How Was the Old Testament Written? ā Program 3
By: Dr. Gerald Lrue, Dr. Walter Kaiser, Jr.; ©1989 |
Are the different styles and differences in the creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2 proof they were written by different people, perhaps using different myths as sources? |
Must Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 Have Been Written by Different Authors?
Introduction
Tonight, John Ankerberg will investigate the topic: How was the Old Testament written? The Holy Bible is like no other book in all the world. It claims to be the written revelation of the one true God, and gives proof of this claim by presenting infallible evidence. Other religious documents such as the Qurāan may claim to be the very word of God, but they contain no such self-authenticating proofs as does the Bible. Only the Bible validates its claims by prior prophecy and subsequent fulfillment. But professors in American universities are teaching our students the theories of the higher critics who declare that the Bible is merely a product of human origin. The higher critics assert that the Old Testament can be dealt with in a purely literary way, and naturalistic explanations must be found for every account which depicts the supernatural.
In tonightās program John will examine the theories that the higher critics have put forth denying the Bible is historically accurate. One of these assertions is that Moses could not have written the Pentateuch. Julius Wellhausen, the founder of the documentary theory, has stated, āWriting was virtually unknown in Israel during Mosesā time, and consequently Moses could not have written the Pentateuch.ā If the higher critics are correct, then the Bible is in error. Even Jesus Christ Himself was wrong when He taught that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch. The higher critics have also written that the Bible is not historically trustworthy, pointing to the fact that they have never heard of any evidence of a nation revealed in the Bible called the Hittites. What about this? And finally, the higher critics claim they alone are scientific in their assumptions of approaching the Old Testament. But have they really given the Bible the benefit of the doubt in what it states, or have they approached the Bible with an anti-supernatural bias? These questions will be answered tonight as John examines the evidence from archaeology and history. Find out whether the JEDP theory of the higher critics has been demolished by the evidence or whether it still stands. We invite you to join us.
Introduction
Tonight, John Ankerberg will examine the question, āHow was the Old Testament written?ā The higher critics state that Moses did not write the book of Genesis, nor any of the first five books of the Bible. Rather, they say, different parts of Genesis were written by unknown Hebrew writers, one of whom referred to God as Yahweh or Jehovah. They have called this writer the āJā author. Other parts of Genesis were written by an unknown writer who referred to God as Elohim. The critics have called this writer the āEā author.
But do the different names for God used in Genesis 1 and 2 prove different authors wrote these two chapters? The answer is no. Moses in Genesis 1 used the name of God that fits perfectly with the content of that chapter. Since he was describing creation in chapter 1, 31 times he used the name Elohim, a name that declares God is the ruler of all nature and the sovereign Lord of the universe. Starting in chapter 2:4, Moses joins the name Elohim with the name Yahweh. He does this eleven times in chapter 2 to declare that the all-powerful Creator of the universe is willing to enter into a personal covenant relationship with man. The name Yahweh always signifies Godās faithfulness and personal care of His covenant people all through the books of Genesis and Exodus. There is no conflict for Moses to use the name Elohim 31 times in Genesis 1 to appropriately describe God as the Almighty Creator; and then in Genesis 2 and 3 to join the Creatorās name Elohim with Yahweh to show God is personal and faithful. This does not show multiple authors. Moses did what any other author would do, he used the name of God that perfectly fits the context.
Another assumption of the higher critics is that Genesis 2 presents a different creation account than Genesis 1, thus supposedly proving two different authors. But is this true? The answer again is no. Recent archaeological evidence shows that Genesis 2 was never intended to be a general creation account. Why? Because in every creation account ever found in ancient civilizations of the Near East, not one of them has ever omitted a description of the formation of the sun, moon, stars and seas. All of these items are mentioned in the creation accounts of the Near East, just as they are mentioned in Genesis 1. But none of these are mentioned in Genesis 2. It is therefore quite obvious that Moses, having completed his overall survey of God creating the world in Genesis 1, goes on to develop in detail in chapter 2 one important feature already mentioned, the existence of man. Genesis 2 provides specific information of Godās personal relationship to the man that He created and the gracious surroundings He provide for that man. Quite clearly, Genesis 2 does not represent a second creation account written by a different author. Once again, the Bible has been vindicated by the archaeological evidence. We invite you to hear tonightās discussion.
