03.02 - The Pentateuch Inspired
(2) The Pentateuch Inspired The Old Testament is the authoritative record of God’s special discipline and training of Israel as a people to whom was revealed the knowledge of Him self and of His gracious purpose for the race. This fact will remain, whatever Criticism may determine as to the date and authorship of the books of the Old Testament. Whether Moses wrote the Pentateuch as we now have it or not, it must be admitted that the writings contain a nucleus of Mosaic legislation and teaching, which, as Israel’s prophet, leader, and lawgiver, he gave them. Moses is the recognised author of the national status and religious institutions of Israel; he provided that people not only with the nucleus of a system of civil ordinances, but of ceremonial and religious observances, befitting the ethical and religious relations in which they stood to Jehovah as their God and Saviour. Moses also instituted some form of priesthood, which priesthood was instructed in matters pertaining to the ceremonial and religious observances of the worship of Jehovah as the God of Israel. Those instructions may have been only in outline or germ, to be filled in, and developed, as the people multiplied and family and national life took on new aspects, assumed new conditions, and required new laws and regulations.
These additions and developments made by inspired authority according to the necessities of the law, were Mosaic in spirit and character, and when given in the name and with the authority of Moses they were so given in the belief that they were according to the legislation and teaching of Moses, and were just what Moses would have sanctioned had he been with them as prophet and lawgiver at that time.
Because they were developments of the Mosaic legislation, because they were given as divine revelations and instructions to Israel to guide them onward to the coming of that Holy and Just One, “ the prophet like unto Moses “ whom God promised to raise up and send, the) are inspired, whether the actual work of Moses, or only according to the Mosaic pattern. “ There was in this,” says Dr. Driver, “ no interested or dishonest motive on the part of post-Mosaic authors; this being so, its moral and spiritual greatness remain unimpaired, and its inspired authority in no respect less than that of any other portion of the Old Testament Scriptures which happen to be a compilation and anonymous.” *