Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.

Don't think that I will be the one to accuse you to the Father. You have put your hope in Moses, yet he is the very one who will accuse you. Moses wrote about me, and if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me.”

Gospel of John, chapter 5, verses 45 and 46, Contemporary English Version

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VK: Hello! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. We’re very glad to be with you today as we continue the series we started a few weeks ago on Anchored by Truth. We are calling this series “10 Facts Every Christian Needs to Know.” In the studio today we have RD Fierro. RD is an author and the founder of Crystal Sea Books. So far we have covered 5 of the 10 facts and we have done 2 other episodes to talk about what those facts mean. RD, last time we pointed out that the reason we are doing this series is to begin to give Christians a factual foundation for being able to reject some of the false narratives that circulate widely in our culture. Before we get into our 6th fact that every Christian needs to know why don’t you remind us of how you differentiate between primary and secondary narratives?

RD: Well, I would also like to say hello to all the listeners joining us here today. As listeners are well aware today we are bombarded by political and cultural messages from every side. It’s gotten so bad that corporations even embed these cultural dictates in the commercials they use to sell their products. Most of the messages we see, though, are what I call secondary narratives. They are messages about the environment, family structures, marriage, politics, etc. What most people rarely think about is that these secondary narratives are dependent on other more foundational narratives which I call primary narratives. In our culture these primary narratives include ones such as Deep Time (the universe and earth are billions of years old), uniformitarianism (the present is the key to the past), and evolution (living organisms gradually changed over hundreds of millions of years to produce the biosphere we see today). But the overarching result of these primary narratives is that we don’t need God to explain the earth and universe as we know and see it.

VK: So, another primary narrative that has taken hold of much of society is that since God is no longer necessary to explain life and the physical universe man is free to act as he wishes. This narrative is sometimes labeled homo mensura which means “man is the measure.” If God isn’t around man may organize his life and his communities in any manner that suits him or her.

RD: Correct. The problem with this whole scheme, obviously, is that just because man has invented explanations for why God isn’t necessary does not mean that God went out of existence. God is still very much in existence and much to the chagrin of modern man – sovereign over the affairs of creation, nature, nations, and individuals. Truth is that which corresponds to reality not that which corresponds to our convenience or preferences. And the stubborn, unrelenting truth is that God has always existed and is still in control. The only question is whether or not we will acknowledge His existence and sovereignty.

VK: We want to make it clear that God exists and is sovereign regardless of whether any or all acknowledge that. Our acknowledgment of that fact is for our benefit not God’s. And that’s the point of this “10 facts every Christian needs to know” series. We want Christians to have a solid foundation of fact that they can use to support their faith. The facts we are presenting in this series help demonstrate that the primary narratives that are circulating in our culture are flawed – fatally flawed. So, if we put our trust in them we are building the houses of our lives on sand that is ultimately going to wash away. Even if that sand does not wash away to our detriment in this life it will all be gone when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

RD: Exactly. The ten facts that we are covering help people begin to chip away at the hold those primary narratives have over their lives. Now the first five facts demonstrated that the scientific support for Deep Time, uniformitarianism, and evolution is not nearly as strong as most people believe – and not nearly as strong as is taught in most educational settings. We’ll let people revisit those episodes to see why. But today we want to move on our 6th fact – because we want people to understand that while our first 5 facts help demonstrate the need for God to explain the existence of the universe and life these next five facts will help show that the Bible contains incontrovertible evidence that it is the inspired word of God.

VK: So, what is fact number 6?

RD: Fact number 6 is that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch.

VK: The Pentateuch is the first five books of the Bible namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Another name that is often given to these books is the Torah. So, Torah means the same as Pentateuch or the Five Books of Moses. In the Jewish tradition these books are sometimes referred to as the Written Torah. You would think that calling these books “the Five Books of Moses” would sort of settle the question of authorship.

RD: And the question of the author of the Pentateuch was essentially a non-question for over 3,000 years. But in the last couple of hundred years liberal Bible critics have begun to postulate that Moses was not, in fact, the author of the Pentateuch. Instead based on supposed linguistic analysis liberal critics have said that there were multiple authors who wrote the first five books of the Bible. Even more than that, these critics have asserted that the Pentateuch was not written during the period of the Exodus and 40 years in the wilderness. Instead the critics date the production of the books to dates that vary between 900 BC or so to around 500 BC.

VK: The traditional dating for the Pentateuch is that they were written either in the 15th century BC or at the latest in the 13th century BC. The variance in the dates depends on whether the scholar supports either the “late date” or the “early date” for the time of the Israelites departure from Egypt that is described in the book of Exodus. Probably, the most widely accepted date is the early date which would place the departure of the Hebrews around 1445 or 46 BC. So, the assertion that the books of the Pentateuch were written between 900 BC to 500 BC places it in a difference of several centuries. That’s not a negligible difference. So, if the liberal critics do not believe that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible who do they believe wrote them?

