Who Wrote the Pentateuch & Old Testament History?

Before reading this page, we highly recommend reading our guides related to Old Testament history, including Genesis 1 - 11, Genesis through Ruth, the Unified Kingdom, Prophets in the Divided Kingdoms, After the Babylonian Exile, and Wisdom, Maccabees, and Daniel. Readers may want to quickly review two other pages in our lectionary guide that summarize the details on the pages just mentioned: Salvation History and the Structure of the Bible. This page presumes familiarity with the concepts on all these other pages.

For more than a millennium, Jews and Christians have questioned some of the traditional claims of authorship of various parts of the Bible. For example, many people questioned how Moses could have been the author of the entire Pentateuch since the book of Deuteronomy includes the details of Moses’ burial. Until the rise of the Enlightenment and the scientific method, there were no rigorous, methodical investigations into biblical authorship.

Fifteen of the first 16 books of the Bible are identified as the Pentateuch and historical books of the Old Testament (the Book of Ruth is not always categorized as a historical book). Some biblical scholars also categorize 1 & 2 Maccabees as historical books. This page explores the most popular theories of the complexities of how these 17 books were written, exploring the putative major authors and redactors as identified by biblical criticism methods in the past 300+ years. We have created a similar page to help understand the authorship of the 21 New Testament epistles. For most other books of the Bible, we discuss theories of authorship directly on the pages discussing the content of those books.

While the authorship of the entire Pentateuch—the first five books of the Bible—was traditionally ascribed to Moses, a consensus of scholars concluded by the 17th century that the changes in language, themes, and perspectives were too varied to be written by a single author. In his Documentary Hypothesis of 1878, Julius Wellhausen built on the work of earlier scholars, identifying multiple contributors to the Pentateuch. As most biblical scholars have further developed Wellhausen’s ideas, the consensus recognizes four or more major sources contributing to the Pentateuch.

We reiterate: in interpreting any passage, it's helpful to know the larger context. Since modern biblical scholars identify all the authors and redactors relating the events occuring between 1800 - 1000 BC as having lived between 1000 - 400 BC, it is essential to have a working knowledge of Judeo-Christian Salvation History and the Structure of the Bible in order to understand the conversation below.

The Yahwist (symbolized by Wellhausen with the letter J) may have first written down ancient Israelite oral traditions while serving in the court of Solomon, c. 950 BC. J presents God with human qualities, having conversations with individual people. J presents a spontaneous style of ancient Israelite worship. J calls God “YHWH” (pronounced as “Yahweh” or “Jehovah”). Because that name is considered so sacred by Jews that they do not write it on paper, many English translations will use “the LORD” in the place of “YHWH.”

The Elohist (E) wrote down many of the same oral traditions as J, but from the perspective of the northern kingdom of Israel in the 9th century BC, after the united nation fractured upon the death of Solomon. E presents God as more formal and distant from the people, often speaking through an angel. (This makes sense, as E is writing at a notable distance from the Jerusalem temple, unlike J.) Before God’s sacred name is revealed to Moses in Exodus 3:14, E usually refers to God by the name “Elohim,” which many English translations will write as “the Lord.”

J and E were likely combined into a single document (JE) shortly after the destruction of the northern kingdom in 722 BC. The two sources are often indistinguishable, leading some scholars to question if there really were two distinct sources. However, a few passages show a quick toggling back and forth between the perspectives of J and E. Note that as Moses approaches the burning bush in Exodus 3:1 - 6, an angel calls from the bush and Moses hides his face (characteristics of E), but God also speaks directly to Moses (characteristic of J). Some scholars associate JE with the prophet Isaiah of Jerusalem, who was active in the southern kingdom at the time of the destruction of the northern kingdom.

The Deuteronomist (D) wrote in the 8th or 7th century BC. D’s writings are associated with the prophet Jeremiah and the religious reforms of King Josiah in the southern kingdom of Judah around the year 622 BC. (Refer to 2 Kings 22-23, when “the book of the law” is found in the Temple.) In a time when the Egyptian & Babylonian Empires are threatening to destroy the remnant of the once-great nation, D is concerned with the nation’s fidelity to God. In D's telling of the story, when the nation or leader is faithful to God’s command, the nation prospers. When the nation or leader worships false gods, the nation suffers.

The Priestly author (P) probably wrote in the 5th century, after the Babylonian exile, sharing much with the perspectives of the prophet Ezekiel during the exile and the scribe Ezra after the exile. Writing in a weak vassal state organized around elaborate worship in the Jerusalem temple, P promotes the necessity of the priestly rituals and the religious laws of ancient Judaism. P is highly attentive to names, details, and lists.

