Were Genesis and all known scriptures written after Noah's Ark landed?

Answer 1

No! Berosus of Chaldea casually tells us that his king loved to read the books written before the flood and that their Noah even wrote some himself and buried them in Sippur (booktown - obviously an ancient library). But as for the Torah these were written down after the flood (around 1300 BC) though the tales from genesis 1-11 existed before this. In what forms we cannot say at this time.

Answer 2

Yes and no. In their permanent form as we have them, none of the books of the Hebrew Bible were written at the time of the Flood or earlier.

However, tradition states that Adam and Noah (and later, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) recorded the important events of their lives in small parchments. These scrolls were possessed by Abraham's ancestors, and then the early Hebrews (midrash Shemot Rabbah 5:18,22). God later incorporated their relevant passages in the Hebrew Bible, which is why it mentions the Book of Yashar (see Joshua 10:13), the Book of the Generations of Man (Genesis ch.5), and the Book of the Wars of the Lord (Numbers 21:14).

See also: Archaeology

Other information:

The entire social milieu portrayed in Genesis and the entire Torah, once criticized as anachronistic, has been shown to be historically accurate, including customs of marriage, adoption, contracts, inheritance, purchases, utensils, modes of travel, people's names and titles, etc. Professor Gleason Archer Ph.D of Harvard University states: "In case after case in which historical inaccuracy was alleged as proof of late and spurious authorship of the biblical documents, the Hebrew record has been vindicated by the results of excavations, and the condemnatory judgment of the Documentary theorists has been proved to be without foundation."

"Whoever wrote the narrative of Joseph was quite familiar with Egyptian life, Egyptian literature and culture. In particular he was expertly informed concerning the Egyptian royal court" (Prof. Alan Sherman).

Some specific examples:

1) Some claim that giants (Genesis ch.6) could not have existed. But the fact that giants are mentioned not only in Israelite traditions, but also by the Greeks, Romans, Celts, Hindus, Norse, Basques, Japanese and others, in our opinion warrants more than mere dismissal.

2) It was claimed that the camel hadn't been domesticated in Abraham's time. But the Canophorin tablet, dating from 18th century BCE gives a list of fodder for camels and other household animals. And a cylinder seal from Mesopotamia, dating from the patriarchal era, shows riders sitting on camels.

3) The term "achol et kaspeinu" ("our money was eaten," Genesis 31:15) is spoken by Rachel and Leah concerning an inheritance from their father Laban. This term is found nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. Five documents have been unearthed in which 18th century BCE Akkadian marriage contracts use this exact terminology, in the same context. We thus verify that no postulated late redactor could possibly be credited with such specific knowledge of an era centuries before his own.

4) The names Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Laban, Balaam and Joseph were used in the Patriarchal period and dropped out of usage thereafter. These names appear in archaeological inscriptions from that period and no later period. How did those verses get appropriate names for that period of time (if they were invented a thousand years later)?

5) Joseph was sold for twenty pieces of silver. That was the accurate price of a slave in Joseph's time, and at no other time. Slaves were cheaper beforehand, and they got increasingly expensive later. How would a later redactor know the right price?

Answer 3

Scholars have established that Genesis and all other Jewish scriptures were written later in the first millennium BCE, thousands of years after the Flood is supposed to have happened.