Who Wrote the Bible? By Richard Elliott Friedman

Merits: Richard Elliott Friedman is a biblical scholar who earned his doctorate at Harvard and was a visiting scholar at Oxford and Cambridge. He is also the Ann and Jay Davis Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Georgia and has previously held the Katzin Chair at the University of California, San Diego. He has authored numerous books including Commentary on the Torah and The Bible with Sources Revealed.

Material: Who actually wrote the Bible? SPOILER ALERT! It was humans. This book conducts an investigation into the first five books of the Bible and draws upon biblical and archaeological evidence to identify their authors. Modern day biblical scholarship has lead to fascinating insights, for example, key stories (the creation in Genesis, Noah’s ark) are made up of “two separate works that someone had cut up and combined into one” (51). These classic tales can be “separated into two complete versions that sometimes duplicated each other and sometimes contradict each other” (51).

Grade: Doubting Thomas. This book isn’t about whether or not the Bible was divinely inspired. It’s about who the human authors actually were. An important question to consider regarding a book that holds so much significance to such an enormous amount of people.