Who Wrote the Torah? (Pentateuch) 

UPDATE: A summary chart is now available: usefulcharts.com/collections/religion/products/timeline-of-the-bible Complete Series: 1. Torah - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NY-l0X7yGY0.html 2. Prophets - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-IAIiLSMOg3Q.html 3. Writings - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Oto0UvG6aVs.html 4. Apocrypha - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HYlZk4Hv-E8.html 5. Gospels & Acts - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Z6PrrnhAKFQ.html 6. Epistles - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-2UMlUmlmMlo.html 7. Daniel & Revelation - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fTURdV0c9J0.html 8: Summary Chart - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-9uIXzUEwrOg.html

To emphasize where source based analysis ends and personal opinion begins characterizes a true scientist. Keep up the great work, Matt.

I don’t really have much in the way of prior interest or knowledge about this subject, but something about the way you speak and present the material makes it very engaging.

Several people have commented on the strangeness of the Northern Kingdom seeming to have more connections with Egypt and the Southern Kingdom seeming to have more connections to Mesopotamia (considering that Egypt is to South and Mesopotamia is to the North). Well, keep in mind that one must consider time as well as geography. It is likely that the Northern Kingdom was older and originated in the days when Egypt was more dominant, whereas the Southern Kingdom lasted longer and reached its peak when Assyria (followed by Babylon) was dominant.

I love these charts. Thank you for your work, visual representations like this are extremely useful for understanding the timelines, bloodlines, and general history. So, thanks!

This is very well done. Kudos!

The real history is so much more fascinating than the literal myths/legends. Understanding how groups were able to synthesis a single narrative to unify and come together is dope

I have studied these theories 10 years ago, too difficult without an illustration though. I am amazed at how you present these things. We need more content like this. Keep it up.

Sending much love to Jews and Christians. As a Muslim, I am always interested in the similarities among the three faiths.

This is terrific.

i realy like your videos about religion, they are very neutral and fact based and dont offend anyone :) a perfect example how to talk about religion

This clarifies so many things, even for a layperson like myself. Channels like yours help me to overcome my deconversion anger and to give focus to the fascination I still have for (parts of) the bible.

I've tried to research this on my own, but was unable to find this much information. Very unbiased and educational. Thank you for your help!

Reminds me of the duality in Egyptian mythology which came from the period Egypt was divided into a lower kingdom and an upper kingdom, which were then unified. That's how the feline deity became bast in one kingdom and Sekhmet in the other. With the Reunification causing them to share their role where one was a domestic cat feline goddess: bast and the other a lioness feline goddess: Sekhmet.

People in the future will ask, "Who wrote Wikipedia?"

I’m as atheist as it gets but I still find your religious videos very interesting Matt! So much history in them

I'd just like to let you know that whenever I need a refresher on the pentateuch (or indeed am currently painting a church hall) I listen to this! So in depth and so detailed. Thankyou

This topic seems so huge, I hope to see even more detailed videos

This is extremely well done. I'm never one to comment on RU-vid but i am impressed. And I've never heard of your third theory before. Looks like I've got some reading to do. Thank you!

It’s been a long time coming. Been waiting for something like this.

I'm an Orthodox rabbi and still found this very intriguing. Especially the part about the name Jacob being associated with the Southern Kingdom.

UsefulCharts dropping the “we Jews” to let us all know he’s Jewish makes me happy as another jew

Remember there is still a small group of people practising the religion of the North: The Samaritans. Their bible and the differences in it could be a very important clue in how those from the North joined the religion of the South.

I dig all your content but this episode was incredibly fascinating. That new theory makes a lot of sense, but I’m just a casual history fan. Can’t wait for the rest of the series!

Call me a nerd, call me a geek, call me whatever you want, but I found this video both fascinating and insightful. A solid foundation for anyone who is looking to delve into this topic deeper. Thank you!

It would be so much funnier if the acronym was JEDI

Last time i was this early Jacob and Israel were two different people

Hell yeah, I finally arrived on one of Useful Charts videos within the first 5 hours of its existence. Love the video, excellent work Matt

I really like your video. I’m a very secular person myself and I don’t really believe much in any religious teachings so your secular take on how the Bible was written really taught me some stuff

I've always liked Freidman's earlier book "Who Wrote the Bible", so I'll have to check out the newer one you listed in the references, Matt! Thanks for always thought- provoking videos!

I’m about to start teaching an Old Testament course and this video has got me to change my starting points. Thanks for sharing

This series helped me do some deconstructing of the "biblical literalism" that I was raised with. The actual history is a lot more interesting anyways.

