Thrust Statement: Liberal chronology denies the inspiration of the Scriptures.

When Christians read after many biblical scholars, one is immediately confronted with dates assigned to individual books of the Bible that deny the authenticity of the various books of Holy Scripture. This liberal dating of the books has resulted in the denial of Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, which consists of the first five books of the Old Testament. This essay briefly summarizes this philosophy of dating with the biblical chronology that is found within the Bible itself.  This author, Dallas Burdette, rejects the dates assigned by many liberal scholars, especially those who deny the dates of the Bible. Those who reject Mosaic authorship are referred to as liberals, which term is employed to distinguish them from conservatives. Liberals do not believe in Mosaic authorship, but conservatives do.

Unfortunately, this word liberal is employed very loosely, or inaccurately, against anyone who disagrees with the odd theology of certain religious groups. Nevertheless, one must appreciate those who are concerned about liberalism.  However, liberalism must be defined as those who deny Mosaic authorship, the inspiration of the Scriptures, the virgin birth, the atonement of Christ, and the relevancy of God’s Word in the lives of men and women.  Yes, every Christian must condemn this kind of liberalism. Liberalism is something that every Christian must condemn. Liberalism has many facets in its agenda, not just biblical chronology. On the other hand, conservative Christians rely upon Scripture, not the philosophical arguments of theologians. For the believer, it is “To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light” (Isaiah 8:20). It is in this same vein that Jesus, Paul, and Peter address themselves to the importance of relying upon the written Word:

    It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4)^[1]

    I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. (2 Timothy 4:1-2)

    If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 4:11)

Before approaching biblical chronology, the chronology of liberalism is presented in order to compare the chronology as set forth in the Word of God. Christians are bound to the Word of God, not the words of men.  In one’s study of the Older Testamental writings,^[2] one must consider the puzzling question, What Is Liberalism?  The following definition will set the stage for examination of one of the most misunderstood questions within many Churches of Christ^[3] as well as other denominations:

    Liberal Protestantism is a modern movement that reinterprets the biblical and historic doctrines and practices of Christianity. Reluctant to endorse orthodox doctrines such as the virgin birth, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the need for renewal by the Holy Spirit and the infallibility of the Bible, liberal Protestants are more interested in adapting religious ideas to modern culture and thought. . . . Following theologians like Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976), liberal Protestants insist that modern men and women cannot understand or accept the outdated teachings of Christianity in a world so changed by modern science.  This is a thinly disguised naturalism—in Bultmann’s case a strident anti-supernaturalism—which insists that the Bible must be “demythologized,” freed of symbolic myths such as the atonement or miracles and reinterpreted to see what Jesus or the Bible’s writers really taught.  Biblical Christianity is precisely the story of a great miracle—the resurrection; this view destroys any real possibility of belief in God.^[4]

Based upon the above definition, liberalism is the denial of the virgin birth, the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the infallibility of the Bible, Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, the miracles of the Bible, the Atonement, and so on. This is liberalism! Liberalism is a denial of the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures.  Liberalism believes that prophecy had its origin in the will of man. Liberalism denies that “Men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit,” which is what Peter affirmed in his second epistle (2 Peter 1:21). Every Christian must be concerned about liberalism, but, at the same time, believers should identify liberalism in its true form.  Jesus also confronted liberalism among the religious leaders in His day:

    But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?  (John 5:45-47)

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY LIBERALISM

            To understand liberalism today, one must go back to the seventeenth century.  The modern-day liberal biblical theology movement has its origin in the writings of Baruch Spinoza (1631-1677) and Richard Simon (1633-1712)—a Catholic priest in France.  La Payrene, a French Calvinist, who challenged the commitment to biblical infallibility by creating hypotheses that contradicted biblical teaching, influenced both of these men.^[5]  During the time of Spinoza and Simon, another leader arose, Jean Le Clerc (1657-1736), who also questioned the authorship of the Pentateuch.^[6]  Le Clerc’s denial of Mosaic authorship was so radical that even Simon was offended by his proposals.  Another liberal, Jean Astruc (1684-1766) reflected upon the Simon/Le Clerc controversy (1685-1686) as one of the most intense confrontations in the history of ideas about the Bible.^[7]

DOCUMENTARY HYPOTHESIS

            Even though others, from time to time, denied Mosaic authorship, Astruc did not.  Nevertheless, Jean Astruc paved the way for later criticism of the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). Up until the second half of the eighteenth century, Mosaic authorship remained the generally accepted position.  Although Astruc, a French medical doctor, still held to Mosaic authorship, he laid the groundwork for such men as Graf (1815-1869) and Wellhausen (1844-1919) in their Documentary Hypothesis, that is to say, the dividing of the Pentateuch into four sources (JEDP), thus denying Mosaic authorship.  Astruc maintained that there were repetitions and contradictions in the Pentateuch, and, as a result, he concluded that Moses used various sources in compiling the Pentateuch.

