Who Wrote the Bible?
by Richard E. Friedman
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Book Summary Information
Author: Richard E. FriedmanEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1997-05-07
ISBN: 0060630353
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: HarperOne
Book Reviews of Who Wrote the Bible?
Book Review: Makes as much sense as do our traditions of who wrote what
Summary: 4 Stars
Professor Friedman's book shatters most of my beliefs since childhood relative to who wrote the Bible. My earliest beliefs were formed by my teachers who were strict orthodox protestant believers. Basically I believed that every word of God in the Old Testament was there as if God had dictated it to those who penned its contents. I can recall questioning authorship at least of some of its sections, such as the death of Moses. It was logical to assume that the account written describing his death and burial was written by someone other than himself. I questioned that if Moses did write the first 5 books, why did he keep referring to himself as "Moses said", or "Moses did?" That didn't make sense. Why didn't he use the first person referring to himself? In seminary, the Documentary Hypothesis was studied as a satanic deception. We had Jesus own testimony with his referral to Moses throughout the Pentateuch and Paul's own statement that every word of God was written under inspiration. My viewpoint was as most of the editors of the 1995 version of the NIV: "These first five books were most likely written by Moses, except for the last chapter of Deuteronomy which tells about Moses' death."
It is evident that the first 3 chapters of Genesis contain two totally different narratives, each telling not necessarily a complimentary account of the same event. He points out that the first version of creation, the writer always refers to the creator as God (35 times). The second version refers to the creator always as Yahweh God (11 times). "The first version never calls him Yahweh; the second version never calls him God." He illustrates the two flood stories, with contradictory numbers of animals taken into the ark, number of days of the flood, and other details. He takes you though other Old Testament stories containing doublets and written in different language. He gives the history behind the Documentary Hypothesis and gives reasons for the scholastic credence of it. I had to cast away some of my superstitious ideas of how the Bible came to be after reading this. The Bible was cobbled and woven together over a long period of time. It is evident we don't have final answers for a lot of it, but I came away believing it is as logical to believe Ezra wrote most of the first 5 books during the exile as it is that Moses wrote all of them.
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