MODERNIST ATTACKS UPON THE PENTATEUCH

MODERNIST ATTACKS UPON THE PENTATEUCH

[Distributed by Way of Life Literatureâs Fundamental Baptist Information Service. These articles cannot be stored on BBS or Internet sites and cannot be sold or placed by themselves or with other material in any electronic format for sale, but may be distributed for free by e-mail or by print. They must be left intact and nothing removed or changed, including these informational headers. This is a listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. Our goal is not devotional but is TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR. If you desire to receive this type of material on a regular basis, e-mail us, give us your name, address, and the name of the church you are a member of, and request to be placed on the list. Please note that this is not a free service. We take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry, and each subscriber is expected to participate. To unsubscribe or to submit a change of address, send your name and the request to fbns@wayoflife.org. This is not an automated list. Changes in the database often require two to four days to activate. Some of these articles are from O Timothy magazine. David W. Cloud, Editor. O Timothy is a monthly magazine in its 17th year of publication. Subscription is $20/yr. Way of Life publishes many helpful books. The catalog is located at the web site -- http://www.wayoflife.org/.]

October 20, 1997 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org.) -

THE ATTACK UPON THE PENTATEUCH

THE MODERNISTIC ASSAULT. Some of the Devil’s fiercest assaults upon the Word of God have been aimed at the first five books. This is understandable. If the history and inspiration of the Pentateuch is questionable, the rest of the Bible automatically falls. The modernists of the 19th century attacked the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, devising theories whereby the first five books of the Bible were formed late in Israel’s history from a variety of material, the authorship of which was unknown. The modernists claimed that Moses wrote part of the Pentateuch, but that he did not complete the Pentateuch as it stands in our Bible today. They claim that Genesis and the rest of the Pentateuch were pieced together from various documents. One of the names for this theory is JEDP [Jehovist, Elohist, Deuteronimist, Priestly], which stands for the names of alleged separate parts of the Pentateuch which were supposedly written during various periods of Israel’s history. There is no one modernistic theory, though. The variety is almost endless, but they all hold one thing in common: they all deny that Moses wrote the Pentateuch and they deny that the Pentateuch as it stands in our Bible is true history throughout.

THE EVANGELICAL ASSAULT. New Evangelicalism, a movement that began in the 1940s, broke down the walls of separation between Bible believers and unbelieving modernists. The term "New Evangelicalism" was coined by the late Harold Ockenga (1905-1985) to define a new type of Evangelicalism and to distinguish it from those who had heretofore born that label. Ockenga has had a phenomenal influence upon today’s Evangelicalism. He was the founder of the National Association of Evangelicals, co-founder and one-time president of Fuller Theological Seminary, first president of the World Evangelical Fellowship, a director of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, and chairman of the board and one-time editor of Christianity Today. In the foreword to Dr. Harold Lindsell’s book The Battle for the Bible, Ockenga stated the position of New Evangelicalism:

"Neo-evangelicalism was born in 1948 in connection with a convocation address which I gave in the Civic Auditorium in Pasadena. While reaffirming the theological view of Fundamentalism, this address repudiated its ecclesiology and its social theory. The ringing call for A REPUDIATION OF SEPARATISM and the summons to social involvement received a hearty response from many Evangelicals. It differed from Fundamentalism in its repudiation of separatism and its determination to engage itself in the theological dialogue of the day. It had a new emphasis upon the application of the gospel to the sociological, political, and economic areas of life."

The New Evangelical philosophy called for dialogue with modernists rather than separation from them. The New Evangelical called upon God’s people to stay in the modernistic mainline denominations rather than leave them, to study at the feet of modernists in their theological institutions rather than reject them as heretics. The result was foreseeable. The Evangelical world has been infected by modernistic thought.

