Does the Torah say that Moshe wrote it?

It is well known that Orthodoxy believes that the books from Bereishit (Genesis) to Devarim (Exodus) were written by Moshe (Moses). It is also well known that modern academic theory believes they were written by multiple different authors, or in some minority opinions, a single author drawing from multiple sources, and assembled into a final text sometime long after the time of Moshe, most likely after the Babylonian Exile. Throughout the blog I've provided some evidence to support the multiple authorship idea. (here, here, here, and here for a few places). However, today I'll ask something different. Namely, I'm asking what the Torah itself says about its authorship, which is an entirely different question that who actually wrote it. In other words, if someone was to pick up the Torah not knowing anything about it, who would they think the author was. To me it seems clear that the Torah claims that some sections were written (or spoken at least) by Moshe but other sections were clearly not.

Again, remember that we are not concerned with who actually wrote what. What we are concerned with is what the Torah is saying about who wrote it, if anything.

Let's take a look.

Sections that indicate non-Mosaic authorship

The first section, and the most obvious section to indicate non-Mosaic authorship is the very end which describes the death of Moshe, and the succession of Yehoshua (Joshua). This difficulty stretches all the way back to the Talmud where Rabbis offer several resolutions. One resolution is that Yehoshua actually wrote these verses. The other option is that Moshe wrote it through some sort of prophecy. However, given that there's no indication of specialness of that section in the text, the simple reading implies that this was not written by Moshe.

There are indeed some other sections that point to non-Mosaic authorship. For example, at the beginning of Devarim, it says (Deut. 1:1)

These are the words which Moses spoke unto all Israel beyond the Jordan

The implication "beyond the Jordan" indicates that the author, and the supposed audience, are both located on the other side of the river, which couldn't be Moshe since he never crossed the Jordan river.

Similarly, Gen 36:31

And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel.

The verse indicates that the author is living at a time after a king of Israel existed.

Even the medieval scholar Abraham Ibn Ezra indicates a few verses that he thinks were added later. He points out that the sections marked in bold (Gen 12:6)

And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Shechem, unto the terebinth of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.

and (Deut 3:11)

For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of the Rephaim; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbah of the children of Ammon?nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man.-

seem to have been added by someone later. Although Ibn Ezra says the vast majority of the Torah was written by Moshe, he does allow for some verses to be different. It's clear from these texts that the author of these sections, even if they were added later, obviously was not under the impression that Moshe wrote it all, since he himself wouldn't have added these parenthetical asides.

Sections that the Torah claims Moshe wrote

There are lots of places in the Torah were Moshe writes something, usually what is previously discussed. Here are the six places where Moshe is commanded to write something.

And the LORD said unto Moses: 'Write this for a memorial in the book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven' (Exod 17:14)

This is referring to the battle with Amalek which happened previously. It's not clear what the memorial is. Also it should be noted, that in the original vowelless Hebrew, "the book" and "a book" are indistinguishable. The vowels were only fully agreed upon much later, long after the standard Jewish approach was that Moshe wrote everything.

The next section is:

And Moses wrote all the words of the LORD, and rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar under the mount, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. (Exod 24:4)

The indication is that "all these words" represent the chapters 21-23, which is a litany of mostly civil laws, in many cases similar to the code of Hammurabi.

Next we have:

27 And the LORD said unto Moses: 'Write thou these words, for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.' 28 And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten words (Exod 34: 27-28).

Here the specification is that Moshe wrote the ten commandments. Note that these are not the ten commandments we are more familiar with, but the earlier set that is mentioned in the preceding verses. Also, this verse is describing Moshe writing these commandments on the tablets and not necessarily in the text we have. It's not clear at all from context that Moshe wrote down the words we just read, they could have been someone else copying the text off of the tablets that Moshe wrote.

The fourth indication of Moshe writing stuff appears a few books later.

1 These are the stages of the children of Israel, by which they went forth out of the land of Egypt by their hosts under the hand of Moses and Aaron. 2 And Moses wrote their goings forth, stage by stage, by the commandment of the LORD; and these are their stages at their goings forth (Num 33:1-2).

Where, here the implication is that Moshe wrote the following verses, which winds up being the list of encampment sites in the wilderness. Or at least he is claimed to have recorded the encampment sites, even if he didn't write the verses describing them.

Finally, at the end of Devarim we have two mentions. The first

And Moses wrote this law (Torah), and delivered it unto the priests the sons of Levi, that bore the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and unto all the elders of Israel (Deut. 31:9).

is the only time we have Moshe writing something referred to as a Torah. However, it's obvious from context that what's being implied is the majority of the book of Devarim, which are supposedly the words of Moshe. This section continues later in the chapter:

24 And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law (Torah) in a book, until they were finished, 25 that Moses commanded the Levites, that bore the ark of the covenant of the LORD, saying: 26 'Take this book of the law (Sefer Torah), and put it by the side of the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee (Deut 31:24-26).

