The Pentateuch was written on the basis of earlier sources; and it incorporates these sources or parts of them, and fits with what we know about biblical books according to their own testimony. The Pentateuch itself makes a reference to “the Book of Wars of YHWH” (Numbers. 21:14) suggesting the writer was using this as a source. 

In fact, the Hebrew Bible is filled with references to sources upon which various biblical texts are based or which the biblical authors knew of and read:

“The Book of Yashar” (e.g., Josh 10:13; 2 Samuel 1:18);“The Book of the Acts of Solomon” (e.g., 1 Kings 11:41);“The Books of Annals of Kings of Israel” (1 Kings 14:19; also 2 Chron 33:18; 2 Chron 20:34);“The Book of Annals of the Kings of Judah” (1 Kings 15:7);“The Records of Samuel the Seer” (1 Chron 29:29);“The History of Nathan the Prophet” (2 Chron 9:29);“The Records of Shemaiah the Prophet and Iddo the Seer” (2 Chron 12:15);“The Annals of Jehu the son of Hanani” (2 Chron 20:34);“The Records of Hozai” [or “the Seers”] (2 Chron 33:19)

The Rabbis stated that 55 Jewish Prophets in the Hebrew Bible were known by name. The Talmud counts the names of 48 male prophets and 7 female prophets.

Muslim scholars like Ibn Atiyya report that Ibn Abbas and Muqatil ibn Sulayman interpret the statement about there being no warner before in Qur’an 32:3 to refer only to the period of time between Jesus and Muhammad. Mahmud ibn Umar al-Zamakhshan (d. 538/1144) explains also that the lack of a warner mentioned in Qur’an 28:46 and Qur’an 36:6 refers to the 550 years between Prophets Jesus and Prophet Muhammad. 

Muhammad ibn Sacd (d. 230/845) reports that the number of apostles, including Prophet Muhammad, is 315, and the total number of prophets is 2,000: Ibn Abbas says: Between Moses and Jesus ibn Mary were 1,900 years (really 1,300) and there was no pause between them, for between them were sent 1,000 prophets from the Israelites, equal to what was sent for all the world’s non-Israelites.

Why so many Jewish prophets? In the Torah is the brief episode of Eldad and Medad (Numbers 11:26-30) that is really a subunit within a larger framework of Numbers 11, where we are told how God provided Moses with a special group of seventy elders from the 12 tribes, who would serve as his assistants in his dealings with the Hebrew people. 

These elders were to undergo a special “initiation rite” (11: 16-17); they were to follow Moses to the Tent of Meeting that stood at a distance from the Israelite tents and stand there with Moses in a state of preparedness. God would come down in a cloud and speak to Moses at the tent, and He would extend some of the “spirit” (ru’ach) that was on Moses onto the adjacent elders of Israel. This, apparently, would “energize” the elders, and give them the spiritual power necessary to aid Prophet Moses in leading the Jewish people (1 Samuel 10:5-7).

So Prophet Moses gathered the elders and placed them around the tent of meeting. God came down in a cloud and spoke to Moses, and conferred some of the spirit that was on Moses onto the........

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