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.

Script:

These are the words that Moses spoke … across the Jordan in the wilderness, in the Arabah opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, … It is eleven days’ journey from Horeb by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea. In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses spoke to the sons of Israel, in accordance with everything that the LORD had commanded him.

Deuteronomy, Chapter 1, verse 17, New American Standard Bible

********

VK: Hello! Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. I’m Victoria K. We’re glad that you are able to join us for another episode of Anchored by Truth. Today, we are going to wrap up our series on the Ten Commandments. To help us finish off this very important we have RD Fierro in the studio. RD is an author and the founder of Crystal Sea Books. RD, we have a lot of information to get to today as we close out this series. And anyone who would like to hear any of our previous episodes can always find them on our website: crystalseabooks.com . We’ve covered a lot of material in this series but you said that today you want to take up another topic that’s relevant to the Ten Commandments that, so far, we have only briefly mentioned. What’s on your mind?

RD: Well, to get started I would also like to welcome everyone to this episode of Anchored by Truth. And the subject that I wanted to address, at least briefly, before we close out the series is how we can be confident that the Ten Commandments are what the Bible portrays them to be – transcendent moral and ethical principles. In other words, how do we know that the books that contain the Ten Commandments are reliable and trustworthy?

VK: Regular listeners to Anchored by Truth listeners know, we believe that there are four lines of evidence that demonstrate that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. First, the Bible is historically reliable. Second, the Bible displays a remarkable unity for a book that was composed by over 3 dozen human authors who wrote over a span of 1,500 years. Third, the Bible gives evidence of supernatural origin especially through a large body of fulfilled prophecy. And the 4th line of evidence is that the Bible has resulted in an untold number of lives that have been positively changed by its transcendent message. We also strongly believe that the Christian faith is a faith that is grounded in evidence, logic, and reason. Contrary to the refrain that you hear from some people that – “you have faith, but I have reason” – we believe that a proper use of logic, reason, and evidence actually demonstrates that the Christian faith is true.

RD: Yes. And we believe that these lines of evidence support the historicity and validity of the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy. Or, speaking more broadly, we believe these 4 lines of evidence support the traditional view that Moses wrote the first 5 books of the Bible which are sometimes called the Pentateuch. The traditional view that Moses wrote the first 5 books of the Bible has been under attack for probably close to 200 years now. And we don’t have time in this show to go into all the heretical alternatives to Mosaic authorship that have been proposed. The alternatives are well known, well-publicized, and, sadly, taught in many seminaries. But the rebuttal to those heresies get far less coverage. So, that’s what we want to concentrate on today.

VK: Where do you want to start?

RD: Let’s start with some of the internal evidence contained in the Pentateuch that strongly supports the traditional view. To begin with let’s remind everyone that the Ten Commandments are first given in Exodus, the 2nd book of the Bible, but they are repeated in Deuteronomy, the 5th book of the Bible. This repetition is consistent with God’s pattern of repeating major themes in scripture. Just as a general statement God often repeats big ideas in more than one Bible book and certainly the Ten Commandments are such a “big idea.” The Ten Commandments were a critical part of God establishing the new nation God wanted the ancient Hebrews to form after He delivered them from Egyptian captivity.

VK: And this pattern of repetition and reinforcement is itself strong evidence of the unity of scripture. There are 66 books within the Bible but there is a single Mind behind all of the books.

RD: Yes. So, one observation that demonstrates the fact that Moses wrote the book of Exodus is that the crops and the crop sequence that is contained in chapter 9 of Exodus is consistent with the agricultural cycle of Egypt but not Palestine. Most of the alternatives to Mosaic authorship speculate that the Pentateuch was composed, or at least completed, in either the territory of Israel or Babylon somewhere between the 8th century BC and the 5th century BC. But when the book of Exodus describes the sequence of plagues that affected the Egyptian crops the writer got the type of crops, and the sequence in which those crops would mature, correct.

VK: Similarly, when Moses mentions trees and animals in Exodus as in one of the other books of the Pentateuch the trees and animals Moses names are found in either Egypt or in the Sinai Peninsula. The Sinai Peninsula was where Israel wandered for the 40 year period between the parting of the Red Sea and their arrival in Palestine across from the city of Jericho. For instance, the acacia tree which is featured in the wood used for making the tabernacle – essentially a big tent – is found commonly in Egypt or the Sinai but it is rare in Palestine except right around the Dead Sea. Another example is the animal skin that was used to cover the tabernacle or the furniture used in the tabernacle during transportation. The animal mentioned is a dugong which is found in the waters adjacent to Egypt or the Sinai but is unknown in Israel. The dugong is a marine mammal that is similar to a manatee.