I've argued in a previous post, that this Sefer Torah is none other than the Sefer Torah that was found in the time of Yoshiyahu (Josiah). There is yet another indication that this Torah that Moshe is said to have written is not the full five books as we know it, but rather some smaller version. The verses in question are from Yehoshua (Josh 8:30-32).

30 Then Joshua built an altar unto the LORD, the God of Israel, in mount Ebal, 31as Moses the servant of the LORD commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of unhewn stones, upon which no man had lifted up any iron; and they offered thereon burnt-offerings unto the LORD, and sacrificed peace-offerings. 32 And he wrote there upon the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote before the children of Israel.

It's unlikely that Yehoshua inscribed the entire Torah onto an altar as it would make a prodigious project (and would likely not fit on any altar of reasonable size anyway.) The word used in this section is Mishne Torah which is translated here as a "copy of the Torah" but can mean a second Torah. The second half of the sentence "which he wrote before the children of Israel" could either be a repetitive clause referring to Yehoshua currently doing the writing, but that seems redundant. More likely the reference here is to Moshe and it's saying that Yehoshua wrote down exactly what Moshe wrote before the children of Israel, which we just read about in Deut 31:24. So the simple conclusion is that Yehoshua wrote Devarim or at least some section of Devarim down.

But wait, there's more. The previous verse specifically mentions something written in the "sefer torat moshe" the book of the Torah of Moshe, specficially a commandment not to make an altar of cut stones. This is a specific reference to something that Moshe says in Devarim. In fact, this whole section was commanded in Devarim.

2 And it shall be on the day when ye shall pass over the Jordan unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, that thou shalt set thee up great stones, and plaster them with plaster. 3 And thou shalt write upon them all the words of this law (Torah), when thou art passed over; that thou mayest go in unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, a land flowing with milk and honey, as the LORD, the God of thy fathers, hath promised thee. 4 And it shall be when ye are passed over the Jordan, that ye shall set up these stones, which I command you this day, in mount Ebal, and thou shalt plaster them with plaster. 5 And there shalt thou build an altar unto the LORD thy God, an altar of stones; thou shalt lift up no iron tool upon them. 6 Thou shalt build the altar of the LORD thy God of unhewn stones; and thou shalt offer burnt-offerings thereon unto the LORD thy God. 7 And thou shalt sacrifice peace-offerings, and shalt eat there; and thou shalt rejoice before the LORD thy God.

Do the words of the Torah include this instruction to write the words of the Torah in this specific instance. Seems strange. What exactly is being referred to as the words of the Torah. Something else it seems.

There is another mention of Moshe writing that occurs in between the last two sections.

So Moses wrote this song the same day, and taught it the children of Israel (Deut. 31:22).

The song is most likely the song Ha'azinu which comprises the next chapter. From context it would seem that this song was not part of the "Torah" that Moshe wrote, but a separate composition.

Writing in the third person

Summing up so far, we have a bunch of sections that are explicitly attributed to Moshe, although it's not clear where and on what he wrote them. Nevertheless there is a clear case to be made that the text of Moshe's speech in Devarim was claimed to have been transcribed, by him, into a Torah.

However, we also have sections which strongly apply a non-Mosaic author. These include the preamble to the speech of Devarim which has an implied author who is currently residing inside Israel. A modern day reader would probably think that Moshe wrote down his speech in Devarim, and then a later author compiled it and included the preamble and the description of him compiling it.

But perhaps we're applying modern day writing to biblical styles. So let's expand the original question and instead of considering a modern day reader, let's consider someone reading the text ~2500 years ago. Someone who was familiar with the composition types of the time. What would they make of the authorship.

When I was pondering this, the first question that came to my mind was, "is it typical for biblical authors to write about themselves in the third person?" All of the Torah is written in third person. Similarly, all of the historical books (Yehoshua through Melachim (Kings)) are third person. However, when we deal with the prophets, we see something more interesting.

Many prophets start out by identifying themselves as the author in the third person, and then later switching to first person. I'll provide some examples.

Amos intro: 3rd-person

1 The words of Amos, who was among the herdmen of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel, two years before the earthquake. 2 And he said: the LORD roareth from Zion, and uttereth His voice from Jerusalem; and the pastures of the shepherds shall mourn, and the top of Carmel shall wither (Amos 1:1-2).

