Authenticity of the Old Testament Scriptures by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 15, 1883

Authenticity of the Old Testament Scriptures.

By Editor

THE following is from one of a series of articles in the Baptist Quarterly Review, entitled "Jesus Christ and the Newer School of Criticism," by Prof. Howard Osgood, D.D., of Rochester Theological Seminary. It is a sound and able argument, and we commend it to the careful perusal of our readers:—

By two great lines of historic criticism, the Jewish and the Christian, it is proved that the Hebrew Old Testament of to-day was the Old Testament of the Saviour's day. Both Kuenen and Wellhausen tell us that the Pentateuch we have is, barring a few common variants, the same Pentateuch Ezra had, B. C. 444.

That our Lord Jesus was thoroughly conversant with the compass, the text, the history of the Old Testament, is shown by the numerous instances of his calling upon the moment the most appropriate passages in the whole Old Testament to meet the case in hand, as the following quotations will prove, if the context is studied.

Jesus taught that he came to do the will of his Father, and to teach the truth. "I can of myself do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is righteous; because I seek not my own will, but the will of him that sent me." John 5:30; 6:38–40; 7:18; 8:26–29, 38, 40, 46. "To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." John 18:37; 12:48–50.

Jesus taught that the whole Old Testament, in all its parts, was the word of God, given by God for man's salvation. "Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods unto whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken." John 10:34, 35. Here Jesus uses "law," "word of God," "Scripture," as synonymous, and applies them to Psalm 82:6, a psalm of Asaph. "And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he sent, him ye believe not. Ye search the Scriptures." John 5:38, 39. "It is written, man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Matt. 4:4. Jesus says that Moses spoke God's "commandment" and "word." Mark 7:9–13; Matt. 15:4, 5. All parts of the Old Testament quoted by the Saviour are treated with the same reverence. He quotes the Pentateuch most frequently, next the Psalms, next the prophets and the historical books. "That the Old Testament was of divine authority to him needs no proof." Rothe, St. u. Krit., 1860, p. 65; Weiss, Bibl. Theol., p. 77; Schmid, Bibl. Theol., p. 218.

Jesus taught that these Scriptures were infallible, and that no part of them was to be treated as of slight importance. "For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass away one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished." Matt. 5:18. "It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one tittle of the law to fall;" where "law" is the equivalent of "the law and the prophets" of the preceding verse. Luke 16:17. See also, John 10:35; Matt. 26:54, 56; Mark 14:49; Luke 24:44, 45; John 13:18; 17:12; 19:28. These Scriptures were so thoroughly God's word that Jesus appeals to single words for the proof of some of his most important teachings. Matt. 22:31, 32; Mark 12:26, 27; Luke 20:37, 38; Matt. 22:45; Mark 12:37; Luke 20:44; John 10:34.

Jesus taught that the Old Testament was from the same source and of the same authority as his own words, both were from God. Compare in preceding paragraph Matt. 5:18; Luke 16:17, with "heaven and earth shall pass away; but my words shall not pass away." Matt. 24:35; Mark 13:31; Luke 21:33. "For if ye believed Moses ye would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words." John 5:46, 47.

Jesus taught that there was a clear distinction between the Old Testament, as God's word, and all merely human doctrines, traditions, etc. "Why do ye transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition." "And ye have made void the word of God because of your tradition." Matt. 15:3, 6, 9. "Ye leave the commandment of God and hold fast the tradition of men." "Full well do ye reject the commandment of God that ye may keep your tradition." "Making void the word of God by your tradition." Mark 7:8, 9, 13.

Jesus taught that the Old Testament is an organic whole.

a. All its books had one common moral basis and doctrine. "He" (Jesus) "said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind." Deut. 6:5. "This is the great and first commandment. And a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Lev. 19:18. "On these two commandments hangeth the whole law and the prophets." Matt. 22:37–40; Mark 12:29–31. "All things, therefore, whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you even so do ye also unto them; for this is the law and the prophets." Matt. 7:12. "The weightier matters of the law, judgment and mercy and faith," "judgment and the love of God." Matt. 22:23; Luke 11:42.

b. The whole Scripture, "Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms," had one common prophetic intent, himself. "The Scriptures, . . . these are they which bear witness of me." John 5:39. "All things must needs be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms concerning me." Luke 24:25–27, 44; Luke 4:17–21; Matt. 22:41–45; Mark 12:35–37; Luke 20:41–44; John 13:18; Matt. 26:31; Mark 14:27; Luke 22:37; John 15:25.

Jesus taught that his purpose in coming to earth was to fulfill the words of the Old Testament, but this presupposes that the Old Testament is in the highest sense God's word, for only God can foretell events. "Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets; I came not to destroy but to fulfill." Matt. 5:17. "All things that are written by the prophets shall be accomplished unto the Son of man." Luke 18:31. "The Son of man goeth even as it is written of him." Matt. 26:24; Mark 14:21; Luke 22:22; John 19:28, 30; Matt. 26:55, 56; Mark 14:40. "O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken. Behooved it not the Christ to suffer these things, and to enter into his glory?" "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and rise from the dead the third day." Luke 24:25, 26, 46.

Jesus proved that all his teaching concerning the Old Testament came from his heart, from his deepest convictions, by his absolute reliance upon its words in the midst of his greatest trials. In the temptation at the beginning, Matt. 4:4–10, in the crowning sorrows at the close of his ministry, Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34; Luke 23:46, Jesus meets the greatest foe, and comforts his sinking heart with the words of the Old Testament. During the last six months before his crucifixion, as he enters the shadow of the cross, his heart rests on the prophecies and promises of the Old Testament, and with these he encourages and teaches his disciples, and with these he answers his opponents. See Matt. 23:23, 35; 24:37–39; 19:3–8, 17, 18; Luke 13:28; 16:31; 17:24–32; 18:31–33; John 7 and 8; 10:34, 35; Matt. 21:12, 13, 16; 22:29–46; 24:15; John 13:18; Matt. 26:24; Luke 22:20; Matt. 26:31; Luke 22:37; John 15:25; Matt. 26:53, 54, 56; John 17:12; Luke 23:30. And on the day of his resurrection Jesus meets his desponding disciples and gently upbraids them because they do not believe "all that the prophets have spoken." "And beginning from Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself." Luke 24:25–27. From all this it is plain that Jesus found in the Old Testament the vital air of his soul, its thoughts were his thoughts, its principles were his principles, its prophecies were the motive and support and promise of his life. He dwelt with his Father in the holy sanctuary of his word.

And, lastly, there must be no disguise of the fact that Jesus taught that Moses was the human author of the Pentateuch. "Moses commanded" the law in Lev. 14:2; Matt. 8:4; Mark 1:44; Luke 5:14. "Moses commanded" and "wrote" the law in Deut. 24; Matt. 19:7, 8; Mark 10:3, 4. "The scribes . . . sit on Moses' seat." Matt. 23:2. "Moses said" the words contained in Ex. 20:12; 21:17; and these words are "the commandment of God" and "the word of God." Mark 7:9, 10, 13; Matt. 15:4. Jesus asserts that the Jews then had the book of Moses. "Have ye not read in the book of Moses"—i. e. Ex. 3:6; Mark 12:26; Luke 20:37. The writings of Moses were a constituent part of the Old Testament. "Moses and the prophets, . . . all the Scriptures." Luke 24:27. "The law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms." Luke 24:44. Moses left writings which the Jews then had and read, but did not understand and believe. "For if ye believed Moses ye would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words." John 5:46, 47. "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if one rose from the dead." Luke 16:31. Moses gave them the law. John 7:19. "Moses gave you circumcision." John 7:22. "The law of Moses" was, in the Saviour's time, the law of the Jews. John 7:23.

German and French writers, among whom Professor H. L. Strack, in Zockler's "Encyclo.," p. 139; Professor Vuilleumier, of Lausanne, in "Revue de Theol. et de Phil.," p. 18–22, January, 1882; Siegfried, in "Punjer, Theol. Jahresbericht," 1882, p. 16, tell us that it is now an axiom of Old Testament criticism that Moses was not the author of the Pentateuch. Professor Vuilleumier assures us that it is certain Jesus believed and taught that Moses was the author of the whole Pentateuch; and Professor Vuilleumier also declares, and fortifies himself by quoting Pressensé, that Jesus "shared the opinions common in his time and among his people," and, as to everything beyond certain spiritual truths, "Jesus was the son of his race and his time." See, also, Presbyterian Review, July, 1882, p. 580. That is, the higher truths taught by the Saviour are to be saved at the cost of his intelligence; or, to put it with Rothe and Kuenen, Jesus was no exegete of, and was not an authority on, the Old Testament. If that conclusion is true, then Jesus was no authority in any part of his teaching, for he declares that he came to teach and to fulfill the Old Testament; and his representation of the Father is involved in that conclusion, for Jesus said, "The things which I speak, even as the Father hath said unto me, so I speak."

Criticism is only a means to an end. The criticism of the Old Testament by "the newer school" leads it with abundant assurance to stamp as fiction and fraud, that which Jesus Christ says is "the word of God," "spoken by God," which "cannot be broken." There can be no successful disguising the direct and colossal contradiction. There is no possible compromise. "Intelligent Bible readers" must make their choice.