Four Sources: JEDP

            Originally, the key for sources (JEDP) turned upon the use of the names “Lord” (J [Y]ahweh) and “God” (Elohim).^[8] To this day the different use of names for God is the chief characteristic of source splitting, that is, dividing the books of Moses into four sources, and thereby denying Mosaic authorship.  Herbert Livingston calls attention to these various sources in the naming of the documents:

    From Astruc on, the criterion of two divine names, Elohim and Jehovah, has been elemental to analysis of the Pentateuch and the basis for three of the four documents.  The sources E and P have the name Elohim, and J had Jehovah; each of these sources or documents has separate histories. . . .

    Julius Wellhausen is the scholar generally credited with resolving the issue of dating sequence.  Drawing heavily upon the implications of Hegel’s postulates—thesis, antithesis, and synthesis in the processes of history—Wellhausen opted for the sequence JEDP.  In his famous book, Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel, first published in 1878, Wellhausen argued so persuasively for his position that he won the day.  His theory became standard in Old Testament liberal circles for more than half a century and still is a powerful voice.^[9]

            The Graf-Wellhausen Documentary Hypothesis^[10] has had tremendous influence upon modern day scholars. One such scholar is Robert B. Laurin, former professor of Old Testament at the American Baptist Seminary in Covina, California.  Thus, Laurin explains that

    Three famous sources were used in the formation of the bulk of Genesis through Numbers.  The first is called the “J” source because it tends to use consistently the proper name “Jahweh” (usually spelled “Yahweh”) for God; it is probably comes from the tenth century B.C. during the reign of Solomon.  The second source is called the “E” source because it uses the name “Elohim” for God, and perhaps comes from the Northern Kingdom of Israel about a century later, that is, in the ninth century B.C. shortly after the breakup of Solomon’s kingdom.  The third source is termed the “P” source because of its dominant priestly interest in worship and law; it appears to have been gathered together during the exile in Babylonia in the sixth century B.C. . . .  The Priestly History comprises Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers.  Sometime after the destruction of Jerusalem, they gathered together some of the older narrative sources, particularly “J” and “E.” . . . The motive for the formation of this history was Israel’s own situation. . . . Second, the recognition of sources shows us that the main characters of the books are the heroes, not the authors, even though a given book may bear the name of Moses or Samuel or Joshua, this does not mean that it is the product of his hand.  The books are all anonymous, the products of centuries of gradual collection. . . . Thus, scholars have concluded that such expression as “the Lord said to Moses”: or “Moses said” are not indications of authorship, but rather only general formulas to introduce collections of literature.^[11]

AGE OF SKEPTICISM

            During this period of skepticism, beginning with Spinoza and Simon, other men of prominence also stand out as major players in the development of cynicism regarding the Bible: Voltaire (1694-1778), Hume (1711-1776), Rousseau (1712-1778), Diderot (1713-1784), Lessing (1729-1781), and Kant 1724-1804).^[12] Another important name that played an important role in the development of the modern-liberal theology movement was Johann Philip Gabler (1753-1826). Gabler was essentially a rationalist, and his approach to biblical theology prevailed for approximately fifty years. With this rationalistic technique of Gabler, scholars began to view the Bible as any other book.  No longer was the Bible the Word of God—it was now just one more book.^[13] 

            In the meanwhile, Hegel’s (1770-1831) views were put to use in the study of the Scriptures.  The comments of Livingston may be added for further confirmation of this statement: “The views of Auguste Comte (1798-1857), father of logical positivism, and Hegel, champion of logical progression after the pattern of a thesis-antithesis-synthesis sequence, were particularly influential among Old Testament Scholars.”^[14] Livingston explains how Hegelian philosophy was applied to the Pentateuch:

    How then did the Wellhausen theory date the four documents?  Since the D document was declared to be written in the seventh century and made public in Josiah’s reform of 621 B.C., that document became the keystone for the procedure.  It was decided that D knew about the contents of J and E, but not of the Contents of P; hence, J and E were written before 621 B.C., and P, at a later date.

