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We can now see more clearly the special way in which God inspired . Jewish leaders asked Jesus a question based on Deuteronomy 25:510 by saying, Teacher, they said, Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for him (Matthew 22:24). Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. Genesis follows humanity through creation and humanitys descent into sin (Genesis 3). Second, we also have evidence throughout Scripture, writes Don Stewart, of tradition being passed down from specific prayers of Abraham to the bones of Joseph. For example, one translation of the Bible we surveyed said this in its introduction to the Pentateuch: Despite its unity of plan and purpose, the book is a complex work, not to be attributed to a single original author. Moses wrote the first five books of scripture [Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy] and Psalm 90. The events at the conclusion of the Book of Genesis occurred some three hundred years before Moses was born. I said earlier that the implications of this for ourselves and for people of other religions are huge. Several lines of evidence should lead us to reject the documentary hypothesis as a fabrication of unbelievers. On the contrary, we embrace it as the word of God in preparation for Messiah Jesus, and as the word of God in the ongoing illumination of the meaning of Jesus and his work. Moses is saying to his people, "As you go into a godless culture that will have many temptations, including the temptation to make progress without God, be careful! This means that the way the Old Testament gets people ready to know Jesus is not merely by specific prophecies that have specific fulfillments in Jesus (like being born in Bethlehem), but far more profoundly, the point is: If you meet God, and know God, and admire God, and trust God, and are shaped by God as he truly reveals himself and his ways in the whole of the Old Testament, then when Jesus comes, you will know him. They were the heroes of old Get expert commentary on biblical languages, fresh explorations in theology, hand-picked book excerpts, author videos, and info on limited-time sales. And besides all these explicit quotes from Scripture, Johns Gospel is strewn with indirect allusions to Scripture. He knew that Genesis says Adam and Eve were created on the sixth day of creation. John 3:32 says, "He bears witness to what he has seen and heard.". It is the enemies of the truth of God that are failing to think carefully and face the facts honestly. However, that said, a number of passages in the Pentateuch mention that Moses wrote things down. 39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. If You Believed Moses, You Would Believe Me, for He Wrote of Me, If You Believed Moses, You Would Believe Me, for He Wrote of Me (Excerpt), John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. So a witness is ordinarily one who has seen something and can witness to what he has seen. Copyright 2023, Bible Study Tools. 44 How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? Mosaic authorship is the Judeo-Christian tradition that the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, were dictated by God to Moses. 37 And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. 1.He Was Qualified. Credit; by implication, to entrust. Exodus 17:14Then the Lord said to Moses, Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it . Jesus was the "I AM" who spoke to Moses. Renowned Old Testament scholar Tremper Longman III tackles this question in his video series on the book of Genesis. As this hypothesis was developed by a number of Jewish and theologically liberal Christian scholars in the late seventeenth to the late nineteenth centuries, there were a number of different proposals of who wrote what and when. Second, as mentioned in the Biblical Science Institute article, we can also find archaeological evidence that confirms the events that happen in the Pentateuch, such as the walls of Jericho. The Jews therefore object, and persecute him for it. Modern source criticism, because of its late dating of the Genesis sources abandoned this traditional view. So it is perfectly reasonable to think that Moses wrote Genesis from pre-existing, well-preserved oral tradition and/or written documents from the . And if they did not, that would have taken a great deal of divine intervention. There is no other ancient Hebrew who was more qualified than Moses to write the Pentateuch. For Instructors and School Administrators. Wrote This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all . Personal / Possessive Pronoun - Dative 1st Person Singular. On the other extreme are those who say that Moses wrote none of the Pentateuch, but rather the Pentateuch was composed much later than the time the Bible purported that he lived (if, in the minds of some, he lived at all). Contrary to the liberal theologians and other skeptics, it was not written after the Jews returned from exile in Babylon (ca. They still do not necessarily mean that Moses wrote every word, but they do imply a belief that Moses had an integral connection with the composition of the Pentateuch. Many of his writings confirm the events in Genesis, writes Dr. Lisle for the Biblical Science Institute. What does the word witness imply? The cultural material is far more in line with the Mesopotamian world of about 1800 BC than Egypt in around 1400 BC. In sum then, you can test yourself