RD: One common hypothesis is the so-called JEDP hypothesis. It’s called that because this hypothesis says that there were at least 4 different documents that were combined to create the Pentateuch. The “J” document supposedly used was created by a writer who preferred to use the term “Jehovah” as the name for God. Jehovah, of course, is the Greek version of the Hebrew term “Yahweh” which most people know means “I am.”

VK: This name was made famous in Moses encounter with God at the burning bush when God declared that His name was “I am who I am.” In Exodus, chapter 3, verses 13 and 14 we have this exchange. “Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them? God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”

RD: Right. So, the hypothesis says that the “J” document writer liked the name Jehovah for God but the “E” document writer used the name “Elohim” for God. The Elohist author(s) supposedly lived around 700 – 750 BC and lived in the Northern Kingdom of Israel.

VK: This would have been after the kingdom of Israel which had been unified under David and Solomon had been divided under Solomon’s son. The Northern Kingdom was called “Israel” and the Southern Kingdom was called “Judah.”

VK: Who obviously would have been very discouraged when they were either in exile in Babylon instead of in their homeland in Palestine – or still recovering from the exile even after they returned back to their homeland after the Persians conquered the Babylonians.

RD: … yes. Or they were writing a book because they wanted to compose a kind of holiness code for the exiles or returnees and so compiled a final set of books from existing earlier documents and wanted to imprint them with a form of authority so they ascribed their authorship to the most famous Jewish figure ever: Moses.

VK: The problem of course is that if this hypothesis is true it immediately discredits a number of other scriptural passages that refer to Moses as the author of the Pentateuch. There are references to Moses as the author in the books of Joshua, 1st and 2nd Kings, Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel, and Malachi in the Old Testament. And there are more references to Moses as being the author of the Pentateuch in the New Testament such as our opening scripture from the Gospel of John.

RD: Right. And of all of these scriptural references to Moses as being the one who received the law from God and transmitted it to the Israelites the reference from John 4:45 & 46 is certainly one of the most troubling – if Moses didn’t actually receive the law. It is Jesus speaking in John 45 & 46. In these verses Jesus unequivocally states “that Moses wrote about me.”

VK: When he said this, many commentators believe Jesus was referring to passages such as Genesis, chapter 3, verse 15 and Genesis, chapter 49, verse 10. But Jesus was also likely referring to Deuteronomy, chapter 18, verse 15 where Moses wrote, “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him.”

RD: Right. If Moses did not write the books of Genesis and Deuteronomy then Jesus was mistaken. Moses had not, in fact, written about Him. This would not just be a problem. It would be catastrophic for our salvation. In order to be our Savior Jesus must be both fully human and fully divine. A fully divine being cannot sin or make errors – even errors pertaining to historical fact. So, if Jesus was mistaken and Moses did not write the Pentateuch it threatens the whole basis of Christianity.

VK: Well. I guess that tells you what’s at stake with fact number 6 – that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. So, what evidence is there that Moses did write the first five books of the Bible?

RD: Well, we don’t have time today to get into all the lines of evidence but there are several of them. But let’s start with this. The JEDP hypothesis and others like it all depend on some form of linguistic analysis to declare that the Pentateuch was not the work of a single author. The fundamental claim is that the use of multiple names for God indicates that the books must have come from one writer. But while linguistic analysis is the basis for the JEDP hypothesis linguistic analysis also destroys the hypothesis.

VK: How so?

RD: Supposedly under this hypothesis the JEDP documents were being produced between the 9th and 6th centuries BC. Well, during that time period many other books of the Bible were being written. We know for certain then that the most popular name that was being used during this time period was a different term from “Jehovah” or “Elohim.” It was the term “Jehovah Sabaoth.” The English translation of this term is the title “the Lord of Hosts.” The term “hosts” here equates to the term “armies.”

VK: According to Dr. Jonathan Sarfati’s commentary on the first 11 chapters of Genesis entitled The Genesis Account, the term “the Lord of Hosts” “occurs about 67 times in Isaiah (late 8th century BC), 83 times in Jeremiah (turn of the 7th and 6th centuries BC), 13 times in 2 chapters of Haggai (late 6th century BC), and 51 times in Zechariah (turn of the 6th and 5th century). That is, this title for God was used the whole time the Documentarians claim the Pentateuch was written. But this title is not in the Pentateuch at all, most strange for redactors.”

