Reviews by Hubie Goode: Historicity of the Old Testament Part 3

Historicity 
of the 
Old Testament


part 3

Lower criticism provides an important service as it inspects the actual texts in order to establish the true Biblical writings. This is done through some rather thorough scientific methods, by those who care for the truth and are not afraid of finding something other than the actual truth. However, there is another field of study called “higher criticism” which attempts a similar trope but with less than honorable motivations.

This type of speculation assumes the ability to form an accretion process by which ancient writings, especially the Bible, came about as the result of miscellaneous fragments and forgeries and then was foistered on the people as a divinely inspired “scam”, as it were. Higher critics profess to be scientific in this process, however, they are hamstrung by the inevitability of their process being mainly subjective in its presuppositions. They seek by all means, to find a naturalistic, evolutionary method for explaining the Bible and the Christian Church and also the history of the nation of Israel. They do, of course, have to explain away all miracles and fulfilled prophecies (no easy task), and they also have to attribute the authorship of books to more recent writers than those presented in the origins themselves.

For these folks, the Bible is a waste of time as it is full of “bull cookies” as they might put it, containing errors and out right lies. Biblical scripture cannot contain any moral value or even any religious authority if indeed it is just a big charade meant to control the people, “opium for the masses” if you will, as a famous Russian leader once was quoted as having said. I have covered in this blog the secrets of our educational system and its dogged determination to teach our kids that God doesn’t exist, and how for the last century or more this accusation of inferiority of God’s word  to naturalistic humanism has been taught as fact, in all levels of our schools system, despite its origin of speculation and downright atheist propaganda. But that’s not the end of it, this deterium has now crept into our theological teaching venues as well, and if there was ever an example of the “great falling away” during the end times, this would indeed be one of those instances. And this has happened right under the noses of the general public who go about their daily lives in ignorance of it, most growing old and perishing confident in the assumed knowledge of the big lie.

One would think, that with an abundance of manuscript evidence confirming the textural accuracy of the Old Testament going all the way back to the very time of its completion, combined with its universal acceptance as being divinely inspired and authentic, by both Jews and Christians, in the centuries closest to its writing and compilation, it would be taken at face value by those who use it; at least until some evidence of forgery or fraud is brought to light. (Something the Antichrist will no doubt achieve, with his ability to fool all of mankind, when his time comes.)

But this is not the case. Higher critics state that NONE of the books of the Old Testament were written by the original authors. According to them, the writers had no direct knowledge of anything they were writing. Claims of authorship were deliberately misrepresented, to give the writings an fake authority, and also to make the records of things like miracles and fulfilled prophecies only seem to have come true. The ultimate historical re-write. 

As always, the attack must first come against the book of Genesis. Despite the erasing of any purpose Christ may have had for the sacrifice of the cross and even his own mentioning of events from Genesis in the New Testament record. These so called scientist have moved forward to discredit the beginning in order to eliminate the end, buy virtually calling Christ, and anyone who believes on him, an unmitigated fool. 

In 1753 (and this date has much cache for the time when so called European intellectualism was being born to high fashion in the social realm), Jean Astruc, an atheist physician, wrote that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 were from two different and conflicting sources, due to the name for God being Elohim in the first case and Jehova in the second case.  In 1779, Eichron, the German rationalist, made note of differences in style. In 1806, DeWette professed to distinguish four main writers for the “Hexateuch”, writers known as J, E, P, and D. Various other writers also made mention of documentary division, authors and “redactors”. The Graf-Wellhausen (and I have written here in this blog about Wellhausen)  hypothesis of 1866-78, worked out a very complex division of the first six books of the  Bible. All were supposedly written about 900-600 B. C., despite Moses having died about  1450 B.C..

De Wette

Other prominent higher critics in the 19th century, whose actions have brought about the down turn of American society in our day, though one would never know it from what we are told, are Kuenen, Driver, Cheyne, Ewald, Coonhill and others. These were, of course, all evolutionists and naturalists, with an atheist agenda to promote humanism. Their higher criticism does not stop with the books of Moses and Joshua. The prophetic books of both Isaiah and Daniel have also been attacked, and if truth be told, there is no book of the Old Testament that has not been cleverly attacked in order to discredit the Word of God. What is truly sad is that people have been lead to believe that “smart” does not include the Bible, or even God himself. Once you get “smart”, you are above something like believing that God has a Word for his creation and watches over it to fulfill his design for the future of HIS universe. No, to these men, we are too smart for all that now. May heaven help them, and those who digest the atheist lie. 

