Composition of the Torah
The composition of the Torah was a process that involved multiple authors over an extended period of time.
Jewish tradition held that all five books were originally written by Moses in the 2nd millennium BCE, but since the 17th century modern scholars have rejected Mosaic authorship. The precise process by which the Torah was composed, the number of authors involved, and the date of each author remain hotly contested. Some scholars, such as Rolf Rendtorff, espouse a fragmentary hypothesis, in which the Pentateuch is seen as a compilation of short, independent narratives, which were gradually brought together into larger units in two editorial phases: the Deuteronomic and the Priestly phases. By contrast, scholars such as John Van Seters advocate a supplementary hypothesis, which posits that the Torah is the result of two major additions—Yahwist and Priestly—to an existing corpus of work. Other scholars, such as Richard Elliott Friedman or Joel S. Baden, support a revised version of the documentary hypothesis, holding that the Torah was composed by using four different sources—Yahwist, Elohist, Priestly, and Deuteronomist—that were combined into one in the Persian period in Yehud.
Scholars frequently use these newer hypotheses in combination, making it challenging to classify contemporary theories as strictly one or another. The general trend in recent scholarship is to recognize the final form of the Torah as a literary and ideological unity, based on earlier sources, was likely completed during the Persian period.
Date of composition
Classical source criticism seeks to determine the date of a text by establishing an earliest possible date and a latest possible date on the basis of external attestation of the text's existence, as well as the internal features of the text itself. On the basis of a variety of arguments, modern scholars generally see the completed Torah as a product of the time of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, although some would place its composition in the Hellenistic period.Manuscripts and non-biblical references
Concrete archaeological evidence bearing on the dating of the Torah is found in early manuscript fragments, such as those found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The earliest extant manuscript fragments of the Pentateuch date to the late third or early second centuries BCE. In addition, early non-biblical sources, such as the Letter of Aristeas, indicate that the Torah was first translated into Greek in Alexandria under the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus. These lines of evidence indicate that the Torah must have been composed in its final form no later than c. 250 BCE, before its translation into Greek.There is one external reference to the Torah which, depending on its attribution, may push the terminus ante quem for the composition of the Torah down to about 315 BCE. In Book 40 of Diodorus Siculus's Library, an ancient encyclopedia compiled from a variety of quotations from older documents, there is a passage that refers to a written Jewish law passed down from Moses. Scholars have traditionally attributed the passage to the late 4th-century Greek historian Hecataeus of Abdera, which, if correct, would imply that the Torah must have been composed in some form before 315 BCE. However, the attribution of this passage to Hecataeus has been challenged recently. Russell Gmirkin has argued that the passage is in fact a quote from Theophanes of Mytilene, a first-century BCE Roman biographer cited earlier in Book 40, who in turn used Hecataeus along with other sources. Lester Grabbe considers Gmirkin's arguments unconvincing.
Elephantine papyri
The Elephantine papyri show clear evidence of the existence c. 400 BCE of a polytheistic Judean colony in Egypt who show no knowledge of a written Torah or the narratives described therein. The papyri also document the existence of a small Jewish temple at Elephantine, which possessed altars for incense offerings and animal sacrifices, as late as 411 BCE. Such a temple would be in clear violation of Deuteronomic law, which stipulates that no temple may be constructed outside of Jerusalem. Furthermore, the papyri show that the Jews at Elephantine sent letters to the high priest in Jerusalem asking for his support in rebuilding their local temple, which seems to suggest that the priests of the Second Temple were not enforcing Deuteronomic law at that time.A minority of scholars such as Niels Peter Lemche, Philippe Wajdenbaum, Russell Gmirkin, and Thomas L. Thompson have argued that the Elephantine papyri demonstrate that monotheism and the Torah could not have been established in Jewish culture before 400 BCE, and that the Torah was therefore likely written in the Hellenistic period, in the third or fourth centuries BCE. By contrast, most scholars explain this data by theorizing that the Elephantine Jews represented an isolated remnant of Jewish religious practices from earlier centuries, or that the Torah had only recently been promulgated at that time.
