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1st Person Accounts of Old Testament Stories
Central Question:
Is every interesting story in the Old Testament just a fable?
Why this is important to me:
In my mind, to believe in Jesus requires believing the Old Testament. There are many stories that are central to Christianity like the 12 Tribes of Israel, the creation story, and journeys of Moses. Also many of the core Christian tenants are defined in the Old Testament such as the 10 Commandments and tithing
The most important of items established in the Old Testament is the prophecy of a Savior. In my mind it is the key reason to believe in Jesus. He was fulfilling prophecy
That said, few of these stories appear to be written in 1st person. The most interesting ones are written literally hundreds of years after the supposed moment in history. Some are even taken from older traditions via other ancient religions. A similar scenario would be taking the current movies of King Authur as fact as we have zero 1st person written history of King Authur
Table of Contents
Ancient Manuscript Dating
Dating texts cross-references many techniques to check the results of each. Carbon Dating is one method but not the only method. Experts also look at inconsistency in some arrangement, especially a juxtaposition of persons, events, objects, language terms and customs from different time periods
A good example of this is text handwriting clues such as fonts that did not exist before a time period. The same method is also used for words too. The goal is to narrow down the date by finding features/words that had not been designed before a specific date. After a date has been chosen it is peer reviewed for accuracy within their scientific journals
Every Interesting Old Testament Story Is Like the Game of Telephone
How can I believe any story that was written by 3rd person accounts. In fact, the most interesting Old Testament stories are written supposedly 100’s and 1000’s of years after they took place.
The TOP OLD TESTAMENT Stories Sorted By Years of Heresay Before They Were Written
Looking at this list, the stories written in real time are the boring stories. All of the juicy stories, the stories that Christianity depends on and has built its backbone and basis from are written with hundreds to thousands of years of heresay.
These stories are literally no different than someone in our time writing about King Authur. Building a religion upon these Old Testament stories back then would be like someone building a religion built around King Authur’s Lady of the Lake in this day. How can I trust these Old Testament stories?
The following are the top stories of the Old Testament as defined by biblesociety.org. The time differences are from Dating the Bible
| How many years between when the story was actually written and the year is supposedly happened (in years) | Story | Is this a faith promoting story or just news | Bibles Proposed Date for the Story (estimated in BC) | Actual Date the Story Was Written (in BC) | Previous Influential Mythology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5255 | Creation and the fall (Genesis 1–3) | Yes | 6000 | 745 | Gathas of Zarathushtra Yasna |
| 4755 | Noah and the flood (Genesis 6.9–9.17) | Yes | 5500 | 745 | Epic of Gilgamesh (1800 BC) |
| 2505 | The tower of Babel (Genesis 11.1–9) | Yes | 3250 | 745 | Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta (2100 BC) |
| 1255 | The call of Abraham (Genesis 12.1–9 and 17.1–8) | Yes | 2000 | 745 | Phrixus Sacrifice Story |
| 1255 | Three visitors to Abraham (Genesis 18.1–15) | Yes | 2000 | 745 | |
| 1155 | Joseph the dreamer (Genesis 37–45) | Yes | 1900 | 745 | |
| 1091 | The birth of Moses (Exodus 1.8–2.10) | Yes | 1391 | 300 | Sargon of Akkad’s Akkadian |
| 1000 | Moses and the burning bush (Exodus 3.1–15) | Yes | 1300 | 300 | |
| 1000 | The ten plagues (Exodus 7.6–11.10) | Yes | 1300 | 300 | |
