Understanding the Old Testament - Lesson 5

Understanding the Old Testament 
Dr. Miles Van Pelt
ot102-05 
Intro Pentateuch
Lesson Transcript

We're now ready to take off on our journey through the Old Testament, moving from Genesis to Chronicles, and in the categories of the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. We're going to begin with the Law, and so this lecture is an introduction to the Pentateuch as we begin our studies through it. Some of it we've mentioned before, but I want to reinforce some important ideas as we begin to work through each of these books.

The Mosaic Collection, that is, the Law, the Pentateuch, the Books of Moses, or Genesis through Deuteronomy, whatever we call it, this Mosaic Collection has two primary sections, as suggested by the Covenantal arrangement of the Bible. We have, for example, maybe something like Roman numeral I, the Law, point A, Genesis, point B, Exodus through Deuteronomy, if we were giving this an outline. Point A, Genesis, constitutes the Covenant Prologue, the Covenant Prologue, and it answers two basic questions.

Who is God, and who are his people? Well, who is God? He is the Creator of the heavens and the earth, and he is the Covenant God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Who are his people? The children of Israel were from the line of Seth, not Cain, but from the family line of Noah, Shem, and then Abraham. 

The Covenant Prologue answers two questions: Who is God, and who are his people? The next section, Exodus through Deuteronomy, is formally the Books of the Covenant, and these books are framed by the birth and death of the Covenant mediator, Moses. Moses is born at the beginning of Exodus, and he dies at the end of Deuteronomy, and in the middle, which contains his life and teachings amid God's people. Just like in the Gospels, we have four books that begin with the birth and the death of the Covenant mediator, Jesus, and contain his life and teachings among God's people.

So, when we're thinking about the Pentateuch, we're thinking about the Gospels of the Old Testament, fundamentally, the Gospels of the Old Testament, those Covenant books in the category of Covenant Prologue, and then the Covenant itself. In terms of authorship, traditionally, Moses is understood to be the author of the book. But this is one of the most hotly contested subjects in Old Testament studies, who wrote the Pentateuch? In these introductory survey lectures, we're not going to cover the debate about who wrote the book. We're just going to assume that Moses wrote it. However, if you would like a fuller survey of this particular topic about the authorship of the Pentateuch, see my lectures, my Old Testament Survey lectures in the Biblical Training Institute, where we have done a little bit fuller treatment. There's a link below if you're interested in those lectures. 

But let's think about Moses as the author for a moment and see what that does for us. Some defend Mosaic authorship, and I'm one of those people who does so. There is both internal evidence in the Pentateuch itself, and there's also external evidence outside of the Pentateuch. And it just helps us to think about how the rest of the Old Testament works and how the New Testament thinks about these books in terms of who wrote them, because who wrote them and when they were written impacts how you read the rest of the Bible. So let's begin with internal evidence, that is, within the Pentateuch itself.

Let's consider first, I'm going to give you six texts to consider here, or five texts to consider with one outside of the Pentateuch. The first is Exodus 17:14, which says there's a war that goes on there, and Israel wins, and it's pretty spectacular, but the whole point is, is that from the very beginning, God is commanding Moses to write down the events that are occurring during his ministry. We move on to Exodus 34:27, where the Lord says to Moses after the golden calf, where Moses has destroyed the tablets of the covenant, and he's asked to write them down again for the people as a witness.

It again says in Exodus 34:28, now the ten words is just a summary, but what it means is he wrote down all of the covenant code from Exodus 20-24 on the front and back of those tablets, two copies, both of which would be deposited in the Ark of the Covenant. Number four, we're moving to Deuteronomy now, where it is recorded here in Deuteronomy 31:9, towards the end of the book, and it says, reflecting on Deuteronomy and Moses' life, and then in a few more verses in Deuteronomy 31:24. So not only did Moses write, not only did he write the covenant code and the history of Israel, but he also wrote them to the very end. So some sense of completeness or fullness there.

It's interesting then that in Joshua chapter 8 when they're renewing the covenant, what we have here is very interesting, that the people in Joshua 8 are already living in light of the book of the law of Moses, singular, and they're copying that book so that it may be again. So an amazing amount of internal evidence that Moses had an extensive literary ministry in the midst of being the covenant mediator for God and Israel. 

Well, what about outside of the Pentateuch? Well, we have some great spots all over the place with reference, but I'll just mention a couple at the end of the canon for you. For example, there's Ezra 6:18, which mentions the book of the law of Moses, or 2 Chronicles 25:4, which mentions the book of the law of Moses, or 2 Chronicles 35:12, which mentions the book of the law of Moses, all the way at the end of the canon. A thousand years later, they're identifying this book as the book of Moses. Another interesting example is found in Nehemiah 13:1, when it says, On that day, this is a covenant renewal day, they, that is the Israelites, read from the book of Moses in the hearing of the people, and it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God. We'll talk about that, but here we have the fact that we have God's people reading from God's word already written, so there's evidence there. 

In the New Testament, we have several instances of reflecting on the fact that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch. For example, Luke 20:28, says, "And the people asked him a question, saying, 'Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for him.'" Well, notice here we have the designation that Moses wrote. Or John 1:17, For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Christ. Or John 1:45, Philip and Nathanael said to him, We have found of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth.Very interesting. Finally, we have something like Romans 10:5, where Paul says, "For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them." 

Now, all this is to say is that the Pentateuch itself, the Old Testament that follows, Jesus, and the apostles all recognize Moses as the author of that corpus of literature.

 So I'm very comfortable with saying Moses is the author of that material. Now, I do also agree with this, that Moses wrote, let's say, in 1400 BC. We can say, given what we know about the Exodus and stuff like that, that if the Exodus happened in 1446 BC, and Moses lived 40 more years until he died, Joshua took the people into the Promised Land, and the book of Exodus was written between 1446 and 1406 BC.

But that is not to say that Moses' book was not updated at the appropriate time, both in terms of its font, because he used a script that was very old and needed to be updated in terms of things like the account of his death or the names of certain cities that had changed over time. We call this a redactor or an editor, and someone like Ezra would have put the book into its final form and given us this updated script and all these little notices that help update the text so it's understandable and meaningful to the people. Okay, so the Law of Moses comes to us in two parts.

It's highly covenantal. From beginning to end, these are the books of the covenant. You've got the covenant prologue and the covenant itself in Exodus of Deuteronomy. And what we want to do is now step through each of those books, in turn, to see the nature of the covenant revealed and how we as God's people relate to him.