I love how objectively you explain the topics, there is so much research behind it. Thank you so much for your work

This is so brilliant. I just finished reading the Old Testament for the first time cover to cover (but have studied it piece by piece my whole life) - when you mentioned the Third theory and started giving commentary my heart starting beating rapidly, and I had small and brief tears come to my eyes, it made so much sense to me and so many connections were being made inside my head. I have always wondered and been amazed at how Abraham blesses the twelve tribes, and then Moses also blesses the twelve tribes (a little differently). Understanding that the Torah is full of doublets does explain why this could be, but the hypothesis of the dual origin gives further insight into the reason behind this double blessing (as well as an excellent understanding in a plethora of other instances). Thank you so much, this was an amazing, transparent, open-minded, informative, and intriguing presentation! I'm looking forward to the next part!

Oh, this is going to be good. Edit: And it was!

OOOOH this new third theory is pretty interesting!! I'm going to have to dive deeper into that. It sounds really promising. We only learned the first two theories when I was in university (or at least I think that's what we learned. My professor didn't teach it very clearly, at least not to me at the time. Either that or, as I had never studied Tanakh outside of Hebrew school before, that I struggled to reconcile historical analysis with religious analysis because that wasn't a thing at my childhood Hebrew school).

I find all of this absolutely mind-bending. People who try to understand this kind of matters have to cross and weigh data from different eras, different disciplines (archeology, historiography, exegesis and what may be chronicles as well as pure legend), all with a lot of stratification. And the output can be just as messy and intertwined with the classification (hence the validity) of the input! So crazy, so cool.

Love the topic! Slight typo: Mesop**o**tamia, near the end (15:08). I wouldn't normally be this pedantic, but these get printed as posters, so I thought I would point that one out so it can be fixed in the printed versions.

This is great! This is the first time I'm hearing of the 3rd theory. I really like it, I think it explains a lot. I'm looking forward to the rest of this series!

A the foundation of the problem is the fact that, going way back, many people did not think about the possibility of something we call history--that someone in the future might want to understand the past.

For reals: you are my outright favorite channel now. Full-on zero-to-hero. This was amazing and soooo fucking baffling to just 🤯 I’ve been sitting & thinking about this third-theory for like 10 minutes just in awe over “what we thought” vs “what is prevalent now/future” is soooo fun. Thank you so much for doing what you do!

"Jacob fled to the country of Aram; Israel served to get a wife, and to pay for her he tended sheep. The Lord used a prophet to bring Israel up from Egypt, by a prophet he cared for him." (Hos 12:12-13, NIV) Hosea is one of the earliest biblical books that can be securably dated (c. 760-720 BCE) and is of Northern provenance. This quote demonstrates that both the Jacob=Israel going to Aram and the Prophet-led exodus from Egypt stories were current in Northern Israel in the Assyrian period. This alone is a great difficulty for Schmid's theory (#3 in the video). There are other difficulties as well with positing such a late date for redaction, but I think this suffices.

This is an academic paper in video form. Super cool work; I didn't realize you have a PhD in this!

Jacob as two persons looks great, we have two nations, and when they unite, theytook two heroes and make them one.

I read 'Who wrote the Bible?' by R. E. Friedman recently. He is a proponent of Documentary hypothesis, and after reading the book I must say he is rather convicing. But whatever hypostesis you prefer the book itself is rather fun read :)

If there's ever a new book of the Bible, it'll be called Duderonomy, written by some guy called Chad.

The new hypothesis puts a very interesting interpretive spin on the exhortations to treat the foreigner as one's own! Especially since (I'm going off of memory, so I may be way wrong) the verses containing said exhortations come from the more Levitical and Moses oriented material. Loved this video! I look forward to seeing the rest of the series.

An Indonesian here. I only heard the first theory before watching the video. I didn't know there was the other two competing theories. Thank you for updating our knowledge.

This is brilliant. It's nice meeting a brother that doesn't accept all text as 100%. Use of logic in this realm is lacking sadly. I loved this video and makes a lot of sense

That was super interesting, can't wait for the next one.

Thank you for this series! I love that you’re able to break it up into understandable parts.

Refreshing to see this since I live in the bible belt, where the majority say they believe every word literally but don’t know the half of it and where many don’t want critical study done on it. It makes more sense that the geography and location influenced the “marketplace of ideas,” which I think pretty much is what human history turns out to be. And IMHO, that’s way more fascinating than the “god did it/said it/wrote it, so I believe it,” way of thinking prevalent here. Thank you for the historical examination, what a breath of fresh air.

Interesting video, thanks for summarizing some research and asking some questions!

