Oldest book in the Bible

@divegeester said
Very interesting and something I hadn’t considered.


PS Good to see you posting with clarity like this.

Thank you.

@fmf said
@chaney3
Yeah, what divegeester said!

Thank you.

@mchill said
That's a tough one. I'd say it would be either Job, Genesis, or Exodus. The stories in all of them were passed down by word of mouth or in songs, but it's hard to say which was actually written first.

The credibility of what Moses wrote gets questioned after the fact quite often by non-believers, and even by some Jews and Christians as new archeological evidence is discovered. That's been going on for a long time.

"The credibility of what Moses wrote"

Did Moses write anything?
The writing of Genesis was done in 1500bc.

@chaney3 said
"The credibility of what Moses wrote"

Did Moses write anything?
The writing of Genesis was done in 1500bc.

It seems obvious that Moses wasn't the original author of much of Genesis. Those had to be stories told from generations ago. If Moses did anything, it was simply to record them for posterity.

Then there's the passage that was written after his death. I'm going to go out on a limb and say Moses didn't write that one either.

@bigdogg said
It seems obvious that Moses wasn't the original author of much of Genesis. Those had to be stories told from generations ago. If Moses did anything, it was simply to record them for posterity.

Then there's the passage that was written after his death. I'm going to go out on a limb and say Moses didn't write that one either.

Did Moses talk to God, if so how do you know where he got the information?

@kellyjay said
Did Moses talk to God, if so how do you know where he got the information?

Did Moses talk to God? There's no credible reason to think he did and it's not possible to know he did.

If so how do you know where Moses got the information? Well, there did the Hindus get their "information" about their deities? The answer is the same: the "information" is the product of anthropology and psychology.

@bigdogg said
It seems obvious that Moses wasn't the original author of much of Genesis. Those had to be stories told from generations ago. If Moses did anything, it was simply to record them for posterity.

Then there's the passage that was written after his death. I'm going to go out on a limb and say Moses didn't write that one either.

Was Moses alive in 1500bc?
That's when it's said that the first 5 books of the Bible were written.

@kellyjay said
Did Moses talk to God, if so how do you know where he got the information?

That's what they did. They had a strong history of oral tradition.

The ancestors of 1000 or more years ago before Moses would not have lacked a creation story. Humans want to know where they came from.

So, even if Moses got the accounts from God, he would also have heard them from other older humans.

@bigdogg said
That's what they did. They had a strong history of oral tradition.

The ancestors of 1000 or more years ago before Moses would not have lacked a creation story. Humans want to know where they came from.

So, even if Moses got the accounts from God, he would also have heard them from other older humans.

If Moses wrote what he got from other humans from that period then the
dietary and medical health practices of the time would have made it into scripture
as was common for the day, that was not the case. He was after all raised in Egypt
as the pharaoh's daughter's son so he was raised in the best schools of that time.
Take God out of the equation then oral tradition would have been all there was,
with God in and God directing the exodus out of Eygpt and looking over all that
Moses did, directing him on what to do and say, then I believe it is completely safe
to assume God had a voice in the written word which God was very adamant about
with respect to its reading and obedience of it.

@kellyjay said
Take God out of the equation then oral tradition would have been all there was,
with God in and God directing the exodus out of Eygpt and looking over all that
Moses did, directing him on what to do and say, then I believe it is completely safe
to assume God had a voice in the written word which God was very adamant about
with respect to its reading and obedience of it.

"Completely safe"?

@kellyjay said
If Moses wrote what he got from other humans from that period then the
dietary and medical health practices of the time would have made it into scripture
as was common for the day, that was not the case. He was after all raised in Egypt
as the pharaoh's daughter's son so he was raised in the best schools of that time.
Take God out of the equation then oral tradition woul ...[text shortened]... the written word which God was very adamant about
with respect to its reading and obedience of it.

Well, 1) If Moses wrote the first 5 books, he put a TON of dietary and medical details in Leviticus, so it WAS the case, at least for once the Israelites broke free of Egypt.
2) Maybe he didn't think the dietary and medical practices within Egypt were worth mentioning. A good author knows what to include, and what to leave out.

[Personally, I could have done with far less of the dietary details he did include!]

For the last point, you say 'completely safe' and I say 'completely false' because we're on different sides of the theistic coin.

@bigdogg said
Well, 1) If Moses wrote the first 5 books, he put a TON of dietary and medical details in Leviticus, so it WAS the case, at least for once the Israelites broke free of Egypt.
2) Maybe he didn't think the dietary and medical practices within Egypt were worth mentioning. A good author knows what to include, and what to leave out.

[Personally, I could have done with far less ...[text shortened]... completely safe' and I say 'completely false' because we're on different sides of the theistic coin.

You should care what dietary and medical advice was included, had he put in things
like bleeding, using any of the practices which were accepted during that day would
automatically proved the point that Moses did use common knowledge and what
people said to prop up the documents. The fact that even modern medicine accepts
the things in there that are not spiritual in nature should clue you in he didn't.

Accepting that God did talk to Him then the whole becomes something worth
taking heed about. From a world of polytheism filled with people who did make
up their gods to suit them, God changed a nation of people, getting them ready
to receive God in the flesh, Jesus Christ.