RD: Right. So, supposedly linguistic analysis tells us that there was not have a single author for the first five books of the Bible but linguistic analysis also tells us that during the very time period in which the Pentateuch was supposedly being fabricated the priests doing the fabrication never used the title for God that most commonly being employed for over 200 years. Said slightly differently, the principle reason the critics use to criticize Mosaic authorship actually demonstrates that the Pentateuch was created long before the period during which they want to ascribe creation.

VK: That seems like a relevant point. Are there any other reasons for believing that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch?

RD: Plenty actually. But here’s one that’s fairly easy to understand. It is pretty obvious from reading the books of Genesis through Deuteronomy that whoever wrote them was very familiar with the land of Egypt but had only very limited familiarity with Palestine. Dr. Gleason Archer in The Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties provides these observations. The climate and weather that is cited in the book of Exodus as illustrated in the crop sequence in Exodus 9:31 & 32 is typically Egyptian not Palestinian. The trees and animals referred to in Exodus through Deuteronomy are all indigenous to Egypt or the Sinai Peninsula but are not common to Palestine.

VK: This is relevant because according to the books themselves they were written during the period in which they were leaving captivity in Egypt and heading for the land that had been promised to Abraham – Palestine. The book of Genesis covers the period from creation until the Israelites left Palestine to settle in Egypt because of a severe famine. While in Egypt the nation grew from just about 80 people to a nation of close to two million. The book of Exodus, of course, describes Moses confronting Pharaoh and the initial period after the Hebrews left Egypt. For the next 40 years they wandered in or around the Sinai peninsula. So, for instance, Dr. Archer notes that the acacia [AH-KAY-SHUH] tree which figures prominently in the construction and furnishing of the tabernacle described in Exodus is found widely in Egypt and the Sinai but is only found in Palestine in the region around the Dead Sea. He also notes that the hides that were supposed to furnish the outer covering of the tabernacle came from an animal called a dugong [DOO-GAAHNG]. The dugong is a form of marine mammal that is similar to a manatee. It is found in the seas adjacent to Egypt and the Sinai but is unknown in Palestine.

RD: And the lists of clean and unclean animals that are contained in Leviticus chapter 11 and repeated in Deuteronomy chapter 14 include a number of animals that are peculiar to the Sinai but are not found in Palestine. It’s hard to know how a group of priests who had been living either in Palestine or the territory around Babylon which is far to the east of Palestine could or would have constructed such a list. Even if they familiarized themselves somehow with a group of animals completely foreign to them the people to whom they were writing would have had no way to relate. Bear in mind the supposed date the documents that supposedly formed the basis for the Pentateuch were written hundreds of years after the Exodus.

VK: Dr. Archer also notes that all of the geographic references in the first five books show someone who is very familiar with Egypt but not familiar at all with Palestine. In Genesis, chapter 13, verse 10 when the author is trying to describe what the vegetation is like in the Jordan River valley he compares it to a well-known region in the Eastern part of the Nile River delta. This reference would have made no sense to a group that had lived in Palestine or Babylon but made perfect sense for a people who, at that time, had lived in Egypt for hundreds of years. Remember that after Jacob went with his family down to Egypt they stayed there for over 400 years. By that time the descendants would have forgotten all about what Palestine was like but would have been very familiar with Egyptian geography.

RD: And another thing that makes perfect sense for the view that Moses wrote Genesis through Deuteronomy during the period immediately after the Egyptian captivity was the emphasis that is placed in the books on the tabernacle. The tabernacle was a large tent that was built according to very exacting specifications. The specifications are exact about size, materials, structure, organization, and furnishing. It is an extraordinary focus on what is essentially an elaborate tent set up. There is no other example in ancient literature of so much attention paid to a mobile worship center. There is so much detail provided that even the weight of the base sockets for the pillars that hold the sides of the tent is specified.

VK: If the JEDP hypothesis were true the readers of the assembled documents would have been living in a time well after the construction of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem. Solomon’s temple was magnificent in every way. Even if the final documents were put together during or after the Babylonian captivity all the Jews still remembered or know of the glory of Solomon’s temple. Solomon’s temple lasted for hundreds of years in Jerusalem before it was destroyed by the Babylonians. Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem had been the center of Jewish life for hundreds of years by the time the purported documents were written. It’s hard to see why any group of writers would have thought that elaborately describing a tent that had no relevance to their readers would have inspired them or induced them to more holy living. But the descriptions of the portable tabernacle would have made perfect sense to a group of desert wanderers who would see that tabernacle as the center of their lives and worship for the next several decades.

RD: So, again the view that was accepted in the church for nearly three-thousand years – that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible during the 40 year period while the Hebrews were wandering in the desert – makes sense of the reason so much attention was paid to the tabernacle. It makes no sense in the JEDP hypothesis.

