Who Wrote the Torah?

3 Theories of Composition
Documentary hypothesis:
This theory purposes the Torah was compiled from four originally independent sources. These documents are labeled:
Jahwist (J)
This focuses on God as anthropomorphic. The tribe of Judah is given dominance.
Elohist (E)
Elohist focuses on God’s transcendence. God is seen as unapproachable. As opposed to focusing on Judah, Elohist focuses on the Northern tribes.
Deuteronomist (D)
This is the majority of the book of Deuteronomy. It uses poetic language to describe devotion to God.
Priestly (P)
Priestly texts focus on the Law and cultic practices.
A Later Myth
This theory purposes the Torah was several centuries, if not millennia after the purposed events. This theory purposes that the events bear little relationship with historical events.
There are some historical and mythological events that bear a resemblance to the Exodus narrative.
In the Birth of Sargon of Akkad, Sargon’s mother places him in a basket and floats him down the river.
The Invasion of the Hyksos is a historical account of a Semitic people who multiply in Egypt and eventually rule the country.
There is a lack of archeological evidence for the events in Exodus.
The census from Numbers 1:46 would certainly have numbered in the millions. A society of this size would leave historical evidence and would have had no problem conquering the Egyptian army.
A singular edited composition.
This theory purposes the Torah records historical events and the majority of the work was written by one singular author. Over time the text was lightly edited by Scribes for the sake of clarity.
There is no evidence of the JEDP sources. No fragments or references of this hypothetical document have ever been discovered.
There is no accepted consensus on what the sources are or how they are divided.
The style of the Torah is extremely similar to writing by singular from the Ancient Near East.
Hammurabi’s Code and the Enuma Elish all use repetition and call the same deity by several names.
Every ancient work uses repetition for the sake of memorizing. This aided the oral learner in creating a pneumonic.
The Torah uses Ancient Near Eastern forms of Covenant. This could not have happened if they were later pieced together.
The Torah is full of Egyptian loan words. Whereas, later books use many Persian loan words, the Torah is unique in that it uses words unique to the Egyptian language.
Words like “Pole,” “acacia wood,” and “seal/ring,” are all Egyptian in origin.
The census numbers are difficult to translate and could have a different conclusion.
Deuteronomy 7:7 suggests the population was small among other nations, meaning the numbers in the millions is likely inaccurate. God speaks of the Hebrews being outnumbered by Canaanities cities (Deuteronomy 7:1, 9:1-2)
Numbers 3 counts the total of firstborns at around 22,000. If there is a population of several million and only 22,000 were Levites and firstborn one must conclude that each family size would have around 30 children.
The word translated as “thousand” is אֶלֶף (eleph) also sometimes translated as “family,” or “a company of troops.” We could read census numbers such as Numbers‬ ‭1‬:‭27‬ as follows: “The number from the tribe of Judah was from 74 families, totaling 600 men.” This would give the population of Hebrews and other groups around 20,000 people.
There is unlikely to be much archeological evidence for an Exodus.
If there were only 20,000 - 30,000 impoverished refugees, living a nomadic existence in the desert it is unlikely they would have left much material evidence of their existence.
This would have occurred after the late bronze age collapse. Such an event had a catastrophic effect on the records that were kept during this time.
The Bronze Age collapse was so catastrophic that it led to a social dark age. Most written records of all kinds were destroyed. Detailed archeology begins after this collapse.

[@tysaylor7079]

Thank you for the videos. Very informative and pretty funny. Edit: Also, you look awesome with the shaved head, you are rocking it. (Source: I am bald)

[@Theolife]

Thanks Bro! I've been loving embracing the bald.

[@scudthehero]

Sargon wasn’t Egyptian, he was the first ruler of the first empire, the Akkadian Empire. That’s over in Mesopotamia out of Sumer which is the area where I believe Abraham is from.
Just sayin, it makes no difference in this video.
Love the video.

[@Theolife]

You are absolutely right. I stand corrected.
I had read so many articles about the Moses story being an Egyptian copy that I assumed Sargon was an Egyptian. I appreciate the correction.