The downgrade of the doctrine of biblical inspiration has been documented by Evangelical leaders. Dr. Harold Lindsell, former vice-president of Fuller Theological Seminary and editor emeritus of Christianity Today, published two volumes on the downgrade of the Bible in Evangelicalism, with particular focus on Fuller Seminary, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Lindsell’s The Battle for the Bible was first published in 1976. The sequel, The Bible in the Balance, came out in 1979. This careful documentation by a man who was in the inner circle of Evangelicalism’s leadership for many decades leaves no doubt about the fact that the Evangelical world of the last half of the twentieth century is leavened with apostasy.

In 1984, well-known Evangelical leader Francis Schaeffer published The Great Evangelical Disaster. The book’s title describes the thesis. The cover jacket says, "In this explosive new book Dr. Francis Schaeffer exposes the rise of compromise and accommodation, and the tragic consequences of this, within the evangelical church." The issue that Schaeffer called "the watershed of Evangelicalism" is the inspiration and authority of the Bible. He testified, "Within evangelicalism there are a growing number who are modifying their views on the inerrancy of the Bible so that the full authority of Scripture is completely undercut" (The Great Evangelical Disaster, p. 44).

A more recent exposure of the corruption of doctrine in the Evangelical world is found in No Place for Truth: or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology? by David F. Wells, Professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Time magazine described Well’s book as "a stinging indictment of evangelicalism’s theological corruption." Though Wells is himself a committed New Evangelical, he properly identifies Evangelicalism’s chief problem as its repudiation of biblical separation and its accommodation with the world:

"Fundamentalism always had an air of embattlement about it, of being an island in a sea of unremitting hostility. Evangelicalism has reacted against this sense of psychological isolation. It has lowered the barricades. It is open to the world. The great sin of Fundamentalism is to compromise; the great sin in evangelicalism is to be narrow" (emphasis added) (David Wells, No Place for Truth, p. 129).

Wells also made a telling statement that acknowledges precisely where the New Evangelical world is today:

"But in between these far shores [Anglo-Catholicism and Fundamentalism] lie the choppy waters that most evangelicals now ply with their boats, and here the winds of modernity blow with disconcerting force, fragmenting what it means to be evangelical. This is because evangelicals have allowed their confessional center to dissipate" (p. 128).

I believe a clear case can be established connecting Evangelicalism's apostasy with its acceptance of the critical text and its versions. The Fundamentalist who defends the modern versions joins hands with Modernists and New Evangelicals, because this has long been their position and they are the ones doing the vast majority of the "scholarly" writing on this subject.

Pastor Mark Buch of Vancouver, British Columbia, who was involved in the Fundamentalist movement beginning in the 1930s, gives this testimony to Evangelicalism’s corruption:

"[Evangelicalism] today has fallen away from the old faith and this is not the case of an exception among them, it is common and general. They no longer believe in the veracity, the verbal inspiration of the Holy Bible and they have gone a whoring after all sorts of innovations and foolishness in order to fill their churches..." (Buch, In Defence of the Authorized Version, 1977, p. 33).

Consider this summary of the downgrade of the doctrine of inspiration by today’s Evangelical leaders:

My main concern is with those who profess to believe that the Bible is the Word of God and yet by, what I can only call surreptitious and devious means, deny it. This is, surprisingly enough, a position that is taken widely in the evangelical world. Almost all of the literature which is produced in the evangelical world today falls into this category. In the October 1985 issue of Christianity Today, (the very popular and probably most influential voice of evangelicals in America), a symposium on Bible criticism was featured. The articles were written by scholars from several evangelical seminaries. Not one of the participants in that symposium in Christianity Today was prepared to reject higher criticism. All came to its defense. IT BECAME EVIDENT THAT ALL THE SCHOLARS FROM THE LEADING SEMINARIES IN THIS COUNTRY HELD TO A FORM OF HIGHER CRITICISM.

