Introduction:
The last four posts have dealt with answering the question about who wrote the first five books of the Bible. I laid out in part one an outline of the historic Christian and Biblical position on Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch here Growing Christian Resources: Series: You Can Trust Your Bible - P1 Why Affirming Mosaic Authorship Of The Pentateuch Is Important. Then in posts two Growing Christian Resources: Series: You Can Trust Your Bible - P2 The Biblical Data And Jesus' View On Mosaic Authorship Of The Pentateuch, three Growing Christian Resources: Series: You Can Trust Your Bible: P3 Those Who Oppose Mosaic Authorship - Introducing Higher Criticism, and four Growing Christian Resources: Series: You Can Trust Your Bible: P4 Those Who Oppose Mosaic Authorship - Introducing The J.E.D.P Theory (a.k.a "Documentary Hypothesis") and its fruits I introduced readers to the opposing viewpoint, the documentary hypothesis or J.E.D.P theory, which asserts that multiple editors compiled the Pentateuch over a period of centuries from the time of King David until after the Babylonian exile. For these theorists, the Pentateuch came about by long evolutionary development, rather than as a by-product of Divine revelation through one author (Moses).
In today's post I want to round out our study of the Pentateuch's authorship and Divine inspiration by showing why it fits a much earlier time period, how we can know that Moses historically existed, and why we can trust that God inspired Genesis through Deuteronomy.
Knowing that Moses existed.
We can know that Moses lived, when he lived, and that he wrote the first five books of the Bible. As to the first affirmation that Moses actually lived, I refer you back to what I said in the first post of this series. We saw that other Old Testament authors treated Moses as a real person. Jesus in over thirty places in the Gospels (I only gave you a handful of those references earlier) treats Moses as a historical figure. For example in John 5:46, we read these words from Jesus: "For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me."
In addition, a famous Jewish historian who lived during the time of the Apostles in the first century by the name of Flavius Josephus wrote a huge history of the Jews called “The Antiquities of the Jews”. In books one to four of this twenty volume work, this competent Jewish historian treats Moses as a historical figure who wrote the first five books. In the opening paragraph of his "Antiquities of the Jews", Josephus wrote:
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. But when the earth did not come into sight, but was covered with thick darkness, and a wind moved upon its surface, God commanded that there should be light: and when that was made, he considered the whole mass, and separated the light and the darkness; and the name he gave to one was Night, and the other he called Day: and he named the beginning of light, and the time of rest, The Evening and The Morning, and this was indeed the first day. But Moses said it was one day; the cause of which I am able to give even now; but because I have promised to give such reasons for all things in a treatise by itself, I shall put off its exposition till that time. "
How we date events in the Bible and how we know when Moses lived.
What can we say of when Moses’ lived? Let’s understand that we can establish Biblical events and when they happened.
A. Start with Solomon's Temple.
Archaeology and Old Testament scholarship dates Solomon’s reign to had begun at 970 b.c. In 1 Kings 6:1 we are told when Solomon built the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem:
“Now it came about in the four hundred and eightieth year after the sons of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the Lord.”
This gives us a date of 966 b.c. (keep in mind that dates before the time of Christ get less as you move forward in time and increase as you move to the past).
B. Subtract 480 years from the date of Solomon's Temple.
If you subtract 480 years, you arrive at the date of the Exodus (with Moses) at 1446 b.c.
C. Double Checking with the Book of Judges.
We can even double-check this time period by noting a time stamp of 300 years given by Jephthah in Judges 11:26, where he alluded to the battle Moses had with King Sihon in Numbers 21. Judges 11:25-26 reads:
'Now are you any better than Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever strive with Israel, or did he ever fight against them? 26 While Israel lived in Heshbon and its villages, and in Aroer and its villages, and in all the cities that are on the banks of the Arnon, three hundred years, why did you not recover them within that time?"
The Book of Judges contains time stamps of how long each Judge presided over Israel. By accounting for overlaps in each Judge's leadership, we can arrive at an accurate date for Jephthah's remarks (close to 1100 b.c.) By going backward 300 years, we arrive at the battle Moses had in the Book of Numbers to be 1400 b.c.
D. Noting the timeframe in the Book of Judges.
As observed, the time frame of Jephthah’s words in Judges 11:26 would be 1100 b.c., bringing us to roughly 1400 b.c. or near the end of Moses’ time of leadership in Israel what is referenced in Numbers 21. Thus, we have Moses’ leadership of Israel dated from 1446-1406 b.c. (since he led them for forty years, Deuteronomy 29:5). Multiple lines of historic reference throughout the Hebrew Bible, coupled with definitive dates established by historians and archaeologists enable dating of Biblical events to be possible.
