The idea of the “Factual Data” sheet comes from reading that Warren W. Wiersbe’s homiletic teacher, Lloyd Perry who used a generic “Factual Data” sheet for sermon preparation. I have adapted the “Factual Data” sheet to the different genres (Poetic, narratives of Genesis, Joshua, Nehemiah, Mark, and the Epistles) of Scripture instead of the one-size-fits-all approach. The “Factual Data” sheet helps the expositor to be text-driven in preaching and teaching God’s Word.
First, the “Factual Data” sheet enables the Bible student to interpret a text in the context of the Biblical passage. This is called macro hermeneutics. It is like a funnel that is big at the top and narrows down to the text itself. The interpreter starts with the larger remote context (context of the genre) and works his way to the narrow immediate context (the book of the Bible in which the text is found).
Next, the “Factual Data” sheet helps the Bible student dive inside the content of the text itself. This is called micro hermeneutics. This is where, in the case of narratives, knowing the unique characteristics of this genre are helpful in interpreting the text and also finding the Main Point of the Sermon (MPS) and outlining or developing the MPS. We begin with the context.
1. STUDY THE CONTEXT (Macro Hermeneutics)
A. Context of narratives
The narrative is the most common genre in the Bible making up 75% of the Bible. Here are books of the Bible that contain narratives: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Isaiah, Matthew, Acts, and even in the Epistles such as Romans 15:14-33.
1. The literary art of narrative or story is a means of communicating the author’s theological message which for Genesis is God’s Blessings. Genesis is biblical history.
2. The narratives were written not only to teach a message but to persuade the listeners to respond to the author’s message. Nathan used a story to persuade king David to repent in 2 Samuel 12:1-7
B. Context of the book
1. What is the theme or theological message of the book? God blesses us to be a blessing. The theme of Genesis reflects the theme of the Pentateuch. “D. J. A. Clines has shown that the theme, that is, the idea that explains the unity and structural development of the Pentateuch, is the not-yet realized promise of blessing for the patriarchs.”[1]
2. How is the theme developed?
a. Through the two-fold division of the book
1) You have the beginning of God’s blessings on the human family in Genesis 1-11.
This is God’s universal blessings. Because “in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, [land אֶ֫רֶץ hā·’ā·reṣ]” (Genesis 1:1). God created Adam and Eve and blessed them by putting them in the Garden of Eden. Moses recorded in Genesis 1:28 that “God blessed them, and God said unto them, [be a blessing] Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, [land אֶ֫רֶץ hā·’ā·reṣ] and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth [land אֶ֫רֶץ hā·’ā·reṣ].” But man sinned resulting in the fall, flood, and the scattering of the nations
2) You have the beginning of God’s blessing on the Jewish family in Genesis 12-50.
This is God’s national blessings on His chosen people. The key passage is in Genesis 12:1-3. Just as God blessed Adam to be a blessing to the entire planet, now God blesses Abraham to be a blessing to God’s people and also all people.
There are two commands in Genesis 12:1-3 followed by three promises.
1. The first command was “Get out of your country.”
2. The second command was “Be a blessing.” God promised Abraham that “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless your, and make your name great ... and in you shall all families of the earth [land אֶ֫רֶץ hā·’ā·reṣ] be blessed.”
Theme of Genesis: God blesses us to be a blessing
1. God’s Blessings on Mankind (1-11)
A. God’s Blessing on Man (Genesis 1-2)
B. God’s Blessing on Man In Spite of Sin (3-11)
2. God’s Blessings on the World through Israel (12-50)
A. God’s Blessing on Abraham (Gen 12-24)
B. God’s Blessing on Isaac (Gen 25-26)
C. God’s Blessing on Jacob (Gen 27-36)
D. God’s Blessings on Joseph (Gen 37-50)
b. The theme is also developed by the twelve sections introduced with ten toledot (“accounts” or “generations”) (except the first)
Section I: Creation of Heaven and Earth (1:1-2:3). What became of the heaven, the earth, and humans whom God had created and blessed? The first toledot answers.
Section II: The Toledot תּוֹלְדֹ֣ת tō-wl-ḏōṯ (“generations”) of earth’s family (2:4-4:26). Man fell into sin (chapter three). Cain murdered Abel (chapter four). Creation became corrupted by sin.
Section III: The Toledot of Adam’s line (5:1-6:8). God “blessed” Adam and Eve and their descendants sinfully intermarried and brought God’s displeasure and whom God judged with the flood (Genesis 6-8).
Section IV: The Toledot of Noah (6:9-9:29). What became of Noah? His three sons produced the nations of the world, who rebelled against God.
Section V: The Toledot of Noah’s sons: Shem Ham, and Japheth (10:1-11:9). God judged the nations who turned against God at the tower of Babel.
