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The Authenticity of the Book of Genesis
The Authenticity of the Book of Genesis by Dr Bill Cooper – Why Genesis can be trusted to speak about origins In this single volume Dr Bill Cooper takes on the challenge of the globally accepted media’s opinion of the Scriptures we call the Bible. He argues from hard evidence that the Bible is historically accurate throughout – in everything, prophetical, geographical, linguistic and doctrinal. So whether you come to its perusal from jeering atheism or a longing to know how your own conviction of its truth can be substantiated, read on. Be challenged and be completely reassured. God’s Word is true! Part One of this book deals with the antiquity of Genesis, showing how each of its component parts is considerably older than any of the sources proposed for it by the modernist school. Part Two deals with the pre-Christian Flood traditions that are found around the world, which together present a formidable body of evidence for the truth of Genesis when it speaks of the Flood of Noah. Finally, Part Three draws the reader’s attention to a certain clay tablet which makes nonsense of the modernist claim that the Flood account found in Genesis is modeled on or derived from the Epic of Gilgamesh or any other proposed source. We call it here the Genesis Flood Tablet.
424 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2011
19 people are currently reading
67 people want to read
About the author
Bill Cooper
44 books22 followersDr Bill Cooper is a council member and trustee of the Creation Science Movement. He is married with two daughters and has recently been awarded an Honours degree by Kingston University (England) for combined studies in the History of Ideas (Religion, Philosophy and Political Theory) and English Literature. He has lectured on The Table of Nations, under the auspices of the CSM, in Germany, Belgium and at many venues in England including Leeds University.
He has written numerous articles for the Creation Science Movement and for the Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal published by the Creation Science Foundation of Australia, on the Table of Nations (The Early History of Man series), the historical Jonah and other subjects.
He has written numerous articles for the Creation Science Movement and for the Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal published by the Creation Science Foundation of Australia, on the Table of Nations (The Early History of Man series), the historical Jonah and other subjects.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 24, 2017
Yup, I just finished reading through Bill Cooper's book The Authenticity of the Book of Genesis.
Well first off, Cooper puts before the reader a MASSIVE amount of cultural evidence that points to the antiquity and authority of Genesis. There are two main sources for this data. Much of it is drawn from archaeology and the ancient cultures of the world. The rest comes from cultural anthropology and ethnology, that is from myths and legends collected on the five continents. So what we have is a wide range of cultural narratives (myths and legends) that offer parallels to the history that the early chapters of Genesis puts before us (specifically the stories of Creation, the Fall, the Flood and the Tower of Babel). And these stories come from deep in time, from the oldest civilisations known to man and, geographically, from across all the continents. Personally, in terms of geographic distribution even had the Flood stories got no farther than the Mediterranean and connected territories in Asia, this would still be convincing evidence. What we actually do have is MASSIVE global distribution of Flood stories (a bit less for the other Genesis stories). While Cooper does present evidence of Flood stories on all five continents, I expect much more could be brought to the fore.
But seeing the penguin populations of Antarctica have not yet volunteered any Flood stories, some may still object that the theory of the worldwide distribution of Flood stories is "problematic" and full of holes and "of course", must be discarded. Yes, of course.....
Now I think Cooper does make a convincing case that most of the 19th century Higher Critics attacks on Genesis were based on biased and shoddy scholarship. Part of the problem here is that Higher Critics have gotten away with so much because, 1) the ancient Flood texts they referred to as being the REAL source of Genesis (ex. Gilgamesh) were written in languages only a few experts could sort out and 2), that access to the said documents is often severely restricted, which give museum curators the opportunity to filter out researchers with "undesirable" perspectives. This has insured that a serious re-examination of the Higher Criticism school of thought has been kept at arms' length for so long. In my view, the Higher Criticism school of thought primary objective from the very beginning has always been undermining the authority of the Old Testament as a historical document, as for the rest, it amounts to little more than plunking the Bible down on the Procrustean Bed of Enlightenment presupposition and lopping off anything sticking out. For an unusual take on Higher Criticism, read CS Lewis' brief essay (1959) Fern-Seed and Elephants. And this essay was written at a time when very FEW scholars dared make any serious critiques of this rather prestigious school of thought (the product of serious-minded and hard-working German scholars after all...). As usual this article has Lewis' effective logic as well as tidbits of irony and humour.
Now to be fair-minded about all the historical and ethnographical evidence that Cooper has collected one must NOT bring along unrealistic expectations when examining it. It would be unreasonable to expect that one will find exact replicas of Genesis in all details, as if copies of Genesis had been faxed to all cultures. In my view the situation demands we view the evidence as we would for a hypothetical situation. For the old farts reading here, think back to the 60s and 70s when a nuclear exchange between the US and the Soviet block was a real possibility. Suppose for example that a MAD (mutually assured destruction) tit-for-tat scenario actually did go down and pretty much all the major cities in the world got hit by nuclear strikes. Well that would be pretty much the end of Western civilisation... Ok, but what about the survivors out in the woods? After such a catastrophe, the first priority would be simply physical survival, but once that was taken care and time worn on, inevitably the survivors would want to pass on the story of the catastrophe they experienced to their children, and so on, on down the generations.
