Isaac La Peyrère and the Question of the Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch

Isaac La Peyrère (c. 1596–1676) served as the secretary for the Prince of Condé in seventeenth-century France. He earned fame and notoriety in intellectual circles for his argument in his work Praeadamitae that humans existed prior to the creation of Adam. His work was bound together with a more thorough biblical critique, Systema theologicum, in which he argued, among other things, against the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. La Peyrère would prove highly influential; his work was on Baruch Spinoza's bookshelf, and he later became a friend of Fr. Richard Simon whose Histoire critique du Vieux Testament would itself become pivotal within the history of the development of the modern historical critical method. This paper presents La Peyrère arguments in Systema theologicum against the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and situates those arguments in the historical and political context of their time.

Jeffrey L. Morrow, Ph.D., is Professor of Theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville and Director of the St. Paul Studies Center at the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology. His academic work focuses on biblical theology, the history of biblical interpretation, the history and development of modern biblical criticism, Roman Catholic Modernism, Pentateuchal studies, theological exegesis, and the relationship between biblical interpretation, theology, philosophy, and politics.

He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Dayton. Before joining Franciscan University of Steubenville, he spent fifteen years as Professor of Theology at the Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology at Seton Hall University. He has also served as a visiting scholar at Princeton Theological Seminary and at the Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem.

His research examines important figures and movements in the history of modern biblical scholarship, including Isaac La Peyrère, Thomas Hobbes, Baruch Spinoza, Richard Simon, Alfred Loisy, historical-critical interpretation, the Catholic Modernist crisis, and modern debates concerning the composition and authorship of the Pentateuch. His publications combine intellectual history, biblical studies, theology, hermeneutics, and analysis of the political and philosophical contexts in which modern biblical criticism developed.

He is the author and co-author of numerous books addressing the origins and development of modern biblical criticism, theological interpretation of Scripture, Catholic biblical theology, and the history and future of Pentateuchal studies.