E. Establishing when Moses was born and died.
Moses lived for 120 years, which means, For convenience sake, we can assign Moses’ birth at roughly 1520 b.c. So, we have so far shown that Moses lived, and when he died (1520 b.c. to 1400 b.c.).
Showing once more that Moses wrote the Pentateuch
A. The Historical Books of the Bible
show that Moses wrote the
Pentateuch
Since we have a time period for when Moses’ lived (1520-1400 b.c.), we can now show why Genesis-Deuteronomy was written in that time, and thus by Moses. Let’s show that Moses wrote the first five books.
The J.E.D.P Documentary Hypothesis of Wellhausen and company claims the first five books were written between 950-550 b.c., with Deuteronomy written during the reign of King Josiah, whom we say earlier reigned in Jerusalem from 640-609 b.c.
In the first post of this series we noted about Josiah’s grandfather, Manasseh, in the first post. He reigned over 50 years from 687-643 b.c. According to the summary of his reign in 2 Kings 21:8, which reads in part: “The Book of the Law, which my servant Moses commanded”, you have the existence of the first five books mentioned fifty years before King Josiah came on the scene.
The J.E.D.P theorists do not deny the historicity of King Josiah, nor the other kings for that matter, so we can then pursue earlier proofs of the existence of the first five books. Earlier when I cited 1 Kings 6:1 and its specific dating of the Exodus being 480 years earlier than Solomon’s temple, we had proof that the first five books had to have existed at least in his time, since he got the Exodus account from them (Exodus 12-15 to be exact)!
That brings us to at least 970 b.c., predating King Josiah’s time by some 300 years and already predating the oldest possible date for the writing of the Pentateuch by the J.E.D.P theorists (remember, they claim 950-900 b.c.) But there is more evidence against the J.E.D.P to note.
Studies of other cultures living in
and around the Euphrates River
(Ancient Near East) provide evidence
for the antiquity of the Pentateuch and
Moses' as a historical person.
When you study the outline of Deuteronomy or God’s Covenant with the Israelites in Exodus 20-23, the Covenant God made, as well as Moses form of writing in Deuteronomy follows a common form of covenant making that was active in the Middle East no later than 1200 b.c. This form, called “A Suzerain-Vassal” Treaty, was made popular from civilizations that existed in Mesopotamia, Assyria, and others. Since we have established Moses' days as being 1520-1400 b.c, the structure of Deuteronomy fitting the form of Ancient Near Eastern treaties would fit it well within the date of 1406 b.c. as dated by conservative Biblical scholarship.
Studies in Hebrew and its sister languages show the Pentateuch being written well before the alleged dates of the Documentary hypothesis, and hence Moses as the author.
In addition to comparative studies of Ancient Near Eastern Documents helping make the case for Mosaic authorship and the antiquity of the Pentateuch, we find aid in the Hebrew text of Genesis through Deuteronomy itself. In the Hebrew text of Genesis especially, you see different spellings for the pronouns “He” and “She” than you would throughout the Hebrew Bible. I had a Hebrew Professor, an expert in the sister languages of the Hebrew (known as Semitic languages) who showed me a particular parallel for those spellings in languages like Ugaritic and ancient Babylonian, languages which were spoken in and around 1500 b.c. We established Moses would had been born around 1520 b.c. The grammatical oddities of those pronouns help us date Genesis easily to after 1400 b.c.
Archaeology supports the accuracy
and antiquity of the Pentateuch
As Moses wrote what he wrote in Genesis about the Patriarchs like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we find that he was very accurate in what he recorded. Moses received from records of those Patriarchs in the times they lived. If I had more time, I could tell you of archaeological discoveries that confirm details, such as the city where Abraham would had lived for a time (“Haran”, discovered in the “Mari-Tablets”, which were found in 1933 near ancient Assyria or modern day Iraq, dated to 2081 b.c., the time of Abraham, confirming Genesis 11:31-12:5).
Moses’ extensive knowledge of Egyptian culture proves further that the author of Genesis thru Deuteronomy had an Egyptian background (the ten plagues, for instance, are against certain deities worshipped by the Egyptians, which we can date to the time-period of Moses and the Exodus.) On and on and on the evidence goes.
Conclusion:
Whether archaeology, analyzing the Hebrew text of Genesis thru Deuteronomy, or examining secular history outside the Biblical text, we consistently land at a dating of these books between 1500-1400 b.c. We know when they were written, which in turn means Moses did write these books. Jesus is proven right. The Old Testament is right. You can trust the Bible you hold in your hands, that is on your device, and that your pastor preaches every Sunday.
