Moses, writer of the Torah

I saw Patterns of Evidence: the Moses Controversy in the theater recently.  Like it's predecessor, Patterns of Evidence: the Exodus, it was masterfully made.  A quote from one of my favorite pastors comes to mind very quickly: a lot of wisdom is just connecting the dots.  The movie pointed out many connections I'd not made myself.  One of them was with the way God introduced Himself to Moses and to the Israelites.

• Exodus 3:2: Yahweh’s angel appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the middle of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. (WEB)
• Exodus 19:16-18: On the third day, when it was morning, there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud on the mountain, and the sound of an exceedingly loud trumpet; and all the people who were in the camp trembled. Moses led the people out of the camp to meet God; and they stood at the lower part of the mountain. All of Mount Sinai smoked, because Yahweh descended on it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly. (WEB)

And interestingly, Hebrews 12:29 NIV reminds us that "our 'God is a consuming fire,'" (which is quoting Deuteronomy 4:24).  None of this fire stuff is important revelation, but it's an interesting connection.

I only remember being taught by mainstream sources that God taught Moses, and Moses taught the people, and it wasn't until hundreds of years later that it was written down.  But this understanding actually contradicts a straight­forward reading of scripture.

• Exodus 17:14: Yahweh said to Moses, “Write this for a memorial in a book... (WEB)

Remember Exodus 14 is when they crossed the Red Sea, Exodus 16 is when they were introduced to Manna, and Exodus 20 is when the 10 commandments were first given by God.  Including the one above, there were 9 times Moses recorded God as having told him to write down what he was hearing or they were doing:

• Exodus 34:27
• Numbers 5:23
• Numbers 17:2-3
• Deuteronomy 6:9
• Deuteronomy 11:20
• Deuteronomy 27:3
• Deuteronomy 27:8
• Deuteronomy 31:19

In Exodus 24:4, Moses is recorded as writing God's word, then in Exodus 24:7, Moses read to the people what he had written.  And in Deuteronomy 17:19 he says when they someday decide to rebel against God and pick a king (see Deuteronomy 17:14-15) that king should read what Moses wrote every day.  And after Moses gave the law to the Levites (the priests) he said they should read the whole thing to the people [at least once] every seven years: Deuteronomy 31:9-11.  Then, hundreds of years later, but still pre-exile, there was 2 Kings 22:8, when they found the book of the law in the temple.

Jesus endorsed Moses as a leader of Israel, such as in:

• Matthew 23:2
• Mark 7:10
• Mark 9:4-5 / Luke 9:30-33
• Mark 12:26 *
• Luke 16:29-31
• Luke 20:37
• Luke 24:27, 44
• John 1:17
• John 1:45 *
• John 5:45-46 *
• John 7:19

(asterisked verses mention Moses's writing)

If Moses didn't write the original text, then there are a lot of problems with both the gospels and the whole Bible.  And that's of course the point.  People who want the Bible to be wrong (and people who just learned from them) want to believe that Moses didn't write anything, or at least what we have today isn't anything close to what he wrote.  But the movie makes an excellent case that Moses indeed wrote the Torah.  While it's true the Dead Sea scrolls are only from around 200 BC, and Moses would have lived hundreds of years before that, this doesn't mean Moses didn't write this stuff down himself.

A second connect the dots I'd never made myself, until seeing this movie, was...

• The printing press (wiki) was invented by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz, Germany, in 1440 and the Protestant Reformation (wiki) began with Marin Luther's 95 Thesis on the All Saints' Church in Wittenberg, Germany, in 1517.  (Just over 75 years later, and less than a 6 hour drive by modern car & roads.)
• Use of an alphabet (wiki) began in the Egyptian area, and not long after, the revelation from God came (namely the teachings of Moses) beginning in the Egyptian area.

Which then begs the question.  What does God have in mind with the digital age, or the Internet?  Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web (wiki) in 1989.  Could Craig Groeschel's Life.Church (link) with it's 100,000 viewers per week from around the world, and their YouVersion (link) Bible mobile app which gives out free (and advertisement free) over 1,000 translations in over 100 languages, be some examples of great revolutions God had in mind?  Maybe, and surely God has countless plans.

These are not even the most profound connections the movie makes, but I don't want to steal its main thunder, but I wanted to record some notes because the movie was so inspiring. Check it out at patternsofevidence.com.

By the way, where pray tell would Moses's first and immediate successor, Joshua, get the "Book of the Law" in Joshua 1:7-8, if Moses hadn't already written it? Then again in Joshua 8:34-35.