Does The Pentateuch Claim To Be Inspired Revelation?

+ Do the Several Third-Person References to Moses in the Pentateuch Prove That He Didn’t Write It?

[originally posted on Facebook on 13-14 December 2022]

My atheist friend “Lex Lata” wrote on 11-30-22:
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A few passages in the Torah depict Moses writing specific things down, but the ‘Pentateuch never claims divine or Mosaic authorship.’ [he makes a link there, but he agrees with it] The books of the Torah are broadly anonymous on their face. The tradition of Mosaic authorship appears to be an extrinsic phenomenon that likely developed in ancient Hebrew culture during the middle or last half of the first millennium BCE.

Let me take the first of two separate claims first: does the Pentateuch “never” claim divine authorship (i.e., never assert that it is inspired revelation)? This is massively false, and it’s another notorious instance of the dumbest thing anyone can ever do in an argument (don’t do it!): assert a “universal negative.”

In Exodus (in RSV), the phrase “The LORD said” appears 62 times. 54 of those times, it’s followed by “to Moses.” In Leviticus it’s even more clear: “The LORD said” appears 34 times, and every time it’s followed by “to Moses.” In Numbers, the same two figures are 72 and 64. In Deuteronomy, “The LORD said” appears 18 times, and “The LORD said to Moses” three times. But, “The LORD said to me” appears 14 times. And guess who is the “me” every time? You got it: Moses. That leaves one more instance of “the LORD” talking to someone in Deuteronomy: “And the LORD said to him, . . . ” (34:4). In context (34:1, 5-8), this, too, is directed to Moses.

From the textual facts we learn that these books claim to be inspired. Revelation is God’s communication to mankind. So “the LORD said” is a clear indication of this inspired revelation. The phrase occurs 186 times in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy combined. 170 of those instances (or 91%) are directed towards Moses. Therefore, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude that these books:

1) claim to be inspired, and

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2) claim to be communicated from God to us primarily by one man, who is relentlessly identified as its author and/or messenger: Moses.

So where does Lex get off claiming that “the Pentateuch never claims divine authorship”? What kind of convoluted, discombobulated “reasoning” is this? Whether one believes in the text or not, it clearly asserts certain things; and these books claim to be (at least 186 times) revelation from God, passed through Moses.

“Lex Lata” also wrote:
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Why does the modern consensus reject the traditional assumption that Moses himself wrote the Torah? The reasons are legion, and would—indeed, do—fill copious books and articles far longer than this article, . . . But perhaps a few key factors warrant mentioning. . . The books of the Torah contain several statements that make little sense coming from Moses. . . . It’s impossible to overlook the brute grammatical reality that the Torah refers consistently to Moses in the third person, not the first.

So what? Julius Caesar did the same in The Gallic Wars. So did Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War, where he wrote: “Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war . . .”, and in 4.104.4: “The opponents of the betrayers . . . sent to the other commander of the areas in Thrace, Thucydides, son of Olorus . . .” Roman Jewish historian Josephus wrote in his work, The Jewish War: “John, son of Ananias, was appointed commander of Gophna and Acrabetta, and Josephus, son of Matthias, of each of the two Galilees” (2.568).

It’s also very common in the Bible. In the book of Jeremiah, both first person and third are used (I cite RSV):

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First Person

Jeremiah 1:11 And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” . . . (cf. 1:12-14)

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Jeremiah 2:1 The word of the LORD came to me, saying, (cf. 13:3, 8; 16:1; 18:5; 24:4)

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Jeremiah 24:3 And the LORD said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” . . .

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Third Person

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Jeremiah 7:1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: (cf. 11:1; 18:1; 21:1; 25:1-2; 27:1; 28:12; 30:1; 33:1)

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Jeremiah 14:1 The word of the LORD which came to Jeremiah concerning the drought:

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Jeremiah 19:14 Then Jeremiah came from Topheth, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the court of the LORD’s house, and said to all the people: (cf. 20:1-3)

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Jeremiah 26:7 The priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the LORD.

And so on and so forth . . . Both forms occur in Ezekiel in the space of four verses (1st person, then 3rd person, then back to 1st):

Ezekiel 1:1 In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the river Chebar, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.

Ezekiel 1:3 the word of the LORD came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chalde’ans by the river Chebar; and the hand of the LORD was upon him there.

Ezekiel 1:4 As I looked, behold, a stormy wind came out of the north, . . .

The book of Ezra switches suddenly to first person, from its usual third person perspective; for example: Ezra 7:28; 8:1, 15-16; 9:1, 3-4. Jesus frequently talks about Himself in the third person, such as when He refers to the “Son of Man” (which is a messianic title) and refers in context to this person (Himself) as “he” or “his”. “Son of Man” appears 82 times in the Gospels, so this is not an uncommon occurrence:
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Matthew 9:6 But that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins” — he then said to the paralytic — “Rise, take up your bed and go home.”

Matthew 17:22 As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men,”

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Matthew 20:28 “even as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

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Matthew 26:2 “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of man will be delivered up to be crucified.”

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Luke 7:34 “The Son of man has come eating and drinking; and you say, `Behold, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’

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Luke 9:58 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.”

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Luke 22:48 but Jesus said to him, “Judas, would you betray the Son of man with a kiss?”

John 9:35-37 Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of man?” [36] He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” [37] Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who speaks to you.”

All of this shows that merely noting that Moses is referred to in the third person in the Torah is no unassailable argument against his authorship. And when he died, obviously someone else noted and wrote about that.
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Does the Pentateuch Claim to be Inspired Revelation?