Proof The Bible Is True

“One often sees this attack from skeptics that the Genesis account was taken from pagan sources but as this article shows this is not so. A great read.”  Admin

Despite secular claims that the Genesis account is a myth borrowed from various
earlier sources, author Bill Cooper discovers the reverse is true.

Bill Cooper is vice-president of the Creation Science Movement in the UK, and a respected historian and scholar. On behalf of the British Library, he transcribed and edited the latest reprint of John Wycliffe’s 1388 translation of the New Testament.¹ He has also authored a number of articles and books, including the acclaimed After the Flood,² in which he documents how the earliest Europeans recorded their descent from Noah. His latest book, The Authenticity of the Book of Genesis, is a veritable feast, with over 400 pages packed with well-documented facts confirming the historicity of the first book of the Bible.

Archaeologists and students of history know that our museums contain numerous records of the ancient civilizations that lived around the Middle East in the 2½ millennia preceding the birth of Christ. A remarkable number contain narratives that are identical or similar to events documented in Genesis, such as the creation of the world, Adam and Eve, the Flood, and the confusion of languages at Babel. Those who dismiss the Bible as no more than a man-made creation often argue that the authors of Genesis drew upon these pagan sources. Cooper, however, demonstrates that the weight of evidence points to Genesis being the original, authentic record. The many similar accounts from neighbouring tribes, he argues, are clearly corruptions of the true versions witnessed by the patriarchs, and passed down from generation to generation by the descendants of Noah.

Cooper also documents numerous accounts of creation, a global flood and the confusion of languages found in legends throughout the world. Many of these, again, are remarkably similar to Genesis in their details, indicating a common source and supporting the biblical account of the dispersal of humanity at Babel. Cooper concentrates on the Flood traditions which date from times before any Christian influence could have been the original source.

According to the ‘modernists’ and ‘higher critics’, much of the book of Genesis was compiled during the time of the exile, when the Israelites were held in captivity in Babylon during the 6^th century BC. In particular, it’s alleged that the Genesis account of creation is no more than a rehash of the much earlier creation story contained in the Enuma Elish tablets of Babylonia.

As Cooper points out, this is difficult to reconcile with the facts (pp. 22–41). Firstly, the Samaritan copy of the Jewish Pentateuch is written in an ancient form of Hebrew that predates the exile. Secondly, the most ancient Samaritan copy contains over two thousand corruptions of the original Jewish manuscript. These would be expected to accumulate over centuries, making it very unlikely that the Samaritans made their copy soon after the return of the Israelites from Babylon. Indeed, it would seem unlikely that the Samaritans would make a copy of Jewish historical writings at all, given the state of hostility that existed between these two nations around that time.

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Read more here: creation.com