Ketef Hinnom scrolls
In 1979, two silver scrolls were uncovered at Ketef Hinnom, an archaeological site southwest of the Old City of Jerusalem, which were found to contain a variation of the Priestly Blessing, found in. The scrolls were dated paleographically to the late 7th or early 6th century BCE, placing them at the end of the First Temple period. These scrolls cannot be accepted as evidence that the Pentateuch as a whole was composed before the 6th century, as it is widely accepted that the Torah draws on earlier oral and written sources and traditions, and there is no reference to a written Torah in the scrolls themselves.Linguistic dating
Some scholars, such as Avi Hurvitz, have attempted to date the various strata of the Pentateuch on the basis of the form of the Hebrew language that is used. It is generally agreed that Classical Hebrew and Late Biblical Hebrew had distinctive, identifiable features and that Classical Hebrew was earlier. Classical Hebrew is usually dated to the period before the Babylonian captivity, while Late Biblical Hebrew is generally dated to the exilic and post-exilic periods. However, it is difficult to determine precisely when Classical Hebrew ceased being used, since there are no extant Hebrew inscriptions of substantial length dating from the relevant period. Scholars also disagree about the variety of Hebrew to which the various strata should be assigned. For example, Hurvitz classifies the Priestly material as belonging to Classical Hebrew, while Joseph Blenkinsopp and most other scholars disagree.Another methodological difficulty with linguistic dating is that it is known that the biblical authors often intentionally used archaisms for stylistic effects, sometimes mixing them with words and constructions from later periods. This means that the presence of archaic language in a text cannot be considered definitive proof that the text dates to an early period. Ian Young and Martin Ehrensvärd maintain that even some texts that were certainly written during the post-exilic period, such as the Book of Haggai, lack features distinctive of Late Biblical Hebrew. Conversely, the Book of Ezekiel, written during the Babylonian exile, contains many features of Late Biblical Hebrew. Summing up these problems, Young has argued that "none of the linguistic criteria used to date texts either early or late is strong enough to compel scholars to reconsider an argument made on non-linguistic grounds." However, this position has been rejected by other scholars, such as Ronald Hendel and Jan Joosten, who criticize that Young and others exclusively use the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible to carry out their linguistic analysis of the biblical texts, apart from undertaking other errors in the fields of textual criticism and historical linguistics.
For their part, Ronald Hendel and Jan Joosten hold that the Hebrew contained in the Genesis–2 Kings saga corresponds to the Classical Hebrew of the pre-exilic period, which is supported by the linguistic correspondence with the Hebrew inscriptions of that period, so that they consequently date the composition of the main sources of the Torah to the period of Neo-Assyrian hegemony. Hebraist Aaron D. Hornkohl argues that the Classical Hebrew in which the Pentateuch is written is older than that of other pre-exilic biblical books and may contain features dating to the pre-monarchical period of ancient Israel.
Historiographical dating
Many scholars assign dates to the Pentateuchal sources by comparing the theology and priorities of each author to a theoretical reconstruction of the history of Israelite religion. This method often involves provisionally accepting some narrative in the Hebrew Bible as attesting to a real historical event, and situating the composition of a source relative to that event.For example, the Deuteronomist source is widely associated with the staunchly monotheistic, centralizing religious reforms of King Josiah in the late 7th century BCE, as described in 2 Kings. Starting with Julius Wellhausen, many scholars have identified the "Book of the Law" discovered by Josiah's high priest Hilkiah in with the Book of Deuteronomy, or an early version thereof, and posited that it was in fact written by Hilkiah at that time. Authors such as John Van Seters therefore date the D source to the late 7th century. Similarly, many scholars associate the Priestly source with the Book of the Law brought to the people of Israel by Ezra upon his return from exile in Babylonia in 458 BCE, as described in. P is therefore widely dated to the 5th century, during the Persian period.
This method has been criticized by some scholars, however, especially those associated with the minimalist school of biblical criticism. These critics stress that the historicity of the Josiah and Ezra narratives cannot be independently established outside the Hebrew Bible, and that archaeological evidence generally does not support the occurrence of a radical centralizing religious reform in the 7th century as described in 2 Kings. They conclude that dating Pentateuchal sources on the basis of historically dubious or uncertain events is inherently speculative and inadvisable.