The Hebrew Old Testament, also known as the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible, is the collection of thirty-nine sacred texts that are central to Judaism and are also accepted by many Christian denominations as part of their canon of scripture. The Hebrew Old Testament includes the Torah (also known as the Pentateuch or the Five Books of Moses), the Prophets, and the Writings. It is the authoritative text of the Old Testament by Jews and many Christian scholars.
Can Our Bible Translations Be Trusted?
Even though there has been a serious decline in Christianity over the past 70 years, the Bible is still the bestselling book throughout the world. In fact, it seems that since 1960 there have been dozens of new translations over the years.
Mistakes Were Made In Copying God’s Word. Was the Purity of the Bible Text Threatened? Were These Serious Enough to Ruin the Message of the Bible?
Sadly, 30 years ago, almost all Christians would have been stunned if they had heard that there were intentional and unintentional changes made in the process of copying the manuscripts of the New Testament over a 1,400 year period, some 400,000+ variants. What does this mean for our translations? Can they be trusted?
TEXTUAL ERRORS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT: Unconscious or Unintentional and Conscious or Intentional
From its very nature, New Testament textual criticism concerns itself entirely with the problems suggested by the errors of various kinds that it brings to light.
A Christian Skeptic Discovers God In Ancient Israel
William Foxwell Albright, the son of missionary parents, eagerly pursued his college education as a young man of faith. Finally, he received the coveted Ph.D.—but at a significant cost. His faith had been destroyed by the 19th-century German school of higher criticism. The leading exponents of this school of higher criticism, Julius Wellhausen and Franz Delitzsch, were out to prove that the Old Testament history of the Bible was mere fiction. Why?
What Was the Origin of the Hebrew Language?
Secular historians are not able to disclose the origin of the Hebrew language. In fact, for that matter, the same is true for any of the most ancient languages known, such as Sumerian, Akkadian (Assyro-Babylonian), Aramaean, and Egyptian. The reason for this is because the earliest tongues appeared already fully developed in the earliest written records that have been discovered. However, nevertheless, ...
DEFENDING JOSHUA: Authorship and Date
Rationalist critics of the Wellhausen school have attempted to include Joshua with the five books of the Pentateuch, calling the whole collection the Hexateuch. They consider the basic material to come from J and E, but with considerable editorial work and redaction by the “Deuteronomic School.” DH: Deuteronomistic history (books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings) dated to the 6th–5th century BCE, not the 15th. Is this true? How do we respond to these liberal critics with a rational, reasonable answer?
DEFENDING The Authorship of the Pentateuch
The documentary hypothesis is one of the models used by biblical scholars to explain the origins and composition of the Torah. A version of the documentary hypothesis, frequently identified with the German scholar Julius Wellhausen, was almost universally accepted for most of the 20th century.
Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch in the Twentieth Century
The Documentary Hypothesis is a theory, also known as JEDP, that states that the first five books of the Bible, called the Pentateuch consisting of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, were not written completely by Moses but by different authors.
History of the Documentary Theory of the Pentateuch
The Documentary Hypothesis—the theory that the Pentateuch was a compilation of selections from several different written documents composed at different places and times over a period of five centuries, long after Moses