Editing the Bible: The Romantic Myths about Authors and Editors

Contrary to certain trends in Pentateuchal scholarship, which want to eliminate the »author« from biblical study as a modern invention, the classical world identified the writers of a broad range of literary genres as authors, including writers of legal and historical texts, such as one finds in the Bible. By contrast, editors/redactors – as those who restored ancient texts to their more original form for publication, or who published original works of authors in print, or who reproduced collections of folklore – were the invention of the modern era. Consequently, the Pentateuch cannot be the product of editors/redactors, but the work of authors who produced historical and legal works, such as D-Dtr, J, and P.