and others as to whether you know God, or honor God, or love God. The skeptics erroneously assumed, without any other ancient Hebrew literature to compare with the biblical text, that they could, with scientific reliability, establish the date of the composition of each book of the Bible. By David P. Diaz, Ed.D. If you are Christs, then you are Abrahams offspring, heirs according to promise (Galatians 3:7, 29). but I say unto you"Jesus settled whatever disputes existed between Torah and its application. It is too obviously the product of more than one author, writing at different times and places. First, Moses could have easily written this without knowing that the Canaanites would be removed after his death, because due to warring kingdoms or other factors, people groups did get removed from territories. It is interesting that Moses is never mentioned in the book even as the person writing things down. Another Scripture says, They will look on him whom they have pierced (John 19:37=Zechariah 12:10). When Moses came on the scene, God revealed to him what really happened, and this is what Moses wrote down. Those writings were endorsed by Jesus and the New Testament apostles, who based their teaching and the truth of the gospel on the truths revealed in the books of Moses, including the truths about a literal six-day creation about 6000 years ago, the Curse on the whole creation when Adam sinned, and the judgment of the global, catastrophic Flood at the time of Noah. Genesis 12:6"Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, as far as the terebinth tree of Moreh. 33:15 - 3 - Moses showed us others who were longing for Christ. . The northern Kingdom of Israel was taken into captivity by the Assyrians around 740 BC and the southern Kingdom of Judah was taken into Babylonian captivity about 570 BC. Listen to the way John uses the word. Favorite Verses in Genesis. John 1:45 Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Perhaps the most astonishing statements about the Scriptures in the Gospel of John is John 12:3741 where John quotes Isaiah 6 (verse 10) which has in it the famous vision of God: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory! (Isaiah 6:3). A. From pistis; to have faith, i.e. If these passages were added later, how do we know what Moses did and didnt write? In other words, Jesus is pointing out that Adam and Eve were real . They assumed that Israel's religion was simply the invention of man, a product of evolution, as all other religions are. (John 1:1, 14). ., 2 Chronicles 25:4Yet he did not put their children to death, but acted in accordance with what is written in the Law, in the Book of Moses, where the Lord commanded . In this case, Lot was Abraham's brother's son, i.e., Abraham's nephew. The first five books of the BibleGenesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomyare commonly referred to as the "five books of Moses.". So, Who wrote Genesis? Well likely never know with absolute certainty. The Tablet Model is based on the Hebrew word toledoth, which appears eleven times in Genesis (Genesis 2:4; 5:1; 6:9; 10:1; 11:10; 11:27; 25:12; 25:19; 36:1; 36:9; 37:2) and helps to tie the whole book together as a single history. This will refute any attempt of claiming that Muhammad was the prophet that Moses predicted. .. Based on evolutionary ideas, they assumed that "the art of writing was virtually unknown in Israel prior to the establishment of the Davidic monarchy; therefore there could have been no written records going back to the time of Moses.". So the real question is: did Moses write Genesis, or not? In essence, John is saying: Where God is manifest in the Old Testament, Jesus is manifest. Let's look at eight things about Moses - who he was in the Bible and some details regarding his life. He refers to Isaiah 54:13, It is written in the Prophets, And they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. So the prophets point to how people will come to the Messiah, Jesus. Moses wrote about me, and if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me. In 1805, Wilhelm De Wette contended that none of the Pentateuch was written before King David and that Deuteronomy was written at the time of King Josiah. Several other books of the Pentateuch include passages that mention Moses recording events and writing down what God says. The Bible begins with these famous words in Genesis 1, laying the foundation for the rest of the Bible. In Genesis, the narrative speaks of events that take place long before the birth of Moses. Some scholars rearrange these letters as JEPD, based on the order they believe the sections were written. While he believed in the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, he noticed that a few verses (e.g., Genesis 12:6, Genesis 22:14) had some phrases that seemed mysteriously out of place.4 But he never pursued these mysteries to resolve them.5, About 500 years later, the famous Jewish philosopher Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza (16321677) picked up on what Ibn Ezra had stated and asserted that Ibn Ezra did not believe Moses wrote the Pentateuch. 