"Not me, I choose to believe Moses was not writing some sort of esoteric code."
What part of the Torah did Moses write? Any of it? All of it? None of it...?
God dictated the Written Torah to Moses. He also taught him what it all means but did not put it down on paper. Moses taught the Oral Torah to the priests, then to the prophets, then to the Men Of The Great Assembly and so forth. The chain of tradition has never been broken...
Ex 17:14
And the LORD said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.
Ex 34:27
And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.