Lesson 28
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THE book of Genesis, together with the four books which immediately follow it, are called the Pentateuch. Christian and Jewish tradition has been unanimous in asserting that the Law (the Pentateuch) was written by Moses.
a. Jesus Christ said that the Law was the work of Moses. Cf. John 5:47; Luke 16:29 ff.; Luke 24:27, 44.
b. Josephus, the Jewish historian, assigns the authorship of these books to Moses.
c. The book of Ecclesiastes (ancient revered book of the Jews, written about 300 B.C.) says that Moses was given the commandments by God.
d. The remainder of the Old Testament assigns the authorship of these books to Moses, e. g., Joshua 1:8; Nehemiah 1:7-8. The student should note that if the Pentateuch is not the work of Moses, then the remainder of the Old Testament is untrustworthy, for the remainder of the Old Testament is based upon the presumption that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch.
The universal tradition of the Jews and of the Christian Church is that Moses did write these books. It is easy to see that, if he did not write them, then the Lord Jesus Christ was definitely wrong when He spoke of books of Moses. In the year 1753 there appeared a little book, written by a French physician, Jean Astruc, in which he asserted that Moses had used different sources in compiling the book of Genesis. These sources, he maintained, were characterized by their use of the Divine names. Thus, wherever the word GOD (Elohim in the Hebrew) was used, we had one document, and wherever the word LORD (Jehovah in the Hebrew) was used, there was another document. However, he believed that the book of Genesis was compiled as we have it in its present form.
Astruc was followed by Eichhorn in 1782 who was called the "Father of Higher Criticism." Eichhorn simply applied the work of Astruc to the remainder of the Pentateuch. Wherever the word GOD was used there was one document, and wherever the word LORD, there was another. Eichhorn designated these documents by letters. Thus, the document that used the word Elohim (God) was called E, since E is the first letter of Elohim, and the document that used Jehovah (Lord) was called J, since J is the first letter of Jehovah.
In 1805-6 a German, de Wette, made the claim that the book of Deuteronomy was not the work of Moses at all, but that it was produced during the reign of King Josiah of Judah (640-609 B. C). But, as to Genesis, it was believed that the book consisted of two documents, J and E, and that these two documents formed continuous narratives in themselves.
This theory was fairly hard hit, when, in 1853, just one hundred years after Astruc published his little book, a German scholar, Hupfeld by name, came to the conclusion that J and! E did not form two continuous narratives. He believed, rather, that there were really two authors who used the word Elohim (God). He noticed that some parts of the so-called document E were very similar to the so-called document J, and that some parts of E were very dissimilar to J. Consequently, he decided that there were really two documents which used the word Elohim (God). Hence, he split the document E into two documents, one of which he called P, because he believed that it was written by a priestly writer, and the other he called E. This made the book of Genesis to consist of three documents: J, E, and P. Some men have carried this process of division into even greater detail and have found more documents. At any rate, the critics who attack the Bible are practically agreed as to the following: The book of Genesis as we have it today was not written by Moses.
The book of Genesis as we have it today consists of at least three documents, which were compiled sometime late in the history of Israel.
The chief criteria for determining these documents are the uses of the Divine names Elohim (God) and Jehovah (Lord).
EXERCISES
- What are the first five books of the Old Testament called?
- To whom did Christ assign the authorship of these books ?
- To whom does Jewish tradition assign the authorship of these books?
- What does the remainder of the Old Testament say about the authorship of the Pentateuch?
- When did Jean Astruc write his book?
- What did he assert?
- By what did he say the sources were characterized?
- What did Eichhorn do?
- What did the letter E stand for?
- What did the letter J stand for?
- What did Hupfield notice about the so-called document E?
- In the light of this fact, do you think that we are justified in saying that the Divine names are NOT sufficient criteria for dividing Genesis into different documents, each with a different author?
- What did Hupfield do with the document E?
- What three points about Genesis are generally held by the higher critics today?
HYMNS FOR STUDY
No. 59: "Hark, The Herald Angels Sing."
No. 382: "Once In Royal David's City."