Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Friedman

Author:Richard Friedman [Friedman, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781982129002
Publisher: SimonSchuster
Published: 2019-01-15T06:00:00+00:00

The Same Man

Who was he? How did he come to have a copy of the original version of the history? How was he able to imitate the language and style of that earlier edition so perfectly? Why did he choose to produce a new version of an old history in the first place, instead of writing an all-new work?

The most likely answer to all of these questions is that both editions of the Deuteronomistic history were by the same person.

He had a copy of Dtr1 because he wrote it. He chose to build on the earlier edition instead of writing an all-new work because he had created that earlier edition, and he was still able to be satisfied with all but a few sentences of his original work. (And, besides, what writer was ever eager to throw out a seven-book work he had produced and write a new one from the beginning?) The language and styles are similar because the same man wrote them.

Biblical scholars argue generally that, rather than one man, it was a “school” that produced the Deuteronomistic material. They suggest that there may have been a circle of people who shared a particular outlook and set of interests, and that various Deuteronomistic sections of the Bible were produced by various members of this group. The various members of the “Deuteronomistic school,” they suggest, wrote in similar styles and language because of their common membership in a group.

Now, it is true that different members of a common school of thought may write in quite similar styles. (The Pythagoreans in Greece are cited as an example.) Still, in the case of the Deuteronomistic history, the degree of similarity of Dtr1 and Dtr2 is phenomenal. Further, there is no compelling reason why we should hypothesize the existence of an otherwise unknown “school” when it was perfectly possible and logical for a single person to have done it. The first edition of the history, Dtr1, had to be written before Josiah died in 609 B.C. The second edition, Dtr2, had to be written after the Babylonian destruction and exile in 587 B.C. That is only a difference of twenty-two years. One person could easily have been alive and writing from the time of Josiah to the exile.

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