    Dialectically, the J document, with its naïve concepts, could be dated before E, and the early phases of the divided kingdom seemed to provide a good historical setting.  It could be argued that J was the kingdom of Judah’s reaction against the establishment of the kingdom of north Israel.  The purpose of J, then, was to provide Judah with a “historical” document that would justify Judah’s and Jerusalem’s claim to be the governmental center of all Israel.  Likewise, E would be the antithetical production of the Kingdom of north Israel, led by the tribe of Ephraim, to show that there were historical antecedents in the Patriarchs and in Joshua for the governmental center to be located in the north.

    The theory continued to conclude that after the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel, in 721 B. C., broadminded men during the reign of Manasseh (first half of seventh century B.C.) felt that the E document was too valuable to lose, so they blended it with the J document.  This new JE document became a new thesis and the D document its antithesis.  The thinking of the D document is said to have triumphed, substantially, during the Exile in Babylon and colored the composition of the historical books Joshua through II Kings.  However, the “Holiness Code,” tied with Ezekiel, arose as another antithesis to D; and slowly, for perhaps a century, the priests in exile and then in Jerusalem put together the P document and made it the framework of a grand synthesis, the Pentateuch.^[15]

            Scholars applied the thinking of Hegel to the study of the Bible.  Before the time of Hegel, truth was conceived on the basis of antithesis.^[16]  For example, truth, in the sense of antithesis, is related to the idea of cause and effect.  In other words, if anything is true, the opposite is false.  In plain English, absolutes^[17] imply antithesis.  Hegel departed from the classical methodology of antithesis.^[18]  No longer did men think of thesis and antithesis; now, men thought in terms of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.^[19]  He and his followers shifted the concept of truth and modern man was born.^[20]

            According to liberal scholarship, the words of Scripture are no longer God’s Revelation. Thus, there is no absolute standard by which right and wrong are determined.  No longer is the Word of God viewed as the Word of God, but now the Scriptures are simply looked upon as the words of men.  Scholarship, influenced by Hegel, forgot that historic Christianity stands on a basis of antithesis. Without antithesis, then Christianity is meaningless.  Without antithesis there is no way of determining what is right and what is wrong.  If there are no absolutes, then who is to determine what is right and what is wrong?  The Christian view is that God and God alone is the answer to what is right and what is wrong.  God alone is authoritative. As stated above, Isaiah calls attention to the fact that it is God’s Word that is the determinative factor in determining what is right and what is wrong:  “To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn” (Isaiah 8:20). God revealed Himself through His Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit revealed God’s will through His prophets and through the Apostles of Christ.

LIBERAL CHRONOLOGY

            In order to understand the impact of the Graf-Wellhausen Documentary Hypothesis^[21] upon the church today, one must understand something of the time frame within which the liberals assign to the books of Moses.  Liberals deny not only Mosaic authorship, but also the authenticity of other books of the Old Testament as well as New Testament books.  Again, the question is: What is the Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis?  The following explanation sets forth in a nutshell the basic theory:

    Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis. A theory concerning the origins of the Pentateuch which, though having numerous antecedents, was most persuasively argued by K. H. Graf (1866) and Julius Wellhausen (1876-1884); it added to the existing hypothesis the argument that written documents, combined and revised over several centuries from varying historical and theological points of view, could be (fairly) precisely dated and placed in an evolutionary sequence. A J (Yahwist) document (ca. 850 B.C.) and an E (Elohist) document (ca. 750 B.C.) were, according to this hypothesis, combined by a redactor (R^JE) around 650 B.C.; the Deuteronomic Code (621 B.C., called D) was added by a redactor (R^D) around 550 B.C.; the Priestly Code (Ca. 450 B.C.) constituted the final document added by a redactor (R^P) around 400 B.C.^[22]

CONCLUSION

From the above citation, one observes that the liberals divide the books of Moses into four documents (JEDP).  From these four documents, the following chronology is assigned:  “J” (J [Y]ahweh) is designated a date around 850 BC; “E” (Elohist) is allotted a date close to 750 BC.; then, “J” and “E” were combined by a redactor (editor) in 650 BC; “D” (represents Deuteronomy) is consigned a date just about 621 BC during the reign of Josiah; “D” was combined with “J” and “E” by a redactor in 550 BC; “P” (represents primarily Leviticus) is doled out a date approximately 450 BC; then, finally, “J” and “E” and “D” were brought together in 400 BC.  This chronology set forth by many scholars is vastly different from that assigned by the Holy Spirit.  The next chapter in this series examines the internal evidence of the Bible in order to arrive at a correct dating for the books of the Old Testament as well as the dates of birth for some of the main characters in the Book of Genesis.