You sound like the "lock picking lawyer" to me - both in tone and cadence. I love your presentation of this information.

I like how you start with your credentials off the bat

Ohh, that dual origins theory makes so much sense and makes for such a satisfying narrative, I'm onboard. Great video, as usual!

Small tidbit: the two mentions of Abraham lying about Sarah actually take place in different locations and with different character. The first (chapter 12) is in Egypt and the person who takes Sarah is Pharaoh, and the second (chapter 20) is in a place called Gerar and the person who takes Sarah is Avimelech (Abimelech).

I am not particularly religious, but I have always been fascinated by religion. I must admit that I have spent much more time considering the authorship of the NT and practically none on Torah or OT as a whole. You have electrified a renewed interest, and I look forward to the rest of your series. I also have a massive interest in the visualization of information going right back to my younger years an authors like Edward Tufte. Not to mention my interest in history (3 years of Classical Studies at University before I changed tack to information technology). Why had the algorithm not suggested your channel until now? It is obviously not perfect.

As a PhD student working on the pentateuch right now, this video is super interesting. Though my work doesn't directly concern authorship or dating, it's naturally come up once or twice or a million times... Personally, I'm quite taken by the Dual Origins theory, but come to the conclusion that it's far messier even than the theories already proposed. You mention the two accounts of Abraham's lie. There's a third story following a similar pattern but featuring Jacob. Like Jacob, Abraham and Sarah go through name changes (as does Joseph in a way). I am intrigued by the possibility that though there were two fairly distinct traditions that developed, these were not exclusively Patriarchs v Moses, but rather slightly more "complete" traditions, but which emphasised different aspects. For example, of Abraham's lies: a longer account takes place with the King Abimelek (as does Jacob's version) but the other features Egypt and a Pharaoh and is a much shorter passage - I can feasibly imagine this version of the tale having developed in the same community which had Moses as their principal figure. A number of other literary parallels between Moses and key figures in the patriarchal narratives also spring to mind, particulary the character Hagar, who is one of the foci of my thesis.

I love learning about stuff like this, it really helps me understand the world and its people

I have your first chart up in my office. Love it

It would be super interesting to see more detail about the stories and myths from each branch and their origins from the regions.

I strongly agree with the Dual Theory. With Judaism in two kingdoms, it’s very likely that they had different beliefs. Plus there is many scripts found that were never in the bible. Genesis is definitely more than one author. It’s noticeable in the first few paragraphs. With it talking about how god made humans. Then later begins the story of Adam, as if it didn’t already tell us that humans existed. It’s a clear example of two different stories being meshed together. One being simplistic in just saying humans were created, while the other author trying to narrow it down to one first human. I find history of religion very fascinating, even though I have a huge struggle with believing in any god(s). I’m not exactly atheist, I just believe I won’t know for sure until I die. As nothing humans have created so far can detect if any god exist. Making it plausible that no god exist. But with so many mysteries about the universe still unresolved, I cannot fully rule out the possibility of any gods.

I don't know why RU-vid recommended this but I'm sure glad they did!

THE 3RD THEORY sounds very interesting and academically valid. You present some interesting facts and theories and you make some convincing arguments. Let's see if it is supported and accepted by 'peer' academics. I've been out of uni for 15yrs, so I was still teaching my students the 1st and 2nd theories. The 3rd theory will lead to some valuable conversations. Thanks.

The third theory is really interesting -- the first Torah cycle I even read through, I remember hitting the golden calf bit and thinking that they were talking about Moses and Aaron as representatives of two different peoples who were a bit grumpy about each other. Thank you for this!

Very good to learning English! Thank you for having Subtitles!

Amazing, Thanks a Bunch, greeting from Muslim in Indonesia

I was originally looking for something random to watch but this is honestly the best thing I could have watch during my free time.

I would LOVE if you made videos summarizing the sacred books while commenting on their historical aspects, please consider! 📖♥️

I am a philologist and I study the history of texts through time and I have to say that the third hypothesis is kinda logic ! Good job !

Clear, interesting and thought provoking. Thanks. Would it be possible to add dates for the events, i.e. Babylonian exile, destruction by Assyrians etc?

The Talmud is like 73 Volumes. Calling it a book is an understatement. It's a library. It costs $3,000 to $4,000 for a fullset.

Some like to include the Book of Joshua into the mix, leaving us with a unit called the Hexateuch. Indeed Joshua concludes the main story of the Pentateuch while serving as a segue for the remainder of the DH narrative.

Actually i know how it all happened, someone got tired of carrying around 5 books, so they copied it into one book. Couple friends saw it and they too wanted a copy. If you've ever had to carry around 5 textbooks for classes, you'll understand the pain.

