A Matter of Interpretation

In reading Bloom, I found it interesting that he doesn't elaborate much on why the traditional view that Moses wrote the Torah was such a firmly entrenched belief. I decided to try to find out what some supporters of this view gave as evidence for their beliefs. I immediately found that though I had thought that it was an easily surmisable view that the Bible might not have been too implicit in its statement that the first five books of scripture were at least dictated, if not physically written, by Moses himself, yet, after reading the how the Bible referenced the Pentateuch itself it actually seems a bit of a stretch to argue that later authors did not neccessarily believe this themselves. If, indeed, this is the case, it seems only logical that this issue would become a much more important faith issue, because it would point to the fact that if Moses hadn't at least dictated the books, then the Bible could not be considered infallable, because the writers of the book were mistaken as to the origins of the law and history to which they referred. On ReligiousTolerance.org I found a list of these bible verses that support the notion that Biblical writers believed Moses wrote the Bible:


Exodus 17:14 "Then the Lord instructed Moses, 'Write this down as a permanent record...'"
Exodus 24:4 "Then Moses carefully wrote down all the Lord's instructions."
Exodus 34:27 "And the Lord said to Moses, 'Write down all these instructions, for they represents the terms of my covenant with you and with Israel.'"
Leviticus 1:1 "The Lord called to Moses from the Tabernacle and said to him, 'Give the following instructions to the Israelites...'"
Leviticus 6:8 "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Give Aaron and his sons the following instructions...'"
Deuteronomy 31:9 "So Moses wrote down this law and gave it to the priests."
Deuteronomy 31:24-26 "When Moses had finished writing down this entire body of law in a book..."
Passages elsewhere in the Hebrew Scriptures:
Joshua 1:7-8 "...Obey all the laws Moses gave you."
Joshua 8:31-34 "He followed the instructions that Moses the Lord's servant had written in the Book of the Law..."
Joshua 22:5 "...obey all the commands and the laws that Moses gave to you."
2 Chronicles 34:14 "...Hilkiah the high priest...found the book of the Law of the Lord as it had been given through Moses."
Passages in the Gospels which show that Jesus and John the Baptizer believed Moses to be the author:
Matthew 19:7-8 "...why did Moses say a man could merely write an official letter of divorce and send her away?", they asked. Jesus replied, 'Moses permitted divorce...'"
Matthew 22:24 "Moses said, 'If a man dies without children...'"
Mark 7:10 "For instance, Moses gave you this law from God..."
Mark 12:24 "...haven't you ever read about this in the writings of Moses, in the story of the burning bush..."
Luke 24:44 "...I told you that everything written about me by Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms must all come true."
John 1:17 "For the law was given through Moses..."
John 5:46 "But if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me because he wrote about me. And since you don't believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?"
John 7:23 "...do it, so as not to break the law of Moses..."
Passages elsewhere in the Christian Scriptures:
Acts 26:22 "...I teach nothing except what the prophets and Moses said would happen..."
Romans 10:5 "For Moses wrote..."


It would seem that if the documentary hypothesis is actually true, it would refute the words of Jesus himself, because several times Jesus affirms that Moses did the writing, as in Luke 24, when he states that "I told you that everything written about me by Moses...must all come true." I think the message of all of these verses, taken together, is rather clear. The Bible references itself as written by Moses. To argue otherwise seems quite the stretch. Thus, the authorship of the Pentateuch becomes itself a faith issue. I am not arguing as to which hypothesis is true, I am simply arguing that the acceptance of documentary hypothesis must been seen as a faith issue, whether that seems convienent for the sake of the class or not.