Rationalist critics of the Wellhausen school have attempted to include Joshua with the five books of the Pentateuch, calling the whole collection the Hexateuch. They consider the basic material to come from J and E, but with considerable editorial work and redaction by the “Deuteronomic School.” DH: Deuteronomistic history (books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings) dated to the 6th–5th century BCE, not the 16th-15th. Is this true? How do we respond to these liberal critics with a rational, reasonable answer?
DEFENDING The Authorship of the Pentateuch
The documentary hypothesis is one of the models used by biblical scholars to explain the origins and composition of the Torah. A version of the documentary hypothesis, frequently identified with the German scholar Julius Wellhausen, was almost universally accepted for most of the 20th century.
Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century
The Documentary Hypothesis is a theory, also known as JEDP, that states that the first five books of the Bible, called the Pentateuch consisting of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, were not written completely by Moses but by different authors.
History of the Documentary Theory of the Pentateuch
The Documentary Hypothesis—the theory that the Pentateuch was a compilation of selections from several different written documents composed at different places and times over a period of five centuries, long after Moses.
BIBLE TRANSLATION: John 21:15-17 (phileō and agapaō)
Some Bible scholars have created two problems: (1) churchgoers think English is lazy and cannot convey the original language acceptably into the receptor language. (2) It also gives fuel to Bible critics.
How Are We to Understand Numbers in the Bible?
The modern reader of the Bible—especially of the Old Testament—often finds its use of numbers strange. The ancient world did not use numbers for every aspect of life.
Who Wrote the Pentateuch (Genesis-Deuteronomy) and When was It Written?
Although Jewish and Christian tradition almost unanimously recognize Moses as author of the Pentateuch, few issues relating to the OT now are debated as hotly, and in few issues is the gulf between critical and evangelical scholarship so wide.
The 1,260, 1,290, and 1,335 Days of Daniel’s Prophecy
Abomination of desolation is thus a symbol for the most devastating activities through which the hostile forces of evil make their attack, whether upon the Jewish people in Maccabean times, upon Jerusalem in the first century AD, or upon the people of God in a final assault of evil at the end time.
JEREMIAH 1:4; 11; 13: “The Word of Jehovah Came to Me”
IF the days of David and Solomon may be compared to spring and summer in the history of the kingdom of Israel, it was late autumn when our story opens.
A Message to the Church in Smyrna (A Fragrant Church)
The city of Smyrna was located approximately thirty-five miles north of Ephesus. It was a prosperous city with a population of over one hundred thousand in John’s day (c. A.D. 95). That location had been inhabited for over three thousand years and no one knows for sure who founded Smyrna or exactly when it was established.