For better or for worse, the world is filled with conspiracy theories. Some of these theories are well evidenced, and a few even turn out to be true. Others, to be as polite as possible, are both baseless, and rather silly. Two conspiracy theories in the latter category are the Documentary Hypothesis, and the idea that the moon landing in 1969 was fake.
When it comes to the moon landing, there are some merits to the conspiracy theories. Not to say the theory is remotely credible, of course, but you can understand why, for example, some might question the flag waving on the moon. Doesn't that mean there was a breeze, whereas there's no air in space? Turns out, no. In order to plant the flag firmly into the soil, the pole had to be twisted, thus "waving" the flag, which continued for a while precisely because there was no air resistance.
But as with most conspiracy theories, the moon landing hoax theory goes deeper than a few people spotting an inconsistency and thinking "hmm". Rather, the moon landing hoax theory is disagreement for disagreement's sake. Thus, arguments go from entirely reasonable questions, like why the flag waved, all the way to outright kooky claims, such as "NASA didn't have the technology in 1969". Ironically, as anyone who has ever watched a movie such as Star Wars A New Hope knows, it is actually the movie technology that was insufficient to fake the moon landings, not the rocket technology that was insufficient to take men to the moon.
But I feel like I'm preaching to the choir here. Moon landing skeptics are few and far between. There is, however, similar reasoning used to defend a much dafter conspiracy theory. Namely, the Documentary Hypothesis.
The Documentary Hypothesis, much like the moon landing hoax theory, is disagreement for sake of disagreement. It is well known, and well documented, that Moses is the author of the Pentateuch (with the obvious exception of the end, which records his death, and was likely picked up by Joshua, his successor). This has been well known for centuries, and continues to be pretty much consensus to this day. So, for a few liberal scholars to come along and say "actually, we think it's a bunch of oral traditions that were finally codified by a bunch of different authors during the Babylonian Exile" is akin to saying "actually, NASA faked the moon landings because they wanted to get one over on Russia". It is daft, and frankly embarrassing to watch, but nevertheless, there are people, even scholars who would otherwise be highly respectable, who believe this nonsense.
Much like the claim that NASA didn't have the technology to launch men to space, one of the arguments Documentary Theorists use is to claim that Moses didn't have the technology to write. As it turns out, however, this is false.
Of course, one problem with studying ancient history is that evidence does tend to disintegrate. That's not to say no evidence exists, of course, but it does mean that whereas we can probably find out the weather on a given day from the 1940s, when it comes to things such as the invention of writing, what you believe will depend on who you ask. Indeed, in some cases, it can be a case of theories interpreting evidence, rather than evidence testing theories. This is especially the case when it comes to the Exodus, as so many scholars begin with the assumption that it didn't happen. Thus, any evidence of Hebrew writings between 1800 B.C. - 1400 B.C. is going to be met with a fair bit of scepticism.
Nevertheless, we do have evidence that, first of all, other cultures far before the Exodus were capable of writing. We have, for example, the Reforms of Urukagina, two large conical artifacts presumed to have been written between 2500 B.C. and 2340 B.C. These two cones detail the woeful conditions seen in the city of Lagash, and the reforms king Urukagina implemented to address the problem, including the termination of corrupt officials who illegally confiscated property, and the provision of charity to the poor or elderly.
The Reforms of Urukagina are just one example of evidence that writing technology is significantly older than Moses. There is much more, including evidence that Egyptians could not only write, but actually may have even written about Moses (though the depth of that particular evidence is a topic for a future article). It seems unfathomable to think that cultures surrounding the Hebrews would have had writing technology for more than 1,000 years, yet the Hebrews themselves would remain completely illiterate.
But aside from evidence that writing existed prior to the exodus, and was a widespread skill, it would appear that God's covenant people may have developed the alphabetic writing system ahead of the Phoenicians, who are currently theorised to have invented this around the 11th century. According to Dr. Douglas Petrovich, Hebrew may well be the first written language to represent consonants. In his book, The World’s Oldest Alphabet—Hebrew as the Language of the Proto-Consonantal Script, Petrovich details evidence that the Hebrew alphabet may have developed far earlier than was previously believed. Some scholars even theorise that it was developed by Joseph during his time as Egypt's second in command.
Though I did not intend to go into great depth in this article, it should already be abundantly clear that the argument that Moses could not have written the Torah because he could not have written at all is utterly baseless. Much like the theory that the moon landing story is fraudulent, the Documentary Hypothesis is merely a rejection of common knowledge for no other reason than to reject that common knowledge. Moses, as everyone has known for a good 3,400 years, is the main author of the Torah, with only a small portion, containing the death of Moses, being added by a later prophet.
The lengths to which man will go to dishonor God are staggering. It should be as easy as saying "no, I don't believe that", but liberals, apparently, have to take it about 12 steps further and dispute the very authorship of the Scripture they don't believe. Conspiracy theorists like this should be warned, however, that just as a few artifacts can show writing technology existed centuries before Moses, so also can the rest of their kooky claims be demolished by the tiniest pieces of evidence. For example, attempts to post-date the Gospel of John were sent up in flames by a fragment of papyrus no bigger than a credit card. Time and time again, Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 1:27-29 have proven true: "But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence." Thus, when you are tempted to make your flesh glory in His presence, beware: A foolish thing may be just around that corner to put you in your place.