Will the Real Moses

6 Many a young man who has received his spiritual nurture within the evan-gelical tradition, and who seeks to test his fitness for the Christian ministry, finds the very fundamentals of his faith challenged, modified, and even rejected outright by the theological teachers under whom he places himself. Often the evangelical theological student is limited by his denominational interests in the choice of theological school, but more often than not he is faced with a number of options from which to choose. As one who has been involved in theological education over the past fifteen years as an undergraduate, graduate student , and teacher, I would express the following firmly-held convictions as a preliminary to the discussion of Old Testament criticism. The choice of theological school requires the consideration of many factors, but other things being equal, the place for undergraduate training in theology is undoubtedly at a good evangelical school. This is not a matter of avoiding the challenges to one's faith which come from a non-evangelical point of view ably and convincingly argued, but a matter of finding the place where first things are put first. My own observation of "liberal" or "critical" training is that, because of its rejection of the orthodox Christian faith and of biblical authority, it can never present a coherent basic account of biblical theology. The all-too-limited time available is not given over to the study of what the Bible says as the Word of God, but disproportionately allocated to the study of the makers of modern theology. The orthodox theology of centuries is relegated to a position equal among, or even inferior to, those temporary aberrations which are born upon the wings of the latest fashions of continental philosophy. Calvin, Luther, and the Eng-lish Reformers are studied mainly for their historical interest, as are the Thirty