Who Really Wrote the Bible? Review by Rev. Rolf Preus

Who Really Wrote the Bible?
Review by Rev. Rolf David Preus
Christian News, Vol. 49, No. 31, August 15, 2011

Who Really Wrote the Bible? And Why It Should Be Taken
Seriously Again, by Eyal Rav-Noy and Gil Weinreich, Richard Vigilante Books, 2010. (Available from Christian News for $10.00 plus $4.00 s/h.)

One hears of the demise of the JEDP source hypothesis as other forms of criticism (genre, literary, etc.) come into vogue. Not that it is debunked to the satisfaction of establishment scholars. It just doesn’t matter anymore as the scholarly community has gone on to more interesting pursuits. After all, the slicing and dicing of the Pentateuch into various oral traditions identified with J (the personal name for God), E (the title God), D (more or less the book of Deuteronomy) and P (the priestly tradition) might have been exciting when first introduced, but over the years became a rather tedious exercise as the theory, teetering like a T.V. on the edge of the airwaves, required constant fine-tuning to reconcile its many internal inconsistencies. No wonder interest waned.

Rav-Noy’s and Weinreich’s book might just resurrect a bit of interest in JEDP. They have thoroughly discredited it. By identifying thematic structures, chiasms, the use of the number seven, and other literary devices the authors convincingly demonstrate the single authorship of the Pentateuch, debunking the JEDP source hypothesis in the process.

They show the unity of the biblical text. With clarity and humor they display to the reader the intellectual laziness of the critics who arbitrarily assign the use of one word to this tradition and the use of another word to that tradition.

While relying on the original Hebrew throughout, this book is an easy read. The authors set forth their arguments clearly and demonstrate them convincingly. While it is not an apologetic for biblical inspiration, it does effectively rebut one of the chief tenets of those who reject biblical inspiration, the notion that the Books of Moses are a compilation of various oral traditions that were later redacted into one work.

In a refreshing and entertaining fashion, this book shatters the orthodoxy of the liberal scholarly establishment. The authors’ purpose is to discredit what has kept people from taking the Bible seriously. They succeed in doing so. Clearly, the authors take the Bible seriously, but do not find the gospel of the free forgiveness of sins for Christ’s sake through faith alone as the essence of or even as a feature of Moses’ teaching. Thus, while a text worthy of serious consideration for our instruction in the mysteries of God is necessary, something needs to happen to the reader. The veil needs to be lifted. But the God who lifts it does so through his own words recorded for us in the Holy Scriptures.

For this reason we can rejoice in a work that shoots down the arguments of the Bible critics and forces the honest reader to take the Bible seriously again.