 Amos continuation: 1st person

Hear ye this word which I take up for a lamentation over you, O house of Israel (Amos 5:1)

Thus the Lord GOD showed me; and, behold, He formed locusts in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth; and, lo, it was the latter growth after the king's mowings. (Amos 7:1)

Hoshea intro: 3rd- person

The word of the LORD that came unto Hosea the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel (Hosea 1:1). 

Hoshea continuation: 1st person

And the LORD said unto me: 'Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend and an adulteress, even as the LORD loveth the children of Israel, though they turn unto other gods, and love cakes of raisins (Hosea 3:1).

Yishayahu intro: 3rd person

The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah (Isaiah 1:1).

Yishayahu continuation: 1st person

In the year that king Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple (Isaiah 6:1).

And so on. One finds similar patterns in all of the prophets. Now, it should be noted that there are places where some of the prophets (but not all) switch back to third person. This happens in many of the "narrative" sections that appear throughout some of the prophets. For example Chapter 37 of Yishayahu. In fact, Yishayahu often switches between 1st and 3rd person intros into paragraphs. The same occurs in Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah). Yirmiyahu might be a special case since it's suggested that the text was written by his scribe Baruch ben Neriah. Interestingly Yehezkel (Ezekiel) sticks to first person entirely after the introduction.

What can we make from this? Well, in my opinion it indicates that you would expect some first person statements, especially in the intro to prophetic sections. Furthermore, the introduction sections always indicate the correct time and place of the prophet. For example, the Yishayahuintroduction is written in third person, and mentions that he was a prophet spanning the reign of four kings.

In contrast, the Torah never has any first person introductions. It's always, "God spoke to Moshe saying." Again, the exception is Devarim, in which there are intros that begin with, "and then God spoke to me."  Devarim is most similar to the prophetic writings in that it has a third person intro and then moves into first person. However, unlike Yishayahu or any of the other prophets, the intro has a  marker that indicates a later date of composition in that it mentions, "the other side of the Jordan."

And what about the rest of the Torah? It seems from the text itself that only a select few sections are attributed directly to Moshe. Certainly the entire book of Bereishit is not explicitly attributed to him. Neither are all the third person narratives. Furthermore, the composition style is more different from that in the prophetic works with explicit claimed authorship that both a 500 BCE reader and a modern day one would probably make the reasonable conclusion that the Torah was written by an anonymous third person author, just like many other books.

More interesting perhaps is what the implications are for the third person narratives and other sections in the prophets. Were these written by the prophets themselves or were they recorded by other people? Would we expect the prophets to have written about themselves in the third or first person? At this point it's hard to say for sure, but the fact that the prophets sometimes write in first and sometimes in third lends me to believe that some of these sections were not penned by them, but added into the books by later editors who assembled the scrolls.

The Story or Stories of Joseph and the Pit

Parshat Vayeshev

Up until this point I've only vaguely mentioned the Documentary Hypothesis (DH), which is among the leading hypotheses to explain the creation of the Torah, and is taught in every secular biblical course at the university level. I have mentioned that different paragraphs were probably written by different people at different times. I've also mentioned the most agreed upon statement that Deuteronomy (minus the last three chapters) was written by a different author or authors than the other four books. However, these kind of claims are more general than the DH. They can be attributed to many other hypotheses about the writing of the Torah.

What is unique to DH is that it states that the Torah existed as separate complete or near-complete documents, and that these documents were merged together by a redactor. One piece of evidence for this process appears in stories which are repeated in separate places, like the stories of Avraham (Abraham) and Yitzchak (Isaac) passing off their wives as sisters in foreign lands. Another piece of evidence, and the focus for today, are stories that look like they were spliced together from two distinct sources. When the sources are separated, various inconsistencies and contradictions vanish, and you are left with two complete stories. This is a very difficult procedure to do for any standard writing you would pick up, and its repeated success in many stories in the Torah should at the very least provoke some serious thought as to why the Torah was written in this way.

As an example of this process, we'll look at the story a the beginning of this week's parsha which deals with Joseph's brothers throwing him into the pit.

Problems in the story

The story of the selling of Joseph appears in 37:18-36 and is pretty convoluted. It's probably a good idea to pause and read it now. If you've read it you'll notice a very strange sequence of events. in 37:28 Midianites pass by, and "they" drew Joseph out of the pit and "they" sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for silver, and "they" brought Joseph to Egypt. Then later in 37:36, the Midianites sold Joseph to Egypt. In order for the surface reading to make sense, Rashi interprets the first they, the people who bring Joseph out of the pit as the brothers, even though the previous sentence had the subject as the Midianites. He also interprets the second they as the brothers, and says that the brothers sold them to the Ishmaelites, who then sold them to the Midianites. Rashi does not specify which group was responsible for bringing Joseph to Egypt, but presumably it's the Ishmaelites, which means the second "they" in verse 28 refers to them, even though they haven't appeared yet in the story!

