Christians: If you hold to the position of a multi-source Pentateuch or Isaiah does that compromise the Bible

Question

as being God's Word?

Some thought out answers, thanks!

If you want to know what I think EMAIL me.

Answer 1

I don't hold to the JDEP theory or the two Isaiahs, but I think some people have strong biblical view who do. For example, the view of inerrancy assumes that other views lead to a slippery slope of doctrinal decline. But those who do not hold to inerrancy still see the Bible as authoritative, just like the deliverances of eye-sight, even if it isn't flawless.

Answer 2

When one looks at some of the historical books of the Old Testament, they cover periods that sometimes extend into hundred of years (1 and 2 Chronicles for example covers about five hundreds years from Saul/David to the Captivity). So they obviously could not have been the work of a single author who lived through all the experiences. Rather, they have to have been carefully compiled from the records that were kept during the time of Saul, and the time of David, and the time of Solomon, and so on through the other kings. At some point, a "final" editor did a "redaction" in which the various accounts are harmonized into a single narrative which survives today.

Those "editors" where no less inspired in the final compiling of the five hundred years of history then were the original authors. No one person could have recorded five hundred years of history without using sources from over those years to do it. It is called "research" and "scholarship". It can be, and was, guided by God's hand.

So the fact that some of the Old Testament books are compiled from multiple sources into the form that God wanted them does not somehow make them not "God's word".

Answer 3

Maybe. If a person argues these alleged later sources inserted prophesies that appeared to came true later, then this would certainly compromise the Bible's integrity.

However, I lean toward belief the Pentateuch is from a single source -- even the events which post-date Moses' death. Moses was a prophet, so why is it so difficult to believe he merely wrote what God told him would happen after his death?

Alternatively, the thought that Joshua is the second writer of events taking place after Moses' death wouldn't trouble me.

Answer 4

On one hand, it wouldn't, but then again, it could. The Jews believe in the "second-Isaiah" and use this belief to dismiss the heavily Messianic passages that Christians have used on them for centuries. Rather than facing them, they dismiss them by saying, "That wasn't Isaiah," and use some differences in writing style to justify that. (My writing style has changed over the years, but my writings are still mine.)

Please note that Jesus affirmed the authorship of the Pentateuch as Moses'. Here's one example: "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you-that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms had to be fulfilled." (Luke 24:44)

Isaiah was proven to be one book (with one author) when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. The entire book of Isaiah was one piece, and without division. There was no "deutero-Isaiah." Just Isaiah.

Answer 5

No.

It means God worked through human means.

Besides, no where in the Bible does it say Moses wrote all of the Pentateuch. They do refer to the Torah as being "Moses" in the sense of being the mosaic scripture the tradition that came down from Moses, but certainly that doesn't necessarily mean he wrote it all.

Answer 6

dk what youre talking about but NO