“Blogging the Institutes” is my on-going attempt to paraphrase John Calvin’s work, the Institutes of the Christian Religion. You can find out more about the series in the Introduction. For all the posts in this series, check out the Master List.
Moses and the Prophets Preserved
Some people criticize divine truth. One question they raise is, “How do we know that Moses and the prophets actually wrote the books of the Bible which bear their names?” They will even go further and question whether Moses actually existed. If someone questioned the existence of Plato or Aristotle, wouldn’t we ridicule them? God preserved the Law of Moses. Although the Law was briefly lost, it was found by King Josiah (2 Kings 22:8; 2 Chronicles 34:15). It has been subsequently transmitted in unbroken lineage down through the generations. In fact, when Josiah found it, it wasn’t treated as an entirely new thing. But it was treated as an extremely influential book which everyone knew about, and eventually it’s contents were adequately remembered. The original manuscript has been deposited in the temple, and a copy of that manuscript had been deposited in the royal archives (Deuteronomy 17:18-19). The only thing which happened to it was that the priests had stopped publishing copies of the Law and the people neglected to read it. Scarcely a time period has passed, however, that it’s authority was not confirmed and renewed. Were the books of Moses unknown to those who had a copy of the Book of Psalms? The books of Moses and the prophets were passed down through the centuries in an unbroken series from the Israelite ancestors.