Dr. Richard Elliott Friedman, Ann & Jay Davis Professor of Jewish Studies Emeritus, University of Georgia, Katzin Professor of Jewish Civilization Emeritus, University of California, San Diego presents “Who Wrote the Torah?”
The Torah contains the first prose writing on earth. Before that there was only poetry. If it is factual, it is the first history ever written. If it is fiction, then it is the first novel. But either way it is the first. What moved a single Jewish writer to invent this new kind of text 3,000 years ago? And what moved him or her to write these particular stories: why go all the way back to creation? Why include so many stories of brothers killing brothers? Did the author just invent the stories, or learn them from past generations, or rewrite them from songs and poetry? Above all, who were these first writers on earth who gave us the Torah?