How old is the Bible?

We have seen in a previous chapter that the Bible is the best book in the world: it is also the oldest. No other book can compare with it in this respect. Herodotus, who is known as the "father of history," dates back only to 480 B.C., shortly before the closing book in our Old Testament was written. The ancient poets Homer and Hesiod are supposed to have flourished — for no one really knows — about the time of Hezekiah, King of Judah. But 75o years before that time Moses had written the five books which we know as the Pentateuch. So that the Bible presents to us the oldest authentic records of the history of the human race. Egyptian history cannot be traced farther back than 270o B.C. The Chinese records go nearly as far. Babylonish history begins about 2450 B.C. Greek history dates from the Trojan War — if that war ever was fought — I200 B.C. Rome was busy founding its capital about 758 B.C., and Persian history begins 200 years later still. But Bible history carries us back for 4,000 years before the Cross, and gives us in the words of Inspiration the history of the very beginning of our present ordered earth and all that it is necessary for us to know about the story of man's creation to inhabit it.

To begin with the Bible has the distinction of being the oldest book in the world. Books generally last a few years, and then disappear, however popular they may have been; especially true is this of ancient books with the one grand exception of the Bible. The Bible’s earliest writings date back some 3,500 years ago; its latest writings over 1,800 years ago. It contains sixty-six books, linked up in harmony in all their parts, one writer not contradicting another, though unknown to each other, and their writings produced in centuries widely apart. This could not be true unless the Bible was God-breathed, inspired from Genesis to Revelation, the product of one Divine mind.

"It is a library of sixty-six books then," continued Mr. Grant. "Now how long did it take to make this library? Let us figure that out. Who wrote the oldest — the first five books of this library? Someone says 'Moses.' This is right. That was how many years before Christ? Let your school-master tell us. Fifteen hundred years, about, he says, which is correct. Now how many years ago is it since Christ was born?"

"Let us say about 2000 for even numbers. How old then are the first five books of this library? This big boy here says, 'Three thousand, five hundred,' which is correct. And these are by far the oldest books extant, or in existence, to-day. The newest of these books were written by the apostles of the Lord, so God took 1500 years to make this library for us. Now, how many men, about, did God employ to write this library for us? — No one answers, and as it is rather a difficult question, I will answer it myself. He employed over thirty different men to write this library for us. Were they all well-educated men? Some say 'yes,' and some say `no.' 'No' is correct. All were not educated men. Some like David, who wrote most of the Psalms and was made to mind sheep in his boyhood, were not men of great learning. The prophet Amos was 'a herdsman' and 'a gatherer of sycamore fruit.' Others, like Moses, Solomon and Daniel, were brought up as princes, so of course, must have been highly educated. The writers of the New Testament, were also, some of them, like Paul and Luke, men of education. Others, like Peter and James and John, who had been fishermen, were not well educated. It says in Acts 4:13, that their judges 'perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men.' These books were all written on skins called parchments, and did not look like our books at all. They were in the form of rolls and were unrolled to be read — something like our patent shade rollers. He asked them a few more questions, and then, after a few words with Mr. Wood, left with the others.

The composition of the Books of the Bible was begun by Moses on the plains of Moab in the 15th century B.C.; the subjects of which they treat were completed by Paul during his Roman imprisonment in the latter half of the first Christian century (Col. 1:25); while John, the last of the Apostolic band, had those wondrous visions and sights vouchsafed to him in the rocky isle of Patmos, and the whole, known to us as "The Revelation," committed to writing by the close of the century.

Of the writings, the first was the Pentateuch, completed fifteen centuries before Christ — that is, 700 years before Rome was founded, and about 1000 years before the work of Herodotus, the first authentic history, was published — centuries, too, before the prince of Greek poets, Homer, flourished, or Hesiod, more ancient still, sang his verses. The Pentateuch and the book of Job are by far the oldest writings in existence. The historical and chronological boasted records of China and Egypt are unworthy of a moment's serious consideration. The former gives the age of the world as some hundreds of thousands of years, while the Chaldean records, equally unreliable as those of China and Egypt, carry back the age of the world to nearly half a million of years. It has been shown that even were the annals of the Hindoos — which exceed in absurdity those of China and Egypt — reliable, the arbitrary mode of computation (months of fifteen days, and years of sixty days), would reduce the chronologies of these peoples to a near agreement with the Biblical chronology. The first recorded date in Scripture is found in that highly important chronological chapter — Genesis 5:3. Neither science nor Scripture determines the antiquity of this globe. All Scripture dates refer to human history.

There is neither book nor monument to which you can refer within several centuries of the time when Moses wrote the first portion of the Bible. Then, after a quarter of a century, Joshua, the second inspired penman, wrote the book to which his name is attached. Then comes another interval, a lengthy and sorrowful one, of more than 300 years, covering the times of the Judges, and well termed "the dark ages" of Israelitish history, when Samuel, the third inspired writer, brought up the Jewish annals to the times of David — the sweet Psalmist of Israel — his co-adjutors in the work being the prophets Gad and Nathan (1 Chron. 29:29). Another interval of 300 years, and we listen entranced to the grand and glowing strains of Isaiah — the prince of Hebrew prophets; perhaps the most magnificent piece of writing ever penned is the sixtieth chapter of Isaiah, and of course divinely inspired like every other line and word of Scripture. Yet another period of nigh 300 years, during which the voices of the prophets were lifted up in the land of Immanuel, or amongst the captives in Babylon and Mesopotamia — when their tears bedewed the sacred soil, and their sufferings and exercises are written on high, and Malachi closed the inspired records of the Old Testament; the editor of the whole being Ezra. A long and dreary blank of 460 years, unwritten in the pages of God's most holy Word — save in a few prophetic passages (Dan. 8, 10, 11) — brings us to a few years at most after the death of Jesus, when Matthew wrote of Christ — His messianic rights, glories, and sufferings. Within thirty years after, the whole of the New Testament was completed, save the Revelation, which was written about A.D. 96. Thus the whole Bible was finished and in the hands of the Christian, and in the keeping of the Church, or rather of God, ere the first Christian century closed.

But the Bible is not out-of-date. Its first words were written in cuneiform characters on tablets of brick, by Moses, over 3,000 years ago. It is by far the oldest book in the world, and yet it is the world’s best seller today—read, pondered, meditated upon, assimilated, practised by infinitely more readers than any other book in the world, and this is true, spite of the widespread indifference to the things of God that is eating like a canker at the very vitals of stable government today.

It is late in the history of the world to be going into the question of the origin of a Book, which began to be written about four thousand years ago, and the writing of which extended over half that time; but late or early, the question seems with some people to be still undecided, and open to debate; and certainly the antiquity of the dispute does not in the least lessen its importance, neither does it tend to diminish the ardour of the combatants, nor the interest of the onlookers.

It is late in the history of the world to be going into the question of the origin of a Book, which began to be written about four thousand years ago, and the writing of which extended over half that time; but late or early, the question seems with some people to be still undecided, and open to debate; and certainly the antiquity of the dispute does not in the least lessen its importance, neither does it tend to diminish the ardour of the combatants, nor the interest of the onlookers.

Open now the Bible. Study its fifty sacred authors, from that wonderful Moses, who held the pen in the wilderness four hundred years before the war of Troy, down to the fisherman son of Zebedee, who wrote fifteen hundred years afterwards in Ephesus and in Patmos. Open the Bible and try if you can to find anything of this sort.