See Did God Write the Torah — and Does it Matter? For many Jews, the Torah’s authority does not derive from being a divine document. by Marc Zvi Brettler at MyJewishLearning.com.
The article is in a Word doc in DropBox’s folder “Jewish Topics”. Claude.ai was asked to summarize the article and that summary is pasted below. All emphasis is mine.
This article by Marc Zvi Brettler examines whether the Torah and broader Hebrew Bible claim divine authorship, and whether that matters for Jewish practice.
Key Arguments:
Biblical Claims About Authorship:
- Most of the Hebrew Bible (Tanach) doesn’t claim to be written by God
- The Prophets (Nevi’im): Historical books like Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings read as human histories with no divine authorship claims
- Some later prophets explicitly claim divine revelation. For example, Jeremiah 1:4 states “The word of the LORD came to me,” while Jeremiah’s second verse says “the word of the LORD came to him [Jeremiah] in the days of [King] Josiah”
- Isaiah 1:1 simply begins “The prophecies of Isaiah son of Amoz, who prophesied concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the reigns of…” without explicitly claiming divine origin
- The Writings (Ketuvim): Books like Psalms, Job, Proverbs, and the five scrolls show no suggestion of divine authorship. Song of Songs is explicitly attributed to Solomon with no hint of divine inspiration
- Even the Torah itself doesn’t uniformly claim divine origin—Genesis begins “When God began to create heaven and earth” (not “God said to Moses, ‘When I began to create heaven and earth'”), and Deuteronomy presents itself as Moses’s speech
- Only in Exodus does the formula “The Lord spoke to Moses saying” begin
- Some late biblical books call it “the Lord’s Torah,” “the Torah of Moses,” or “the Lord’s Torah given by Moses” (2 Chronicles 34:14)
Traditional vs. Modern Views:
- The traditional Jewish position, formulated by Maimonides, holds that the entire Torah was dictated by God to Moses “like a secretary taking dictation.”
- This view emerged in late biblical books and rabbinic literature, but wasn’t always dogma
- Modern biblical scholarship identifies contradictions in the Torah that challenge divine authorship
Contradictions Cited: The author specifically mentions conflicting laws about servant release:
- Exodus states that servants get released after six years
- Leviticus states that servants get released at the Jubilee year (once every fifty years) The author asks: “Which divine speech is the correct one?”
The author notes that scholars view the Torah as developing over time, reflecting various ancient Israelites’ understanding of God’s will at different places and times, rather than being a single divine dictation.
Does It Matter?: Brettler argues that for many Jews, the Torah’s authority doesn’t depend on being divinely written. When reciting the blessing after reading from the Torah, Jews call it Torat emet (a Torah of truth)—meaning it contains profound truths, not that it is entirely true. Its value lies in these truths discovered through interpretation, and serving as Judaism’s “central orienting text” that connects Jews to their ancestors and guides their lives.
