Swartzentrover.com | Macdill - <b>Daniel: The Key To Prophetic Revelation</b> - Part II

The Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch

By D. Macdill

Part II - Objections Considered

Chapter 2

CLAIMED IMPROPRIETIES

I. One of the objections urged against the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch is drawn from the fact that it speaks of Moses in the third person. The objectors assume that it is improper for an author to speak of himself in this way, and they further virtually assume that Moses was infallible, or at least that it is incredible that he committed an error of this kind. But for an author to speak of himself in the third person accords with Hebrew, classical, and English usage.

Isaiah¹ and Jeremiah² speak of themselves in the third person in the historical portions of their writings. Ezekiel does not invariably employ the first person in speaking of himself³ The objectors, of course, deny that Daniel wrote the book that is called by his name, but they must at least admit that the author thought there was no impropriety in Daniel's speaking of himself in the third person; for he is represented as doing so.⁴ All the minor prophets speak of themselves in the third person, and nearly all of them in that way exclusively. Such, also, is the Style of Ezra,⁵ though he also speaks of himself in the first person. Nehemiah sometimes speaks of himself in the third person.⁶ Josephus employs this style.⁷ The apostles Matthew and John speak of themselves in the third person.⁸ It is thus in evidence that it was the prevailing custom among the Hebrew writers to speak of themselves in the third person. It is not surprising that such a man as Thomas Paine should object to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch on the ground that Moses is spoken of in it in the third person,⁹ but what shall we say when we find a biblical scholar like Professor W. Robertson Smith declaring, "One asks for proof that any Hebrew ever wrote of himself in the third person"?¹⁰ After this, what next?

It is well known that many of the classical authors, both Greek and Roman, — Xenophon, Thucydides, Julius Caesar, and others, — speak of themselves in the third person.

This style of speech is employed also by many of the best English authors. Cowper, Kirk White, Hume, Willis, Holland, and many other distinguished writers speak of themselves in the third person.¹¹ Professor Sayce often employs this style.¹² Professor Briggs speaks of himself in the third person, though he seems to think that Moses would not do such a thing.¹³

In view of the facts above presented, the objection to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, drawn from the references in it to Moses as a third person, loses all its force, and indeed it even seems strange that it should be employed at all.

2. A second objection to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch is founded upon those passages which speak approvingly of Moses; such as, "Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth";¹⁴ " Moses the man of God";¹⁵ "And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face";¹⁶ and some others of similar tone.¹⁷

This objection is employed by most of the analytic critics from Paine¹⁸ to Wellhausen.¹⁹ They virtually assume that Moses could not have committed any impropriety, at least that of saying about himself such things as are contained in these passages. Indeed, there are two assumptions necessary to the validity of the objection. One is that Moses would not or could not speak commendatorily of himself; and the other assumption is that these passages were not added to the original writing of Moses by an editor or redactor. The analysts very quietly make the former assumption, though they declare Moses to have been a semi-barbarian among barbarians; and they just as quietly make the latter assumption, although they claim that there are interpolations and other additions by revisers and redactors scattered all through the Pentateuch. But let these assumptions pass. It is curious to see men who scout plenary inspiration and the inerrancy of Scripture turn round and virtually claim infallibility and inerrancy for Moses, in order to prove that he did not write certain passages in the Pentateuch. Now, in reply to the objection, we remark as follows:

( 1 ) There was nothing improper in Moses writing all that these passages contain concerning himself. He had proclaimed himself * ' a man of God. ' ' He claimed to have a special commission from the Almighty. He had done mighty deeds and miracles in the name and by the power of Jehovah. He had spoken with God face to face. It was a very small thing to claim to be a man of God and the friend of God, after having been forty days and nights in the divine presence on the mount, and carrying with him back to his people so much of the divine glory shining from his face as to dazzle all beholders.²⁰ The skeptical objector probably denies all this as being supernatural. But if so, he rejects the history of Moses and with it the entire historical character of the Pentateuch. If the history of Moses is a lie, and if he was not such as he is represented to be, it was, of course, very wrong for him to claim to be a man of God and that God had talked with him face to face as with a friend. In that case, however, he was guilty of something much worse than vanity or immodesty. But if the history of Moses is not to be set aside at the very beginning of the discussion, if "the historical setting" in this case is not to be transformed into a falsehood or a thing of naught by the mere waving of the critic's hand, if the story of the exodus, of the crossing of the Red Sea, and of the giving of the law is to count for anything as history, there was no more impropriety in the claims and professions of Moses than in Michael or Gabriel announcing himself an angel of God. The fallacy in the objector's reasoning is his antecedently assuming that the Pentateuchal history is false.

