Did Moses Write the Pentateuch?

This chapter analyzes the consensus view of biblical scholars that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. It explains that the Pentateuch is the first five books of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. It also mentions the Church father Jerome's suggestion that Ezra the Priest wrote the Pentateuch in the fifth century BC based on notes made by Moses. The chapter explains that since the sixth century AD, doubts have been expressed about whether Moses was the author of all the Pentateuch. But it was only in the mid-seventeenth century that the first relatively systematic discussion of the issue appeared and by the late nineteenth century, the scholarly consensus began to turn against Moses being the author of any part of the Pentateuch.