The presumption, or guess, of the critics carries no weight in the face of the testimony of the entire Old Testament that God commanded Moses to write, and that he did write, the five books attributed to him.

IV.  WERE CHRIST AND THE APOSTLES MISTAKEN?

Christ said to his apostles:

"Ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.”  Acts i. 8.

"I speak the truth in Christ and lie not.”  Paul in 1 Tim. ii. 7.

"Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness and the first begotten of the dead, and the Prince of the kings of the earth.”  The Apostle John in Rev. i. 5.

"We know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him,” Nicodemus, in John iii. 2.

"If I say the truth, why do ye not believe me?” Christ, in John viii. 46.

"I am the way, the truth and the life.”  Christ, in John xiv. 6.

The opinions and testimony of the apostles are certainly worth something.  They had three years of instruction under our Lord, and the promise from him that the Holy Spirit should guide them into all truth.  (John xvi. 13.)

A study of the writers of the New Testament proves that they are in absolute harmony with the writers of the Old Testament as to the Mosaic authorship of the five books of the Pentateuch.  Luke ii. 22 informs us that the mother of Jesus, “when the days of her purification were accomplished according to the law of Moses,” brought the child “to present him to the Lord.”  This was done, according to Leviticus xii. 2-6, and accredits that book to Moses, and not to some imaginary author.

The Apostle John informs us that “the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John i, 17).  If he has misled us in reference to Moses and the law, can we trust him in reference to grace and truth by Jesus Christ?

When Peter made his address to the people who were surprised at the healing of the cripple, he said:  “Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren,” (See Acts iii. 22.)

This saying of Moses is recorded in Deut xviii. 15, the contents of which book are introduced to us in these words; “These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel on this side Jordan in the wilderness, in the plain over against the Red Sea” (Deut. i. 1), referring to the whole books spoken by Moses, the learned man, mighty in words and deeds, but not recorded, the critics say, until after the exile, about a thousand years!  This you are asked to believe on the basis of the professed or assumed acumen of the critics!

Further, in his great speech before the Sanhedrim at his martyrdom, Stephen quotes Moses as having received full and complete directions from God concerning the tabernacle. (Acts vii. 44.) In the twenty-fifth chapter of Exodus, the book in which Moses was commanded to write and did write, these directions are recorded.  We accept Stephen’s testimony, added to that of Exod. xxv., rather than the testimony of the critics.