There's another bizarre wording issue in the text.

21 And Reuben heard it, and delivered him out of their hand; and said: 'Let us not take his life.' 22 And Reuben said unto them: 'Shed no blood; cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, but lay no hand upon him'--that he might deliver him out of their hand, to restore him to his father.

When I used to read it, I would read the second sentence as elaborating on the first. However, there are problems with this reading. First, the second sentence repeats Reuven said, where the Torah usually would  use something like "And he said" when the speaker does not change. This is a small problem. The bigger problem is later in the text it is Yehudah (Judah) who is responsible for taking him out of the pit and not killing him. Where was Reuven? Later he comes back to the pit and no one is there, and he's distraught.

Breaking into Two Stories

Now let's see what happens when we split this story into two. The first story looks like this:

19 And they said one to another: 'Behold, this dreamer cometh. 20 Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into one of the pits, and we will say: An evil beast hath devoured him; and we shall see what will become of his dreams.' 21And Reuben heard it, and delivered him out of their hand; and said: 'Let us not take his life.' 25 And they sat down to eat bread; and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a caravan of Ishmaelites came from Gilead, with their camels bearing spicery and balm and ladanum, going to carry it down to Egypt. 26 And Judah said unto his brethren: 'What profit is it if we slay our brother and conceal his blood? 27Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother, our flesh.' And his brethren hearkened unto him.  28b and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver. And they brought Joseph into Egypt.

And the second one:

18 And they saw him afar off, and before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him 22 And Reuben said unto them: 'Shed no blood; cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, but lay no hand upon him'--that he might deliver him out of their hand, to restore him to his father. 23 And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stripped Joseph of his coat, the coat of many colours that was on him; 24 and they took him, and cast him into the pit--and the pit was empty, there was no water in it. 28a And there passed by Midianites, merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, 29 And Reuben returned unto the pit; and, behold, Joseph was not in the pit; and he rent his clothes. 30 And he returned unto his brethren, and said: 'The child is not; and as for me, whither shall I go?' 31 And they took Joseph's coat, and killed a he-goat, and dipped the coat in the blood; 32 and they sent the coat of many colours, and they brought it to their father; and said: 'This have we found. Know now whether it is thy son's coat or not.' 33 And he knew it, and said: 'It is my son's coat; an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt torn in pieces.' 34 And Jacob rent his garments, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days. 35And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said: 'Nay, but I will go down to the grave to my son mourning.' And his father wept for him. 36 And the Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's, the captain of the guard.

The Documentary Hypothesis puts authors to these stories

According to DH, the top story is by J, which I would describe is something like "tales and legends of the southern kingdom". Notice how in this version, Yehudah (Judah) is the one who takes control of the situation. He is the one who steps up, the leader. This will be true throughout the Yosef saga, Yehudah is the head of the tribes. In the second version, the version attributed to E, which could be read as "tales and legends of the northern kingdom," Yehudah is not relevant at all. Here it's Reuven who is the one who saves Yosef, and Yehudah isn't even mentioned! Also, splitting into these two stories makes the surface reading clearer as far as Reuven returning to the pit. In this version, the brothers threw him into the pit, left to eat, the Midianites took him out, and then when Reuven returned to rescue him, Yosef was gone. In the patched together version, Reuven must have wandered off somewhere when the rest of the brothers, led by Yehudah, sold him. None of the other brothers even felt the need to inform him that Yosef isn't actually dead, just sold to Egypt?

Splitting the stories resolves all the textual problems. The two consecutive sentences that begin with "Reuven said," the convoluted selling chain, the narrative inconsistencies of Reuven knowing or not knowing that Yosef is alive. To me it's pretty clear. This is one of many instances were separate stories were cobbled together to create a single harmonized reading.

In general, I think DH oversells its claims, but it's foolish not to recognize where it does admirably well.  This is just one example of a situation where it works extremely well to clarify a biblical story.

Golden Calf

Pashat Ki Tisa

The sequence of events following the event on Mt. Sinai is confusing both from a literal sense and from a theological sense.  In this post we'll attempt to shed light on one of the most confounding theological stories in all of the Torah, the story of the golden calf.  We'll see that out of a very specific context, this story makes no sense.  Unfortunately, the Rabbis from Talmudic times until the 20th century were missing some key pieces of information to properly make sense of the story.

