Board index ‹ Specific Bible verses, texts, and passages ‹ Genesis

[Rita loves pizza]

The events of Genesis include events that happened before the existence of mankind. So how do we know them?

[jimwalton]

Moses is the authority behind what we read in Genesis. I believe Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, but that's another discussion. Even if he didn't actually write them, then it's possible someone wrote down later what Moses had taught them, so it's still from the mouth and authority of Moses.

We don't know in what era Moses lived, but it is generally thought to be between around 1500-1300 BC, somewhere in there. That's when it would have been written down. But are a few interested bonus tidbits that you didn't even ask for. First, Hebrew hadn't been invented yet as a language, so we don't know what language Moses would have written in. That means the text we have in Hebrew is a translation (a later work) than Moses would have written if he personally wrote it. Second, if Moses wrote all these things down (and as I said, I believe he did), he would probably have written them on many different surfaces over the course of time (papyrus, pottery shards, carved into rocks, on clay tablets, etc.) that were later gathered into a single volume. That's probably why we see other "collaborators" among what is very ancient text. So I believe it was written sometime from 1500-1300ish, but probably not assembled, translated, and rewritten until later—that's the copy we have.

How did he know these stories? We have two elements at work, and probably both were part of what really happened in the written record we now have. First of all, societies in those days passed on the important stories of their culture by word of mouth. It was important to the continuation of the community (very similar to the oral history keeping we see in the movie "Roots"). These stories of the flood, Babel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph could easily have been part of their cultural heritage rehearsed for generations around campfires and at community gatherings.

But, secondly, we also know that Moses had a relationship with God perhaps unlike anyone else's in all of history. He spoke with God face to face. It makes sense to believe that he could have gotten what he wrote, particularly in Genesis 1-11, from the mouth of God. For instance, Gen. 1 has spectacular literary and poetic artistry in ways that most people don't realize. It's a work of pure genius in its patterns, repetitions, structure and balance. Most people just look at it for its content, but its design is sublime.