Friday, September 7, 2012

How About That Book of Beginnings?

What about that Book of Beginnings? Have you ever taken the time to look into the background of the Bible book of Genesis?   It is an intriguing book of only 50 short chapters which contains a mine of information about  the origin and early history of man.

It is not based on mythology  as some critics have claimed, but a carefully researched, written and edited introduction to the Bible as the first book of the the Pentateuch which made up the first five books of the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures.

Moses, who edited or put all of this part of the Bible together made a careful investigation of the written and even oral histories of those who lived before him. As you read through Genesis you will see expressions called "colophons" identifying  the  author of the original document Moses used in compiling the early history of man.

A good example of this is the one at Genesis 5:12 where it says, "This is the book of Adam's history." These histories carried  (and us) from the time  of Adam and Noah  in 4026 B.C.E. down to the time of Jacob in 1728 B.C.E.

You'll notice that from this point  that what Moses wrote is not supported by such histories. However Moses still had a very reliable  resource of information in his family.

His great grandfather, Levi, was the half brother of Joseph who lived during a part of the time covered in the last segment of Genesis. He no doubt what have shared what he knew with his family members. And God, through his Spirit, would have ensured that none of this history was lost or distorted.

Because of all of this we can be assured of the accuracy of all  of Genesis -- the book of man's beginnings.

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