was literate (Ex 17:14), and he wrote down the laws of the covenant revealed by God at Mount Sinai (Ex 24:4). There are other Old Testament passages that attest to Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch as well (Num 33:2 and Deut 31:9). In this, they reflect the view of Mosaic authorship universally shared by Jews and Christians until the early 19th century. Modern scholarship hasn’t dismissed the idea that Moses wrote the first five books of the Old Testament. While it would have been impossible for