Controversy is brewing around Cardinal Raymond Burke after he downplayed the substantial Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch before an audience of millions yesterday. Catholic tradition, explicit Magisterial pronouncements, and Scripture itself have long upheld that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible.
The exchange came during an appearance on The Shawn Ryan Show Tuesday, where the American prelate fielded, often ably, a number of catechetical questions from the popular host. Along with other high-profile podcasters, Ryan has started taking religion more seriously in recent months and has even returned to the practice of the Catholic faith in which he was baptized. He welcomed Burke on to help his audience understand Church teaching on the Old Testament.
At the 36:16 mark of the episode, the following errant answer on Biblical authorship was given by Cardinal Burke, specifically concerning the Pentateuch:
Ryan: How many authors are there [in the Bible]?
Burke: Oh, some of the books are written by the same author. There would be more or less forty or so authors. The first five books are called the Pentateuch or the law. Those were often called the books of Moses — that Moses wrote them all — [but] we don’t necessarily think that Moses wrote all five books, so the exact number of authors I wouldn’t be sure. [It’s] a number of authors.
On X, Integrity contributor Christian Bergsma was the first to draw attention to Burke’s response. He first highlighted a 1906 Pontifical Biblical Commission (PBC) decision which, far from downplaying the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch like Cardinal Burke, rather authoritatively affirmed it.
“Moses’ direct authorship of the Pentateuch (nonwithstanding the use of scribes by Moses or minor and inspired later edits such as the very end of Deuteronomy which did not change the substance of the text), is supported by ‘the cumulative evidence of many passages of both Testaments, the unbroken unanimity of the Jewish people, and furthermore of the constant tradition of the Church, besides the internal indications furnished by the text itself, [etc.],” he said, quoting the PBC decree.
The Dispatch
Next, Bergsma noted the ruling was never revoked, while also citing Pope Saint Pius X’s Praestantia Scripturae, which upheld the declaration by stating “nor can anyone who by word or writing attacks the said decrees avoid the note both of disobedience and of rashness or be therefore without grave fault.”
In addition to explicit Magisterial proofs, further support for the truth that Moses authored the Pentateuch is to be found in Scripture itself, namely from the teaching of Our Lord.
Father Dave Nix responded to Cardinal Burke’s claim to this effect on X, citing the Gospel of Saint Mark (12:25): “Have you not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spoke unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?”
While it is distressing to see someone as prominent as Cardinal Burke failing to uphold the traditional authorship of the Pentateuch, much less proclaim it, it should not be surprising. Mario Derksen drew attention to this cold reality on social media, reminding “Catholic Twitter” that “Burke is a man of Vatican II” in an X post.
Given that Dei Verbum, Vatican II’s document on Scripture and Tradition, cast doubt on the historical authorship of the New Testament Gospels, it is to be expected that post-conciliar clergy view the Old Testament in the same manner.
