It has taken three centuries for even a handful of Christians to return once again to the Old Testament in search of social guidelines. This quest necessitates a rejection of the techniques of biblical higher criticism. The two must successful attacks on Christianity in the modern world have been biblical higher criticism and Darwinism. To transmit their unbelief to their intellectual peers, and from them to the general public, the higher critics did their best to remove people's faith in Moses. If they could prove the Old Testament is unreliable, they could by implication demonstrate that Jesus was misinformed about Moses, and therefore that He was equally unreliable.
Higher criticism is cultic, utterly groundless speculation.
This is a short, clear introduction to the topic.