A Quick Recap

The story of Mt Sinai goes something like this.  The Israelites arrive at Sinai and prepare for the revelation (Exod 19).  The 10 commandments are given (Exod 20:1-13).  The people tell Moshe to go talk to God by himself, which he does (Exod 20:14-17).   A somewhat curious group of commandments is given (Exod 20:19-22).  The commandments discussing social laws, based off of the Hammurabi code (Exod 21:1-23:4).  Another curious set of commandments are given (Exod 23:6-19).  And then a promise about conquering Israel (Exod 23:20-33).   

Moshe teaches Israel the commandments, presumably the ones in the previous chapters, the people accept it.  He brings 70 people with him to the top of the mountain, all of which meet God and even have a meal there. (Exod 24:1-11).  Moshe goes to the mountain again, now for the 40 day, 40 night period we all know (Exod 24:12-18).  Commandments about the tabernacle (Exod 25-27).  Commandments about the priestly clothing (Exod 28).  Commandments about the inauguration of Aharon and his sons into the priesthood (Exod 29-30).  Call of Bezalel and Oholiab who are to make the stuff in the previous chapters (Exod 31:1-11).  Commandments about Shabbat (Exod 31:12-17).  And finally, God gives Moshe the two tablets (Exod 31:18).

The people see Moshe is late descending from the mountain, so they make a Golden Calf (Exod 32:1-6).  God wants to destroy Israel, Moshe convinces him not to (Exod 32:7-14).  Moshe comes down, sees the calf, breaks the tablets, and the Levites slaughter approximately 3000 people (Exod 32:15-35).  Moshe puts his tent outside the camp (Exod: 33:1-11).  God reveals himself to Moshe (Exod 33:12-23).  God instructs Moshe to make new tablets (Exod 34:1-10).  God gives a different set of ten commandments (Exod 34:12-26, and next week's topic.)  God instructs Moshe to write those commandments on the tablets, which he does during another 40 day stint (Exod 34:27-35).

Yet even more commandments (Exod 35).  The making of the tabernacle stuff (Exod 36-40).

The Golden Calf

Given the story recounted above, the construction of the golden calf makes no sense.  In this story, the people here directly from God the second commandment, which is pretty clear that they shouldn't be making graven images.  Could it possibly be that they forgot this commandment in forty days?  Also, why would they choose a cow of all things?

If you've been following this blog so far, you'll probably have already thought of a nice possibility to explain why the Israelites might make an idol just after hearing a commandment from God himself telling them not to.  The answer lies in the fact that there appear to be multiple versions of the ten commandments.  Furthermore, only the version in Exodus 34 is actually referred to as a set of ten commandments.  So you can imagine two versions of the story here, one in which the people never hear the commandment about idols from God.  There are in fact multiple stories here, and while it's possible to separate them into self-consistent strands, I'd rather focus on something different in this post.  I'd like to talk about the second question: why choose a cow.

The Rival Shrine

The verse describing the construction of the calf is (Exod 32:1-6):

1 And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him: 'Up, make us a god who shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is become of him.' 2 And Aaron said unto them: 'Break off the golden rings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.' 3 And all the people broke off the golden rings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. 4 And he received it at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, and made it a molten calf; and they said: 'This is thy god, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.' 5 And when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said: 'To-morrow shall be a feast to the LORD.' 6 And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt-offerings, and brought peace-offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to make merry.

The phrase "which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt" appears elsewhere in Tanach.  The context in which it appears is startling (1 Kings 12:25-32):

25 Then Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill-country of Ephraim, and dwelt therein; and he went out from thence, and built Penuel. 26 And Jeroboam said in his heart: 'Now will the kingdom return to the house of David. 27 If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, then will the heart of this people turn back unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah; and they will kill me, and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.' 28 Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold; and he said unto them: 'Ye have gone up long enough to Jerusalem; behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.' 29 And he set the one in Beth-el, and the other put he in Dan. 30 And this thing became a sin; for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan.31 And he made houses of high places, and made priests from among all the people, that were not of the sons of Levi. 32 And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he went up unto the altar; so did he in Beth-el, to sacrifice unto the calves that he had made; and he placed in Beth-el the priests of the high places that he had made.

The similarities cannot be coincidental  In 1 Kings we see that Yeroboam (Jeroboam) makes two golden calves and installs them in two northern cities, the purpose of which is to rival Solomon's temple in Jerusalem.  He uses the same words as are used in the story of the golden calf at the time of the Torah, and he also declares a feast afterwards.  And if this wasn't enough, Yeroboam's sons are named Nadav and Aviyah (1 Kings 14:20), almost exactly the same as the two sons of Aharon, Nadav,and Avihu who are later killed by God for offering an inappropriate sacrifice!