These men claim to believe that the Bible is the Word of God. At the same time they adopt higher critical methods in the explanation of the Scriptures. This has become so common in evangelical circles that IT IS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND AN EVANGELICAL PROFESSOR IN THE THEOLOGICAL SCHOOLS OF OUR LAND AND ABROAD WHO STILL HOLDS UNCOMPROMISINGLY TO THE DOCTRINE OF THE INFALLIBLE INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. The insidious danger is that higher criticism is promoted by those who claim to believe in infallible inspiration (Herman Hanko, The Battle for the Bible, pp. 2,3). [DWC: Hanko’s book should not be confused with Harold Lindsell’s book by that same name.]

The author of the above critique is Professor of Church History and New Testament, Protestant Reformed Seminary, Grandville, Michigan.

Today’s Evangelicals are polluted with the Modernism from which they have refused to separate. A little leaven has indeed leavened the whole lump. (Remember these sad facts the next time your hear something about how "thoroughly Evangelical" certain modern Bible translators are.)

AN EXAMPLE OF THE ATTACK UPON THE MOSAIC AUTHORSHIP OF THE PENTATEUCH:

Bruce Metzger is one of the most renowned textual critics, and he has spoken in forums which are as theologically diverse as the National Council of Churches, the Roman Catholic Church, and even those which profess to be Evangelical, such as Dallas Theological Seminary, the Congress on Biblical Exposition, and Tennessee Temple Seminary. Metzger wrote the notes to the Reader’s Digest Condensed Bible and co-edited the New Oxford Annotated Bible: Revised Standard Version.

The following description of the Pentateuch from these two sources is the approach typically taken today by scholars of all perspectives:

"The Old Testament may be described as the literary expression of the religious life of ancient Israel. ... The Israelites were more history-conscious than any other people in the ancient world. Probably as early as the time of David and Solomon, out of a matrix of myth, legend, and history, there had appeared the earliest written form of the story of the saving acts of God from Creation to the conquest of the Promised Land, an account which later in modified form became a part of Scripture. But it was to be a long time before the idea of Scripture arose and the Old Testament took its present form. ... The process by which the Jews became ‘the people of the Book’ was gradual, and the development is shrouded in the mists of history and tradition. ... The date of the final compilation of the Pentateuch or Law, which was the first corpus or larger body of literature that came to be regarded by the Jews as authoritative Scripture, is uncertain, although some have conservatively dated it at the time of the Exile in the sixth century. ... Before the adoption of the Pentateuch as the Law of Moses, there had been compiled and edited in the spirit and diction of the Deuteronomic ‘school’ the group of books consisting of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, in much their present form. ... Thus the Pentateuch took shape over a long period of time" (Introduction to the Old Testament, New Oxford Annotated Bible).

Genesis: "Nearly all modern scholars agree that, like the other books of the Pentateuch, [Genesis] is a composite of several sources, embodying traditions that go back in some cases to Moses" (Metzger’s Introduction to Genesis, Reader’s Digest Condensed Bible).

Exodus: "As with Genesis, several strands of literary tradition, some very ancient, some as late as the sixth century B.C., were combined in the makeup of the books" (Metzger’s Introduction to Exodus, Reader’s Digest Condensed Bible).

Deuteronomy: "It’s compilation is generally assigned to the seventh century B.C., though it rests upon much older tradition, some of it from Moses‘ time" (Metzger’s Introduction to Deuteronomy, Reader’s Digest Condensed Bible).

THE BIBLICAL EVIDENCE THAT MOSES WROTE THE PENTATEUCH

Moses is mentioned 843 times in the Bible!

1. The books themselves claim to have been written by Moses (Ex. 24:4,7; 34:27-28; Nu. 33:2; De. 1:1-5; 4:4-5; 31:9-12,24-26). If Moses did not write the Pentateuch, the Bible is an absolute lie from its beginning.

