{"id":13194,"date":"2007-11-03T22:40:52","date_gmt":"2007-11-04T03:40:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=13194"},"modified":"2019-10-14T22:46:01","modified_gmt":"2019-10-15T03:46:01","slug":"which-book-is-the-oldest-in-the-bible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/which-book-is-the-oldest-in-the-bible\/","title":{"rendered":"Which book is the oldest in the Bible?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t<h2>Question:<\/h2>\n<p>Which book is believed to be\u00a0the oldest book in the Bible? I found the following points:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Many scholars agree that Job is the oldest book in the Bible, written by an unknown Israelite about 1500 B.C.<\/li>\n<li>Others hold that the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) are the oldest books in the Bible, written between 1446 and 1406 B.C.<\/li>\n<li>Job is generally considered to have been written first, but it is not altogether clear\u00a0<u>when<\/u>\u00a0and by\u00a0<u>whom<\/u>.<\/li>\n<li>The fact that we do not know who wrote it or exactly when it was written does not negate its worth authenticity and value in teaching God&#8217;s inspired word.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\t<h2>Answer:<\/h2>\n<p>Job is believed to have been written around the time of Abraham for the following reasons:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It takes place during the Patriarchal Age when heads of families offered sacrifices to God (Job 1:5; 42:7-9). And heads of families received instruction from God (Job 22:22; 23:12).<\/li>\n<li>It contains no hints regarding Abraham, Moses, Israel, the Judges, the Kings, or Prophets of Israel. Nor is there any mention of the Law of Moses.<\/li>\n<li>The rapid drift into idolatry does not appear to have happened yet. All mentioned still believe in the God of creation (Job 27:3; 33:4-6).<\/li>\n<li>There are mentions of the creation (Job 9:8-9; 12:7-10; 26:13; 38:4), the fall of man (Job 31:33, 40; 34:14-15), the flood (Job 12:14-15; 22:15-17), the covenant of Noah (Job 26:10; 38:8-11), and the scattering of the people (Job 12:17, 20-25).<\/li>\n<li>A number of the ancient tribes or nations still retain names closely associated with those who were scattered: Chaldeans (Job 1:17), Cush (or Ethiopia) (Job 28:19), Ophir (Job 28:16), Sabaeans (Job 1:15), Sheba (Job 6:19), Uz (Job 1:1).<\/li>\n<li>There are mentions of names closely associated with Abraham. Multiple people could have the same name, but often names come and go in fads:\n<ul>\n<li>Tema (Job 6:19) was a son of Ishmael (Genesis 25:15)<\/li>\n<li>Teman (Job 2:11) was a grandson of Esau (Genesis 36:15)<\/li>\n<li>Shuah (Job 2:11) was a son of Abraham and Keturah (Genesis 25:2)<\/li>\n<li>Buz (Job 32:2) was a nephew of Abraham (Genesis 22:21)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The length of lifespans was still high. Job lived 140 years after the main events of the concluded and Job was already an old man (Job 42:16).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The book of Genesis appears to be a collection of earlier records edited by Moses. (See &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/bible-studies\/genesis-a-study-of-the-beginning\/introduction-a-study-of-genesis\/\">An Introduction to Genesis<\/a>&#8221; for more details). So in one sense, the elements of the collection are older records, for one is the records of Adam (Genesis 5:1), but if you only count from the time they were assembled by Moses, then they would come after Job.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question: Which book is believed to be\u00a0the oldest book in the Bible? I found the following points: Many scholars agree that Job is the oldest book in the Bible, written by an unknown Israelite about 1500 B.C. Others hold that the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) are the oldest books in the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[219,279],"class_list":["post-13194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-bible","tag-history"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11817,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-is-the-most-quoted-old-testament-book-in-the-new-testament\/","url_meta":{"origin":13194,"position":0},"title":"What is the most quoted Old Testament book in the New Testament?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 27, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: What is the second most influential book in the world today? What Old Testament book is the most quoted or referenced in the New Testament? Which book of the Bible is thought to be the oldest in terms of when it was written? Answer: \"Influential\" is a subjective term,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":44973,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/which-book-should-be-first-job-or-genesis\/","url_meta":{"origin":13194,"position":1},"title":"Which book should be first, Job or Genesis?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 29, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I'm confused. A brother mentioned what I understood to mean that Job was to be the first book in the Bible and not Genesis. Since then I have done my own research and am now seriously confused. The way I see it is \"Does it really matter?\" There are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":23643,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-isnt-the-tales-of-the-patriarchs-included-in-the-bible\/","url_meta":{"origin":13194,"position":2},"title":"Why isn&#8217;t &#8220;The Tales of the Patriarchs&#8221; included in the Bible?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 27, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I recently learned about \"The Tales of the Patriarchs,\" a scroll found among the Dead Sea scrolls. If other books of the Bible were found among the Dead Sea scrolls, why isn't this book included in the Bible? Answer: It should be noted that the Dead Sea Scrolls contained\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":44164,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-is-the-oldest-recorded-religion\/","url_meta":{"origin":13194,"position":3},"title":"What is the oldest recorded religion?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 8, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Dear Mr. Hamilton, I am here to ask a somewhat moderate question: What is the oldest religion ever recorded? The reason why I want to know is that earlier today, I had a discussion with a few of my fellow classmates on the topic of religion. It started when\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15179,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-have-some-books-been-left-out-of-the-bible\/","url_meta":{"origin":13194,"position":4},"title":"Why have some books been left out of the Bible?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 26, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: If the books in the Bible were written by apostles, was Moses considered an apostle? What of Isaiah and Samuel? Were they considered apostles? Is it not said in the book of Matthew that nothing was to be taken from the Old Testament? I'm just curious because if this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9161,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/when-did-adam-eve-and-the-bible-come-into-existence\/","url_meta":{"origin":13194,"position":5},"title":"When did Adam, Eve, and the Bible come into existence?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: My girlfriend and I were discussing things in the Bible, and we were wondering when did Adam and Eve come into existence, and when did the Bible come into existence? We were just wondering. I have heard this question asked before in other people's conversations and didn't get a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}