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THE
SCRIPTURES

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THE
SCRIPTURES
Volume 1
Genesis - Exodus
by
Cornelis Vanderwaal
Translated by
Theodore Plantinga
PAIDEIA PRESS
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
Most of this material was originally published in Dutch
under the title Sola Scriptura, © Oosterbaan & Le Cointre
N.V. of Goes, The Netherlands.
Copyright 1978 by J.H. Enterprises. © All rights reserved.
Published by Paideia Press, P.O. Box 1450, St.
Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2R 7J8. No part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form without the written
permission of the publisher.
Bible quotations are taken from the Revised Standard Ver-
sion unless otherwise indicated.
ISBN 0-88815-021-0
Printed in the United States of America
Table of Contents
GOD'S WORD
1.By Scripture Alone 7
2.The Authority of the Bible 9
3.Biblical Manuscripts 13
4.Canonical and Apocryphal Writings 18
5.Biblical Criticism 25
6.Contradictions in the Bible? 32
7.The Unity of the Bible 39
8.Reading the Bible 46
GENESIS
1.The Book of the "Generations" 53
2.In the Beginning 55
3.The Toledoth of Heaven and Earth 58
4.The Toledoth of Adam (5-6:8) 64
5.The Toledoth of Noah (6:9-9:29) 66
6.The Toledoth of the Sons of Noah (10-11:9) 70
7.The Toledoth of Shem (11:10-26) 71
8.The Toledoth of Terah (11:27-25:11) 72
9.The Toledoth of Ishmael (25:12-18) 83
10.The Toledoth of Isaac (25:19-35:29) 84
11.The Toledoth of Esau (36-37:1) 92
12.The Toledoth of Jacob (37:2-50:26) 94
EXODUS
1.The Book of Israel's First Deliverance 103
2.The Struggle Begins 106
3.Deliverance through Divine Judgment 111
4.Across the Red Sea and the Wilderness 115
5.Israel at Sinai 121
6.The Book of the Covenant 126
7.The Covenant Ceremony 129
8.The Tabernacle 131
9. The Covenant Broken and Renewed 138
INDEX 145
God's Word
1. By Scripture Alone
The Book of books. In Article 7 of the Belgic Confession
(1561), we read: "We believe that these Holy Scriptures
fully contain the will of God and teach sufficiently all that
man must believe if he is to be saved." This confession also
declares that "The whole manner of worship which God
requires of us is written in them at large."
If this is also our confession, we must live by Scripture
alone. The Bible is all we need. But why? Christianity is
not the only religion based on sacred writings. Why do we
accept the Bible and reject the Koran, the Edda, and the
holy books of India? Why do we push aside all those other
books, which certainly contain a great deal of wisdom, and
focus our attention on that one "book of books"?
I have no other answer to offer than this: the Bible itself
claims to be the sole revelation of God. And faith accepts
this claim. Faith's acceptance is based on the Bible's
testimony about itself.
The Scriptures claim to reveal the will of God to us; they
are a lamp shedding light on our path. Woe to the man
God's Word 7
who adds anything to the Scriptures or takes anything
away from them. We live by Scripture alone. Sola Scrip-
tural
The Reformation. The sixteenth-century struggle be-
tween Rome and the Reformation revolved around this very
point. Is the Bible to be regarded as the sole authority, or is
there some other authority in addition? Can tradition or
the church fathers or church councils or papal decrees be
accepted as authoritative alongside the Scriptures?
The Roman Catholic Church did in fact put Scripture on
a par with tradition. Indeed, Rome accepted the Bible
because it was accepted by the church. Thus the authority
of the Scriptures was made dependent on tradition and the
authority of the church.
Yet the Reformation clung firmly to Scripture alone,
confessing that the Bible is completely authoritative, suf-
ficient in itself, clear, and indispensable. When people
within "Protestant" circles began to question this doctrine
and chip away at it, the Reformers stubbornly held their
ground.
The Anabaptists, for example, elevated the "inner light"
above the "dead letter" of Scripture. Anyone who received
special, direct revelations from God was a prophet,
someone to be listened to. The "Spirit" gives life, it was
argued, while the "letter" of the Bible kills.
The Reformers saw clearly that this way of thinking
represents false teaching. Therefore they rejected it
wherever they encountered it. The Canons of Dordt (for-
mulated by a Dutch Reformed synod of 1618-19) declared
that the assurance enjoyed by God's elect that they will
persevere in their faith "is not produced by any peculiar
revelation contrary to or independent of the Word of God,
but springs from faith in God's promises, which He has
most abundantly revealed in His Word for our comfort"
(V, 10).
8 God's Word
We live by the Bible alone. It is there that we are instruc-
ted in "the whole manner of worship which God requires
of us." Is that also your confession? Do you accept the
Scriptures as God's infallible Word? Has the Bible proven
itself to you? Do you hear the Creator and Redeemer
speaking to you in the Bible?
2. The Authority of the Bible
The real author. Scripture is inspired by God Himself
(II Tim. 3:16). It comes to us not at man's instigation or
initiative but because men were moved by the Holy Spirit
to speak "from God" (II Pet. 1:21).
This does not mean that we must regard the writers of
the Bible as robots or scribes taking dictation. No, God
uses living human beings in His service. He even allows
them a major role in giving shape to the Word He speaks
to mankind. The individuality of the Bible's human
authors comes through clearly, even though God Himself
is the real author of Scripture.
To recognize the role of certain human beings in writing
the books that make up our Bible is not to say that there
are errors and contradictions in the Bible. We are not to
declare that God's Word is in the Bible—in and among all
those words written by human beings. The Bible is God's
authoritative Word—that's our point of departure.
Authoritative. Because we have received the Bible from
the hand of the King of kings, we must accept it as
authoritative. We must bow unconditionally to the Voice
that speaks to us in the Bible. We may not argue that we
live in a different time and a different society—as though
this has something to do with our attitude toward the
Bible. And we may not declare that the authoritative
God's Word 9
language of the Bible was binding only as long as Christ's
apostles walked the earth.
The Bible's authority is not time-bound. Scripture is
God's Word for a thousand generations. Even though the
people of our time feel uneasy whenever the word
authority is used, we must subject ourselves willingly to the
authority of God's Word.
Complete. The confession "By Scripture alone" means
that the Bible is no longer open to correction through later
revelations. There is no continuing Scriptural revelation in
our dispensation. The Lord has already revealed all that we
need to know. The Bible is complete.
We must not try to "go beyond what is written" (I Cor.
4:6). To "go beyond" would be to depart from the
teaching of the Christ (II John, vs. 9). We need not await a
"fifth gospel." What we have already been told about
Christ is all we need in order to know God and serve Him
effectively. No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has
conceived what God has prepared for those who love him
(I Cor. 2:9; Is. 64:4).
The Spirit of truth. Today there are many Christians
(especially in liberal circles) who do believe in continuing
revelation. The Bible is not the only "scripture" they
venerate; they find traces of divine inspiration in other
documents and writing as well.
Such views clearly violate Scripture's own intent. God's
Word leaves no room for any other "word" of com-
parable authority.
There are certain other Christians who make a point of
declaring that they accept the Bible's authority wholehear-
tedly—but they still wind up undermining it. They like to
point to John 16:13, where Christ tells His apostles:
"When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all
the truth." On the basis of this text they await a new
10 God's Word