The writings of these men all have an underlying supposition, despite their intellectual and convoluted reasonings and “superior” testimonies. Their ideas have more to do with being an enemy of Christ, than anything even remotely resembling intellectual honesty. This is about atheism, it is not about being intellectually superior.

According to them: 

A) Moses could not have written the Pentateuch, because writing was unknown in his day. 

B) Evolutionary theory. (still a theory folks, not the truth, though it is taught as truth) does not allow for the attainment of high civilizations and literary abilities as early in Israel’s history as the Bible intimates happened. 

C) Miracle stories are nothing more than ancient mythology, since scientifically miracles are impossible. This only applies of course, in a universe where science is the ultimate authority. 

4) Fulfilled prophecy is also a miracle, and therefore scientifically impossible. Never mind the fact that science is about the observable  and not about the hypothetical or theorizing. But theorizing away from God is more intellectually and scientifically honest for them than taking God at his Word and his existence. And they would like you to join them.

Were they all run into problems is with science itself. There are those whom also perform the investigations of science, and have steadily proven the writings of these men, who knew nothing of higher sciences like Astrophysics, as being unequivocally false.

Ras Shamra

Archeological findings have discovered that  writing was indeed very common, even among tradesmen and housewives. And this pre-dates even Abraham. Sites in Ur of Chaldees, Abraham’s home town, have given up thousands of stone tablets on which there were volumes of writing in evidence. Business documents from Nuzi, a Horite town, from the time of Abraham have also been found. The Ras Shamra tablets are examples of cuneiform writing in the days of Moses, as have the Tel-el-Amarna letters. 

Tel-el-Amarna

That which is true of writing is also that which is true of civilizations. Even if evolution had been proven to be true, and not still a theory,  civilizations had developed a high form of existence long before Moses. The advanced state of math and technology from ancient times gives up its truths almost daily to scientists who are looking for validation and also those who just happen to be in the right place at the right time. Never mind the “aliens built the pyramids” idea, mankind had the math and ingenuity to build those edifices all on his own.  

Similarities of the Great Flood and such from ancient mythological tales and passed down folk tales are a dim, flimsy built rhetorics compared to the recording of the flood from the Bible. To state etherial tales of long lost civilizations or generically old societies have enough weight on their own to discredit Biblical text, is more a revelation of prejudice against God, and it is also the practice of atheism, than it is intellectual honesty.

Their dealings with details of grammar, vocabulary and style, go to great length in their intellectualizing in the hopes of discrediting Holy Scripture, but don’t even come close to the revelation of the history of the nation of Israel and the Christian church. In considering style as a barometer of authorship, to make a case for in-authenticity is pure speculation. Style and vocabulary can indeed differ among many different writings of one author depending on the subject and purpose of the writer.   I am quite sure that authors of romance novels, or horror novels do not even remotely resemble their every day correspondence. 

In Genesis, however, this may indeed be the case. But their authorship may have to do more with Shem, Noah, and other patriarchs, not the mysterious J, E, P and D. Divisions in Genesis are marked off by the term, “these are the generations of...”. There is little to refute the possibility of these writings being carved in stone and then handed down to Moses who then scripted them. The problems with scripture that atheists hold fast to from almost 300 years ago, by men who knew less than we know today, have been refuted by Bible scholars, but have been ignored due to arrogance and belligerent propagandist proposals, more than to intellectual honesty. 

Dr. Wilson

Dr. Robert Dick Wilson, a Princeton Semitic Philologist, studied the Old Testament for 50 years until his death in 1930. His devastating critiques of higher criticism’s so called findings have never been answered. Numerous others such as : W. H. Green, James Orr, Oswald  Allis, Edward J. Young, all smart, well schooled writers, have demolished the findings of so called higher criticism, only to be ignored by an educational system that professes allegiance to the public good.

The claims of untrustworthiness of Old Testament scripture have utterly failed. Critics have NOT succeeded in a single line of attack. Ex-cathedra theories, though taught as verified truth, in concordances, dictionaries and literature, not to mention the secular university system, would find themselves hard pressed to prove their propositions concerning scripture if only they had the heft for the fight.   Facts and evidence are not their stock and trade, however, since the educational “dumbing down” of the average common man has relegated him or her to over reliance on those who would place themselves in the unofficial office of “wise man”. 

I’ll deal with historical and geographical accuracy in my next section.