The Testimony of the Bible Concerning the Assumptions of Destructive Criticism | Page 5

known to and practiced by the Egyptians, hence the
man trained in all the wisdom of the Egyptians was competent to write
the Pentateuch.
_Second_--The Pentateuch very definitely claims Moses as its author,
not once or twice, but many times, all through these writings.
"The Lord said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and
rehearse it in the ears of Joshua, for I will utterly put out the
remembrance of Amalek from under heaven." Exod. xvii. 14. This was
not the law, parts of which even some of the critics concede that Moses
wrote. It was God's judgment against Amalek. But it was written in a
book. What book? The inspired Scriptures say it was written here in
Exodus xvii. 14. And again it was repeated in Deut. xxv. 19, and that
Moses wrote it.
In the twenty-fourth chapter of Exodus Moses has given an account of
God's call to him, to Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the seventy elders, to
come up to Horeb. Moses was called into the immediate presence of
God, while the others remained at a distance. After his interview with
Jehovah it is written: "Moses came and told the people all the words of
the Lord.... And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord." Exod. xxiv, 3,
4.
In the thirty-fourth chapter of Exodus God is represented as giving
definite instructions to Moses concerning worship, at the conclusion of
which "the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words, for after the
tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel."
Exod. xxxiv. 27.
We turn to the positive statement in Deuteronomy xxxi. 9. The chapter
opens with the declaration that "Moses spake these words unto all
Israel," giving an extended account of what the words were. In the
ninth verse it is stated: ... "And Moses wrote this law and delivered it
unto the priests and unto all the elders of Israel." What became of that
writing of Moses? Was it lost? Or is the statement false? And did some
later writer forge the statement, attributing the writing to Moses, to give
weight and authority to the forgery? To ask the question is to answer it.
"Moses wrote all the words of the Lord."
In the twenty-fourth verse in this same chapter in Deuteronomy it is
stated that "Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in
a book." Yet the critics teach that this book, Deuteronomy, was not

written until after the exile, almost a thousand years after the events
narrated. Does not critical credulity make larger demands than are laid
on faith?
The summing up of the book of Numbers, of what had been said and
written in the book, is stated in the last chapter and last verse, namely,
that "these are the commandments and the judgments which the Lord
commanded by the hand of Moses unto the children of Israel." Again
and again it is affirmed in the Pentateuch that God commanded Moses
to write, and that he did write, but the critics affirm that the hand of
Moses had nothing to do with producing the books of the
Pentateuch--that they were written after the exile!
Not only does the Pentateuch distinctly teach the Mosaic authorship of
the five books of Moses, appropriately so called, but all the Old
Testament saints entertained the opinion which the Jewish people and
the Christian Church hold to-day, that God spake to Moses, and that
Moses committed to writing the messages that God gave him and
commanded him to write, embracing the story of God's miracles, his
instruction and dealing with them in the wilderness.
We find the critics contradicted in the Scriptures from Joshua to
Malachi. To Joshua God said: "As I was with Moses, so will I be with
thee." (Joshua i. 5.) Eight times in the first chapter of the book of
Joshua God accredits Moses with having received and having given the
law to Joshua and the people.
The Pentateuch is the book which God, speaking to Joshua, calls "the
law which my servant Moses commanded thee" (Joshua i. 7), and it
was so accepted by Joshua. Was he mistaken? or the critics? He had
long enjoyed most intimate relations with Moses, and knew what
Moses had written by the command of God.
David affirms that God had "made known his ways unto Moses, and his
acts unto the children of Israel" (Psa. ciii. 7). We have seen that the
man Moses was competent to write, and did write, what God had made
known to him (Deut xxxi. 24). The Psalms are illuminated and set
aflame with the faith of Israel, that Moses said and wrote what is
ascribed to him in the Pentateuch.
Ezra, Nehemiah, and the