Jesus, Prophet of Islam - The Islamic Bulletin

An Historical Account of Jesus 29

As we have already seen, only the first five books of this collection,
which are usually referred to as the Pentateuch, are linked directly
withMoses,althoughit is clear that theyneitherconstitute the origi­
nal Torah which was revealed to mm, nor were they written 'by'
him. Even as regards these first five books, Dr Maurice Bucaille
points out that prior to the versions which were written during
and after the exile in Babylon - the first of which (said to be corn­
piled by Ezra) is commonly known as the Sacerdotal version - there
were already at least three sources: the Yahvist version (in which
God is named Yaweh), the Elohist version (in which God is named
Elohim) and Deuteronomy -aIl of which were used to produce the
Sacerdotal version, which was preached in the Temple after its re­
construction in about 515 OC, and all of which have been dated
and located in time and place:

1.   The Yahvistversion was situated in the Ninth



century BC (written in [udah),



2. The Elohist version was probably a little more



recent (written in Israel).

3. Deuteronomy was from the Eighth century BC for
   sorne (E. Jacob), and from the time of[osiah[the
   Seventh century Be] for others (Father de Vaux).


4. The Sacerdotal version came from the period of exile
   or after the exile: Sixth century Be. 8

Dr Bucaille continues:

It may be seen that the arrangement of the text of the

Pentateuch spans at least three centuries.

Theproblemis, however, even more complex. In 1941,

A. Lods singled out three sources inthe Yahvist version,

four in the Elohist version, six in Deuteronomy, nine in

the Sacerdotal version, 'not including the additions

spread out among eight different authors,' writes Fa­

ther de Vaux. More recently, it has been thought that,

'many of the constitutions Of laws contained inthe Pen­

tateuch had parallels outside the Bible going back much

further than the dates ascribed to the documents them­

selves,' and that, 'many of the stories of the Pentateuch

presupposed a background that was different from - and

older than - the one from which these documents were