RD: Exactly. And a third compelling example of internal evidence that points to Mosaic authorship in the 15th century BC are the geographical references found in the Pentateuch. For instance, in Genesis, chapter 13, the writer wants to make the point that the Jordan River valley is filled with lush plant life. In conveying his thought the writer refers his reader to “the land of Egypt as you go toward Zoar.” In doing so the writer is presuming that his audience knows what that region of Egypt is like. Otherwise there would have been no point in using it as a reference. That would have been completely unnecessary if the writer had been writing during a time period when the Israelites had been living in Palestine for hundreds of years. Furthermore, the specific geographic reference the writer is using is in the Egyptian delta region which is the region in which scripture tells us the Israelites settled when they first went down to Egypt because of the famine in Palestine.

VK: And what is even more striking about the geographical references in the Pentateuch is an almost complete absence of any reference to Jerusalem. The only mention of the city which was to become the centerpiece of Israelite history and culture is in the encounter between Abraham and Melchizedek when the book of Genesis notes that Melchizedek was the king of Salem. If the books of the Pentateuch had been written in either Israel or after the Babylonians had conquered Jerusalem there is no way an author writing then would have left Jerusalem out of his history. Jerusalem wasn’t just the capital city of the Hebrew people, it was where Solomon had built the temple. Jerusalem and the temple had been the center of Israelite life and worship for hundreds of years at the time the heretics claim the Pentateuch was written. Writing a history of their people at that time and ignoring Jerusalem would have been like someone writing a history of Great Britain in the 19th century and ignoring London. The idea would have been unthinkable.

RD: So, those are just a few parts of the internal evidence that shows that Exodus, Deuteronomy, and the other books of the Pentateuch were written by Moses in the 15th century BC and that he wrote them during a prolonged period in the Sinai desert. But in addition to the internal evidence that supports Mosaic authorship there is also external evidence that supports the traditional timeframe and location. For instance, there is a group of letters well known to scholars called the Amarna letters. The Amarna letters are a group of clay tablets which contain correspondence between Canaan/Syria and Egypt in the 1300s BC. In these texts, the rulers of various cities in Palestine and Syria complained that the Canaanite territories were frequently under attack from peoples they called ‘Apiru. This is not a term that refers exclusively to Israelites, but could have been a term applied to them in many cases. The rulers of the cities were writing to the Egyptians because the cities had been vassals of Egypt for a long time. The Canaanite and Syrian rulers wanted help to defend themselves and get rid of the attackers. The letters show that Egypt’s influence in Canaan was diminishing compared to earlier time periods. After all, if the Egyptians still had firm control of those territories the attacks wouldn’t have begun in the first place.

VK: And it’s important to note that the Amarna letters were written at a time about a hundred years after the Bible tells us that the Hebrews under Joshua had begun attacking cities in Canaan and taking them over. The pharaohs of the time basically ignored the pleas for help from their Canaanite vassals. This fits nicely with the record in Joshua and Judges that Egypt was not an impediment to the Israelites entering the land. A lot of people mistakenly think that Jericho fell and then Hebrews just assumed control of all of Palestine. But that’s not what happened at all. The Bible presents a complex picture of the conquest than a fast invasion and permanent takeover of the whole Promised Land.

RD: Many of the cities and places Joshua defeated were not occupied by the Israelites, but left abandoned. This allowed the indigenous peoples of Canaan to move back in. For a number of these cities, such as Megiddo, Gezer, and Jerusalem, Joshua’s army killed their kings, but the books of Joshua and Judges also consistently state that Israel failed to drive out the inhabitants of these cities completely. These same cities appear in the Amarna letters as those still under Canaanite authorities, so there is actually good harmony between the Biblical record and the Amarna letters. Another fascinating archeological find that helps support the Biblical account contained in the book of Exodus is a stela that was found in a shrine that is connected with the Great Sphinx at Gizeh. A stela is essentially a small stone column or pillar that has carved inscriptions. In this case the inscription records a dream of Thutmose IV (1421 – 1410 BC). In the dream Thutmose said that the god Harmakhis appeared to him and promised Thutmose that he would one day rule Egypt. Thutmose said that this dream happened when he was only one of many princes of royal family.

VK: Well, that doesn’t seem to be that remarkable a dream. Promising a prince that he would one day become a king, or in this case the Pharaoh, doesn’t seem like it would be so unusual that it would merit being inscribed on a stone column and preserved in a shrine.