- Ankerberg: Welcome! My guests tonight are Dr. Gerald Larue, Professor Emeritus of Archaeology and Biblical Studies at the University of Southern California, and Dr. Walter Kaiser, Academic Dean and Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. Guys, weāre glad that youāre here tonight. Weāre talking about, how was the Old Testament Written? And, obviously, many ChristiansāEvangelical Conservative Christiansābelieve the traditional ideas that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch; the prophets wrote the prophetic books that have their name attached to it; and so on. Letās start with Genesis 1 and 2 right off the bat here tonight. Does it show different authors?
- Kaiser: No, I donāt think it does show different authors. If you know anything about reading the texts from the Ancient Near East, which I have made part of my lifetime avocation to kind of work in these texts and the primary sources themselves, this is routine. You must have, for the very nature of Hebrew language where you put things in parallelism where you have line A and line B, you must vary it, so you need it. It happens so frequently that once we got into the wealth of literature that began coming from the Ancient Near East, why, we began to see how ridiculous this was.
- Now actually it was a French physician, Jean Austruc, in 1753 who had this as his clue called, as you might imagine, Austrucās Clue. His clue was that the early parts of Genesis must have utilized sources. Sure, it was the inspiration of God. He believed in the Mosaic authorship. He believed that God was the one who inspired it. But there must have been two documentsāone which preferred to use the name Elohim, hence the āEā Document, and the other one which used the name āJehovahā or Yahweh, which therefore became the āJā Document. And this has been passed on, would you believe it, since 1753.
- But now, one of the main pillars has collapsed. As a matter of fact, that form or that criteria for pulling out what belongs to the āEā Document and what belongs to the āJā Document just doesnāt work. You have almost every deity in the Ancient Near East has alternate names, and these are routinely used in parallel phrases, one to another. So I would urge that that criteria not be used at all, nor be made a scientific basis. Iām embarrassed that the scientific community would use that. They ought to stop teaching that in their classes because weāve got such a wealth of material that most people would be run out of town and would be labeled āFundamentalistā if they used this kind of material. I donāt think they ought to do so at all. Iāll give professional advice, free of charge!
- Larue: And the reason for that is not simply the name of Godāthatās only one small part of this. The order of creation is completely different. In the so-called āJā story, the early folk tale, we have man created, then heās lonely and alone so God goes to work and creates a mate for him. What does He do? He creates animals. And I have this vision of poor Adam sitting there naming all these creatures, āHippopotamus, GiraffeāI donāt like itāMosquito,ā¦ā and so on. And ultimately God finally, in desperation, I suspect, forms the woman. But in the āPā Document, the Genesis 1, the order is quite different. You have animals created and then humans. Itās a different order. You have also scientific problems with the āPā story far more than you do with the Oasis story ofā¦.
- Ankerberg: But did I hear you slip and say that it doesnāt make any difference that one writer would call God by the name of Yahweh and the other one would say Elohim; that we donāt have to worry about that because thatās not a good criteria for dividingā¦?
- Larue: No. I said thatās only one small criteria. And if you break this down, you have a consistency of the use of Elohim. and a consistency of the use of Yahweh. And so this has a validity.
- Ankerberg: Okay. Dr. Kaiser, weāve got two questions on the board here, and that is that apparently the higher critics donāt like one guy saying two names for God thereā¦.
- Larue: Oh, more than twoā¦
- Ankerberg: I mean, you canāt call God anything except what theyāre telling them that he can say it, and as soon as he does, somebody else is starting to write for him. What do you think about that?
- Kaiser: Oh, I think thatās bad news. I really donāt understand how you can do that in the modern world. I think there are too many Old Testament scholars who are no longer trained in Hebrew, no longer trained in Sumerian,ā¦
- Larue: Yes.
- Kaiser: ā¦and in Akkadian and the Ugaritic and Egypto-hieroglyphics. Theyāve got to be! Weāve got to control those documents. You canāt live on secondary sources, youāve got to go to the primary ones themselves. You know, this story reminds me of the problem that really began in the literature where you have Homerās Iliad and Odyssey were really divided into two different authors, because one is about war and the other is about peace, and you have different kinds of styles and vocabularies. You have discrepancy about a war-like kind of character and then you had a peace-like character.