Here's the takeaway point.  It makes absolutely no sense for Yeroboam to do this if everyone knew the story of the golden calf.  The people would think he was mad to do the same thing that the people did at the time of Moshe which led to the death of many people and caused the wrath of God to be roused against the Israelites.  Yeroboam and his people must have been unaware of this story.  This can only mean that Yeroboam's story came first, and the golden calf story came afterwards as a sort of polemic against the northern Israelite shrines.

Looking at it this way, it makes a lot of sense.  Yeroboam makes two shrines.  The authors of this story [1] wanted to discredit the northern kingdom.  So they retrojected the calves into the distant past, and wrote a negative story about how God really disliked golden calves.  Did Yeroboam's golden calves actually exist?  Besides the account in Melachim, Hoshea also mentions them (Hos 8:5-6), so we're probably on pretty firm ground in stating that these calves actually existed and were critiqued by at least one northern prophet, and likely the southern kingdom as well.

But Why the Cow?

We have not yest answered the question of why bother to use a cow.  It's possible to approach this by comparing a golden calf with the central element in the Jerusalem temple, the holy ark.  The holy ark was a square box, plated in gold, and topped by a cover with two cruvim.  In modern English, these would be translated as cherubim and would likely be given an image of angelic winged beings.  An image like this is probably what you think of when you think of the ark.  However, the ancient near east cruv looked different.  It was a fearsome winged beast, and looked like this.  They are all over Assyrian and Bablyonian art, specifically on thrones, like in this image.  Therefore, it makes sense to interpret the ark as a divine throne.  And indeed, in the biblical account, God's shechina (holy presence) is described as living on top of the ark (Exod. 25:22).

Ok, so why is this relevant.  It turns out the bull symbology was associated with the Canaanite god El, the head of the Canaanite pantheon, and also to a somewhat lesser degree Ba'al.  El is often referred to in Akkadian as tr 'l, which would read the same in Hebrew, bull El [2].   El is used often in the Tanach as a description of God.  Nearly every biblical scholar agrees that YHWH and El were separate deities that fused at some point into one.  They were probably fused by the time of Yeroboam.  So what's happening here is that Yeroboam is tapping into old symbolism for El-YHWH.  The golden calf is a symbol for El-YHWH in the exact same manner as the ark.  It is also a symbolism that everyone will be aware of, just as they all know what the cruvim represent.

One oft-heard thing from Orthodox Jews is that their religion is authentic, the real original Judaism.  This is often said in contrast to Reform or Conservative.  The reason that they take this route is that authenticity is a very appealing, and if you can convince others that your practices represent a more ancient and authentic version, then you're going to have a lot of persuading power.  If you can convince people that this is what their distant ancestors did, then you may convince them to do the same.  Yeroboam may have been doing something similar.  The ark in Jerusalem was a newer symbolism, the bull idol was more ancient.  He might have been billing it as a more authentic way to worship God, more in touch with the past, more similar to what the Israelite's ancestors would have worshiped.  That is why Yeroboam chose the bull as his symbol.  And that is why the Israelites would have tolerated it.

Making Sense of it All

If you take the bible at its literal word, the story makes no sense.  The Israelites making a calf symbol right after hearing a commandment from God to not do exactly that thing.  And then the King of Israel, doing the exact same thing five hundred years later, and the entire population is apparently okay with it, even though the earlier golden calf story is right there in their holy book.  The only way to salvage a reasonable story is to place the golden calves of Yeroboam as occurring first.  The golden calf story in the desert, must be later.

There are still some complications in the story.  For example, Aaron is portrayed in a negative light.  So the author of the story must have been someone that was antagonistic to both the priests claiming priesthood from Aaron, and antagonistic to Yeroboam.  We'll talk about the priestly rivalries in later weeks.  But as foreshadowing, keep in mind that polemics against rival priestly groups are littered throughout the Torah    

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1. Friedman, in Who Wrote the Bible attributes this story to E, and claims E was the northern priests of Shiloh, who were snubbed by Yeroboam from serving in his shrines. This is supported by F.M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, Harvard Univ Press, 1973 p 198-199 .^

Corrupted Texts and Manuscript Edits

If you spend time reading through academic commentaries on biblical texts, you often will come across individuals who claim that the text is probably corrupted and should be read in a different way. A good example of this kind of academic analysis is in the works of Frank Moore Cross (Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic) where he analyzes both Az Yashir (the song of the sea) and Psalm 29. In both cases he proposes edits to restore the text to what he thinks is its original version.