RD: I agree. Just from the bare facts it doesn’t seem like a dream to a prince that he would become a king would be that remarkable. But in this case we have to remember that at the time he received the dream Thutmose was just one of many of the princes. In other words, it’s most likely that Thutmose at this point was not likely to become the pharaoh. The order of succession in Egypt was strictly determined by birth order in those days. So, if Thutmose had an older brother the older brother would have been in line to become pharaoh not Thutmose. But history tells us that Thutmose did become Pharaoh in 1421 after Amenhotep II who is regarded by many scholars as being the Pharaoh of the Exodus.

VK: I think I see what you are getting at. If Amenhotep was the Pharaoh ruling Egypt at the time of the Exodus his successor would have been whoever his eldest son was. But the last plague that was visited upon the Egyptians was the death of the firstborn of every house. The New International Version of Exodus, chapter 12, verse 29 says, “At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well.” That means that the eldest son of Pharaoh – the one who would have been expected to become the Pharaoh – would have died. The death of the crown prince, the eldest son, would have meant that another son of Pharaoh would have taken his place. So, whichever son eventually took the place of the crown prince who died would have grown up not expecting to become Pharaoh. So, a dream in which a supposed god came and told him that he would eventually become pharaoh would have been a remarkable event – an event remarkable enough to be literally carved in stone.

RD: Exactly. Scholars are not united in how they date the ruling periods of various dynasties and pharaohs in Egypt. So, the dates and sequences we are discussing are supported by many scholars but not all. But the stela is real and the inscription is real. It is also possible that Thutmose was the crown prince all along and the dream was simply a reinforcement that he would live long enough to succeed his father. But as the well-known Biblical scholar Gleason Archer noted, “But since this would have been the normal sequence of events, hardly requiring any unusual favor from the gods, it is far more likely that Thutmose was not the crown prince at the time he had the dream.”

VK: At any rate the people and times involved give rise to the distinct possibility that this stone column provides additional evidence of the historical reliability of the book of Exodus. In that regard, it’s interesting to note that even the name Thutmose is somewhat helpful because it and the name “Moses” obviously have a common origin. And since that origin is indisputably Egyptian it lends credence to the Bible’s record that Moses was given his name by Pharaoh’s daughter when she took him out of the Nile River. It would make no sense that a group of Jewish writers writing hundreds of years after the Jews had occupied Palestine would have given their great lawgiver and deliverer such a distinctly Egyptian name.

RD: Exactly. There are other archeological finds that also provide external evidence that supports the reliability of Exodus and the other books of the Pentateuch such as the fact that the various plagues described in Exodus have a direct connection to the Egyptian pantheon of gods. When the One True God hit the Egyptians with plagues He wasn’t doing it just to make the Egyptians miserable He was doing it to demonstrate His superiority over the gods they worshipped. For instance, the plague against the Nile showed the God of Moses’ superiority over the Egyptian god Hepi. The plague of frogs was directed at the goddess Heket and the plague of darkness against the god Ra. A good bit of evidence is available through simple internet searches and we’ve put a couple of links in the notes that will accompany the podcast version of this episode.

VK: So, the point that we are getting to is that there is both good internal and external evidence that points to the authenticity of the books of Exodus, Deuteronomy, and the other books of the Pentateuch. The evidence shows that these books are historically reliable and if they are historically reliable about names, places, plants, trees, and animals it means they can be trusted when they report about things that we can’t verify simply by our own observations like Moses sighting of the burning bush. And in other series on Anchored by Truth we have discussed extensively the scientific evidence that supports the historicity of the most contest book of the Bible, Genesis. We would particularly point people to our Truth in Genesis series. And, again, all of our previous episodes of Anchored by Truth are available from our website. So, what final thoughts do you have as we close out this series.

RD: We’ve discussed a number of overarching themes during this series. God gave Moses, the ancient Hebrews, and us the Ten Commandments for our good. God doesn’t need them. We do. Just looking around us today we can see the need for human beings to be told that they must not lie, steal, commit adultery or sexual immorality, or kill innocent human beings. Those social pathologies, those sins are rampant in our world today. Imagine what they might be if there were no restraints on them at all.

VK: I imagine our world might look a lot like the world of Noah just before God sent the flood because “The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.” That’s Genesis, chapter 6, verse 5 from the New International Version.

RD: It might and that would be truly sad. So, from our own observations we can see the need for the last 5 of the Ten Commandments to restrain evil and sin. And we have seen that one big reason God gave us the Ten Commandments was to protect His dignity and the dignity of the only creature that bears His image, mankind.

VK: One thread that ties all of the commandments together is that are concerned with the dignity of God and the dignity of people because they are God’s image bearers. The last 5 of the commandments would not have been necessary if the fall had never occurred because their primary purpose is to restrain sin in the fallen creation. But even these commandments are bound together by dignity. The 6th commandment is concerned with the dignity of their lives, the 7th the dignity of marriage, and the 8th the dignity of work. The 9th commandment is concerned with the dignity of words, speech, and truth. And the 10th commandment is concerned with the dignity of desire – especially our desire for God. And one final point we should cover before we close for today is all of these observations point us back to reality of the creation record that is contained in Genesis.

RD: The commandments were given to us in a specific order. The first 3 commandments were concerned with the dignity of God’s nature and personhood. The 4th and 5th commandments were concerned with the manifestation of God’s dignity into the created order. The 4th commandment had to do with the period of God’s creative activity and the 5th commandment to honor fathers and mothers had to do with the product of God’s creative activity.

VK: But of course all of these observations are only applicable if the Ten Commandments are authentic pronouncements of an all-powerful, all-knowing God. And that means the books they come from must be reliable records – which, as we have discussed briefly today, they are.

RD: In a very real sense the continued, widespread presence of sin shows that the Ten Commandments were a very wise precaution God took to try to forestall the ultimate decline of His people. And the failure of all of us to honor the Ten Commandments points to our profound need for a Savior to rescue us from our own rebellion. But we will only be rescued if we trust in the Savior and we can only know about the Savior from His word – the Bible. One of the most disturbing reports I have heard recently is that a recent survey said that only 20% of the people in America consider the Bible to be the literal word of God. But 29% consider the Bible to be a collection of myths and fairy tales. That disturbing statistic tells us that there is a profound ignorance about the Bible in too many places and for this nation, or any nation, to have any hope we must address this situation.

VK: I think this points us back to where we started. There are at least 4 lines of evidence that support the validity and reliability of the Bible: remarkable unity, reliable history, fulfilled prophecy, and redeemed destinies. But none of the evidence will do anyone any good if we don’t know about it. You have often said that Christians must become people of fact in a world absorbed with feelings.

RD: Christians must indeed become people of facts in a world full of feelings. The world today is either distracted by its entertainment or immersed in oceans of angst and manufactured emotion. It fills our airways, internet channels, and surrounds us visually. Advertisers and fund seekers know that people will more often act on emotion than reason and fact. So, even though you hear the mantra, “you have faith but we have science” often, the truth is the exact opposite. Christians have a faith that is supported by logic, reason, and evidence including scientific evidence. But as you said, none of the evidence will do any good for those who ignore it or won’t absorb it. God is a God of facts. Jesus is our Savior because of the fact of the resurrection. Jesus proclaimed “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” He didn’t say He felt like He was. He said that He was. The facts and truth are on our side. Jesus has already won the victory but it’s up to us to proclaim that good news as widely as possible. The Ten Commandments contain abundant evidence that they are good for us but the reason they are good for us is because they came from an Almighty God who wants good for His people.

VK: Well, this sound like a good time to end for today and go to prayer. Since we are rapidly approaching Father’s Day, today let’s listen to a prayer for our fathers. Hopefully, you were blessed with having a Godly father that you can respect and admire readily. But even those who weren’t blessed with an earthy father who was the kind we all hope for, we all have a heavenly Father who never leaves us or forsakes us and who wants all of His children to know the joy and peace of His goodness.

---- PRAYER FOR FATHER’S DAY

VK: 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 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 New American Standard Bible)

Deuteronomy, Chapter 1, verse 17, New American Standard Bible

Exodus evidence revisited (creation.com)

Ten Egyptian Plagues for Ten Egyptian Gods and Goddesses - Owlcation

10_Eqyptian_gods_10_Plagues.pdf (rice.edu)

History, prophecy, ancestry, unity, and relevance

Later, according to the book of Judges, when another Jabin (probably a royal title like ‘Pharaoh’) reigned in Hazor, he is described not merely as king of Hazor, but “king of Canaan who reigned at Hazor” (Judges 4:2, cf. 4:23–24, emphasis added). Again, the biblical testimony is that Hazor was in a strong position of authority in Canaan. These ‘Amarna Letters’ would span a 30-year period (or less) that falls within the early history of the biblical Judges, when Israel was established in the land yet still battling for control of much territory (Judges 1–2).7 Numerous Canaanite city rulers are mentioned in the Amarna Letters as “mayors”, but the only one to be called “king” is the ruler of Hazor. He refers to himself as king in Letter 227, and a rival ruler from Tyre describes him using that title as well in Letter 148.8 Israeli army general and archaeologist Yigael Yadin, who led several excavation seasons at Hazor from 1955–1969, wrote, “This indicates no doubt that the King of Hazor’s rule embraced more than the city itself.”9