- But the interesting thing is that the whole field of literature got over the problem. And as a matter of fact, they were kind of helped by an English businessman, Heinrich Schliemann who went over and the scholars were writing, āItās impossible that they had bronze greaves [an anklet.] This is a contradiction!ā And Schliemann with no sense except his copy of Homer and a shovel dug down where he sort of, āLetās see, Troy should be about here.ā Now, itās not as if he found a Trojan Horse with a verse on it, but indeed he did come up with bronze greaves. And he said, when the scholars said thereās no such thing, he said, āYou mean, like these?ā And they said, āYes.ā And so they just dropped it.
- But we in the biblical fields are much more conservative. We track these things out for a long time. And only now, on the European sphere, you have scholars who are jumping off and literally getting out of it. For example, the Israeli scholars: Yehezkel Kaufmann, Umberto Cassuto; you now have Wrentroff and the editor of the prestigious Z.A.W.ā Zeitschrift fur die Alttestestamentliche Wissenschaftāwho also himself no longer⦠he said, āJ and E, we canāt make that distinction. There is no such thing as P.ā
- I mean, this is not a Conservative, Fundamental, Orthodox, Evangelical case! This is a scholarly community thatās had its belly full, and said, āLook, we canāt prop the dead horse up any more!ā You can prop a dead horse in the back, but the front falls down. You prop the front up, but the back falls down! I have to add that idea here. Iām sorry, John, but I donāt think it will work with the divine names.
- Larue: You see, what youāre doing again, Cassuto is a conservative scholar. So is Yehezkel Kaufmann.
- Kaiser: Itās really, though, theyāre Jewish scholars.
- Larue: But what difference does that make?
- Kaiser: Well, weāre not talking about Christian scholars here.
- Larue: No.
- Kaiser: Itās not Christians that are trying to save their Bible.
- Larue: No, no. But there are other Jewish scholars who are right on this track. And while they might not say JEDP, they say āsources.ā And I get this all the time from Jewish scholars. And in France and in Europe and in Germany, the tendency is to go much farther than this and discard even more.
- Ankerberg: Well, let me just come in here just for all the American people that are listening, okay, that donāt know Hebrew and donāt know Greekā¦.
- Larue: Yeah, I agree.
- Ankerberg: Alright, right now, are you saying that if any of them write a book about their thoughts of God, that if they call Him āJehovahā or āLordā or āAdonai,ā or they throw in anything that they want, okay, that therefore as soon as they have another name for God, that therefore another person is writing in their place?
- Larue: You see, what youāre doing is playing this little simplistic gameā¦
- Ankerberg: Iām starting off with the assumptionā¦
- Larue: Wait a minute. Itās not simply the name of God. We have also the statement that you reject, where āMy name was not known.ā We have a lot of these things that we put together, and there is a stylistic thing; there is a linguistic thing. I can do it in Hebrew if you want.
- Ankerberg: Alright, letās take a good illustration on the style. I just wanted to bring that up so the people at home would start to understand where weāre coming from. Now, Iām coming back to Kaiser here. But letās take an Englishman, okay? If this poor sucker had been a Hebrew writer, heād have been dead in the water. Now, let me tell you what he did. Okay, everybody knows his name when I give it. But first of all, this guy had the audacity to write very merry, hilarious poems. That was number one. Iāll give you the names of them in a minute. Then he switched gears and wrote lofty, epic poetry, for example, like Paradise Lost, and then scintillating prose in the Areopagitica.
- Larue: Yes.
- Ankerberg: Alright, now, Milton wrote all three of those different styles. Shoot! If heād been a Hebrew, heād have been carved up and had āA, B, C.ā
- Larue: If he was writing the same thing and saying one thing with one order of creation in one, and another order of creation in another, yes, he would be hung up, because he would be inconsistent. Nowā¦.
- Ankerberg: But heās the same writer. You mean, he canātā¦?
- Larue: Of course! But the thing is, you mean that he would say, āThese are both inspired writing?ā Wait a minuteā¦
- Ankerberg: Just as in Paradise Lost, he could stylize it in one spot and turn around and be very serious in the next part.
- Larue: He did not make the claim youāre making, which is āThis is inspired. This is Godā¦ā Youāre making God inconsistent!
- Ankerberg: So youāre saying only inspired men couldnāt do it. All the other guys could do it. Iām saying Milton. Youāre saying that Milton, if he had done it was okay.
- Larue: Iām saying Milton would have said, āIām writing hilarious poetry now and now Iām writing a different kind of thing.ā I write different things too.
- Ankerberg: Iām saying he did do that; and the fact is, if he had been a Hebrew writer, you would have carved him up into A, B, C.
