Who Wrote the Torah?

Often when we think of the Torah we mean the first five books of the Bible. However, there is a more restrictive meaning to the word. It means Teaching and the Teaching that it refers to are the Mitzvoth or Ordinances given to Moses on the Mountain. Scholarship makes it clear that there were four schools that wrote the Pentateuch, or first five books. They were the Yahwist, the Elohist, the Priestly source, and the Deuteronomist. The Yahwist source is said to have written first in the time of Solomon. The Elohist source wrote a hundred years later.

I would suggest to you that there is one other writer that is ignored. Exodus 20:1 says that Elohim spoke the Ten Commandments. But Exodus 24:12 says: "And YHVH said to Moses, Come up to Me to the Mountain and be there, And I will give you the tablets of stone and the Teaching (Torah) and the Ordinances which I have written, to teach them." By the time of Yeshua, the tradition had arisen that an Angel had spoken to Moses on the Mountain and delivered living words to deliver to us. Acts 7:38. All of these passages suggest that someone delivered to Moses on the Mountain utterances that were transmitted to the people. The scholars would argue that Exodus 20 was written by the Yahwists and Exodus 24 by the Elohists. There are two traditions that constantly are fighting for recognition in the first five books: the tradition of the Priests and the tradition of the HaAm haEretz, or common people. The tradition of the Priests is represented by the Yahwist and tries to conflate and explain the tradition of the Elohist, the common people in Exodus 6:2-3 where it says: "I am YHVH; I appeared to Avraham, Yitzak, and Ya'akov as El Shaddai and my Name YHVH I did not reveal to them." This passage tells us that a portion of the Hebrew people believed in the pantheon of Canaan which called its true G-d, El, with epithets like Shaddai and Elyon. YHVH was one of the seventy Sons of El. El apportioned the leadership of Israel to YHVH in the view of the common people which was maintained well into the Deuteronomic period. In 4QDeut the word says: "When El Elyon divided the nations as the inheritance of the Sons of El, when He separated the sons of Adam; he set up the bounds of the peoples, according to the Sons of El and YHVH's portion is His People Yaakov who are his inheritance." The Septuagint called YHVH and the other sons of El, Angels. There we have it. YHVH is the Son of El, the True G-d, and he is an Angel.

With that said, we see that Exodus 20 and Exodus 24 say the same thing. YHVH, the Archangel of the Presence, spoke the Ten Commandments, and they appeared on two tablets of Stone. Thereafter, His Finger traced the 603 additional Ordinances on the Table. He gave them to Moses who took them down to the people.

The writer therefore of the most important portion of Pentateuch was YHVH, the Archangel of the Presence, who is "our god". "Hear O Yisrael, YHVH, our g-d, YHVH is one." Deut. 6:4. He wrote the Ten Commandments and the 603 Ordinances Himself. All the rest of the Scripture was mediated by men. The Holy Spirit would inspire but not dictate the words written. Only these 613 Laws were written by the command of G-d and the hand of YHVH.

So, what is significance of this discovery? We cannot take the Bible literally in any place except these 613 Laws and we must search to understand each of these laws so that we know YHVH's meaning. I am not denigrating the Holy Book. I am explaining that the Pentateuch, the Prophets, the Writings including the writings called the New Testament are inspired but not necessarily literally true. They must bend the knee to the 613 Laws for they were mediated by man whereas the Laws were given by G-d and His Representative in this Multiverse. If read that the Torah is no longer in effect, we have only to look at the Torah to see that it is. Paul never received anything from the Archangel in writing. Moses did. It is true that the Laws on Sinai were never meant for the Gentiles and therefore, the promises in the Scripture are not meant for them other. Gentiles can become Jews by conversion and become grafted into the Tree of Life, but without going through conversion, which requires among other things, circumcision, Gentiles are not heirs to any promise.

That being said, I urge those who use the book to prove things to stop. Spirituality is an individual relationship between the believer and the event. Religion declares how we relate properly to G-d who may not agree.