5:24 - thought that was gonna spell 'Jedi' then I got very excited haha

This was very well taught and insightful! I'm a Christian myself, so these videos do bring challenge and nuance to some beliefs I hold, but I'm also eager to find out what's true about well ... everything, so challenging knowledge won't hurt! An intriguing journey indeed!

When I was in seminary they taught the documentary hypothesis. I love how biblical studies continues to seek, learn and grow. The dual origin theory seems to make a lot of sense!

This a terrific introduction to a complicated literary conundrum. In seminary 40 years ago, were were taught Wellhausen’s Documentary hypothesis, but it never quite satisfied-too cut and dried. The two-source idea makes far more sense. It’s not unlike Crossan’s (and others’) two-source theory of the NT resurrection narratives: an appearance source, and an empty-tomb source. Can’t wait for your next offering!

Thank you for your excellent video and channel. I'll probably say this in other comments in other videos but your background in education has enabled you to truly unlock a style of learning that many of us are coming to these comments to let you know about. There is something very game changing about learning through your videos. I appreciate everything you do. Thanks!

I wish there were some dates on this video to situated me chronologically in history.

As a Christian, I really wish I had been educated about all this historical information when I was younger. This is especially true about the nature of ancient historical writings. Today, young people are told that the Bible is inerrent and not allowed to question any of these matters, for doing so is considered heresy. We are not properly equipping young people to build a robust faith built around the reality (and undeniability) of actual facts. Perhaps this explains why so many evangelicals refuse to listen to the science behind masks, vaccines, and climate change....

"The North was more Egyptian" ah that explains all the cows.

Thank you so much for this video! It is so refreshing to hear Jewish history coming from a Jewish source/person, it feels so much more accurate/respectful.

And yet, so many people simply say the the "Bible" was written by God. Says a lot about humans.

I don't think this was clarified, but critical scholars generally believe now that Abraham was a later addition during the Babylonian exile, mirroring the exile itself and subsequent return to Judea after the Persian conquest.

In the field of biblical studies itextrdmely difficult to keep fact separate from faith-based opinion. This video manages the difficult very well.

Can you do a video on the demarcation and divisions of the Vedas? They’re a large body of Hindu texts and have Samhitas, Brahmans, Aranyakas, Upanishads in terms of content differentiation, but also the Rig, Yajur, Sama & Atharvaveda in terms of names of Veda, etc. And like go in depth on the different Upanishads, etc. I feel that’s be a cool video lot to explore.

You are going to help me for my Archeology, Anthropology, and Psychology of Religion-Studies. So, in future, we will become colleauges! ;) Maybe. Your knowledge and videos related to it, is incredible. Thank you very much.

Well this was absolutely fascinating! This is the first of your videos that I've seen, and I'm subscribing right now. Myself, I was taught the Documentary Hypothesis in Bible College, but have leaned more towards the Supplementary Hypothesis over the last 25 years or so, though I tend to think more of it was composed/compiled during the captivity than is commonly assumed. This was my first exposure to the third hypothesis, and, boy, that's just causing my brain to run a million miles an hour. Thank you very much! Looking forward to more of your stuff!

Just found this. Very nice presentation! One thing I’ve been wondering for years, that the existing theories never seemed to account for: why do the Samaritans have a nearly-identical Torah? (And one more similar to the Septuagint than the Masoretic text.) How did that happen? Either the Torah would have had to have been written before the Exile. Or if the Samaritans adopted a Torah written by Jews after the Exile, the history of Samaritans and Judaism must be a lot more complicated than we’ve thought.

Theory 3 has been what I have been subscribed to for the last 35 years

So the key takeaway for me as a person who never really studied this topic in depth, is that there are multiple theories and that we don't really know who wrote the Bible.

I was sitting here getting flashbacks to my Ancient Near East History/Theology Course in Undergrad and covering each theory in turn. I do feel my professor believed more in The Dual Origins Theory himself and made a convincing case for it. I distinctly remember him referencing the Moses story coming out of Egypt by pointing out that, "Moses," itself could be considered an Egyptian name.

When he said he was Jewish that meant a lot too me because I am Jewish and interested in learning about other religions and history.

I love this channel, definitely the best explanation of the origin of bible. Great use of charts. Great work

I really like this video. Clear, concise, scholarly.

I am atheist but still fascinated with your work! Thank you for your content, subscribed.

I thought Charlton Heston wrote it and stood on the steps shouting "You can take this staff from my cold dead hands"

Both the quality & neutrality of the information as well as the top notch presentation style and editing/graphics made this a very interesting and captivating watch, thanks!