Deuteronomy is largely a series of speeches by Moses, given on the brink of the promised land. (He was not allowed to enter Canaan; see Num. 20:12.)
The first five verses of Deuteronomy present the entire book as a third-person account about Moses. Thus in 1:5 we read, “Moses undertook to expound this law as follows,” followed by a third-person account of what Moses said. It seems that someone other than Moses wrote this (see also 4:41, 44; 5:1). In 1:1 we see a more compelling piece of evidence. We are told that the following words are what “Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan” (emphasis added). This comment about Moses, in the past tense, is spoken by someone who apparently made it into Canaan—on the other (west) side of the Jordan River from where Moses gave his speeches on the plains of Moab. According to Numbers 20:12 and Deuteronomy 32:48–52, Moses never made it into Canaan, and so it is safe to conclude that Moses did not write at least the opening portion of the book.
Hebrew phrase translated “beyond the Jordan” is a fixed geographic term—like “The East River” or “South Central Los Angeles” today; these locations are “east” or “south central” regardless of where the speaker is. So, as the argument goes, perhaps “beyond the Jordan” simply means “East Jordan,” which some believe opens the door to the possibility that Moses could have written Deuteronomy 1:1–5. But this approach cannot gain traction. First, we still have the rather odd scenario of Moses’s writing about himself in the third person and in the past tense. Second, the same Hebrew phrase “beyond the Jordan” is spoken by Moses in Deuteronomy 3:25 and 11:30 and refers to the promised land: west of the Jordan. In other words, “beyond the Jordan” means just what it says: the side you are not on. It is a relative geographic term, not a fixed one.
There is good reason, therefore, to conclude that the first five verses of Deuteronomy—which sets up the entire book—are indisputably written by someone who made it to the promised land after Moses died.
Evolution of Adam Peter Enns Pg. 13-14
The report of Moses’s death in chapter 34 is an even bigger problem, for it suggests a time much later than that of Moses. Specifically, verses 6 and 10 sound as though they were written a good time after Moses died. After we read of Moses’s death and burial, verse 6 says, “No one knows his burial place to this day” (emphasis added). Verse 10 adds, “Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses” (emphasis added). The fact that his gravesite is unknown suggests that a lengthy time has transpired.
To maintain Mosaic authorship, one would need to argue that Moses wrote about his future death in the third person and past tense and that he also anticipated that his gravesite would become unknown. 6 and 10 also make very unlikely the notion that Joshua is responsible since that would mean that within a few short years the eyewitnesses had trouble locating Moses’s burial site. The same holds for verse 10. This statement makes little sense if only a generation or two (or three or four) has transpired. The whole gravity of verse 10 is lost unless we presume that a considerable length of time has transpired: “Moses was great, and even after all this time no one like him has come along” (emphasis added).
Evolution of Adam Peter Enns Pg. 15