- Larue: No. No. No. If he had doneā¦
- Ankerberg: On the same basis, stylistic writing.
- Larue: No, no. Youāre jumping things. Youāre mixing eggs and oranges and they donāt mix.
- Ankerberg: I donāt see where Iām mixing it.
- Larue: Well, letās stick with the Hebrew text. We go back to the document.
- Ankerberg: Letās go back to the Hebrew text. Dr. Kaiser, letās go back to this thing about the fact we need to get that beth essentia out there again, I think.
- Kaiser: Yeah. Gerry, I think you said that I was the one who wasnāt willing to take the Exodus 6:2-3. Iām only following the greatest grammarian that weāve ever had in Hebrew. Wouldnāt you agree thatās Gesenius?
- Larue: Gesenius is it.
- Kaiser: Gesenius is sort ofā¦
- Larue: Heās the grandfather.
- Kaiser: ā¦the āground floor,ā and heās the grandfather of the whole thing. So I think that point needs to be made clear. But letās go to your order. And I think thatās fair. Iāve enjoyed this little repartee. But at any rate, I think the order is extremely important. The narrative style of the writer of Genesis, if you take the book on its own terms, first of all, is one in which he traces in simple outline the whole deal, and then comes back to his main point and then traces it out in detail. That happens so frequently in the book. For example, I would argue, he does all of creation, but now itās man, and now weāre back focusing on man in the Garden of Eden. He takes all the nations, but now itās back to the Shemites, or the Semites, and now weāre going to go with them.
- Then we come to Abraham. Now, Abraham has two children. We go out for a minute, take that child first, but now back to Isaac. And Isaac has two children. We take Esau first, but now back to Jacob. That happens so frequently that it seems to me we ought to give it a real hard look if weāre going to take the book on its own terms. And I would argue that what we have now said are two kinds of descriptions of creationāone in Genesis 1 through 2:4, and then the second one coming in 2:4 and following to make that a much, much more different account. That only works if you have the divine names first of all. Because it is trueāElohim is all in the first chapter, thatās true; and then you have a compound of Jehovah or Yahweh in the second chapter. But if that criteria is chopped out, why then, one of the ways in which I got there is gone.
- See, one of my problems with higher criticism, the JEDP theory, is that the āfirst floorā āit is now agreed pretty universally even by those who still use sources, who are Jewish and Christian scholars who use sources, using our terms in the broadest spectrum hereāthey agree the āfirst floorā has been wiped out; that the evolutionary development here is simple too complex, that this happens sociologically. It happens religiously. People donāt argue that way anymore. And also the Hegelian movement, the philosophy. āYou have a thesis, opposed by an antithesis, out of which comes a synthesis: That this is the way in which history moved.ā They agreed thatās gone too. Now, some of the criteria are coming out too. If youāve read Near Eastern sources, it just doesnāt happen. You canāt put all of your stock on the fact that there are two, three, four, five, six, eight, ten different names! Iāve seen that in documents. That works for what comes from the sand. So for me to introduce that as a criteria is wrong. Pretty soon weāre getting down with very, very slim pickings. And that was my basis for making a distinction between chapter 1 and chapter 2.
- Larue: Now, wait a minute. Youāve translated this from the Hebrew. You know yourself, when you began to translate Genesis 1 you went through, and pretty soon you were swinging, because it was repetitiousāāAnd God said,ā¦ā āand God said,ā¦ā āand it was night and it was day,ā and so on. That was easy. When youā¦
- Kaiser: Swinging? Why would I swing?
- Larue: Go on! When you hit Genesis 2:4b, you were into a completely different style. It was as though you moved from Milton into Mark Twain. That difference in style is clear in the Hebrew. Thatās the beginning; thatās number one. The second thing youāve not addressed is the order of creation is different in the second story, completely different⦠or in the earlier story.
- Kaiser: And Iād respond back that letās take the order first, because thatās more serious. It is true that we focus right in on the garden and we go to man and we are not going through this same routine. And I think the answer is simple: Because heās already covered that. He presumes chapter 1ā¦
- Larue: Wait⦠wait⦠waitā¦
- Kaiser: ā¦where heās talked about the whole of creationā¦
- Larue: No, no, no, no. In chapter 1, animals He created and then man. In chapter 2, man is created, then animals, then woman.
