Moses likely had access to such documents, and may well have compiled them into the book of Genesis under Divine guidance. Were there eye-witnesses to the events contained in Genesis? Yes – the people whose history is recorded in Genesis were witnesses to its events and could have written down much of this history. But it is not consistent with the normal way that God chose to record the history of the Bible. That is certainly not beyond the capabilities of an all-powerful God. So where did Moses get the information in Genesis? One possibility is that God directly spoke to Moses or otherwise imparted the information supernaturally to him. Genesis is the exception because it records events long before the birth of Moses. Four of these (Exodus through Deuteronomy) record primarily events that Moses himself witnessed or could have witnessed. These were penned by Moses (John 1:45 Acts 28:23) around the year 1500 B.C. The next oldest books would be the five books of the Pentateuch, also called the “Torah” which is the Hebrew word meaning “law.” The books of the law are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Furthermore, Job’s long age (Job 42:16) is consistent with the longevity of human beings around this time – about the same time that Abraham lived. This, along with other information in the book, gives a very approximate date of around 2000 B.C. The descriptions of Job’s wealth are given in terms of livestock and servants, not in terms of coins or currency that would come to be used later in history. This book records the events of the life of Job who was a man of faith in the Living God (Job 1:1). All the New Testament books were written in Greek in the mid-first century A.D. A 500-year period of silence followed, in which no biblical books were penned. The books of the Old Testament were written primarily in the Hebrew language between 2000 B.C. Thirty-nine of these books belong to the Old Testament and twenty-seven are found in the New Testament. The Bible is a unique collection of 66 books. To help answer these issues, some historical background is in order. After all, there are other alleged holy books that claim to be the Word of God and yet Christians reject them.
But does this claim actually establish itself? If the Bible were not reliable, then how could we have any confidence in its claim that it is reliable? Somehow, declaring that the Bible must be the Word of God simply because it says so seems less than persuasive. Yes, the Bible says that it is the Word of God and that it is perfectly true.
Yet, many Christians do not have satisfying answers. These are the questions that skeptics ask. How did we get the Bible? How do we know that it is God’s Word, and what does that really mean anyway? If the Bible has been copied and translated so many times, can we have any confidence in modern translations? How do we know that the right books got included, and have any been left out? Doesn’t the Bible have contradictions and other errors? What about other books that claim to be from God?
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