Section VI: The Toledot of Shem (11:27-25:11). From Shem came Abraham through whom God would deliver and bless the nations.
Section VII: The Toledot of Terah: Abraham (11:27-25:11). God chose one nation out of all the wicked nations to bless through Abraham.
Section VIII: The Toledot of Ishmael (25:12-18)
Section IX: The Toledot of Isaac: Jacob (25:19-35:29)
Section X: The Toledot of Esau and family (36:1-8)
Section XI: The Toledot of Esau (36:9-37:1)
Section XII: The Toledot of Jacob. What became of Jacob? His sons become the founders of the tribes of Israel whom God preserves through Joseph (37:2-50:26). Israel in Canaan, Jacob’s family was intermarrying with the Canaanites (Gen 38:1-2) and threatening to destroy God’s chosen line through whom he would save the world. Genesis ends with the prospect of God bringing his people back into the “land” of promise (Gen 50:24-25).
Exodus follows which records the redemption of God’s people from Egypt. Leviticus teaches the people of God how to live holy lives among the ungodly Canaanites (Lev. 18:1-2).
“It is best to take the toledot references as evidence of pre-Genesis sources that have been appropriated and modified according to the compositional interest of Genesis .... God is separating out by selection a righteous lineage by whom he chooses to bless the world of nations.”[2] This structure also shows the unity of the book written by one author which is next discussed.
C. Who wrote the book?
The authorship of the Pentateuch is important because liberal scholarship denies Mosaic authorship which is based on an unsupernatural view of Scripture and a denial that Christ avowed that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. For example, Bart Ehrman (click to open), chairman of the Department of Religion at UNC, denies that Moses wrote the Pentateuch: “However we account for the final product of the Pentateuch, it was not written in whole or even in part by Moses, or by any one person – certainly no one living as early as the 13th century BCE.”[3] Ehrman notes that this antisupernatural view of Scripture is what he teaches freshmen: “Here is what I say, briefly, about that in my undergraduate textbook on the Bible. It’s about as much as most beginning students (and most people in general) need to know.”[4]
1. The biblical witness is that Moses wrote the Pentateuch.
a. Jesus referred to the entire Old Testament as “Moses and Prophets” (Luke 24:27) to his disciples. Jesus also reminded the Jews who were rejecting his claims that “had you believed Moses, you would have believed me: For he [Moses] wrote of me” (John 5:46). In other words, in the Pentateuch, Moses wrote about Jesus.
b. Other Scriptures refer to Moses’ writing parts of the five specific books of the Pentateuch.
1) Moses wrote Genesis (John 7:21-23)
2) Moses wrote Exodus (Exodus 17:14)
3) Moses wrote Leviticus (Romans 10:5)
4) Moses wrote Numbers (Numbers 33:2)
5) Moses wrote Deuteronomy (31:30; Matthew 19:8)
c. The balance of the Old Testament refers to Moses writing the Pentateuch (by Joshua in 1:7-8; by David in 1 Kings 2:3; by Hezekiah in 2 Kings 18:6; by Ezra in 6:18 and Nehemiah in 13:1.
2. German liberals in the eighteen century made a concerted effort to prove the authorship of the Pentateuch was not based on the biblical witness but on scientific evidence.
1) One example of an advocate of the scientific evidence was German liberal scholar, Julius Wellhausen’s (1844-1918) source criticism better known as the documentary hypothesis or the JEDP theory. This was also known as the historical critical school. This view denied that Moses wrote the Pentateuch but rather that multiple authors wrote after Moses.
2) Another source of science that influenced Wellhausen was Darwin’s theory of evolution: “Buoyed by the popularity of Darwin, Wellhausen’s view that Israel’s religion developed from a naturalistic animism to an advance monotheism met with almost immediate acceptance.”[5]
The sources for JEDP
JEDP were all separate documents by authors redacted or edited after Moses.
1. The document J (this author used the word Jehovah or “LORD” predominately as in Genesis two) was written around 850 BC.
2. The document E (this author used the word Elohim or “God” predominately as in Genesis one) was written in the ca (abbreviation for the Latin circa meaning approximately) was written around 750 BC. These sources witnessed the simpler religious state of Israel during the monarchy. They therefore could not be trusted as the reliable history of the patriarch.
3. The document D for Deuteronomy was “the book discovered and probably written by the high priest Hilkiah in 621 B.C.”[6] to assist Josiah’s revivals. This document was more sophisticated than the narratives of the monarch.
4. The document P was the last of the sources for the Pentateuch and stood for the postexilic period compiled and edited by Ezra around 450 B.C. showing that Israel’s religion had evolved to the technical legislative and ritualistic codes in Leviticus.
