THE BIBLE’S BURIED SECRETS (A REVIEW)
This two-hour television special on PBS
did have a noble theme to it—that the Bible established our modern code of justice
and morality. However, the way the producers
of the program arrive at that conclusion is a bit bizarre, and it tears the
Bible to shreds in the process; so Christians can scarcely feel very triumphant
with their handling of the sacred text.
The one positive
in the program is that they report archaeologists’ findings of evidence that
corroborates certain portions of the Scripture.
What they highlight at the very beginning is the Merneptah
stele (dated 1208 B.C.), which was discovered at
Other
archaeological discoveries include the cities of Raamses
and Pithom, which the Bible says that the Israelites
built (Ex.
The program goes
on to say that they have found a stunning convergence that occurred
five years after the death of Solomon (930 B.C.). The archaeologists have found evidence that Shishak, king of Egypt, did come up against Rehoboam, as the Bible says in 1 Kings 14:25-26, five years
after Solomon’s death (925 B.C.). He
looted the temple and took away the gold shields. The show proclaims this as proof that the
great
J-E-D-P
The “scholars”
are always astonished when anything from the Scriptures is verified. Those associated with The Bible’s Buried Secrets do not believe that the Bible is the
inspired Word of God (2 Tim.
The first
assumption is that Moses did not write the first five books attributed to him (and
accepted by all for more than 3,000 years).
But then some genius noticed that the last chapter of Deuteronomy
describes Moses’ death and concluded that he could not have written it. Suppose, then, that Joshua or someone else
added the conclusion later, which is nowhere stated to have occurred. Would that prove that Moses did not write the
rest of the events recorded in those books?
But no one even needs
to go there because it has never been demonstrated that Moses did not
write Deuteronomy 34! The New Testament
teaches that “holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2
Peter
The J-E-D-P
theory believes that at least four different writers wrote the Pentateuch over
a period of several hundred years, with the finishing touches being put on it
at the time of the captivity or within a hundred years following it. Each theoretical writer had something to
contribute to the overall text.
One of these writers
used the word Jehovah (J) (YHWH), meaning the One who is self-existing; one
used the word Elohim for the name of God (E); another
added the sections of law (D for Deuteronomy); and the final contributor put in
the part about the priests and their functions (P). One wonders why there is no section M for
what Moses wrote; apparently, he did not write any portion of his first five
books! And if he did, he could not, it
seems, have used Jehovah or Elohim, which
invites one to imagine how, exactly, God answered Moses’ question in Exodus
3:13-15.
This carving up
of the words of Moses lacks evidence and is only a theory—one with serious
implication. First of all, Moses is said
to have authored Genesis through Deuteronomy (also called the law) by other writers
of the Old Testament, beginning with Joshua (see 23:6 and 24:5 as just two
examples). The writer of the book of
Judges, written nearly 400 years after Joshua, said that God left the
Philistines and a few others in the land in order to determine whether the
Israelites “would obey the commandments of the Lord, which he had commanded
their fathers by the hand of Moses” (Judges 3:4). They failed the test; God had specifically
commanded them not to intermarry with the people of the land (Deuteronomy 7:1-5),
but they did (Judges 3:5-7).
Whoops! Deuteronomy was supposed
to have been written, according to the “scholars,” by D, not Moses.
1 and 2 Kings
were probably written after the fall of
And keep the charge of the Lord your
God: to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, His commandments, His
judgments, and His testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses, that thou
may prosper in all that you do, and wherever you turn (1 Kings 2:3).
David may be
referring to Deuteronomy 29:9. In 1
Kings 8:9 Solomon mentions Moses putting the two tablets of stone containing
the Ten Commandments into the ark of the covenant, an action recorded in Deuteronomy
10:5. Solomon also reminds
2 Kings 14:6 recalls
what is “written in the Book of the Law of Moses” and quotes Deuteronomy
24:16. Hezekiah destroyed the bronze
serpent which had become an object of idolatry.
Moses had made it at God’s direction as the cure for the people being
bitten by poisonous serpents; this event is recorded in Numbers 21:8-9.
Further examples
are too numerous to mention, but a few stand out as further corroboration that
the writers of the Old Testament attributed the first five books of the Law to
Moses. 1 Chronicles 15:15 reminds everyone
of the appropriate manner of carrying the ark of the covenant, as Moses first
described in Exodus 25:14. Moses’
parents and siblings are listed in 1 Chronicles 6:3, as are his sons (1 Chron.
In 2 Chronicles
many more references to Moses are presented, including the sacrifices for the
Sabbaths, the new moons, and the three annual feasts, described in Exodus 23
and Numbers 28 (2 Chron. 8:13). The levy fixed by Moses on the congregation
(2 Chron. 24: 6, 9) originally was instituted in
Exodus 30:12-16. Ezra ascribes the work
of the priests and the Levites (described in the book of Leviticus) as having
been “written in the book of Moses” (
Ezra was “a
scribe skilled in the law of Moses.” He
lived in the fifth century B.C., after the captivity and the return to
Several
references are made to Moses in the Psalms, and the 90th one was
composed by him. Isai-ah,
Jeremiah, Daniel, Micah, and Malachi all refer to Moses. Isaiah recalls the historical event, the parting
of the
Space has been
spent intentionally with these various references to show that no writer of the
Old Testament ever suspected that Moses did not write what they all attribute
to him. Of course, what did they know
without scholars from the 18th century A.D. to help them? The Old Testament is consistent throughout—that
Moses wrote the Pentateuch. There is not
so much as even a hint that someone else wrote any part of the law. This is the point to remember: Most modern “scholars” do
not believe any Old Testament writer who
ascribes the law to Moses.
The New Testament
The second point
is that the writers of the New Testament also ascribed these books to
Moses. Jesus tells a cleansed leper to
show himself to the priest “and offer the gift that Moses commanded…” (Matt. 8:4), which is recorded in Leviticus 14:1-32. When some of the Sadducees came to Jesus and
asked about Deuteronomy 25:5, (a man marrying his brother’s wife), Je-sus did not scold them and say, “Don’t you know that
Moses did not write that but D did?” (Matt. 22:23-33). He told them instead that they did not know
the Scriptures. He referred to
Deuteronomy again in John 5:45-47. He said that if they had really believed
Moses, they would believe Him because Moses wrote about Him. Specifically, Moses prophesied about the
prophet to come in Deuteronomy 18:15, 18-19.
In John 3:14,
Jesus declared: ”And as Moses lifted up the serpent in
the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,” referring to Numbers
21:8-9. Jesus refers to Moses and the
manna from heaven (Ex.
The point of
these few examples is simply this: The
Savior of the world, the One who is King of kings and Lord of lords, the One
who was in the beginning with God and is God, attributes Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
and Deuteronomy to Moses. Any “scholars”
who would then say that others wrote those books are contradicting the Lord of
heaven and earth—and are not to be trusted in their handling of the Bible. The documentary hypothesis (the J-E-D-P
theory) is not valid.
The other New
Testament writers also believed that Moses wrote these books. The book of Acts mentions the name of Moses
19 times. Sometimes he is mentioned in
connection with a historical event; sometimes his prophecy of Jesus is
mentioned (
Imagine: all
those generations were really hearing the words of J, E, D, and P and were too
ignorant to realize. We wouldn’t know
it, either, unless the “scholars” had revealed it to us. Paul cited Moses in Romans, 1-2 Corinthians,
and 2 Timothy. The writer of Hebrews
invokes his name no less than 11 times.
He is also alluded to in Jude and the book of Revelation. Not a single New Testament writer fails to
mention him. Although Peter does not use
his name in his two letters, he does quote from him in his sermon in Acts 3. Who did Jesus meet with on the Mount of
Transfiguration—Moses or D (Matt. 17:1-5)?
What about
Genesis? Most of the quotations from
Moses come from the other four books because they actually comprise the
statements used as the basis for law. In
fact, Paul affirms that the promise made to Abra-ham
was not altered by the law that came 430 years later (Gal.
Still, Genesis is
included in the designation of the law on occasion. Many commentators think that, when Paul
reminds women of their role of submission to men in 1 Corinthians
Another reference
involves Jesus’ meeting with His disciples after His resurrection. He said to them:
“These are the words which I spoke
to you while I was with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were
written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms, concerning Me.” And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend
the Scriptures (Luke 24:44-45).
First, Jesus is
using the three divisions that the Jews had of the entire Old Testament. The Law consisted of the first five books of
Moses. Second, what a privilege to have
heard all those things expounded! Jesus
might have begun with the first “seed promise” in Genesis
Conclusion
Moses, not a
committee or a bunch of editors, wrote the first five books of the Old
Testament. Both the Old and New
Testaments agree with this fact. From
the time it was written and three thousand years afterward, everyone knew that
such was the case. Now, because of the
theories of latter-day “scholars,” Bible believers are supposed to believe that
it happened entirely different?
The problem is
that, in order to accept this theory, a person must cast aside the entire
Bible, disbelieving everything that it says.
Even Jesus cannot be trusted because many of His teachings cited what
was written by Moses. To accept the
theories of men, one must, in effect, denounce the integrity of the
Scriptures—they cannot be inspired of the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:20-21); they
were simply pieced together by different writers and editors and thus are
fallible and useless.
For this
reason, such “scholars” are often referred to as “destructive critics.” Their theories and conclusions destroy the Biblical text, but God’s
Word is more than capable of surviving attacks such as these.
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