the East who invaded Canaan and were defeated by Abraham, as recorded in Genesis 14. This story was long denied by the critics.
However, Dr. Nelson Glueck, once widely recognized as the dean of Palestinian archaeologists, president of the Hebrew Union College and the Jewish Institute of Religion, found abundant evidence of this invasion. He said, describing these events:
Centuries earlier, another civilization of high achievement had flourished between the 21st and 19th centuries B.C., till it was savagely liquidated by the kings of the East. According to the biblical statements, which have been borne out by the archaeological evidence, they gutted every city and village at the end of that period from Ashtaroth-Karnaim, in southern Syria through all of Trans-Jordan and the Negev to Kadesh-Barnea in Sinai (Gen. 14:1-7).[7]
Dr. Glueck, though not himself a believer in biblical inerrancy, systematically explored the land of Israel for archaeological records, and found the Bible to be amazingly reliable at all points. Often he used it successfully to lead him to new discoveries, sometimes of significant economic value to the developing Israeli nation. All of this experience finally led him to make the following sweeping generalization:
As a matter of fact, however, it may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference. Scores of archaeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or in exact detail historical statements in the Bible. And, by the same token, proper evaluation of biblical descriptions has often led to amazing discoveries. They form tesserae in the vast mosaic of the Bible's almost incredibly correct historical memory.[8]
The Testimony of Christ
We have seen in the previous chapter that the New Testament records are historically authentic, and that they represent Jesus Christ to be the perfect and infallible Son of God. He was also the perfect Son of Man, sinless and without defect, as well as perfect in knowledge and power, all that the writers claim Him to be and that He himself claimed to be, or else the gospel records are inexplicable.
That being true, His own evaluation of the accuracy and reliability of the Old Testament Scriptures is of supreme determinative importance, especially to those who profess to believe in Christ. It is therefore significant, and there is no question at all about the fact, that Jesus Christ accepted the Old Testament Scriptures throughout as both historically authentic and divinely inspired. The same is true of all the writers of the New Testament.
There are at least 320 direct quotations from the Old Testament in the New, always cited as of absolute authority, in addition to hundreds of other allusions.
The Lord Jesus Christ said, among other things: "The Scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35), and "It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail" (Luke 16:17). He accepted Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (Luke 24:27; John 5:46-47), Isaiah as the author of both major "divisions" of the Book of Isaiah (Matt. 13:14 citing Isa. 6:9-10, and John 12:38 citing Isa. 53:1), and Daniel as the author of the Book of Daniel (Matt. 24:15).
Christ accepted the historicity of Adam and Eve (Matt. 19:4-5), of Abel (Matt. 23:35), of Noah (Luke 17:26), of Abraham (John 8:56-58), and Lot (Luke 17:28). Likewise, He believed that the Genesis records of creation (Mark 10:6-9) and the Flood (Matt. 24:37-39) were historically true. He even believed in the recency of creation (Mark 10:6).
Neither did Christ have any problem in believing the Old Testament miracles, as do the modern critics. He believed in the supernatural destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Luke 17:29) and the calamity of Lot's wife (Luke 17:32). He accepted the miracle of the manna (John 6:32), the healing of the serpents' bites (John 3:14), the miracles of Elijah and Elisha (Luke 4:25-27) and the deliverance of Jonah from the whale (Matt. 12:39-40).
It is no light burden which modern liberal preachers and theologians assume, when they presume to know more about such matters than did the One whom they profess as their Master. To Christ and the Apostles, the Old Testament was absolutely reliable, authentic, and verbally inspired of God, and that should settle the matter for all who claim to be Christians.
The Continuing Witness of the Passover
We have noted in an earlier chapter that the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper provided a continuing witness to the early Christians concerning the genuineness of the New Testament Scriptures. These ordinances were established by Christ himself and were enjoined upon the members of each local church as soon as they were won to Christ and organized into churches by the Apostles and evangelists traveling out from Jerusalem.
Had it not been so, the New Testament Scriptures, which describe the establishment and transmission of these ordinances, could never have been received as genuine and authentic when they first began to be circulated among the early churches. They would have been rejected immediately as spurious, describing as they did these ordinances as having been ordained by Christ and taught by the Apostles, if in fact they knew that no such ordinances were in effect at all.
In somewhat the same way, the observance of the Passover supper afforded a continuing testimony to the genuineness of the books of Moses which described it. The higher critics attribute these books to a number of priests or others who wrote them hundreds of years after Moses — if, indeed, Moses ever existed at all!
But the Book of Exodus describes in much detail God's instructions to the people through Moses concerning the Passover inauguration, along with His commands for its perpetual annual observance. It describes the first Passover and then the miraculous deliverance from Egypt, which the children of Israel were commanded to recall each year through the Passover observance.
Now, suppose that none of this had really happened. Then, suppose also that sometime around 700 B.C. a group of scribes and priests decided to formalize a system of worship which they had developed, and thus, to solidify their own control over the people. They therefore developed a body of religious literature, using various sources, in particular establishing on a formal basis their own priestly offices and powers, finally imparting to all of it an aura of sacred authority by attributing it to the great legendary founder and lawgiver of the nation, Moses.
But they soon would have realized they had slipped up, by including this unfortunate story of the founding and continuing observance of the Passover feast. When the people came to read this, they would immediately have rejected the writings because they had, in fact, not been observing any such thing at all, and neither had their ancestors, and they knew it.
Then, perhaps, the fabricators of the hoax may have attempted to persuade the people that the documents had somehow been lost for many years and thus their instructions forgotten until they were recently rediscovered. Although some may have been persuaded in this manner, surely many of the more skeptical and hardheaded Israelites, naturally reluctant to accept the expensive and demanding priestly rule and restrictions commanded in these spurious documents, would have demanded firm proof that they were genuine works of Moses before they would have even accepted them. The kings and rulers especially would have resisted them, since they described a theocracy, rather than a monarchy, as the governmental structure of the nation.
In fact, the readers would no doubt have responded indignantly by pointing out that, if indeed the documents and practices had been lost for so long, it was the priests and scribes themselves who were guilty, since the very documents they were using said they had been made responsible to maintain the religious institutions of Israel and they had, therefore, failed miserably and were thus hardly to be entrusted again with all this power.
The writings, of course, not only described the Passover, but also the establishment of other institutions, such as the tabernacle, the perpetual offerings, the annual feasts and other observances, and even the Levitical priesthood itself. It is inconceivable that all of