This liberal German theory moved from Germany to England to American seminaries. “In the United States, Charles Augustus Briggs of Union Seminary was the first to espouse the documentary hypothesis in his volume on the Higher Criticism of the Hexateuch (1893).[7]
There are many weaknesses in the JEDP theory
1. “None of the alleged sources has ever been found in spite of the assurances of scholars that at one time each document had an existence of its own.”[8]
2. The critics cannot agree on the content of JEDP documents. “The same verse might be assigned to E or P by different scholars.”[9] Nor can the critics agree on the dates of the documents. Wellhausen contended that P was the last document because it fit his evolutionary theory that put the more complicated section later in Israel’s history. “Yehezkel Kaufmann has assembled considerable data arguing that P precedes Deuteronomy ... His evidence brings into question the correctness of the JEDP sequence, and one might well ask whether the whole theory is not resting on a shaky foundation.”[10]
3. “The most important criticism leveled against the documentary hypothesis has to do with the use of divine names to determine sources, especially J and E .... In Near Eastern literature it is common for a deity to have more than one name. In Egypt the sun-god Ra was frequently identified with Amon, the ram-headed god of Thebes ... [these names] appear in any texts from the eighteenth dynasty on .... Yet no one has suggested the different name signify different documents with respects to Egyptian or Mesopotamian texts.”[11]
1) Elohim or “God” means the strong one and was appropriate for the creation account in Genesis one [Gen 1:1].
2) Jehovah or “LORD” God’s personal name is used for the first time in Genesis two when God is giving Adam instructions for the garden of Eden [Gen 2:7, 21-22]. Moses used different names for God which was more appropriate for the occasion.
Ehrman admits that there is no unanimity among scholars on this subject:
It is impossible to speak about a single scholarly opinion about the Documentary Hypothesis today.
1) Some scholars reject the idea that J and E were separate sources
2) Some think that there were far more sources than the four
3) Some propose radically different dates for the various sources (for example, one increasingly popular proposal is that the earliest sources were written in the 7th century; other scholars maintain that none of the sources was produced before the Babylonian exile in the 6th century).
4) A number of scholars have produced mind-numbingly complicated proposals that try to take better into account all of the nuances of the data.[12]
Yet, this did not persuade Ehrman to abandon his position: “But it is possible to speak about a scholarly consensus on some of the truly critical points.”[13]
The current influence of JEDP
Even though much evidence has been collected to disprove the JEPD theory, Kenneth Mathews writes concerning the popularity of JEPD theory, “it remains the working framework for most contemporary Pentateuchal studies.”[14]
Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918) who claimed to base his research on science wrote that “ancient Israel was certainly not without God-given bases for ordering of human life; only they were not fixed in writing.”[15]
In other words, Moses could not have written the Pentateuch because writing was not yet invented. That was the science at the time but science is always changing. In 1949, “a tablet at Ras Shamra [was found] containing the thirty letters of the Ugaritic alphabet in their proper order. It was discovered that the sequence of the Ugaritic alphabet was the same as modern Hebrew, revealing that the Hebrew alphabet goes back at least 3,500 years.”[16]
The late Dr. Gerald Larue (1916 – 2014) was professor Emeritus of Archaeology and Biblical Studies at the University of Southern California. He was the chairman of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion. He advocated the JEDP theory at the University of Southern California. Dr. Larue defended the JEDP theory because of the contradictions he alleged were in the Pentateuch:
I’m afraid that you are denigrating the approach of the modern scholar .... The modern scholar does exactly what you’re saying. He does examine the evidence. And when you have contradictory statements in a document written by one person .... How many animals were taken into the ark? “Two clean; two unclean.” Oh, no! “Seven pairs of clean…” [Genesis 7:2] Make up your mind, Moses! When you have Moses writing his own funeral. Come on![17] Here is a good article answering the question: Who Wrote Moses’s Obituary in Deuteronomy 34? (click to open).
Walter Kaiser answered this vindication of the JEDP theory and the possibility of contradictions in the Pentateuch:
Certainly, they need food; certainly, they need animals for sacrifice. Genesis 8:20 deliberately says, “He took seven clean animals” .... Because they needed them for sacrifices and for food. What rule is there that can be set by the scholars that says, “You’re only allowed two, Noah! Don’t put any more on board.” That’s setting the ground rules according to our presuppositions, not according to the writer. It’s the modern mind reshaping the material. It’s a Western mind, it’s not an Oriental mind, and it’s not the Divine mind here.[18]
The importance of the Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch
1. If Moses did not write Genesis-Deuteronomy then there is no historical value to these five books which liberals advocate. “J. M. Miller and J. H. Hayes, whose history of Israel begins with the book of Judges, considering Genesis-Joshua unreliable for reconstructing history.”[19] “Defense of the general reliability of the patriarchal narratives was led by W. F. Albright whose American school of archaeology had argued that the patriarchs were real persons living in the second millennium.”[20]
2. If Moses did not write the Pentateuch, there is no consistent Biblical theology. The many different authors would present different views of God, man, sin, etc. The liberals turned Biblical theology into a comparative religions course. As seen in the theme and the development of the theme in the Pentateuch, there is a consistent doctrine of blessing and land throughout the Pentateuch because one author superintended by the Holy Spirit wrote the first five books of the Bible.
D. When was the book written? (based on the time of the Exodus)
If one accepts Mosaic authorship, as most conservative evangelicals do, the date of composition of Genesis must be within Moses’ lifetime (ca. 1525-1405 B.C.). This book was perhaps originally intended to encourage the Israelites to trust in their faithful, omnipotent God as they anticipated entrance into the Promised Land from Kadesh Barnea or from the Plains of Moab.
1. Late date of 1200 B.C. (based more on archaeology)
2. Early date of 1400 B. C. (based more on Scripture)
1) According to 1 Kings 6:1, Solomon began building the Temple in the 480th year after the Exodus, which was the fourth year of his reign or 966 B. C.
2) This puts the Exodus at 1446 B.C. (Move forward from 1446 B.C. 480 years and you come to the year 966 B.C.) Solomon reigned from 971 to 931 B.C. So the fourth year was 966 B.C.
3) Back up another 40 years of wilderness wandering from the date of the Exodus in 1446 and you get the date of Joshua’s entrance into Canaan at 1400 B.C.
Thomas Constable has a good defense of the early date based on 1 Kings 6:1:
Verse 1 is one of the most important verses in the Old Testament chronologically. The dates of Solomon’s reign (971-931 B.C.) are quite certain. They rest on references that other ancient Near Eastern kings’ lists corroborate. Solomon began temple construction in about 966 B.C. According to this verse the Exodus took place in 1445 or 1446 B.C. Most conservative scholars who take statements in Scripture like this verse seriously hold this date for the Exodus. The more popular date of about 1280 B.C. rests primarily on the assumption that Ramses II was the pharaoh of the Exodus. Those who hold this view believe historical similarities between conditions during Ramses’ reign and the biblical description of the Exodus support their theory. There are some first-rate otherwise conservative scholars who hold the later (1280) date.[21]
In Part Two, the content of the story will be examined. After the context is thoroughly researched, the interpreter moves inside to the content of the text itself. Macro hermeneutics looks at the trees. Micro hermeneutics focuses on the tree. Part two is: EXAMINE THE DETAILS OF THE PASSAGE SELECTED TO PREACH (Micro Hermeneutics).
[1] D. J. A. Clines, “The Theme of the Pentateuch” in The New American Commentary (Genesis 1-11) by Kenneth A. Mathews (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996),48. Allen R. Ross agrees: “Even a casual reading of the Book of Genesis reveals the prominence of the theme of blessing” [Allen R. Ross, Creation & Blessing: A Guide to the Study and Exposition of Genesis, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House,1988], 65.
[2] Kenneth A. Mathews, The New American Commentary: Genesis 1-11:26 (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996), 31,34.
[3] Bart Ehrman, “More Recent Scholarship on who wrote the Pentateuch” in The Bart Ehrman Blog, May 15, 2021.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Herbert Wolf, An Introduction to the Old Testament Pentateuch (Chicago: Moody Press, 1991), 66.
[6] Ibid., 66.
[7] Ibid., 66.
[8] Ibid., 67.
[9] Ibid., 67.
[10] Ibid., 69.
[11] Ibid., 68.
[12] Bart Ehrman, “More Recent Scholarship on who wrote the Pentateuch” in The Bart Ehrman Blog, May 15, 2021.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Kenneth A. Matthews, The New American Commentary: Genesis 1-11:26 (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996), s72.
[15] Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel (Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black), translated by Black and Menzies 1885), 393.\
[16] Wayne Jackson, Biblical Studies in the Light of Archaeology (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press, 1982), 32
[17] These comments were expressed in an interview with John Ankerberg and Walter Kaiser “How Was the Old Testament Written? – Program 1” on The John Ankerberg Show, October, 1, 2013). Who Wrote Moses’s Obituary in Deuteronomy 34?
[18] Ibid.
[19] J. M Miller and J. H. Hayes, A History of Ancient Israel and Judah (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986).
[20] Kenneth A. Matthews, The New American Commentary: Genesis 1-11:26 (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996), 72.
[21] Thomas Constable, NetBible.org on Exodus 6:1.