As someone with a reasonably good background in Talmudic argumentation, I often felt that these arguments were a bit too similar to the common Gemara phrase, "Don't read x, read y" often substituting an entirely different word in for the original one in order to justify some law or custom. I have several questions on this topic, I probably won't be able to answer them all, but I will provide what I think is a compelling example of what textual corruption might look like.

Here are the questions I have:

When the Talmudic authors say, "don't read x, read y" did they actually mean that there were versions of the text with y, or that the text might have been corrupted from y to x?

What types of textual corruption are likely, what kinds are unlikely?

What kind of manuscript edits are likely, what kinds are likely?

Can we distinguish between a text that has been corrupted and one that has been edited?

Which texts are the most likely to have been corrupted or edited?

Textual Corruption/Editing in Early Sources

The best way to figure out what corruption or editing would look like is to find examples of texts that were edited. To date we have several early versions that provide exactly this kind of analysis. By comparing the Masoretic Text (currently used by nearly all Jews) the Septuagint (Early Greek Translation), the Samaritan Bible, and the Dead Sea Scroll fragments, we can piece together what an original text might look like. If three sources say one thing but the fourth differs, then probably the fourth is edited. As a side note, this is precisely how the Talmud comes to conclusions about what the actual text should read. (See Masechet Soferim 6:4 for example).

While this approach works well for academics, and we've used it in this blog in the past to argue for different readings of specific verses, if you come from a religious background, this analysis won't carry much weight. After all, the Masoretic text is "obviously" the correct one, and all the others are corruptions.

Luckily the Tanach itself supplies us with some examples of the same text repeated in different places, but with significant edits. The most glaring example is the comparison between Divrei Hayamim (Chronicles) and Melachim (Kings). This was touched on in this post. But while this tells us a lot of what changes later editors were willing to make, it doesn't answer too much about textual corruption. Instead we look at two Psalms.

Psalms 14 and 53

Here are the texts of Psalms 14 and 53, in Hebrew and English.

תהילים פרק יד

א  לַמְנַצֵּחַ, לְדָוִד:
אָמַר נָבָל בְּלִבּוֹ,    אֵין אֱלֹהִים;
הִשְׁחִיתוּ, הִתְעִיבוּ עֲלִילָה--    אֵין עֹשֵׂה-טוֹב.
ב  יְהוָה--    מִשָּׁמַיִם, הִשְׁקִיף עַל-בְּנֵי-אָדָם:
לִרְאוֹת, הֲיֵשׁ מַשְׂכִּיל--    דֹּרֵשׁ, אֶת-אֱלֹהִים.
ג  הַכֹּל סָר, יַחְדָּו נֶאֱלָחוּ:    אֵין עֹשֵׂה-טוֹב--אֵין, גַּם-אֶחָד.
ד  הֲלֹא יָדְעוּ, כָּל-פֹּעֲלֵי-אָוֶן:    אֹכְלֵי עַמִּי, אָכְלוּ לֶחֶם; יְהוָה, לֹא קָרָאוּ.
ה  שָׁם, פָּחֲדוּ פָחַד:    כִּי-אֱלֹהִים, בְּדוֹר צַדִּיק.
ו  עֲצַת-עָנִי תָבִישׁוּ:    כִּי יְהוָה מַחְסֵהוּ.
ז  מִי יִתֵּן מִצִּיּוֹן,    יְשׁוּעַת יִשְׂרָאֵל:
בְּשׁוּב יְהוָה, שְׁבוּת עַמּוֹ;    יָגֵל יַעֲקֹב, יִשְׂמַח יִשְׂרָאֵל.

1 For the Leader. [A Psalm] of David.
The fool hath said in his heart: 'There is no God';
they have dealt corruptly, they have done abominably; there is none that doeth good.
2 The LORD looked forth from heaven upon the children of men,
to see if there were any man of understanding, that did seek after God.
3 They are all corrupt, they are together become impure; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
4 'Shall not all the workers of iniquity know it, who eat up My people as they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD?'
5 There are they in great fear; for God is with the righteous generation.
6 Ye would put to shame the counsel of the poor, but the LORD is his refuge.
7 Oh that the salvation of Israel
were come out of Zion! When the LORD turneth the captivity of His people, let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.