| 1000 | Crossing the Red Sea (Exodus 13.17–14.31) | Yes | 1300 | 300 | |
| 1000 | Manna and quail (Exodus 16) | Yes | 1300 | 300 | |
| 1000 | Exploring Canaan (Numbers 13.1—14.12) | Yes | 1300 | 300 | |
| 1000 | Balaam’s donkey (Numbers 22.21–38) | Yes | 1300 | 300 | |
| 1000 | The Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 5.1–22) | Yes | 1300 | 300 | Egyptian Book of the Dead (2600) |
| 971 | The death of Moses (Deuteronomy 34) | Yes | 1271 | 300 | |
| 828 | The fall of Jericho (Joshua 5.13–6.27) | Yes | 1573 | 745 | |
| 702 | Judah is taken into exile in Babylon (2 Kings 24—25) | No, this is news | 1447 | 745 | |
| 700 | Ruth and Naomi (Ruth 1–4) | No, no witnesses but herself for prophetic parts | 1100 | 400 | |
| 655 | Entering the Promised Land (Joshua 3) | Yes | 1400 | 745 | |
| 455 | Deborah leads God’s people (Judges 4–5) | No, this is news | 1200 | 745 | |
| 425 | Gideon fights the Midianites (Judges 6–7) | No, this is news | 1170 | 745 | |
| 406 | Jonah (Jonah 1–4) | Yes | 746 | 340 | Many (1000+ BC) |
| 355 | Samson and Delilah (Judges 16) | Yes | 1100 | 745 | Heracles and Enkidu |
| 255 | Israel asks for a king (1 Samuel 8) | No, this is news | 1000 | 745 | |
| 255 | God chooses David as king (1 Samuel 16.1–13) | No, no witnesses but himself | 1000 | 745 | |
| 255 | David kills Goliath (1 Samuel 17) | Yes, but this was mistranslated to improve Davids status. Elhanan son of Jair-Oregim killed Goliath | 1000 | 745 | |
| 255 | David becomes king (2 Samuel 5.1–12) | No, this is news | 1000 | 745 | |
| 255 | David and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11) | No, this is news | 1000 | 745 | |
| 205 | Israel rebels against Rehoboam (1 Kings 12.1–24) | No, this is news | 950 | 745 | |
| 186 | Solomon and the wise judgement (1 Kings 3.16–28) | No, this is news | 931 | 745 | |
| 186 | Solomon builds God’s temple (1 Kings 6) | No, no witnesses but himself for prophetic parts | 931 | 745 | |
| 105 | Elijah and the prophets of Baal burning wet wood (1 Kings 18.16–46) | Yes, while written 100 years after the fact with no eyewitnesses, this is plausible | 850 | 745 | |
| 105 | The still small voice (1 Kings 19) | No, this is describing a method | 850 | 745 | |
| 105 | Elijah is taken up to heaven in a chariot (2 Kings 2.1–12) | Yes, but the story has no eyewitness accounts | 850 | 745 | |
| 40 | Jeremiah and the potter’s house (Jeremiah 18) | No, no witnesses but himself | 626 | 586 | |
| 40 | Jeremiah and the new covenant (Jeremiah 31.1–34) | No, no witnesses but himself | 626 | 586 | |
| 0 | The people are allowed to return from exile (Ezra 1) | No, this is news | 445 | 445 | |
| 0 | Isaiah’s vision of God (Isaiah 6.1–8) | No, no witnesses but himself | 745 | 745 | |
| 0 | Isaiah’s prophecies about a Messiah (Isaiah 7.10–17) | No, no witnesses but himself | 745 | 745 | |
| 0 | Isaiah’s message of comfort (Isaiah 40.1–11) | No, no witnesses but himself | 745 | 745 | |
| 0 | The suffering servant (Isaiah 52.13—53.12) | No, no witnesses but himself | 745 | 745 | |
| 0 | Ezekiel’s vision of a chariot (Ezekiel 1) | No, no witnesses but himself | 586 | 586 | |
| 0 | Ezekiel’s vision of dry bones (Ezekiel 37.1–14) | No, no witnesses but himself | 586 | 586 | |
| 0 | Daniel and the fiery furnace (Daniel 3) | Yes but it is written as a poem style that culturally was not intended to be believed | 164 | 164 | |
| 0 | Daniel and the lions’ den (Daniel 6) | Yes but it is written as a poem style that culturally was not intended to be believed | 164 | 164 | |
| 0 | Hosea told to marry a prostitute (Hosea 1) | No, this is a story of someone following God | 745 | 745 | |
| 0 | Joel’s vision of the future (Joel 2.28–32) | No, too ambiguous to assure it is fulfilled | 700 | 700 | |
| 0 | Amos’ condemnation of the king (Amos 7.10–17) | No, too ambiguous to assure it is fulfilled | 745 | 745 |
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