(2) Such claims as Moses made concerning himself (in case he is the author of the Pentateuch) are presented by others elsewhere in the Scriptures. Daniel reports that the angel Gabriel addressed him in these words:"Thou art greatly beloved," and, "O Daniel, a man greatly beloved."²¹ Nehemiah puts on record the fact that he received no salary, but paid into the national treasury one thousand drams of gold, and did not eat the bread of the governor. He then exclaims, "Think upon me, my God, for good, according to all that I have done for this people."²² When advised to retire into the temple for safety, in a time of danger, he exclaimed, "Should such a man as I flee?"²³ The apostle John records the fact five times that he was "the disciple whom Jesus loved."²⁴ Renan, one of the destructive critics, brings this charge against the beloved disciple, that "on every page the intention is betrayed of showing that he was the favorite of Jesus."²⁵ Paul, in comparing himself with the other apostles, hesitated not to say, " I labored more abundantly than they all"; and in what he himself calls "this confidence of boasting," he exclaimed, "In nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles."²⁶ Aside from supernatural inspiration, the probability that Moses would or would not make certain declarations is to be determined rather by the usage of other Hebrew authors than by the judgment and assumptions of the theorizing and argumentative critics of modern times.

(3) As to the declaration of Moses that he was the meekest of living men:

(a) Meekness, which includes humility, was not considered praiseworthy in ancient times. Until Christianity had leavened the world with its teaching, the meek, humble man was regarded as mean-spirited. Certainly Moses could have gained neither admiration nor respect by declaring himself to be the meekest of men. It required genuine humility and self-denial to be willing to make such a declaration. The critics err in judging of this matter by the more enlightened modern Christian times.

(b) It was proper that a record should be made of the meekness of Moses. Formerly he was irascible, hasty, and headstrong, as is shown by his killing the Egyptian and by his repeated refusal to obey God's call to deliver his people.²⁷ Since these facts were recorded, it was a fitting thing that it should also be recorded that by the grace and discipline of God he afterward became the meekest of men. We can readily believe that he had the divine guidance and approval in making this record for the improvement of mankind.

(c) Protestations of humility and meekness are among the things in regard to which taste and custom are continually changing. Daniel Webster, who was not deficient in self-appreciation and self-respect, in his reply to Hayne, declared himself the humblest man in the Senate of the United States — "holding myself to be the humblest of the members here." The gentlemen of the old school — such as Washington and Jefferson — were in the habit of closing their letters with the words, "Your most obedient and humble servant." Professor Driver tries to discard the custom of the employment of the third person to designate oneself, and in his preface, on about three-fourths of the space of the first page, octavo size, he employs the pronoun I seventeen times. He does not consistently adhere to this egotism, but sometimes refers to himself in the third person.²⁸ Kuenen employs "the proud monosyllable" seventy-two times, and other forms of the first person of the pronoun — me, my, and myself — fifteen times in about thirty-nine pages of his introduction to his work on the Hexateuch. All this is largely a matter of taste. We do not say these authors are lacking in modesty, but their egotism appears to some people less becoming than anything that is contained in the Pentateuch. Perhaps, in the coming years, critics will maintain that these authors could not have written the books attributed to them, or that the egotistical passages were by later hands inserted in the books in order to discredit them. Had Moses made as frequent use of the first person of the pronoun as they, perhaps critics would have cited the frequency of its use as indubitable proof that he did not write the Pentateuch. (4) The declaration that "there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face,"²⁹ is admitted on all hands not to have been written by Moses, since it is contained in the passage which gives an account of his death and burial. Dr. Kautzsch's German Bible refers this declaration to Dt, but Driver to the combined authorship of JE. These critics, though differing as to the authorship of it, agree in holding that it was written by another hand than that which mainly wrote the Book of Deuteronomy.³⁰ That this declaration was written, as itself implies, a good while after the death of Moses, is not incompatible with the Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy as a whole. Also, the parenthetic clause concerning the meekness of Moses may have been inserted by a hand other than the one which wrote all the rest of the Book of Numbers.