Did Moshe Write the Torah? Part 3

Here are some more additional problems that arise if one believes that the Torah was written by Moshe.

Eating Manna: The mun (manna) according to Judaism was a magical white substance that God gave to the Hebrews in the desert which acted as a substitute for food. It had the magical abilitiy to taste like any food you wanted it to taste as. This is how Jewish people describe the manna, there is no good explaination to what the manna is from the Torah itself. Thus, the Jewish idea of manna must be derived from oral tradition and the commentaries. This is all unimportant for us in context of deciding whether or not Moshe wrote the Torah. Go to Exodus 16:35, "The children of Israel did eat manna forty years, until they came to a land (Canaan) inhabited". There is a clear problem with such a verse as we already raised in our past analysis. Namely, how can Moshe write about how the Hebrews continue to eat manna until they arrive in the land of Canaan if Moshe died before every reaching the land of Canaan? Thus, whoever wrote this passage must have been living many years after the death of Moshe to narrate this event.

Kings from Edom: Chaphter 36 in Genesis is an interesting chapter because not only does it again challenge that Moshe is the author of the Torah but it puts a big estimate on the author who wrote this passage. In particular look at Genesis 36:31, "And these are the kings which reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel". Jewish history says that after Moshe died, and then Yehoshua died, the Israelites were ruled by the era of the Judges, then this era ended and Israel began to have kings. The meaning of "before any king reigned over Israel" implies that this must have been written at least two kings past. The first king was Saul. If this was written during the time of Saul then it should read "before the king reinged over Israel". Therefore, at least two kings must have past if one is to write, "before any king reinged over Israel". The second king was David. This is approximiately 400 years after the death of Moshe. Thus, we get a sense of a big estimate of years that spanned before Moshes and the authorship of this passage in Genesis.

King of Bashan: Here is another big estimate to the time between Moshe supposedly lived and the authorship of the Torah. Og, the king of Bashan, was a giant (in case you are not familar giants exist in the world of the Torah). Deuteronomy 3:11, describes his bed and how large it was. It also mentions that it is located in Rabbah. The problem here is that Moshe could not have known that it is located in Rabbah. Moshe never took the city of Rabbah. Rabbah is not conquered and taken over until Second Samuel 12: 26-29 under king David. Just like the above observation about the kings of Edom we have a similar situation with this passage in Deuteronomy. We see that the author of this passage must have lived many hundreds of years after Moshe.

These examples that have been brought forth are just a few examples of an entire myraid of examples that point to the Torah being written a long time after Moshe supposedly lived. Thus, we see that Moshe cannot be the author of the Torah. We can also ask the question of who then wrote the Torah and when it was written. This is a more difficult question to ask. No one really knows the answer to this question, but various answers have been formulated. A detailed study of this is answered by the Documentary Hypothesis. Spinoza himself has made the case that the Torah was a collection of passages written by many different authors. He even argues that only a tiny precentage of these could be assumed to have been writen by Moshe (assuming that there was such a guy that lived). Later these collections were put together between the 3rd and 2nd century BC by some Jewish scholar. Spinoza makes a guess that this may have been Ezra. Whatever the real origins of Torah really are is not as important as that it was not written by Moshe (who recieved it from God). Once we understand this we see a serious problem in Judaism.