16. The Bible says that Jesus, God the Son, has been with the Father for all eternity. Not only was there a J-document, E-document and D-document, but then it was argued that Leviticus and some other portions of the Pentateuch were the work of Jewish priests, hence the P-documents. Jesus said in Matthew 5:1718, Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. The death of Moses is recorded in Deuteronomy 34:512. Facts, however, say otherwise. . These are stellar confirmations by Jesus that Moses is the true and only writer of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Books and articles that equip you for deeply biblical thinking and ministry. The Mosaic Law: A Preparatory Gospel Answer (1 of 6): Ok so we have seen that Moses could have written Exodus through Deuteronomy based upon his own eyewitness . Would this be a problem for Moses? Jesus said in John 5:4243, But I know that you do not have the love of God within you. The authors of the New Testamentand even Jesus himselfappear to credit Moses as the author of Genesis. He was the youngest of three children, with a sister named Miriam and a brother named Aaron. John wrote, No one has ever seen God. Moses couldn't have written about his own death, which shows that he didn't write Deuteronomy. Then the Lord said to Moses, "Write this for a memorial in the book and recount it in the hearing of Joshua, . What Does It Really Mean That Your Body Is a Temple? But, perhaps the most convincing passage of all is found in John 5:46-47 where Jesus said: "For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. Not to mention the events of Genesis ended about 300 years before Moses came into existence. Besides using the verses noted by Ibn Ezra, Spinoza offered a few other brief arguments against Mosaic authorship which were easily answered by Christian writers in the following few decades.6. Instructor: Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth., Genesis 1:27 So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them., Genesis 1:31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. Unlike the JEDP model, the Tablet model shows a reverence for the text of Genesis and attention to these explicit divisions provided by the book itself. He is author of. In light of the references to Moses writing in the Pentateuch and the New Testament citations of the Pentateuch that associate Moses with its composition, it seems reasonable to affirm that the origins of the Pentateuch are connected to this great biblical figure. A "Hebrew" is anyone who is descended from "Eber" (Ever in Hebrew), an ancestor of Abraham and Moses (See Genesis 10:24). While it seems simple (the author is Moses or not), scholars dont necessarily treat it as a yes or no questionthey also have to consider that Moses may have written part of Genesis. Luke 16:16. Your newsletter signup did not work out. This is simply astonishing. By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward. The biblical doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture does not require us to conclude that all the books of the Bible were written by God dictating to the human authors. As stated before, most scholars attribute the authorship of Genesis and the other first four books of the Old Testament known as the Pentateuch to Moses. In John 1:34, John the Baptist says, I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God. In John 3:11, Jesus says, We speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen. John 3:32 says, He bears witness to what he has seen and heard. And John 19:35 says, He who saw it has borne witness.. The theme of the entire Bible is Christ. The One who appeared and spoke to people as God during Old Testament times was the One who became Jesus Christ. As yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead (John 20:9=Psalm 16:10). Novum Testamentum in Vetere latet, Vetus Testamentum in Novo patet. In the New Testament, when quoting the Pentateuch, people often spoke of Moses being the author. 1. Jesus on the Sabbath day cures him who was diseased thirty-eight years. Jesus calls Genesis "the book of Moses": a. Considering he wrote these books thousands of years after the events, this bolsters the support for the veracity of Genesis. . So the writings that Jesus authorized through his apostles are included in our Bibles because they summarize the completion of what was promised in the Old Covenant, namely, the New Covenant. This is a good place for this focus because twice in this passage Jesus says that the Old Testament Scriptures are written about him. 42 But I know that you do not have the love of God within you. In Exodus 33:17, the Lord said to Moses directly, "I know thee by name.". The Documentary Hypothesis is a source-critical approach that assumes . The apostles also give testimony to the authorship of Moses. While Ur is an ancient city predating Moses, the reference to Ur of the Chaldeans (see Genesis 11:31) is a postmosaica since the Chaldeans were an Aramaic-speaking tribe that lived in the first millennium BC, long after the death of Moses. Such attacks on these foundational books of the rest of the Bible come both from non-Christians as well as professing Christians. Genesis 14:14 mentions Dan. God saw Jesus and knew Jesus long before Jesus was on the earth. So we have indirect allusions, direct quotes to show specific fulfillments, and we have statements, like in chapter 12, that show the whole Old Testament revelation of God is a revelation of Jesus. . He doesnt argue that something happened. "Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." John 1:45 KJV Copy Print Similar Verses Save. They assumed that the Bible is not a supernatural revelation from God and then manipulated the biblical text to arrive at that conclusion. In the following discussion, whatever we say