Tradition had often assigned the Pentateuch to Moses. The law code often referred to by the Deuteronomistic history and prophets meant, for Second Temple Judaism, that Moses must have written down the law as it resides within the narrative, and therefore, perhaps the narrative as well.
Further muddying the waters was the assignment of the Old Testament into two or three sections: Law and Prophets, or Law, Prophets, and Psalms/Writings. This division can be seen as early as the Dead Sea Scrolls. The reasoning was, then, that if Moses wrote the law, then he must have written the entire narrative to which the term “Law,” as a designation of the entire Pentateuch, now refers. The Pentateuch was sometimes called the “Books of Moses,” and a particular narrative, e.g. a book like Exodus, was referred to as the “Book of Moses.” The New Testament also takes up these designations as references to the law, books and passages within some of the Pentateuch (although I don't believe, as far as I can remember, that a passage in Genesis is ever assigned to him in the New Testament).
All of these designations have explanations, however, that do not necessitate Moses as the author. For one thing, because the law is attributed to Moses does not mean that the narrative in which that law is now placed must also be. Second to this, because the law is attributed to Moses does not mean that even the law code as it has now been formed and taken its narrative shape by a subsequent scribe or author means that it did not originate with Moses. Finally, designating a book or section of Scripture as “the Book(s) of Moses” does not mean that Moses wrote them anymore than designating a section of Scripture as “the Books of Samuel” means that Samuel, who dies a quarter of the way through those books, means that Samuel wrote them.
In fact, the Pentateuch itself only states that Moses recorded three things in writing: the law code (Exod 24:4; 34:28; Deut 4:13; 5:22; 10:4; 31:9), in whatever form that originally existed, the Israelite battle with the Amalekites (Exod 17:14—although he only commands that it is to be written), and the course the Israelites followed up to Canaan (Num 33:2). There is no statement that he wrote the narrative, the levitical codes, the poetry, etc.
Furthermore, the Pentateuch itself indicates that Moses did not write it. A phrase continually appears throughout Numbers and Deuteronomy that so and so happened “beyond the Jordan” (Num 22:1; 26:3, 63; Deut 1:1, 5; 4:46–49). There is no question that the word bĕ(ēber means “on the other side of,” as when the narrative quotes the Israelites who are in the Transjordan, the phrase refers to the Cisjordan. Likewise, when the narrator refers to the Israelites in the wilderness by Moab with his use of the term, he is obviously referring to the Transjordan. Hence, if the author is saying that the things in the wilderness happened to Israel while they were on the other side of the Jordan, then the author is presently where? The Cisjordan, i.e., the place where Moses never sets foot.
On top of this, the narrative refers to Moses in the third person, speaks of him as the most humble man who ever lived, and speaks aspectually as a whole, as though the events of which the author speaks have already taken place and can be spoken of as completed events of which the author is no longer (or never was) a part.
It is true that the author of Genesis (as opposed to Numbers and Deuteronomy) uses the term to refer to the Cisjordan, but this may indicate, as many scholars today believe, that the book is written by one of the Diaspora. In other words, it is not Moses, but one of the levitical priests writing it during the exile. There is evidence of this, since Genesis also refers to the occupation of Canaan by the Canaanites as a thing of the past (Gen 12:6)—a reality that would not have been true in Moses’ time.
Having removed the idea that Moses must be the author of the Pentateuch if we are to maintain the whole of Scriptural integrity, the next post will deal with how scholars began to come to the conclusion that the Pentateuch evidences multiple authors, coming from different theological perspectives, rather than a single author or group of authors with a single perspective.
