The Erosion of Inerrancy in Evangelicalism by Gregory K. Beale

Author:Gregory K. Beale
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 2016-08-11T00:00:00+00:00

Does Minor Updating or Editing of Isaiah Nullify the New Testament’s Witness to the Single Authorship of Isaiah?

One of the well-known contenders for the single authorship of Isaiah was Oswald Allis. A recent writer, J. H. Wood, has criticized Allis for allowing that the account of Moses’ death at the end of the Pentateuch was not written by Moses but by some subsequent editor. Allis acknowledged that not every word was actually written by Moses; why did Allis not allow for the same thing in Isaiah? Specifically, the argument has been made that “if the NT authors assert that the Pentateuch is from Moses even though he did not write every word, then is it possible that NT ascriptions of Isaianic origin do not necessarily imply that the eighth-century prophet wrote every word?”55

Wood’s critique of Allis assumes that the New Testament ascriptions of Mosaic and Isaianic authorship are so diluted by allowing for some statements not originating from Moses or Isaiah that the notion of the traditional authorship of these two books must be seriously questioned. But this is a legalistic view of authorship, which Wood also assumes in his critique.56

A viable understanding of single authorship of any writing can be held without assuming that every word is verbatim from that author. Two examples will suffice. It is clear that much of what Moses said in the Pentateuch was written down by scribes, or secretaries in contemporary parlance, and that this scribal record is what became part of the written Pentateuchal record.57 Such scribes may have used some liberty in their recording, but it is unlikely that Moses and other Israelite officials would have let such scribal records circulate if they did not genuinely reflect what Moses said.

Likewise, Paul himself likely did not write the epistle to the Romans; Tertius was his secretary and wrote down what Paul dictated (Rom. 16:22). Yet the epistle has always been called Paul’s epistle to the Romans because it is really from him, not Tertius. There were at least two ways to take dictation in the first century: a whole segment would be read and then the secretary would write it down, or a scribe copied syllable by syllable.58 We do not know which method Tertius followed. The former mode of dictation may well have allowed for some creative composition on the part of the secretary. Even if Tertius copied in this manner, the letter would have been read back to Paul to make sure that everything there was really what Paul intended. Therefore, it is possible that at various points we do not have the exact words of Paul, but we certainly have his clear conceptual voice. Paul starts the letter saying it is from him to the Romans (Rom. 1:1–7); nowhere does Paul say the letter is from Tertius. The same thing is true of 1 Peter, where Peter says that Sylvanus is his secretary (1 Pet. 5:12).

It is for this reason that Oswald Allis could see that Moses was the ultimate author of the Pentateuch, even if every word was not written by him.

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