Although the first five books of the Hebrew Bible (also known as the Pentateuch or Torah) are traditionally attributed to Moses, they were actually written centuries after the character of Moses is said to have lived. Since the 19th century, Biblical scholars have identified distinct authorial voices within the text, which they have worked to identify to determine who wrote each portion and how they came together. In the early 20th century, a consensus emerged around the “Documentary Hypothesis” — which posits that ancient redactors (or editors) combined together multiple distinct texts to create the Torah.
However, by the end of the 20th century, the consensus began to break down as new scholarship proposed an alternate model: a core text supplemented by a series of writers who expanded the original, the “Supplementary Hypothesis.” John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will lay out the arguments for and against the Documentary and Supplementary Hypotheses for the Torah’s origins.
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Other topics covered in this lecture include: Biblical origins, Biblical criticism, Ancient Judah, Ancient Israel
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