- Kaiser: No. I wouldnāt agree to that, because in chapter 2 the animals that he talks about are the animals, hasadeh, of the field.
- Larue: Right.
- Kaiser: And he is now getting into the domesticated animals. He is now talking about cultivating the earth and the field.
- Larue: Okay.
- Kaiser: The Hebrew expressions are differentā¦
- Larue: So?
- Kaiser: ā¦and itās unfair to leave the impression with the ordinary reader of English that he doesnāt have different expressions. You know, and I know that they are different.
- Larue: Okay. So, but the order of creation is different. You have animals created in the first one and then you have man and woman created together. Here you have man created, then animalsādomestic or whateverācreated for his companionship and then ultimately woman. Itās quite different!
- Kaiser: Then I would say it a different way thenā¦
- Larue: Okay.
- Kaiser: ā¦because I would say: You donāt have two creations. Youāve got one dealing with the creation, and the other dealing with the Garden of Eden setting up farming and domestication of animals and of the cultivation of the fields. To name both ācreationsā is our label. The text doesnāt label both creations. Thatās my point. Hang with the text.
- Ankerberg: Weāve got to take a break and weāre going to come back and then letās ask you for the evidence: Is this apparent in anything else? In Ebla, or Ugarit, or any of the other writings? Does anybody else do that, or are the Hebrews the only ones that do that? So stick with us, weāll be right back.
- Ankerberg: Alright, weāre back, and weāre talking about the Old Testament. When we see different styles of writing, different words, does that automatically jolt your mind to think of different authors? Would you have thought the same way about Milton when he wrote very merry poetry, and then epic poetry, and then straight prose? Would we find that, if he wrote Hebrew literature, would we have had him into A, B, C, writers? Weāre also talking about the actual evidence of other cultures at that time. Let me give you an example in terms of the style, because youāre talking about āthe style is different.ā The Hammurabi Codes, as I understand it, and you guys can correct me if Iām wrong here, they have in the one code, youāve got both prose and poetry. Now, itās attributed to one person. Is weāve got two styles, why not have multiple authors there?
- Larue: Very simple. One is a prose introduction to a legal code. There is legal language, and we have that in the book of Leviticus. I mean, there is a style of language when you do legal codes. This is the thing that the form critics have pointed out over and over again.
- Ankerberg: But does that prove two authors?
- Larue: Not necessarily.
- Ankerberg: Well, then why would it in the Genesis record?
- Larue: Because weāre not dealing with legal codes, weāre dealing with two different creation stories. And theyāre quite different kinds of literature. The first one is obviously liturgical. Itās a repetitious thing. I can see this used in the temple. After all, the Old Testament was temple literature. This is not something everybody had under their arm and running around to their little homes and read in the evening. This is temple literature, and therefore it is associated with a cultus.
- Ankerberg: And your main reason for saying that it canāt be one writer is what?
- Larue: Is that there is a difference in style. The first is a liturgical style, the other, which I think is much older, is much more of a narrative style. Itās a folk tale.
- Ankerberg: And youāre convinced that no one person, if he was given the duty to do that, could have written two different styles about the same account.
- Larue: Of course somebody could write two different stylesā¦
- Ankerberg: Ohā¦
- Larue: ā¦but not, I would hope, with the kind of contradictions that are here. And also, different patterns of language.
- Ankerberg: Alright, Dr. Kaiser, youāre going to have to wrap it up. What do you think?
- Kaiser: Well, I think that we do have the āA/B/Aā form where you have poetry, narrative poetry, you have poetry, legal materials, poetry back again. The claim that I would make is that within the Genesis material, between chapter 1 and 2 or the whole Pentateuch, we have a wide range of literature, of genre, of literary forms and all of them are being used. There is nothing in inspiration that says because God is speaking, it must come out as systematic theologyāpoint one, point two, point threeāthat there canāt be a switching in style to meet the particular objective, and that I think weād have to demonstrate to say God must only use one style and we know there is a divine style. There is no such thing. There is a wide variety and the presence of it in the Ancient Near East with variety in the same document ought to demonstrate the same ought to be true for the biblical documents as well.
- Ankerberg: Alright. Weāre going to move on next week to: Were there two writers of Isaiah? And what about Daniel? So I hope that youāll join us.
[ā¦] How Was the Old Testament Written? ā Program 3 By: Dr. Gerald Lrue, Dr. Walter Kaiser, Jr. [ā¦]