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
Read more »