From Bondage to Liberty in Religion: A Spiritual Autobiography

by George T. Ashley

Then on the question of interpolations, our author confesses that there are many of them in the Pentateuch, most of them showing that they belong to a much later age than Moses; yet he denies that any of them are material, or in any way change the original meaning or sense of the text.

Thus I went thru over 250 pages, devoted, not so much to the questions of divine inspiration and supernatural revelation, as these seemed to be very largely taken for granted; but to the defense of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch upon which seemed to hinge the whole question of its authenticity and infallible authority. As the author puts it, "If the Pentateuch was not written by Moses it is a forgery." To do this he quotes quite elaborately from the higher critics, Bauer, Davidson, Bleek, Ewald, Kuenen, Wellhausen, and others, for the ostensible purpose of answering and refuting them.

Now I had, up to this time, never read a line of such Biblical criticism, except that quoted by this author. Naturally, I not only had no sympathy with it, but was strongly prejudiced against it. But I could not fail to note that the refutations and explanations of my author very often failed to either refute or explain.

To sum the whole thing up, when I had gone thus far, I could not avoid the impression that from the standpoint of logical argument, based upon any known facts, the whole thing was a failure. It was simply a continued series of apologetics; in legal parlance, a sort of "confession and avoidance." I began in the firm belief that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, and that he was divinely inspired in doing it. I expected to find the definite proofs that this was true. When I got thru I didn't know who wrote it. I was equally certain the author I was reading didn't know; and I doubted if any one else did. I felt the incipient doubts of my school days returning, only in much larger volume and greater force. If the reader will pardon the phrase: "I felt myself slipping."

Then followed a study of the authorship, origin, character, and purpose of the remaining canonical books of the Old Testament. These may all be grouped into two or three divisions. Of the historical books of Joshua, Judges, First and Second Samuel, First and Second Kings and First and Second Chronicles, I found to my surprise, that nobody knows who wrote any of them; nor anything definite about the time, or circumstances under which they were written. Joshua was merely believed to have been written not later than twenty-five years after the death of Joshua, by some person or persons who were personally familiar with the events therein narrated. As the book is clearly divided into two distinct parts, the first ending with the twelfth chapter and the second beginning with the thirteenth, it is supposed that it was written by Eleazar and Phinehas. But this is admitted to be mere conjecture.

The Book of Judges is placed after that of Joshua, because it takes up the narrative where Joshua closes. It is assumed that it must have been written sometime before the close of David's reign. "Respecting the Authorship of Judges, nothing is known." The date of both books of Samuel—originally one book—is wholly unknown, as is also that of the Kings and Chronicles. It is conjectured from internal evidence, that Chronicles was probably compiled by Ezra, from Samuel, Kings, and possibly other documents, sometime after the return from the exile.

As to the Book of Ezra, it was shown that it is probably one of the most authentic books of the Old Testament, and written by the man whose name it bears. Nehemiah was also placed in the thoroly authentic class, with the admission that about one-fourth of the total contents of the book, appearing in the middle of it, is very probably an interpolation by a later, and unknown author. But this, he insists, does not detract from the divine inspiration and authenticity of the book as a whole.

Ruth and Esther also belong to the class of the unknown. Nobody knows who wrote either, nor when, nor where. Ruth is placed "probably sometime during the reign of David." Esther is much later; in fact it is one of the latest books in the Old Testament Canon, from which it was long excluded because the name of God nowhere appears in it. The historical events narrated in it are admitted to be of very doubtful authenticity, as they are nowhere else mentioned in the Bible, and are wholly unknown to secular history; and such events, if they occurred at all, were of such transcendent importance to the Jewish nation, that mention of them in the Chronicles, or by some of the prophets, could hardly have been omitted. But our author gets around all these difficulties by the Feast of Purim. He insists that such a memorial as this, that has been and still is celebrated annually by the Jews in all parts of the world, "since the memory of man runneth not to the contrary," could not possibly have originated in a mere fiction, and been perpetuated so long. Therefore, the Book of Esther must be true, and divinely inspired!

When I had read thus far, in spite of my former simple faith in the divine inspiration and infallible truth of the Bible, I found myself clearly on the toboggan; and I was deeply disturbed in mind. I was studying a thoroly orthodox author, a distinguished professor in one of our leading colleges, whose book was approved by the bishops of my church; a book clearly written for the purpose of defending the traditional position of the church concerning the Bible, on almost every page of which that I had thus far read, I found a series of apologetics rather than arguments; with constant admissions of the world's total ignorance of the origin, authorship and date of most of the books of the Bible thus far reviewed. I began to wonder, if this was what I was getting from such a source, inspired by such a motive, what might I expect from a Biblical scholar and critic who was in search only of abstract truth, with no preconceived opinions to support or defend? I felt an incipient revolution brewing in my mind. But I was yet to learn more.

Concerning the poetical books, I found that the Book of Job was not written by Job; that nobody knows who wrote it, nor when nor where. I found that conjecture by different scholars placed it all the way from "before Moses" to after the exile. Nobody knows whether it purports to record, in poetic form, a series of actual historic facts and events; or whether it is merely a dramatic allegory, entirely fictitious, or founded upon some substratum of fact. We do not know who Job was, whether a Hebrew, an Arab, or Chaldean;—nor just where "the land of Uz" was.