תהילים פרק נג

א  לַמְנַצֵּחַ עַל-מָחֲלַת, מַשְׂכִּיל לְדָוִד.
ב  אָמַר נָבָל בְּלִבּוֹ,    אֵין אֱלֹהִים;
הִשְׁחִיתוּ, וְהִתְעִיבוּ עָוֶל--    אֵין עֹשֵׂה-טוֹב.
ג  אֱלֹהִים--    מִשָּׁמַיִם, הִשְׁקִיף עַל-בְּנֵי-אָדָם:
לִרְאוֹת, הֲיֵשׁ מַשְׂכִּיל--    דֹּרֵשׁ, אֶת-אֱלֹהִים.
ד  כֻּלּוֹ סָג, יַחְדָּו נֶאֱלָחוּ:    אֵין עֹשֵׂה-טוֹב; אֵין, גַּם-אֶחָד.
ה  הֲלֹא יָדְעוּ, פֹּעֲלֵי-אָוֶן:    אֹכְלֵי עַמִּי, אָכְלוּ לֶחֶם; אֱלֹהִים, לֹא קָרָאוּ.
ו  שָׁם, פָּחֲדוּ פַחַד--    לֹא-הָיָה-פָחַד:
כִּי-אֱלֹהִים--פִּזַּר, עַצְמוֹת חֹנָךְ;    הֱבִשֹׁתָה, כִּי-אֱלֹהִים מְאָסָם.
ז  מִי יִתֵּן מִצִּיּוֹן,    יְשֻׁעוֹת יִשְׂרָאֵל:
בְּשׁוּב אֱלֹהִים, שְׁבוּת עַמּוֹ;    יָגֵל יַעֲקֹב, יִשְׂמַח יִשְׂרָאֵל.

1 For the Leader; upon Mahalath. Maschil of David.
2 The fool hath said in his heart: 'There is no God';
they have dealt corruptly, and have done abominable iniquity; there is none that doeth good.
3 God looked forth from heaven upon the children of men,
to see if there were any man of understanding, that did seek after God.
4 Every one of them is unclean, they are together become impure; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
5 'Shall not the workers of iniquity know it, who eat up My people as they eat bread, and call not upon God?'
6 There are they in great fear, where no fear was;
for God hath scattered the bones of him that encampeth against thee; Thou hast put them to shame, because God hath rejected them.
7 Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion!
When God turneth the captivity of His people, let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.

So what's going on here? The Psalms are almost identical, in fact we can sum up all the differences. They are:

1. The introductory verse is different, although both are attributed to David
2. The verse breakdown is different (from here on, I'll use v. x(y) where x is in psalm 14 and y is in psalm 53
3. Some words are replaced with synonyms v. 1(2)
4. Some words look as if one verse has a typo v. 3(4)
5. In some places different names of God are used v. 2(3) 4(5) 7(7) 
6. Minor grammatical differences, probably for clarity in reading v. 4(5), 7(7)
7. One verse is completely different 5-6(6). 

Most of these are pretty much what you'd expect from scribal emendations, changing a word here and there, making things easier to comprehend. Perhaps a typo snuck in over the years. But overall, if you were to hand someone both of these they would probably say they are slightly different versions of the same Psalm.

But there's really one point of difference that is more striking, and that is difference 5. One Psalm (14) uses the tetragrammaton 3 times, and Elohim 3 times. The other only uses Elohim. Again, it is hard to imagine that this is a coincidence. Either the author of Psalm 53, didn't want to use the tetragrammaton and changed all the instances to Elohim, or the author of Psalm 14 changed some of the instances of Elohim to the tetragrammaton perhaps to ensure that the Psalm equated the two names. Either way, there is a clear theological motivation for the change, although we're not sure which one represents the original.

Answering the Questions

Now maybe we can look at the questions, and provide some semblance of answers to them, using these psalms as a guide.

When the Talmudic authors say, "don't read x, read y" did they actually mean that there were versions of the text with y, or that the text might have been corrupted from y to x? Answer: They probably did not have a version that said y. Although we can't rule it out. The types of changes often mentioned in the Talmud are not similar to the changes we see here. They tend to fall more in the "wordplay" category.

What types of textual corruption are likely, what kinds are unlikely? Answer: Single character typos are very likely, especially for letters that are similar. In this example 4 we have a Resh exchanged with a Gimel, which seems very plausible in the old Israelite writing system.

What kind of manuscript edits are likely, what kinds are likely? Answer: Replacing words with synonyms are plausible. Fixing up sentences grammatically are also plausible. Most importantly, larger theologically motivated edits are definitely plausible, especially when the name of God is concerned.

Can we distinguish between a text that has been corrupted and one that has been edited? Answer: Corrupted texts probably have more typo corrections than grammatical or theological edits.

Which texts are the most likely to have been corrupted or edited? Answer: There isn't enough sample size here to really answer this. But if you start looking at some of the other old sources, you can find out that the most questionable texts tend to be the ones with the most archaic language and poetry.