John 5:46-47 ~ Jesus and Moses, and the JEDP people

Isn't God's creation beautiful! This picture was taken recently at Camp Harvest in Newego Michigan.  You know creation points towards God (Romans 1:20).
I've been reading recently the blog of a dear friend of mine, Kristen Wisen ("Nike Musings" Click here and start reading).  Her recent posts have been on the subject of creation and taking God's Word literally in Genesis 1 and 2.  
If any of you know me outside of this blog, on a scale of 1-10 on my passion for this subject what would I be? Uh, correct: 1 million. I am very passionate about the subject of creation because I believe that God's Word is true and I believe that he wrote it in a way that is accessible for all people.  I don't believe that you have to have a formal educational degree to fully understand the main theme of the Bible. I don't believe that stories in the Bible, unless otherwise stated in the passage (i.e. parables, some prophecies etc.), are to be taken metaphorically or allegorically.
In the case of Genesis 1 and 2, there is no scriptural reference anywhere that is to persuade us to take those metaphorically or allegorically.  I believe that what is in the Bible is what God was intending people to understand about Him. I don't believe that God excluded things from the Bible that we "need" to know or fully understand (i.e. what did God do before the creation of the universe?; explanation of why he predestines some and not others; How he has just always been and was never created or will ever die. etc.) With all that said, Genesis 1 and 2 are to be taken literally and at face value, with no tricks up God's sleeves, and with no hidden textual translation ambiguity. It points towards a young earth literal view of creation.

All that to give a foundation for what I want to bring up to support my friend Kristen in her blogging on the literal truth of God's word.
Ever since the theory (and it is a theory only) of evolution started seeping into the church world, theologians have been trying to find more and more ways to fit the Bible into the mold of what this theory says so that, with good intention, the Bible is able to be current and congruent with modern scientific findings. I truly believe that these theologians and people who are "theistic evolutionists" have good intentions for believing what they do. They are trying to make the Bible relevant to a people who are being swayed by science.
The unfortunate side effect to this compromise actually the opposite of their good intention; it is the crumbling of Biblical accessibility. So when you fit the bible into the scientific mold of evolutionary history, then it is relevant as long as you say that Genesis 1 and 2 were simply just "poetry" with the one important theme of "well, it doesn't matter how God created, as long as you believe that HE did it." 
That belief snowballs into, "well if Genesis 1 and 2 which don't look like any other clear poetry in the bible, are indeed poetry and not meant to be taken literally, how many other places in the bible is this true?"
That belief snowballs into, "man, this is confusing, I better just leave the study of the bible to the people who have degrees to study it and navigate through all of the poetry/non-poetry vs. literal vs. metaphorical texts." 
The ultimate point to all of this snowballing is people being swayed away from reading and diving into God's word because they apparently aren't "smart" or "educated" enough to do so. So instead of reading it, they need to listen to sermons by the preachers who are claiming and preaching the compromise of Biblical history with Evolutionary science.
People, even though there were good intentions behind this equation, it is pushing people away from Christ.  It cheapens the bible from being the Word of God meant to draw people into saving faith in Jesus Christ to being a book by human writers that contains good wisdom for how we should live our lives.

One such compromise that I want to speak on is the JEDP theory of the authorship of the Pentateuch. This theory, to be brief, states that no one man (Moses) wrote the Pentateuch because it would be impossible for one man to have had the knowledge or the insight to write accurately what happened before he was alive and even a little bit after he was alive. So instead there were many different writers over MANY MANY years (fitting into evolutionary old earth theory) that wrote different sections of scripture that were pieced together.  The earliest section of scripture was by authors who referred to God as "Jehovah" and the second earliest section of scripture by those who referred to God as "Elohim" and then there were authors responsible for deuteronomical texts of God's law, and then finally those authors responsible for "priestly" writings about the temple and sacrifices etc.  Long story short, this theory is purposed to try to fit the bible into a worldly, perhaps modern scientific, lens. 
I was taught this theory as fact when I was at a Christian school at the collegiate level. I sat in the classroom and something just didn't sit right in my soul about it. I was like, "what about Moses! I thought he was the writer for the Pentateuch? Why is my professor making this too complicated?" If Moses didn't write it, then who did, and how do we know if we have all of the writers inputs! Could there be some sections of the priestly texts that we don't have and we have been worshiping all wrong this whole time!!?? AHH... I just didn't like the thought of taking the writer title away from Moses. I believe this was the Holy Spirit in me saying, "you now understand what is blinding people in this world and turning them away from the Gospel, you need to stand up for the truth!" Weird huh? Sometimes it's little, but when the Lord stirs your soul to stand for the truth, your fear of Him grows and you understand the truth more and more (Prov 1:7).

Why is it not a good thing on the textual level to compromise with modern, perhaps scientific, findings or perceptions? It's because it cheapens and complicates something that is meant to be accessible to all, not just those who have degrees.
The JEDP theory, something that some bigwig theologian spent many years on, is refuted in 2 VERSES in the New Testament, and that's just two of many many verses. Not only is it refuted, these two verses challenge the reader to believe FULLY in the truth of God's word, not just believing in what modern science can fit into it's scheme.

John 5:46-47  is Jesus talking to a Jewish audience. The context of this passage is in verse 18 "This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal to God."  Verses 46-47 conclude the whole chapter with this powerful and challenging statement from our Lord:

"If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.  But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?"  (ESV)

In these two verses you have Jesus, God himself, saying that Moses wrote the Pentateuch (also there are other passages where Jesus quotes Moses from each of the 5 books a couple being Mark 7:10, Mark 10:5, Mark 12:26, Luke 5:14, Luke 24:27, John 7:19, John 7:22, John 7:23... and there are more).
On top of that Jesus challenges the reader that if they don't believe in what Moses wrote, how could they believe in His words? That's a slap in the face of the JEDP people.  That's a slap in the face to those who say that Genesis 1 and 2 aren't meant to be taken literally. That's a slap in the face of a theistic evolutionist who says, "I don't believe that God created the earth the way it says in those two chapters, but only believe that He 'created' and by the way, created with this major leading theory developed by esteemed scientists who unfortunately happen to be Atheist, but praise the Lord we can redeem their findings eh!?"
Listen, God wrote a book, and he meant for people to read it and understand it. He didn't write it overly complicated. He wrote it so that everyone in EVERY VERSE can be drawn to Himself through Jesus Christ. Jesus is the hero of the Bible.

If we compromise God's word with modern evolutionary science or any other worldly schism, we cheapen the bible into a book of wisdom with a nice story about Jesus somewhere toward the end of it. Let's stand for the truth and reveal to people the fact that this amazing Word of God is accessible to even them!

One last thought.  Why did Jesus have to die for the penalty of our sin IF there was death (survival of the fittest) before Adam and Eve in the evolutionary compromise of Genesis 1 and 2?  I may just write a whole other post about this. In the meantime check out Kristen Wisen's blog on some other incredible and great insights of the TRUTH of God's word being Literal and relevant even if it doesn't correlate with evolutionary science. After all, we look at the world with a biblical lens, we SHOULD NOT look at the bible with a scientific/worldly lens. Just like everything in our journey here on this earth, we double check things according to God's word, not the other way around. Stick to that biblical model and start to see how Christ's Sacrifice for you becomes SOOOOOO REAL that nothing else really matters.