Last week in Old Testament, my professor was giving his usual post-modern spiel (Oh, he got his degree at Emory University? Boy, you'd never know it from his complete denial of any divine inspiration in the text) in his wonted deliberate, calculated attempt to circumlocute a Southern drawl. He may say "mah-tooer" for "mature," but the inevitable "y'all" still creeps in.
He was declaring the Pentateuch was written by multiple authors, at least four of whom we can identify with source criticism. A guy in the back raised his hand.
"But doesn't Jesus say that Moses wrote the Pentateuch? If you don't believe Jesus, you've got bigger problems than that."
That argument rang a bell. For one thing, the same point had been ringing in my head.
"Oh, I believe Jesus. I like Jesus," my professor replied with his jokey smile. His suits are incessantly ill-fitting and his ears stick out slightly; between that grin and the baggy coats he looks not so much a respect-worthy professor as a kid dressing up in his dad's clothes.
Then, the other day we were discussing Abraham and the covenantal name change. The same guy in the back spoke up. "So is it true that adding the 'h' to Abram was like God breathing His spirit into him?"
Which echoed my thoughts again. My professor disagreed, going on about it changing the meaning to "father of many" or some such thing. But that wasn't the point for me. Now I had to know for sure.
I followed my partner in dissention out after class. "So, do you listen to Chuck Missler?"
"Yes, yes I do," he replied, guarded but unapologetic.
I quickly established my commiseration. "Me too, me too."
As we walked along Peppertree Lane, he told me how he listens to the Missler broadcasts on his iPod every day while working as a state guard. I vented my inability to accept the professor's patent dismissal of direct divine inspiration. We parted amiably to eat our respective breakfasts, having had to sit through that class at the ungodly hour of 7:30 am.
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2 comments:
Who are the critics that dispute the Torah? The ACLU??? This guy is following the thinking of an extremely small group of critics. He is discrediting himself to you and your classmates.
Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary -
Pentateuch
That in its present form it "proceeds from a single author is proved by its plan and aim, according to which its whole contents refer to the covenant concluded between Jehovah and his people, by the instrumentality of Moses, in such a way that everything before his time is perceived to be preparatory to this fact, and all the rest to be the development of it. Nevertheless, this unity has not been stamped upon it as a matter of necessity by the latest redactor: it has been there from the beginning, and is visible in the first plan and in the whole execution of the work.", Keil, Einl. i.d. A. T. A certain school of critics have set themselves to reconstruct the books of the Old Testament. By a process of "scientific study" they have discovered that the so-called historical books of the Old Testament are not history at all, but a miscellaneous collection of stories, the inventions of many different writers, patched together by a variety of editors! As regards the Pentateuch, they are not ashamed to attribute fraud, and even conspiracy, to its authors, who sought to find acceptance to their work which was composed partly in the age of Josiah, and partly in that of Ezra and Nehemiah, by giving it out to be the work of Moses! This is not the place to enter into the details of this controversy. We may say frankly, however, that we have no faith in this "higher criticism." It degrades the books of the Old Testament below the level of fallible human writings, and the arguments on which its speculations are built are altogether untenable. The evidences in favour of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch are conclusive. We may thus state some of them briefly: (1.) These books profess to have been written by Moses in the name of God (Ex. 17:14; 24:3, 4, 7; 32:7-10, 30-34; 34:27; Lev. 26:46; 27:34; Deut. 31:9, 24, 25).
You know this and I know this... Unfortunately, 1897 scholarship does not fly in this classroom.
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