Alternative to Julius Wellhausen: Scissors of the Holy Spirit

Koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; Thd)

Visiting professor

Department of Liberal Education

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korean

Conjoint lecturer of Avondale

Australia

Julius Wellhausen last name means “house that is well” but we now know that is what all but well. As an Arabist he felt himself able to reject the original authors of the Hebrew scriptures and using Modern German Literary Criticism of his own day, he superimposed it over the Old Testament. He postulated that Moses did not write Job, nor Genesis nor Exodus nor any books of the Pentateuch. He developed his infamous theory JEDP which took the liberal thinking Rationalist at every seminary in the World with storm. Many denominations refrain from his ideas and great scholars have written reliable treaties against his ideas, A. Sayce, F, Hommel, F. Hengstenberg, W. F. Albright et al. almost all Seventh-day Adventist scholars who carry the name of SDA honorably. Any modern deviation will be an offshoot Adventist, wayward Adventist, accomodationist Adventist, a pluralist Adventist which in biblical terms does not exist. It is in biblical terms of Elijah’s day not Yahwism but Baalism. Among the Yahwist seminaries of Elijah’s day there were many Baal prophets. Right name but wrong essence.

We are going to present a solution from a faith angle on the sources used by Moses for the writing of Genesis.

The Book of Genesis was written by Moses in 1460 BCE while he was hiding from Thutmosis III in Midian. He was there since 1490 BCE, the year Moses committed manslaughter of killing an Egyptian overseer of the labor camp in a moment of outrage and blindness as a result of anger. He suffered for it nearly 40 years and it was no picnic. So, it may be that the night in 1490 BCE of the outrage accident, he ran to his mother to quickly greet her before he fled the country. She may have given him the family scrolls of the following books or their Bible books: Book of Adam (Genesis 5:1); Book of Noah (Genesis 6:9) and the Book of Shem (Genesis 11:10). We do not know of other books he may have had with him, but with these he fled for his 40 years exile due to the crime. He may have had a Book of Job that detailed all the history of what happened to Job and it may have served him as template to write the epic on the life of Job making readable what was cryptic in his source.

The Book of Job came alive in Midian and the suffering of Job was a lesson and inspiration to Moses’ own suffering. We may be aware of four books in Moses’ possession while in Midian.

So how did the Holy Spirit lead Moses to start writing our Canon? Why another Canon if he had the Book of Adam etc?

The Book of Adam and the Book of Shem were in a sense outdated and the Holy Spirit decided that since the pre-deluvial world (note it is only or theory) with people living almost a millennium, is different from the post-deluvial world where people lived shorter lives, that a new Canon was imperative. The result: Moses should start compiling the new Canon for the new post-Flood era.

The Scissors of the Holy Spirit is a concept that indicate to me how the Holy Spirit led Moses in his historiography. Moses was not collecting legends and myths. Moses was not concocting. Moses was not speculating. It is not plagiarism from Babylonian Myths as the Rationalist Herman Gunkel speculated in his works on Genesis in 1899, 1900.

How was the Book of Genesis to be designed by Moses?

It appears as if the Holy Spirit send Moses first to the Book of Adam (Genesis 5:1) and it was the desire of the Holy Spirit to tell people with a two chapter prelude, the origin of all things so from the Book of Adam, who wrote presumably carefully what God had told him about the Creation by Himself while walking and talking to Adam and Eve in Eden, exactly how it was done. Of course in human terms for difficult scientific and physics processes. The Creation prelude or origin of all things prelude covered Genesis 1:1-2:5. It was to tell about the origin of all things as well as humans, especially two Adam and Eve. Then the Holy Spirit decided to cut from the detail in the Book of Adam, that part of his autobiography dealing with the Fall of Man and from Genesis 2:5-5:1 we follow the Great Controversy in Heaven continued on earth and the resultant evil environment all humans find themselves in today. At Genesis 5:1 the scissors of the Holy Spirit suddenly cut the history of Adam and Eve and decided it was enough for the post-Flood humanity to know.

Then the Holy Spirit prompted Moses to pick up the second book, the Book of Noah (Genesis 6:9). He asked Moses to write a prelude again by using a genealogy of Adam and Noah blended to such an extent that one can show the continuation from Adam to Noah. This prelude is about the origin of Noah. It was between 5:1-6:9.

From the full history of Noah, the Holy Spirit decided to explain the big Flood disaster brought about by worldwide catastrophe with geological and fossil record implications, but due to man’s sin. The Great Controversy reality was to be told to humanity in no uncertain terms.

From Genesis 6:9-11:10 we follow the Book of Noah and events in his life leading to the Flood and the dispersion of all nations and migrations of nations and the origin of the different languages and races. It was due to divine intervention. Again brought about by the Great Controversy reality. The Great Controversy reality is the Rebellion in Heaven reality of Lucifer against God and one third of the angels cast down to earth for Lucifer’s new name, Satan.

One cannot miss this tragic reality from the covers of our canon.

Suddenly in Genesis 11:10 the Scissors of the Holy Spirit decided that it is enough about Noah and a switch need to be made in the new post-Flood era. About Adam and Noah just in brief but about the post-Flood faithful ones, a long narrative since much can be learned from peers of our own age.

The Holy Spirit asked Moses to write a prelude of the origin of Abraham by using a genealogy that link the faithful Noah to the faithful Abraham and that was selected from the Book of Shem (Genesis 11:10) by Moses. It covers the area between Genesis 11:10-11:32.

We know it is historical since careful chronology is mentioned from Adam until now with Abraham. There are no mysterious numbers or guess maths. No approximations or 40 year units for a generation etc. It was precise.

Then the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph are dealt with, with from Genesis 12-50:26. Of course the Holy Spirit used His scissors to cut and paste only excerpts from the total lives of these faithful remnant people of God but they were to demonstrate that sinful man, can worship God in a hostile environment. And they did. They became templates for ourselves in the new Canon that Moses designed with the help of the Holy Spirit, since all scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit.