Authors and Divine Authority
In a previous post, I mentioned Brevard Childs’ understanding of Mosaic authorship as a claim that “functioned as a norm by which to test the tradition’s authority.” Then we saw James Kugel’s long answer to the question: was the Pentateuch written by Moses?
To many people that accept some version of the Documentary Hypothesis or who believe that, regardless of how the Pentateuch came to be, it wasn’t written by Moses, this may be a moot question – a question that only the religious-minded would ask. The link between Childs and Kugel, to use but one example, is that these are men who read the Bible critically but are also part of a community whose tradition is at odds with their critical reading.
The fact that both Jewish and Christian traditions have strongly held to Mosaic authorship raises the question of why it is so important that Moses be the author of Torah.
Christopher Seitz explores questions of inspiration and unity of the book of Isaiah and sees the discussion of Mosaic authorship as a helpful way to understand Isaiah in its canonical shape. He does that by showing how Jon Levenson handles the issue (Levenson, “The Eighth Principle of Judaism and the Literary Simultaneity of Scripture,” The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism [Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1993] 62-81) and then relates his conclusions to why tradition has held that Isaiah was the sole author of the book (Seitz, “Isaiah and the Search for the New Paradigm: Authorship and Inspiration,” Word Without End [Michigan: Eerdmans, 1998] 113-29).
Seitz says that Levenson’s discussion encompasses at least three factors for the claim of Mosaic Authorship:
(1) The claim to divine authority
(2) The decisions of the community in acknowledging that authority
(3) Unity within the Torah
This involves looking at two key texts in the book of Exodus where the singular role of Moses is set forth.
And you shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth; and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and will teach you what you shall do. He shall speak for you to the people; and he shall be a mouth for you, and you shall be to him as God (Exod 4:15-16, RSV).
Aaron knows what God said because God has spoken to Moses. Later on, the people reject direct communication with God and prefer that God speak to them through Moses.
You speak to us, and we will hear; but let not God speak to us, lest we die… And the people stood afar off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was (Exod 20:19, 21, RSV).
Seitz says,
“Because Moses is the central figure of the Pentateuch, and more than that the essential source of Israel’s knowledge of God, without whom such knowledge would have been unavailable, it stood to reason that a claim to authorship, now more broadly understood, arose”.
Then he concludes,
“The point I am trying to make here is that a concept of inspiration and revelation was what led to a claim for authorship, and not the other way around. But equally important is that this concept of inspiration was flexible enough to be extended beyond its strictly logical scope to cover texts unrelated to the revelation of God to Moses at Sinai” (125).
How does that relate to Isaiah? Although Seitz is very careful to point out that everything that appears in the book must not “fit one uniform temporal perspective, traceable to an Isaiah mechanically predicting from his eighth-century vantage point events into the distant future”, he believes that to look at the book of Isaiah in its entirety “involves the expectation that a single perspective – that of God or that of Isaiah as God’s spokesman – pervades all sixty-six chapters” (127).
So Brevard Childs, Jon Levenson and Christopher Seitz agree that to speak of Moses as the author of Torah is a claim of divine authority. Seitz takes a further step and sees Isaiah the prophet having the same role as the author of the book of Isaiah. So, although this does not mean that questions about who actually wrote the different parts of the Pentateuch and Isaiah are unimportant, it does invite us to take the canonical shape of those books seriously.
Why am even I talking about this?
We are currently studying Isaiah in my church and at some point we are going to have to decide how we are going to deal with critical questions (I am not teaching this course, but I can’t help thinking about how I would handle these things).
Is it even wise to bring up issues of authorship when most people hardly know the content of the book? Are we being dishonest in not addressing (persuasive) critical findings and thus to engage in what someone has called a “conspiracy of silence?” What if you are not even sure what to think about these issues?
One needs to be wise in handling these questions honestly. Of course, for those for whom the question of authorship is a settled matter (whether conservative or otherwise), this post and questions are a waste of time. But for those who are thinking about these issues and want to read the texts as they were intended, a canonical approach says you can keep critical questions on the table and not lose sight of the transforming power of the Word as it is today.
