Did Moses write the first five books of the Bible?

The passages

So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD. And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.

Deuteronomy 34:5-6

(Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.)

Numbers 12:3

And the Canaanite was then in the land.

Genesis 12:6

And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Israel.

Genesis 36:31

For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.

John 5:46

The problem

Nowhere do the five books claim to be written entirely by Moses. Some verses speak of him in the third person, as "the man Moses", and describe his death and burial. Others suggest a later viewpoint: "the Canaanite was then in the land," and a list of Edomite kings "before there reigned any king over Israel," which implies that kingship in Israel was already a fact. Beyond these, scholars have for two centuries noted doublets (two accounts of creation, two versions of the covenant with Abraham, two names for God), differences in vocabulary, and laws that seem to presuppose different stages in Israel's life.

What believers and scholars say

Moses wrote, with later additions. The Talmud (Bava Batra 14b) already said that Joshua wrote the last eight verses of Deuteronomy. Many conservative scholars hold that Moses was the principal author and that later editors updated names and added the account of his death. Wenham and Kitchen take this approach.

The Documentary Hypothesis. Wellhausen and his successors proposed that the Pentateuch combines several sources (J, E, D and P) written between the tenth and fifth centuries BC and edited into the current form. Friedman and Baden give modern versions. This remains the starting point of most academic study, although the details have been much revised.

Newer models. Some recent scholars favor supplementary or fragmentary models in which a core was expanded over centuries, or argue for a much later date for the final composition. There is no single consensus.

The New Testament. Jesus and the apostles refer to "Moses" or "the law of Moses" as shorthand for the first five books. Defenders take such references as endorsing Mosaic authorship, and others say they follow the common usage of the time.

Where this leaves it

Few scholars today think the Pentateuch in its present form came from Moses alone. How much of it comes from him, if any, is open. For many believers, the authority of the books does not depend on who held the pen, and for others it does.