I’ve recently been curious about this question. Is there historical evidence that indicates when people first started believing that the words in those documents (Torah, etc) were divinely inspired? I understand these things were oral traditions long before they were written down. Did people believe these words were divine prior to them being written down? How did this belief begin?
1) oral tradition. If Deuteronomy were written in 622 BCE based on the Josiah reformation reported in 2 Kings 22 and Jeremiah 25, then it would be recording the oral tradition of 622 BCE. We would have very little evidence to guess the oral tradition from 623 BCE, 800 BCE, or earlier. That’s not to say an oral tradition did not exist in 800 BCE or earlier, we just have no way of knowing what THAT oral tradition was and if it in any way is similar the oral tradition of 622 BCE, which is presumed to have been written down.
Much has been made about Hebrew words in Torah books describing Moses telling the commandments. Various scholars point out Moses is saying commamdments at some points and writing them at other points. Clearly the authors had a belief in the reliability of oral tradition. That does not seem to actually affect the reliability of oral tradition.
Studies have been done and Bart goes into some anecdotal details about some of these. Oral tradition so far has not been proven reliable for data transmission.
When did people think the Torah is divinely inspired? If you believe the tale in 2 Kings 22 and Jeremiah 25 about Josiah, where the good king finds the Law ( we have no idea what is in this Law, but scholars take Josiah’s centralization of YHWH worship as evidence it is Dtr.) then 622 BCE is a good date for a FEW ROYAL ACTORS to behave in a manner consistent with the Law.
Jeremiah has the story of Josiah finding the Law, but earlier he is talking about their forefathers not ever receiving the Law as they left Egypt. So there is some possible contradiction there, if you believe these writings reflect the times they claim to.
Ezra has a tough time separating Israelites from the wives taken from the land around them. Now we are talking 400 BCE and they have a festival of booths and say this is the first time since Jeshua son of Nun. So according to Ezra this is the first time Judeans ( This is the earliest book to use the term Jew or Judean) obey the Law.
Archeological evidence in the form of contracts including marriage are debated. Mostly I hear they are not adherent to the Torah but to the law of the land. That’s from Elaphantine in 400 BCE down through the days a Jesus supposedly walked in Galilee. I think there is one loan contract with Judean names signed on that reflects the Law.
Jesus Ben Sirach seems to quote the Torah, dated to 180 BCE, forwarded by his grandson. Philo considers the Greek translation of the Torah “perfect.” That’s gotta count for something. 2 Timothy 3:16 says all ‘graphe’ (scripture, writing?) are useful for instruction.
As a minimalist, I am not sure the Torah was considered divinely inspired until the last 200 years BCE. I think there is some small evidence for Judeans forcing themselves to believe in it as they struggled for power in Alexandria and Antioch.
Franscesca Stavropoulo (?sp) seems to think that the emergence of Christianity was the catalyst as Christians used the collection of Hebrew writings to justify their faith, and later dispersed Jews did the same after their Temple was destroyed.
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