2. Other O.T. books claim Moses wrote the Pentateuch (Jos. 1:7; 8:30-35; Ju. 3:4; 1 Ki. 2:3; 2 Ki. 14:6; 22:8-11; 23:21-25; Ezr. 3:2; Ne. 8:1; 9:14; Da. 9:11; Mal. 4:4). If Moses did not write the Pentateuch, all of these writers were either deluded or were lying. Either way, we are left with a hopelessly undependable book that is not the blessed Word of God.

3. The N.T. claims Moses wrote the Pentateuch. Moses is mentioned 80 times in the New Testament (Mk. 12:26; Lk. 16:29-31; 24:27 (Moses writings are called Scripture); 24:44; Jn. 1:17; 5:45-47; 8:5; Ac. 15:21; 2 Co. 3:15).

The Lord Jesus Christ quoted from every part of the Pentateuch: Genesis (Mt. 19:4-6; 24:37-39); Exodus (Mk. 12:26 citing Ex. 3:6); Leviticus (Mt. 8:4 citing Lev. 14:1-32); Numbers (Jn. 3:14-15 citing Num. 21:8,9 and Jn. 6:31-32 citing Num. 11:6-9); Deuteronomy (Mk. 10:4-5 citing Deut. 24:1).

THE INSPIRATION OF GENESIS

Genesis does not claim internally to have been written by Moses or even to be the inspired Word of God. The book of Genesis has been received, though, by the Jews as part of the inspired law of Moses throughout their history. It is accepted unquestionably as part of the inspired Canon of Scripture by Christ and the Apostles. Genesis 2:2 is cited as the Word of God in Heb. 4:4, and Genesis 12:7 is cited as the Word of God in Gal. 3:16. Genesis 21:10 is cited as Scripture in Gal. 4:30, and Genesis 15:6 is cited as Scripture in Rom. 4:3. Consider also the following people and events from Genesis which are cited authoritatively in the New Testament. Not one time in the New Testament is there any hint that the book of Genesis is anything less than the infallible Word of God.

Creation by the Word of God -- Mk. 13:19; Ac. 17:24-26; He. 11:3
Adam and Eve -- Mt. 19:4-6; Mk. 10:6-7; Lk. 3:38; Ro. 5:12,14; 2 Co. 11:3; 1 Tim. 2:13
Abel -- Mt. 23:35; Lk. 11:50-51; He. 11:4,24
Enoch -- He. 11:5; Jude 14-15
Noah and the Flood -- Mt. 24:37-39; Lk. 17:26-27; He. 11:7; 1 Pe. 3:20; 2 Pe. 3:5,6
Abraham -- mentioned 74 times in the N.T.; leaving his homeland and traveling to Palestine (Ac. 7:2-5; He. 11:8,9); God spoke to him (Lk. 1:55); God’s covenant to him (Lk. 1:72,73; Ac. 3:25; 7:17; Ga. 3:8-18; He. 6:13,14); Hagar and Ishmael (Ga. 2:22-25); begetting and circumcising Isaac (Ac. 7:8); offering Isaac (He. 11:17; Ja. 2:21); justified by faith before the covenant of circumcision (Ro. 4:3,9-16; Ga. 3:6).
Sarah -- He. 11:11; 1 Pe. 3:6
Melchisedec -- He. 7:1-4
Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah -- Lk. 17:28-29; Jude 7; 2 Pe. 2:6-8
Lot’s wife -- Lk. 17:32
Isaac -- mentioned 20 times in the N.T. (Mt. 1:2; He. 11:9,17-20)
Jacob -- mentioned 26 times in the N.T. (Mt. 1:2; Ac. 7:8)
Joseph -- sold into slavery and raised to power over Egypt (Ac. 7:9-10); revealed to his brethren (Ac. 7:11-16); prophesied of Israel’s exodus from Egypt to the Promise Land (He. 11:21,22)
Pharaoh (Ac. 7:10)

WERE ADAM AND EVE HISTORICAL FIGURES?

