Who is the Author?

The book of Deuteronomy is traditionally attributed to Moses, as is the entire Pentateuch. This classical perspective, which is supported by biblical and extra-biblical testimony, prevailed until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. At that time, some scholars proposed that the first five books of the Bible were actually composed over a span of several centuries by various “redactors” who integrated different source materials into a coherent anthology.1 Today, most evangelical scholars today recognize that the Pentateuch contains both pre-Mosaic sources and post-Mosaic glosses and elaborations.2

The superscription to the book says that it contains the words Moses addressed to all of Israel “on the other side of Jordan” (Deut 1:1). This implies that the superscription was written by someone on the western side of the Jordan sometime after Moses’s death.3 Moreover, Moses was clearly not responsible for the section of the book that describes his final moments and burial (Deut 34).Deuteronomy 31:9 states that Moses “wrote down this law,” which most likely refers to the contents of chapters 1–30.4 There is no doubt that the bulk of these chapters represents the public speeches of Moses to the people of Israel in the plains of Moab at the end of the forty-year wilderness period and immediately preceding the conquest under the leadership of Joshua.