Instead of arguing, I get right to the point simply, with Ruthless Prioritization, and as winsomely as possible by asking this question:
At what point in the Bible does God start telling the truth?
Was he speaking truth at the end of Gen 1 when he said, “It is all good?” Is it Gen 11 and the Tower of Babel? Does he tell the truth anywhere in the Bible?
I believe God began speaking the truth in Gen 1 when he said, “Let there be light.”
Jesus quotes from each of the books of the Torah and attributes them to Moses. The New Testament includes 165 direct quotes (and over 200 allusions) to the Book of Genesis, and over 100 of these are from the first 11 chapters. These include the Creator and the creation,[1], allusions[2], creation of man and woman[3], the fall of man[4], the Flood of Noah[5], etc. So if you believe in Jesus Christ, you have no problem as to who wrote the Book of Genesis.
If you don’t believe in Jesus Christ, you have much bigger problems than the authorship of Genesis!
One of my best friends at Microsoft, and brother in Christ, is Ken Curtis. We’re both Digital Architects, retired Army officers, and between us have a lot of big Army smiles accompanying wear and tear from war, peace, training, and all that. Most importantly, we share a deep love of God’s word. Ken explains:
“Whenever I speak with most lay Christians about the Bible, they casually and lightly talk about Genesis. Kings and Prophets are ignored as they occasionally step to the holiday favorites around Christmas and Easter in the Gospels. They might mention a few of the Scary Bits in Revelation. Even many pastors want to be full of sunshine and peace without getting into too many details. Beginning in Genesis, the Body of Christ is astonishingly ignorant about their Bible.”
Okay, then. Lets start in Genesis. By the way, Revelation is not the only book of the Bible with Scary Bits.
Gen 1:26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
The word ‘Us’ in Gen 1: 26 is not called out as an individual word in the Hebrew. Instead it is a sort of pronoun mixed with a verb to indicate an intimate plural. In other words, the ‘Us’ in Genesis 1: 26 introduces the trinity of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. To make sure we don’t miss this, we read:
John 1:2 He was in the beginning with God.
John 1:3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
John 1:4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. We read in John that Jesus was with Him in the beginning, and through Jesus, all things were made.
Moving on:
Genesis 1: 2 …The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
In other words, the Holy Spirit is there in Genesis with God the Father and God the Son. In the New Testament, we see all three in Matthew after John the Baptizer baptized Jesus:
Mat 3:16 When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him.
Mat 3:17 And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
I challenge each of you to read Genesis as we walk the beginning of the Scarlet Thread. We know from the book of John that Jesus was there in the beginning. It is our intention in this book to walk the Scarlet Thread from that beginning, pointing at the cross, and His final reconciliation of all things. Along this first part of the Journey in Genesis, I also challenge you not to fear our own Bibles, because we will pull back the curtains and reveal that there are Scary Bits in Genesis, as well.
[1] Matthew 13:35; Mark 13:19; John 1:3; Acts 4:24; 14:15; Romans 1:20; 2 Corinthians 4:6; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:10; 11:3.
[2] Romans 1:25; 16:25; Ephesians 3:9; 1 Timothy 4:4; Hebrews 2:10; 4:10; 9:26; James 3:9; Revelation 3:14; 4:11; 10:6; 14:7
[3] Matthew 19:4-6, 8; Mark 10:6; Acts 17:26; 1 Corinthians 6:16; 11:8,9; Ephesians 5:31; 1 Timothy 2:13, 14; Revelation 2:7; 22:2, 14.
[4] Romans 5:11, 14, 17, 19; 8:19-20; 1 Corinthians 15:21-22; 2 Corinthians 11:3; Revelation 20:2.
[5] Matthew 24:37; Luke 17:26; 1 Peter 3:20; 2 Peter 2:5; 3:5-61.