VK: And we should make one final point for today. At one time it was thought that one reason Moses couldn’t have written the Pentateuch was that 19th century scholars were dubious that writing was being widely used at the date of the Exodus in the 1400’s BC. But today we know that writing was commonplace in Palestine at this time, don’t we?

RD: Yes. There have been numerous discoveries of clay tablets which show that even the common people in and around the Sinai were literate. There was a group of tablets discovered in Serabit-el-Khasim in the region where the Egyptians operated some turquoise mines during the 2nd millennium BC. The tablets contained records of mining quotas and some religious declarations. But the significant thing is that the writing was in an irregular style quite different than would have been done by a professional scribe. So, as Dr. Archer says, “Already back in the 17th or 18th centuries BC even the lowest social strata of Canaanite population, slave-miners who labored under Egyptian foremen, were well able to read and write.” Well, certainly if slave-miners could, Moses who had been educated in Pharaoh’s household would have been capable of preparing the books attributed to him.

VK: When it comes down to it the reason the critics resist Moses’ authorship of the first five books of the Bible is because those books contain prophecies which we now know have been fulfilled. Fulfilled prophecy is strong evidence that those five books, as well as the rest of the Bible, were inspired by a supernatural God. Critics try to late-date books until after prophecies were fulfilled in the hopes that doing so makes it seem like the writer was writing history disguised as prophecy. Moses, among other things, prophesied that if the Hebrews didn’t remain faithful to their God they would wind up going into captivity. That happened when the Assyrians destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 722 BC and the Babylonians destroyed Judah in the early 6th century BC.

RD: The point of this series and today’s discussion is to help Christians guard against the narratives that circulate so widely today. One of those narratives is that the Bible cannot be trusted. So, to push that narrative the critics must cast doubt on the reliability and authenticity of scripture. The bad news for the critics is that the Bible can withstand those attacks provided Christians arm themselves with relevant facts and knowledge. Moses wrote the Pentateuch. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit he uttered prophecies that would be fulfilled a thousand years later and others that would be fulfilled 500 years after that. Only an almighty, omniscient God could have enabled Moses to do that but by doing so He gave powerful evidence that those 5 books were only the beginning of long line of inspired revelation.

VK: When we start taking a hard look at the available evidence our brains confirm what our hearts already know – there is no coherent explanation for the universe, the Bible, and the events of world history that doesn’t include God. This sounds like a great time to go to the Lord in prayer. Today let’s listen to a prayer that God would intervene to stop one of the most pernicious evils that has ever existed in our world: human trafficking. Sadly, this evil is not confined to far-away places but even occurs where we’d least hope – in our own community.

---- PRAYER FOR COMBATTING HUMAN TRAFFICKING

VK: Before we close we’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes in this series or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.”

If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not perfect but our Boss is!”

(Opening Bible Quote from the Contemporary English Version)

Gospel of John, chapter 5, verses 45 and 46, Contemporary English Version

Genesis in clay - creation.com

New archaeological find affirms Old Testament historicity - creation.com

Debunking the Documentary Hypothesis - creation.com

Satan’s Strategy

• Cast doubt on God’s goodness

• Deny God’s truth

• Elevate self-importance

• Establish a replacement in the mind and heart for God’s truth

Cultural Narratives

One way to look at narratives is that there are primary and secondary narratives that circulate in our culture. The primary narratives are so embedded in our culture that they are not even noticed any more. They are like the framed prints on your wall. Initially you see them but as time goes by you notice them less and less. Eventually you only know they are there when a visitor comes in and remarks about them.

Deep time, evolution, uniformitarianism, and the equality of all religious viewpoints are now primary narratives in our culture. Only fools and the suspect disagree with them. The narratives we notice (such as the prominent social and political narratives) are secondary ones - the acceptability of abortion, same sex marriage, the difference between "green" energy and fossil fuels, "public" education, increased government control and regulation, etc. The secondary ones emerge from and are dependent on the primary ones.

• The Big Bang/deep time does away with the need for God as Creator.

• Evolution does away with the need for God as the Author of life.

• Uniformitarianism does away God as the Administrator of justice (become evil continually and God will wipe you off the face of the earth).

Since we've done away with God we now create our own standards for what constitutes "personhood," family, man's dominion over the earth, etc.

The problem is, of course, we didn't do away with God or His truth.

And the house built on intellectual sand falls when the river of reality hits it.

So, we will proclaim the truth to try to save some and maybe by God's grace many or most. People who doubt the inerrancy of scripture never think about any of this but they should.

The line from that which they doubt the Word to a life they don't want to live is very straight. The line grows even more straight as it uncoils - just like the hangman's rope.