A very interesting article.  I wonder if any reasserters now DO think that Moses wrote the Pentateuch and that it is historically true.  What do people actually mean when they claim “Biblical Faithfulness”?

I believe the Pentateuch is totally trustworthy. This may or may not line up with what everyone thinks of as “historically true”, but as far as I’m concerned, Scripture, including the Pentateuch, is indeed just that, historically true.

As I re-read the entry, it sounds as if Kendall rejects the historicity of the Pentateuch. Is that a mis-read?

Alfonso, yes you did mis-read, the opening part states ” Bishop Colenso wrote:”, and then the quote about the pentateuch followed.  Some times when I peruse (sp?) and article I do this

I guess I was confused. It seemed that Kendall had written in italics, (and it seemed to me, with approval) “as Bp. Colenso wrote:”

I can understand Kendall qualifying in some way his take on Genesis 1, for example, but I didn’t expect he’d agree with Colenso.

Many evangelicals (McGrath, for instance) don’t ascribe complete historical accuracy to the Pentateuch. Genesis 1 is not an empirically/scientifically valid account of our creation, but an account written from the perspective of ‘traditional memory.’

In standard Anglican tradition biblical faithfulness has never equated with authorship or a empirically/literal exegesis of scripture, but with a utilitarian notion that ‘scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation…(Articles).

Interesting that when Jesus refers to the Pentateuch he prefaced it with “Moses said”  or “You have it from Moses.”  I’ve always assumed the Jesus knew best.

Virgil, pray tell us what genre the first three chapters of Genesis are? You are assuming that it is in the genre of a modern scientific textbook, but it is unlikely that the people at the time would have read it that way.  Your are trying to impose a 20/21st Century way of thinking on an ancient text.  Instead it would seem to be more profitable in trying to discover what Moses was trying to convey to his readers at the time.
One thing we can clearly see is that God is imposing order on chaos, that is God is imposing His purpose on creation.

Scripture records that Moses grew up in the court of the Egyptian king and rose to a position of power.  As such he either could read and write or gathered a host of people around him that could.  I would postulate that ancient writings were available to him to allow writing Genesis.  The other four books came into existence during his lifetime.  Our Lord did not hesitate to quote from them before His crucifixtion and certainly used them after He arose.  I would much rather make mistakes in ignorance of His word and be corrected by Him, as He walked with two sorrowing believers, than to be found in great error if I chose to trash the documents.

#8…Br. Michael…Actually, I’m holding that many evangelicals don’t hold the first chapters of Genesis as an empirical/scientific account of creation, that Moses didn’t write the Pentateuch, and that the text of Genesis 1 reflects an historical memory of a creation myth.

#9…...If Jesus were truly human, then he was not as such omniscient. He would have held the tradition at the time of Mosaic authorship. Further, we need to realize that Jesus’ words regarding Moses were written by authors after Jesus’ time and may not reflect a “transcript” of those words.

There is nothing in either history or archaeology that disproves the mosaic authorship of the Torah.  As such, I’m inclined to believe that Moses either wrote it directly or had scribes to whom he transcribed the narrative.
I asked one professor of “Hebrew thought” who firmly held to the JEDP + redactor of the Wellhausen Documentary Hypothesis why he didn’t think Moses wrote the Torah.  His response surprised me in its frankness: “Because this would be a very short course if he did!”

Very few Biblical scholars now actually hold to Wellhausen or his disciples any more, except for those teaching in acdemia and seminaries.
Archaeological finds of writing on clay tablets around Egypt dating back to before Moses’ time show writing remarkably like ancient Hebrew, so it’s not improbable that Moses knew a variety of writing styles and languages.

#11…libraryjim…The fact that there is no historical (if we leave out the internal evidence from the Pentateuch itself) or archaeological evidence that disputes Mosaic authorship, doesn’t prove that Moses was the author, or that Moses even existed. The only evidence for Moses’ actually being an historical figure is his ‘effect’ on later tradition.

If Moses did have any role in the creation of the Pentateuch, it was as an editor or redactor. As such he brought together various diverse and contradictory material without much of an attempt to harmonize it.

However, internal evidence indicates that there are many literary elements that reveal post-Mosaic (assuming the traditional dating for Moses’ involvement) in the text. Also, the Documentary Theory is hardly a dead horse. It has been evolving constantly since its classical form in Graf/Wellhausen, and so is weaker than it once was, but it still has much explanatory power, although it needs to be combined with the other methods (i.e. form criticism, etc.) If one wants to research this down to its toenails, which is where the evidence is revealing, I would recommend starting with entries in The Jewish Encyclopedia.

The only other theory I see as showing promise, as an alternative to the Documentary Theory, is the one proposed by Umberto Cassuto. But one needs to realize that he also questioned Mosaic authorship.

My comment stands.  Tradition ascribes the Torah (I prefer the Hebraic term) to Moses, nothing in history or tradition contradicts that, therefore, it is an authorship theory that can be accepted without fear of contradiction.  And regarding Genesis, so what if he ‘merely recorded the oral stories’? That doesn’t take away from his position as writer, even if his role was editor.  I can accept that. But that also in no way detracts from his also being the author of Deuteronomy, etc.

Oh, and by thge way, your statement above “If Jesus were truly human, then he was not as such omniscient” leaves out an important fact: He was also truly divine as well.

AND met with Moses and Elijah on Mt. Tabor during the transfiguration (witnessed by James, John and Peter).  While we don’t know what the conversation involved, it didn’t seem to be Moses saying to Jesus “OH, by the way LORD, I didn’t write the Torah. Please don’t say I did anymore.” 

lol