The Testimony of the Bible Concerning the Assumptions of Destructive Criticism | Page 6

prophets down to Malachi reiterated the same
belief, sung and taught it to their children. Were they mistaken?
The finding of the Pentateuch during Josiah's reign, which had been

lost in the rubbish of the temple during the wicked reign of Manasseh
and Ammon, is evidently referred to in 2 Chron. xxxiv. 14, 15; "Hilkiah
the priest found the book of the law of Jehovah by the hand of Moses.
(Margin, R.V.) And Hilkiah answered and said to Shaphan, I have
found The Book of the law of the house of the Lord." Four times within
seven verses it is called "The Book." It was read before the King, who
humbled himself, and prepared himself and the people to observe the
Passover as it had been prescribed in "the law of Moses." Josiah
commanded them to "kill the Passover, and sanctify yourselves and
prepare your brethren, that they may do according to the word of the
Lord _by the hand of Moses_" (2 Chron. xxxv. 6). This took place long
before the exile, which the critics insist was the beginning of Israel's
literature, and after which they say the Pentateuch was written.
Ezra testifies to the existence of the Mosaic law before his time. His
testimony establishes the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. Ezra vii.
6: "This Ezra ... was a ready scribe in the law of Moses."
After the return from captivity Ezra describes the building of the altar
in these definite terms: "Then stood up Joshua, the son of Jozadak, and
his brethren the priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and his
brethren, and builded the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt
offerings thereon, _as it is written in the law of Moses_, the man of
God" (Ezra iii. 2). Was Ezra deceiving the people?
There are several things to be noted here:
1. _There was a written law of Moses_, the man of God, then in
existence. It was not a written law of Ezra which the priests palmed off
as the written law of Moses.
2. _There was a priestly order_, according to the written law of Moses
the man of God, not according to the invention of the exiles returning
from captivity, under the pretense that Moses wrote it.
3. The altar was built according to the written law of Moses the man of
God. These records by Ezra effectually bar the door against the critical
conjecture that the Pentateuch, in which the written law of Moses the
man of God is found, was fabricated after the exile.
The definite law for the place of building the altar, by which the priests
proceeded in the days of Ezra, is recorded by "Moses the man of God,"
in Deut. xii. 5-7: "Unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose
out of all your tribes to put his name there, even unto his habitation

shall ye seek, and thither shalt thou come; and thither shall ye bring
your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices and your tithes and heave
offerings of your hand, and your vows, and your freewill offerings, and
the firstlings of your herds, and your flocks; and there ye shall eat
before the Lord your God, and ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your
hand unto, ye and your households, wherein the Lord thy God hath
blessed thee."
It is Ezra, not the critics, who informs us that this was "written in the
law of Moses the man of God." We will be pardoned for accepting the
testimony of Ezra. He does not mean to forsake his faith in the Mosaic
authorship of the Pentateuch, for he writes in chapter vi. 18: "They set
the priests in their divisions, and the Levites in their courses, for the
service of God, which is at Jerusalem; as it is written in the book of
Moses."
In the eighth chapter of the book of Nehemiah, that great servant of
God affirms his faith in the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, which
was also the faith of all the people of his time. In the first verse in this
chapter he informs us that "all the people gathered themselves together,
as one man, into the street that is before the water gate, and they spake
unto Ezra the scribe to bring _the book of the law of Moses_, which the
Lord had commanded to Israel." Ezra was not to make a book and call
it the book of Moses, as some of the critics teach, but to "bring the
book of the law of Moses," a book in their possession already made,
and with which they were already familiar--"The Book of the Law of
Moses."
"The Book of the Law of Moses" was the Jewish title given to the
Pentateuch at that time,