1. To deny Adam and Eve as historical figures is to deny the Bible. Adam and Eve are mentioned 34 times in the Bible. Adam and Eve are mentioned in at least four books of the Old Testament (Ge. 2- 4; De. 32:8; 1 Ch. 1:1; and Job 31:33) and in five books of the New Testament (Lk. 3:38; Ro. 5:12,14; 1 Co. 11:3; 15:22; 1 Co. 15:45; 1 Ti. 2:13-14; and Jude 14). No one who believes the Bible is the infallible Word of God can doubt that Adam and Eve were created as the first human beings by a special act of God.

2. The first five chapters of the Bible is written as history; there is nothing in the record to indicate that it is to be interpreted non-literally, as poetry or symbolism. When the Bible uses symbolism, it plainly distinguishes that it is such, and it gives the key for interpreting the symbols. We see this in Revelation, for example. In chapter 17 John describes a woman sitting on a beast, and he plainly tells us that this is a mystery and he gives the interpretation of the symbolic language in the passage itself (vv. 7-18). Genesis 1-5, though, is written as history. Gen. 5:5 says that Adam lived 930 years and then died! If Adam merely symbolized mankind in general, what happened to mankind after Adam died!

3. If Adam and Eve were not historical figures, the fall is a myth and redemption through the cross of Christ is nonsense. See Romans 5:12-19.

4. To deny the historicity of Adam is to deny Jesus Christ. Christ’s genealogy is traced from Adam (Lk. 3:23-38). Further, the N.T. makes a direct comparison between Christ and Adam (Ro. 5:17; 1 Co. 15:22,45).

5. The chief motive for denying the historicity of Adam is the challenge of science and the theory of evolution, but the Bible and evolution are in direct contradiction. Let me list five of the plain Bible statements which directly contradict the theories of evolution. (1) Genesis says God created the world and everything in it in six literal "morning and evening" days. To read "eons" of time into the six days of creation is to turn language on its head and to make the Bible incapable of being dogmatically interpreted. If the Bible does not mean what it says, there is no way to know what it does mean. (2) Genesis says all creation was made in a mature state to reproduce after its kind. The statement "after their kind" is found nine times in Genesis chapter one. This is precisely what we observe in the world. Dogs reproduce dogs, frogs reproduce frogs, birds reproduce birds, and peanuts reproduce peanuts. This is biblical, but it is strictly contrary to what evolution requires. (3) Genesis says man and animals were distinctly different creations. The animals were made to reproduce after their kind, but man was made in the image of God and made a living soul. Man has a spiritual aspect that no animal has. The animals were made to relate to man and to provide his enjoyment and needs. Man was made to relate to God, to fellowship with, serve, worship, and glorify Him. John Leslie wisely noted, "Now, if it has been found impossible--a question which I have put from time to time, but which still waits an answer--if it has been found impossible to change one species of bird into another species of bird, or one kind of animal into another kind of animal, how much more impossible would it have been to have changed an animal into a man? Or if, in other words, the blood or life of one species of animal is so radically different from the blood or life of another kind of animal, how much greater must the difference be between the blood of an animal and that of a man?" (4) Genesis says the world was created perfect, then fell under sin and God’s curse. This is consistent with everything we can observe. Everything is winding down. Everything is proceeding from order to chaos. Everything is corrupting. Evolution would require the exact opposite. (5) Genesis says everything was created to fulfill God’s purposes, the world and everything in it, as well as the planetary universe. Teleology is the study of final causes, of the purposes of nature. It is a fascinating study, because regardless of how minutely one studies the creation, one is struck with a sense of wonder at the brilliant purpose behind every detail. Study the eye, the ear, the leaf, the atom, light, sound, air--everywhere you find purpose and design. That is what one would expect if God created the world precisely as the Bible says He did, but it is not what we would find if evolution were true. If the latter were true, we would find incredible chaos, happenstance, and haphazardness. We would have a world filled with monsters and unpredictable madness, part one thing and part another, a fish becoming a bird, a frog becoming a rat, a lizard becoming a bird, partially formed beaks which do not yet have a purpose, partially formed feet, partially formed wings, partially formed eyes, partially formed brains. We would have no fixed absolutes from which and with which to work. We would have no atomic clock because the atom would not be stable. We would have no sure guide across the trackless oceans because the heavenly bodies would be in fluctuation. Praise the Lord that evolution is a lie and the Bible is true.

