There was no doubt that Moses was the author of the Torah when the Old Testament was canonized in 400 B.C.^244/133

An Apocrypha book, Ecclesiasticus, written in 180 B.C. acknowledges Moses as the author of the Torah: "All this is the covenant-book of God Most High, the law which Moses enacted to be the heritage of the assemblies of Jacob." (Ecclesiasticus 24:23)

The Talmud, dating to 200 B.C., and the Mishnah, a rabbinic interpretation and legislation dating from about 100 B.C. both attribute the Torah to Moses.

Philo, the Jewish philosopher-theologian born approximately 20 A.D. held to Mosaic authorship.^243/279

The first century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus wrote in his Josephus Against Apion (11:8):

"For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us disagreeing from and contradicting one another (as the Greeks have) but only 22 books [our present 39], which are justly believed to be divine; and of them, five belong to Moses, which contain his laws, and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death."^314/609

Junilius, an imperial official in the court of Justinian I, Byzantine emperor from 527-565 A.D., held to the Mosaic authorship of the Torah.^238/44-45 Leontius of Byzantium (sixth century A.D.) said in his treatise Contra Mestorianos: "As for these five books, all bear witness that they are (the work) of Moses."^238/45

Other Church Fathers attributing the Torah to Moses in their lists of the Old Testament canon are: Melito, Bishop of Sardis 175 A.D.; Cyril of Jerusalem 848-386 A.D.; Hilary 366 A.D.; Rufinus 410 A.D.; Augustine 430 A.D.

Welhausen, in the Documentary Hypothesis, stated that the Torah was authored around 700-400 B.C., not during the life of Moses in the second millennium B.C. There is however absolutely no external historical evidence whatsoever supporting these late dates which claim Moses was not the author of the Torah.³⁵ There is however more than ample external archaeological evidence supporting Moses’ authorship in the second millennium B.C.

As we have already documented in earlier Chapters of this book, the science of archaeology has shown us that there is absolute historical evidence of writing up to 3500 B.C. in Ebla and 2700 B.C. in northwest Syria. The Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians would not make a transaction, even in the smallest details of business, without putting it down in writing.

Moses is credited with, in both the Old and New Testament and by Jesus Himself, with writing what is known as the Torah²²¹ or the Pentateuch.^32/957 The Torah is the first five books of the Bible from Genesis to Deuteronomy. It is stated clearly that Moses is the author in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, but not in the book of Genesis. Why is this?

There is archaeological evidence that Adam wrote part of the book of Genesis. Genesis Chapter 5 and verse 1 states: "This is the written-account³¹⁷ of the generations³¹⁸ of Adam." Obviously writing is as old as the human race itself. When God created Adam, He created him a full grown man with the ability to communicate. Why wouldn’t He have also given him the ability to write.

These clay tablets were made of clay from the Euphrates Valley that was mixed with chalk or gypsum to keep the tablets from shrinking or cracking. They were dried in the sun or a kiln. It may very well have been these kind of Tablets that God wrote the ten commandments on that He gave to Moses (Exod 32:15-16). All archaeological evidence indicates clearly that everything written before Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees was written on clay tablets in cuneiform. The book of Job, written before Abraham, talks about this kind of writing in Job 38:14.

Papyrus was the common writing material in Egypt, but the Tell-el-Amarna tablets found in Egypt in 1888 revealed that these clay tablets were letters dated about 1400 B.C. from Palestinian officials to the Egyptian government in cuneiform. Therefore Egypt knew and used the cuneiform method of writing as well.

The first toledoth is mentioned in Genesis 2:4 which states, "These are the generations of the heavens and the earth." Many liberal scholars realizing that Genesis 2:4 referred to what was stated previously thought that the redactor had placed this verse in Chapter two by mistake and should have been at the beginning of Genesis instead. However, in light of the evidence of archaeology we now realize that this is a concluding statement of what Moses has recorded in Genesis Chapter 1 about the creation of the heavens and the earth. As a result this should be a part of Genesis Chapter 1 rather than the beginning of the narrative which follows in Genesis Chapter 2. This phrase in Genesis 2:4 is the key as to how all other toledoth phrases in Genesis are to be interpreted which is a looking back, not forward.

In light of this new understanding about how letters and genealogies of families were recorded on cuneiform tablets, in 1936 P.J. Wiseman suggested that the material in Genesis was written by several authors based on these concluding toledoth phrases. He suggested rightly that the authors of the material in Genesis are the following:

Genesis 1:1-2:4 Origin of the heavens and the earth. No author is given. Wiseman suggests that the author was God himself, who wrote it as He wrote the Ten Commandments, probably on clay tablets. According to its date, as given in the text itself, it was written very soon after the act of creation.

1. Genesis 2:5-5:2 Tablet written by or belonging to Adam.

2. Genesis 5:3-6:9a Tablet written by or belonging to Noah.

3. Genesis 6:9b-10:1 Tablet written by or belonging to the sons of Noah.

4. Genesis 10:2-11:10a Tablet written by or belonging to Shem.

5. Genesis 11:10b-11:27a Tablet written by or belonging to Terah.

6. Genesis 11:27b-25:19a Tablets written by or belonging to Ishmael and Isaac.

7. Genesis 25:19b-37:2a Tablets written by or belonging to Esau and Jacob.

Moses, the writer, editor and redactor of the Book of Genesis, recorded this information in Genesis word for word in its proper order as it was recorded on the tablets, including their colophon prases. Wiseman’s son, Donald P. Wiseman, a well known evangelical scholar himself who is the general editor of the Tyndale Old Testament Commentary series, endorses his father’s work along with R.K. Harrison, professor of Old Testament University of Toronto who has incorporated this material in his book, Introduction to the Old Testament.³⁶²

These phrases at the end of these genealogies are what are known as colophons. A colophon is a scribal devise that was placed at the conclusion of a literary work written on a clay tablet which gave the title or description of the narrative, the date or occasion of the writing and the name of the owner or writer of the tablet. This is just the opposite how we do it today, but this practice in ancient times continued unchanged for over three-thousand years. Colophons are found in cuneiform tablets in Ebla (3500 B.C.), in northwest Syria (2700 B.C.), in the Akkadian texts from Ras Shamra (1300 B.C.), and continued until the time of Alexander the Great (333 B.C.).