradition have argued, a deliberate falsification by priests, seeking to foist their self-interested religious beliefs on the people by attributing them to Moses and his age…. All the internal evidence shows that those who set down and conflated these writing, and the scribes who copied them…believed absolutely in the divine inspiration of the ancient texts and transcribed them with veneration and the highest possible standards of accuracy. (p.89)

In other words, though, by about 400 BCE, the Pentateuch or Torah had arrived in something like the form we know it today. Some of these writers, compilers, or editors, particularly the three later writers—D, P, and R—were also involved in composing other parts of the Hebrew scriptures. As for the other thirty-four books of the Hebrew Bible—the Prophets and the Writings—evidence of authorship is either shaky or a complete mystery. Many of the books show the handiwork of writers working at different times and in different historical circumstances. But it is safe to say that David didn’t write all, or even most, of the Psalms of David. Solomon didn’t write Proverbs or the Song of Solomon, and Isaiah didn’t write Isaiah. These “books,” again transmitted orally for generations, were not finally set down in something like their present form until about 400 BCE, long after Moses and David. Some were not considered “Holy Scripture” for many more years. It was only around 90 CE that the Jewish rabbis closed the book on what they considered the “official” list of their Bible.

Who were the Children of Israel?

Why is there no evidence outside the Bible that such crucial personalities as Abraham or Moses existed? Why didn’t the Israelites think to make sure that they kept track of which precise mountain was Mount Sinai of the Ten Commandments? Why does the Bible fail to mention the pyramids of Egypt, surely the most extraordinary structures then in existence?

These are bothersome questions for any thinking reader of the Bible. But they point to another underlying issue: most of us have no sense of the historical background of the Israelites and little idea as to who the people of the Hebrew Bible actually were. This brings us to a basic fact: it is nearly impossible to understand the writing and meaning of the Bible without understanding the history of the people who wrote it, the ancient Israelites. Of course, there are plenty of Hollywood images, which are practically useless. Most likely Samson didn’t look like Victor Mature.

Who were these people, the first Jews? We use the words “Hebrew,” “Jew,” and “Israelite” almost interchangeably, but even these words came into use much later in history. So what was Israel like in the fifteen hundred