WAS THE FLOOD OF NOAH’S DAY UNIVERSAL?

Many modernistic and New Evangelical commentators today say that the flood of Noah’s day was not worldwide and universal. The New Bible Commentary, published by InterVarsity Press, has this comment on Genesis 6: "The narrative does not directly affirm a universal flood ... deductions drawn from the assumption that all mankind was destroyed are precarious" (page 88). Many would claim that it does not matter whether Noah’s flood was universal or regional. We disagree. If the Bible plainly states something, it DOES matter whether or not we believe it, and there is no doubt that the Bible does claim that the Flood was worldwide.

THE FOLLOWING FOUR BIBLE FACTS PROVE THAT THE FLOOD WAS UNIVERSAL AND WORLDWIDE:

1. The language used in the Bible to describe the flood is language depicting a universal, worldwide flood. No one living today witnessed the flood, so we are dependent upon the Bible to tell us what happened. Consider the following descriptions of Noah’s flood by an Eyewitness:

"And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and EVERY THING THAT IS IN THE EARTH SHALL DIE" (Genesis 6:17).

"For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and EVERY LIVING SUBSTANCE THAT I HAVE MADE WILL I DESTROY FROM OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH" (Genesis 7:4).

"And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and THE MOUNTAINS WERE COVERED. And ALL FLESH DIED THAT MOVED UPON THE EARTH, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and EVERY MAN: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and THEY WERE DESTROYED FROM THE EARTH: AND NOAH ONLY REMAINED ALIVE, AND THEY THAT WERE WITH HIM IN THE ARK. And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days" (Genesis 7:19-24).

"Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment: THE WATERS STOOD ABOVE THE MOUNTAINS. ... Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to COVER THE EARTH" (Psalm 104:6,9).

"For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby THE WORLD THAT THEN WAS, BEING OVERFLOWED WITH WATER, PERISHED" (2 Peter 3:5,6).

2. The fact that Noah was required to gather two each of the animals proves that it was a worldwide flood. If the flood were regional, this would have been a futile endeavor, because animals would have survived outside of the flood area. If Noah’s flood was not universal and worldwide, the Bible account of the same is certainly a myth. Either we accept the Bible as the infallible Word of God which it claims to be, and if we do, we accept what it says about a worldwide flood. Or we must accept the modernistic position that the Bible is man made. The middle of the road position that many scholarly New Evangelicals take, that the Bible is the infallible Word of God but is not correct in all that it says scientifically, is impossible.

3. The judgment of Noah’s day is compared with the judgment of the last days (Matthew 24:37-39; 2 Peter 3:6,7). Since we know that the Last Days judgment will be universal and worldwide, we can assume the same was true for the first judgment.

4. God promised that there would not be a flood like this again, yet there have been many large-scale regional floods. If the flood of Noah’s day were only a regional one, God’s promise has failed. In 1970, for example, flooding in South Asia resulted in an estimated one-half million deaths and left 3,500,000 homeless. If, on the other hand, the flood of Noah’s day was universal and worldwide, as the Bible plainly states, God’s promise is true.

There is geological evidence throughout the world that testifies to a universal flood. An excellent book on this topic is The World That Perished: An Introduction to Biblical Catastrophism, John C. Whitcomb, Baker Book House. As one wise man has said, if the Flood were not universal, it was the only egg-shaped flood that ever occurred, because the Bible plainly says that the mountains were covered!