Page 9 - Creationism - Student Textbook w videos short
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their evolutionary ideas about man’s origin and development. Often they site idea such as writing was
not developed by Moses’ time so it must have been written later. These often call themselves higher
critiques and they seem to focus on disputing the first 11 chapters of Genesis. Anthropologists have
disproven many of their claims including the discovery that writing appeared almost simultaneously in
the Indus valley, Egypt, and Mesopotamia between 5000 – 6000 years ago. The time of Moses was only
about 3,500 years ago.
Many first rate scholars have demonstrated that there is no real difference between the languages of
the 4 different documents to warrant the belief. It has been concluded that those theologians that hold
this view are relying on extra-biblical information and subscribe to evolution and an old earth view.
2. Moses as the Author
Probably most conservative scholars hold this view. This has been the uniform view of
both Jewish and Christian scholars. The first 5 books of the Bible are called the
Pentateuch and in the Jewish tradition Torah or the Law of Moses. In fact, Christ himself
accepted this view (Luke 24:27, 44).
Assuming that Moses wrote the book there are 3 basic thoughts about how this could
have occurred.
1. He received the words as a direct revelation from God and wrote them down. He received them
either as audible or visual images and then was guided by the Holy Spirit to write them down.
2. He received them as oral traditions handed down from father to son and then by the direction of the
Holy Spirit wrote them down.
3. He took actual written records of the past, collected them, and brought them together into a final
form again as guided by the Holy Spirit.
The first two have no correlation anywhere else in Scripture, since visions and dreams are relegated to
prophecy such as Daniel, Ezekiel, Revelation, etc. The direct dictation method was mainly used in the
Ten Commandments and the book of Leviticus, etc. Genesis is written in narrative form and is
comparable to Chronicles and Kings where they were a compilation of documents in the form of a book.
It is commonly accepted that he collected records and compiled them together, guided by God.
Remember, Moses directly talked with God and could have been given much of this information directly
from the One who was there.
Who wrote the Book of Genesis?’
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