A final Redactor (“Editor,” sometimes called R) combined JE, D, and P into the Pentateuch in the form we now have in the 5th century BC. Therefore, although the Pentateuch tells of events occurring before the year 1200 BC, the stories are told through the perspectives of political and religious conditions several centuries later. A few examples:

• A close reading of Exodus 14 reveals two competing explanations for how the Red Sea was parted c. 1250 BC. Is it JE who suggests that God sent a wind to separate the water over the course of the night, emphasizing God’s favor on the people who become the powerful nation ruled by Solomon in 950 BC? Is it P who claims that the waters immediately parted when God instructed Moses to raise his staff, emphasizing the power God entrusts to the Levitical priests in the weakened vassal state in 500 BC? The two stories, combined as they are, create a richer portrait of God than either story would give alone. Are the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:1 - 18) and the Canticle of Miriam (15:21) two other accounts of the same event, written by other sources? Some scholars suggest that Exodus 15:21 is the oldest verse in the Bible!

• Did God command Moses to build elaborate items for worship while in the Sinai desert c. 1250 BC in Exodus 35 - 40, or was this an invention of P to emphasize the importance of ritual in 5th-century Judaism?

• Does the legalistic language of Leviticus indicate P’s 5th-century emphasis on ritual, compared to the sweeping rhetoric of Moses’ speeches in Deuteronomy, influenced by D’s 8th-century concern for national identity?

The Deuteronomist has little influence on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, or Numbers, but D is the main author of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings, probably combining many stories from the oral tradition that had been passed down for generations. Some of these books have repeating formulae labeling people as good or evil.

For example, for each of the judges in the Book of Judges, we hear variations of the following in 3:7 - 11, 3:12 - 15, 4:1 - 4, 6:1 - 6, 10:1 - 2, 10:3 - 5, 12:8 - 10, 12:11 - 12, 12:13 - 15, 13:1.

The Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the LORD… so the LORD sold them into the power of [a foreign king] … and the Israelites served [the king] for [a certain number] of years. But when the Israelites cried out to the LORD, he raised up a savior for them, to save them…. So the land was at rest for [another number] of years, until [name of the judge] died.

Likewise, throughout 1 & 2 Kings, we hear a repeating formula:

In the [number]th year of [name of king] of [name of kingdom (either Judah or Israel)], [name of another king] began his [another number]-year reign of [name of other kingdom (Israel or Judah)]. He did [what was pleasing / evil ] in the sight of the LORD.

Despite D's portrayal of many historical characters as one-dimensional, there are others that are better rounded. Saul, Solomon, and especially David are presented as complex figures—anointed by God, wanting to serve God, yet flawed as all humans all.

While we consider the books of Ruth, Tobit, Judith, and Esther to be more of historical novellas than history, there are six more books in the Old Testament that are usually categorized as historical books. The genesis of these books are in the post-exilic period, some time after 515 BC. Since these books do not have as complicated a creation, and since these authors do not influence as many books of the Bible, we treat them more briefly than the authors discussed above.

1 & 2 Chronicles were likely written long after the vassal state of Judah was re-established (538 BC) and the Jerusalem Temple had been rebuilt (515 BC), by an author or a group of authors often called the Chronicler. Even more than J or P, the Chronicler emphasizes the centrality of worship and ritual at the Jerusalem Temple. Apparently convinced that God would not restore the Davidic kingship until the end of time, 1 & 2 Chronicles covers much of the same events as 2 Samuel and 1 & 2 Kings, but presents David and Solomon in the best of all possible lights, without any human flaws.

Despite their substantial length, 1 & 2 Chronicles are hardly ever used in the lectionary.

It seems apparent that the books of Ezra and Nehemiah are written by the same author. In fact, the Jewish Bible considers the two to be parts of the same book. Until recently, tradition held that the Chronicler wrote Ezra and Nehemiah, too. However, in the late 1960s, scholar Sara Japhet challenged that tradition. While a consensus has yet to emerge, a majority of scholars now agree with Japhet that the Chronicler did not write Ezra and Nehemiah.

1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees are two separate accounts of the same period by different authors, as detailed on our page about the books of the Greco-Roman period. Because events are relayed out of order, and because the events are told with great embellishment, even though they are not legends that had been passed down through multiple generations before being written down, many biblical scholars consider these two books to fall somewhere between the categories of "biblical history" and "historical novellas."