Hmm, I am not sure exactly which books are believed to be collected/redacted into the collection of Jewish Holy Writings by Ezra or his students, but it certainly isn't all of what we currently have in the OT. This was done shortly after the exile. Some books are significantly later. Daniel, for one, is certainly a very late text.
The idea that Moses or some other early author wrote the whole Pentateuch is unsupported in fact. We find, for example, a number of examples where the Torah refers to how a place gots its name, and adding "and it is called that to this day" or words to that effect. There are lots of anachronisms, as is pointed out in any decent Bible commentary.
Even as a child I wondered why Moses should write about himself in the 3rd person. Why centuries of educated believers could not come up with such a fact simply demonstrates that blind faith takes presendence over even basic thinking.
Another example of an anachronism is that when Samuel was told Israel wanted a King, he was absolutely against the idea. Yet, if the conservatives were right, the law about kings would have been there in the Torah for all to read for centuries! Obviously, this text was a much later additon. Also, one cannot fail to be suspicious when Josiah suddenly "finds" a holy scroll that is allegedly ancient, which confirms all his own beliefs against those of his opponents.
The documentary hypothesis, and variations of it, seems to be well established by scholars. Surely, conservative/evangelical "seminaries" have other ideas, but they hold the Bible inerrant a priory, and do not conduct research as such.
The fact that you can form two independent and coherent flood stories simply by selecting sections based on E and J criteria, is sufficient evidence in itself. If one author had chosen E or J designations for God based on stylistic concerns alone, what would be the chance of the story being separable into two coherent stories on this criteria alone? Pretty much zilch.
- Jan
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"Doctor how can you diagnose someone with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and then act like I had some choice about barging in here right now?" -- As Good As It Gets