Note: The above picture is from Johann Reuchlin's Hebrew and Latin Bible, depicting Isaiah 57.
Introduction:
In our last two posts we provided an outline and overview of the Biblical and traditional view of Moses having composed the first five books of the Bible. We noted the number of Old Testament authors, Jesus, and the Apostles affirming Moses as the author of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Further, we drew the conclusion that to deny Mosaic authorship would make the remainder of the Old Testament, Jesus, and the Apostles to be mistaken or liars.
Summarizing the assumptions of the traditional view of Mosaic authorship of Pentateuch
The suppositions underlying Mosaic authorship are as follows:
Summarizing the assumptions of the traditional view of Mosaic authorship of Pentateuch
The suppositions underlying Mosaic authorship are as follows:
1. Divine Inspiration of the Bible.
God divinely inspired the Pentateuch through a legitimate prophet, Moses.
2. Moses was a prophet who predicted future events.
Moses wrote a number of prophecies in the Torah or Pentateuch, including the prediction of the cosmic battle between Christ and Satan (Genesis 3:15). The coming worldwide flood via Noah (Genesis 6:1-9). The prediction of Abraham's descendants enslaved in Egypt for four generations (Genesis 15).
The coming of a future redeemer, who would arise from the tribe of Judah and who would be Moses-like in His miracles, authority, and teaching (Genesis 49:10; Deuteronomy 18). And the prediction of the future dispersions of the Israelites as a consequence of their breaking of the Mosaic Covenant (Deuteronomy 28-29). All these prophecies came true in history, certifying the Divine inspiration of the Pentateuch.
3. Moses was a historical figure.
Moses was a historical figure whom God used to lead the Israelites out of Egypt in the Exodus in the mid-fifteenth century b.c. Moses' knowledge of Egyptian culture, coupled with certain features in the Pentateuch, makes placement of those books in the fifteenth century b.c. far more likely than the current critical view.
Moses was a historical figure whom God used to lead the Israelites out of Egypt in the Exodus in the mid-fifteenth century b.c. Moses' knowledge of Egyptian culture, coupled with certain features in the Pentateuch, makes placement of those books in the fifteenth century b.c. far more likely than the current critical view.
The Higher Critical view (which I'll introduce in a moment) makes the Pentateuch a byproduct of several editors or "redactors" stretching from the days after King David (900's b.c.) through the reign of Josiah in Jerusalem (mid-7th century b.c.) to the time after the Jews return from the Babylonian exile (mid-6th century b.c.)
4. The Hebrew Bible, Jesus, and the Apostles affirmed Mosaic Authorship
One final supposition for the historical view of Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, and that is the combined witness of the remainder of the Hebrew Bible (Joshua through Malachi), Jesus, and the Apostles is why the church historically championed Mosaic authorship for the first 1700 years of its existence.
Additionally, the findings of archaeology have provided evidence that lends far greater weight to the traditional view than the Higher-Critical view that Genesis through Deuteronomy was produced by multiple editors (which we will look at in later postings).
With the traditional, conservative view of the Pentateuch expressed, we will now turn to the viewpoint (or cluster of positions) that offer an alternative explanation in opposition to Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch.
Those who would rise up to question Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch
For the first 1700 years of Church history (Church history spans from the first century until present, roughly 2,000 years) and all of Jewish history prior agreed with Jesus and the Old Testament authors that Moses wrote the Pentateuch.
In 1670 a Philosopher, Baruch Spinoza, suggested in his book “Tractatus Theologico-Politicus” that Ezra the Scribe had composed the Pentateuch. Ezra (author of the Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and perhaps 1 and 2 Chronicles) lived in the 500-400's b.c. As the proposal goes, Ezra compiled the Pentateuch a 1,000 years after the preported events recorded. One thing that critical views of Mosaic authorship and Divine inspiration of the Pentateuch share is the attempt to make the writing of those books far later than their alleged recorded events.
Then a French doctor by the name of Jean Astruc (1753) and a German textual critic Johann Eichhorn in 1780-1783 suggested that Genesis could be divided up into different documents, edited by anonymous authors who used different names for God. When they looked at Genesis 1-2 for instance, they saw the general name for God (“Elohim”, in the Hebrew) in chapter 1, then the Personal name of God (“Jehovah” or “Yahweh” in the Hebrew) in Genesis 2, concluding two different authors had to have written them.
The dawning of Higher Criticism in Europe
Thus, as we move from the 17th century into the 18th century, the so-called Higher Critical view is emerging. The reason for it being called "Higher Criticism" is due to it attempting to recover the source or sources of authorship in a given document. The phrase "Higher Criticism" explains what came to be the discipline of discovering the author or authors behind the alleged documents.
Briefly comparing Higher Criticism to Lower Criticism (a.k.a textual criticism)
A parallel and far more legitimate discipline, so-called "Lower-criticism", worked to establish the original wording of a document by comparing existing copies with one another. The church throughout its history has had numerous examples of Bible-believing scholars who studied the existing copies and translations of the Old and New Testaments to establish what were the original words.
Such a discipline, also known as "textual criticism", was practiced by earely church fathers like Justin Martyr and Origen (2nd century A.D.), Jerome (4th century), Roman Catholic Scholar such as Cardinal Ximenes and Desiderus Erasmus of the sixteenth century; the great Bible translators John Wycliffe, William Tyndale, and Joahann Reuchlin of the sixteenth century; the Reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin of the sixteenth century; Baptist Scholar/Pastors of the 17th century; the great Methodist commentary Adam Clarke of the nineteenth century; Bruce Metzger, Maurice Robinson, and Daniel Wallace of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
It's not to say this discipline is not without its share of skeptics and cranks. However, the fruits of labor have been far more friendly and more supportive of Bible conservatives who hold to a high view of Scripture. As to how textual criticism or lower criticism serves the conservative view of the Pentateuch and other portions of Scripture in opposition to Higher Critical skepticism of the Bible, the later Christian theologian and apologist Norman Geisler writes in his "Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics":
"The brief time gap and the large number of manuscripts compared to other works of antiquity vouch for the fact that the content of the Biblical texts has been unchanged".
The Assumptions of Higher Criticism
Higher criticism was fraught with far more philosophical assumptions than its lower-criticism counterpart. Such presuppositions included:
A. Skepticism about either God's existence or intervention in the world.
B. The denial of miracles or their inclusion in the study of history.
C. The denial of drawing forth objective truths from a specific text.
D. The denial of the Bible's inerrancy and Divine inspiration.
E. And the denial of the underlying unity of Scripture.
More in the next post.