about the Pentateuch pertains to the book of Genesis, though we will also on occasion refer specifically to the book of Genesis. But much of the Bible was written from the eyewitness experience of the authors (e.g. Moses wrote the first 5 books of the Bible, so when he wrote about God's promised seed, who would come from Adam and end up crushing the serpents head, Moses was describing Jesus, even though he didn't know it. Like other literature, past and present, it is not uncommon for an obituary to be added at the end of someone's work after he dies, especially if he died very soon after writing the book. Genesis, or otherwise known as Bereshith, means "in the beginning.". And John 19:35 says, "He who . How do we know that Moses, and not a series of authors as proposed in the JEDP theory linked above, wrote this book? The Documentary Hypothesis: Moses, Genesis, and the JEDP? In this final post on the issue of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, I want to examine a couple items in the New Testament. Do we have any mythological areas to combat, especially in Genesis 1-11? Also, Moses himself prophesied in Deuteronomy 17:1420 that Israel would have kings. These postmosaica establish a principle that later inspired editors/redactors can contribute to the writing of the Pentateuch. First, as this Answers in Genesis article explains, we have documentary witnesses. Since writings cant see, I take it to mean that Scriptures is shorthand for God-who-inspired-the-Scriptures. We can, with a high percentage of certainty say that John wrote the Gospel of John and that Joshua wrote the Book of Joshua. These divisions represent either oral tradition or written texts passed down by the Genesis patriarchs to their descendants,15 which Moses then used to put Genesis into its final form under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. But let's assume for moment that it was referring to the region Dan, where Israelites, who were from the tribe of Dan settled. Any claim by a Jewish person or a Muslim or a Hindu or a Buddhist or a spiritualist or an animist or a Christianany claim to know God or honor God or love God while not receiving Christ as the Son of God and the crucified risen Savior is a false claim. Traditional approaches to this question acknowledge that Moses did not write the entirety of the Pentateuch when they point to a so-called postmosaica. [1] Ken Ham and Bodie Hodge, How Do We Know the Bible is True: Volume 1 (Master Books, 2011), p.89. Postmosaica are passages that had to be written after the death of Moses, and of course, the most obvious postmosaica is the account of his death in Deuteronomy 34. . The Israelites were proud of their history and made sure to spend meticulous efforts on getting every detail right. There is, however, a large amount of evidence that the author or compiler of the Book of Genesis was Moses. John 5:46. 1 In addition, the New Testament authors, the early church fathers, as well as Jesus himself, all credited Moses with writing the Pentateuch. First, it could be argued that creation happened, and the account was passed down by oral tradition through the centuries, being slowly changed over time, until the Egyptians recorded their version. But based on the evidence available, its fair to attribute its origins to Moses. It means hearing it, understanding it, and above all, being impacted by it. It is certain that if Moses wrote these books he did not call them "Genesis," "Exodus," "Leviticus," "Numbers," "Deuteronomy;" for these words, again, come from languages that he never heard. If we know God as he really is in the Old Testament, we know Jesus. There are many reasons to reject this skeptical attack on the Bible. Genesis, or otherwise known as Bereshith, means in the beginning. In other words, this book talks about the beginning of the world, the beginning of Gods nation of Israel, and the beginning of the story of salvation for all mankind. So when John says about the Scriptures in 5:39, It is they that bear witness about me, he means that God knew Jesus perfectly and fullyas it were face to faceand that he inspired these Scriptures, and through the Scriptures revealed Jesus. Christians who believe Moses wrote the Pentateuch do not need to feel intellectually intimidated. A primary particle; properly, assigning a reason. Ponder for a moment the implications of saying that the Scriptures witness about Jesus. There are passages in Genesis that Moses could not have written, because they describe events that happened after his death, known as postmosaica passages. It was Moses who wrote where the allotments would be! Jesus Himself clearly said this, and the people who heard Him knew that was exactly what He meant. - New American Standard Version (1995) For if ye believed Moses, ye would believe me; for he wrote of me. Does this mean that Moses wrote Genesis without reference to any previous information? This question means the date of the manuscript, not of when the events inside the book took place. A primary particle of conditionality; if, whether, that, etc. Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it . Of course, there are several ways Moses could have obtained this information: divine revelation, previously written texts passed down through the generations, and/or oral tradition from his ancestors.7 Regardless, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:2021), the books of Moses would be completely true and without error.