But predictably, as the intervening gap in generations grew, noise would collect in the transmission of this text and over time the story would become garbled. Just like in the kids party game where a sentence is whispered in the ear of one child sitting in a circle of other kids, then to the next kid in line, then on to the next. At the end of the line, often there are barely one or two words that faithfully reflect the original sentence.
Well this is what we find with the Flood stories around the world and as well as with other Genesis parallels. As the Flood survivors dispersed after Babel, they brought with them the Flood story, but in a short matter of time, elements of the story got dropped and local cultural ideas got coloured in. This is entirely to be expected.
This is the case with one First Nations group I have studied, the Montagnais-Naskapi, who reside in the densely wooded central area of the province of Québec (for Americans, Texas would fit twice into Québec with room left over). While the south of Québec is densely populated, the centre is mostly boreal forest, lakes, moose and mosquitoes... In any case, the Montagnais have their own Flood story, but in theirs, humans have been dropped from the story. Only animals make it aboard (which fits with their mythology). But despite being so garbled, the story does maintain key elements of Genesis story, that evil conduct provoked the Flood which was in effect punishment for this conduct. And once the Flood was in the waning phase, you also have an animal sent out to see if any land has come to the surface. In this case the animal is not a bird, but (if memory serves) a muskrat or otter. And this Flood story was collected and published by secular cultural anthropologists who of course have NO predisposition at all to finding evidence supportive of Genesis.
Cooper (appropriately) spends a couple of chapters on the works by British ethnologist Sir James Fraser (his multi-volume The Golden Bough Is more well-known) who made the oft quoted claim that Flood stories around the world are the product of Christian missionaries meddling in non-Western cultures. Myself, taking introductory university courses in Cultural Anthropology in the late 70s, I ran into this claim a number of times, with profs mindlessly parroting the claim that "Everyone knows that missionaries spread these Flood stories". But here's a question Cooper does not appear to raise in his book: "Can the Genesis-doubters and Fraser-followers point to ONE single case where there is clear documented evidence that in fact missionaries were OBSERVED to have inoculated a culture with Flood stories, when in fact this culture did NOT have such stories before the arrival of said missionaries?" Over the years I have run into quite a few discussions by secular cultural anthropologists and ethnologists regarding Flood stories in non-Western cultures and I have NEVER seen anyone offer any such evidence, even though this is considered as the "consensus" in the Social Sciences. In my view this is just a cheap excuse to ignore the evidence, actually an escape-hatch, to quickly avoid having to deal with "unpleasant" fact that from multiple directions has lines pointing back to Genesis...
Regarding the MASSIVE cultural evidence drawn from the five continents pointing back to Genesis, I think the typical Enlightenment-influenced ethnographers and anthropologists in our universities are in a position comparable to a Everest-denier actually travelling to base Camp at the foot of Everest and deliberately going down streets where there was no line of sight to Everest and, when this could not be avoided, then deliberately turning one's back to the mountain to avoid seeing it. Carefully sticking to such avoidance behaviour, our Everest-denier could then (truthfully?) claim: "I have personally travelled to Tibet and NOT seen the legendary mountain called Everest. The consensus among informed scholars is now that the legendary mountain called Everest does NOT exist and has it's real roots in the confused wits of hippy trekkers who appear to have over-generously partaken in the abundant poppy by-products of the region. Another hypothesis put forward is that this legend has it's source in the ecstatic experiences described as "ascensions" of the addled and oxygen-deprived brains of those who call themselves 'mountain-climbers' and who actually claim to have set foot on the Highest of the high mountains in the course of their mystical experiences. Of course maps put out by the local tourist industry with routes to the mythical mountain have further enshrined this legend."
Well first off, Cooper puts before the reader a MASSIVE amount of cultural evidence that points to the antiquity and authority of Genesis. There are two main sources for this data. Much of it is drawn from archaeology and the ancient cultures of the world. The rest comes from cultural anthropology and ethnology, that is from myths and legends collected on the five continents. So what we have is a wide range of cultural narratives (myths and legends) that offer parallels to the history that the early chapters of Genesis puts before us (specifically the stories of Creation, the Fall, the Flood and the Tower of Babel). And these stories come from deep in time, from the oldest civilisations known to man and, geographically, from across all the continents. Personally, in terms of geographic distribution even had the Flood stories got no farther than the Mediterranean and connected territories in Asia, this would still be convincing evidence. What we actually do have is MASSIVE global distribution of Flood stories (a bit less for the other Genesis stories). While Cooper does present evidence of Flood stories on all five continents, I expect much more could be brought to the fore.
But seeing the penguin populations of Antarctica have not yet volunteered any Flood stories, some may still object that the theory of the worldwide distribution of Flood stories is "problematic" and full of holes and "of course", must be discarded. Yes, of course.....
Now I think Cooper does make a convincing case that most of the 19th century Higher Critics attacks on Genesis were based on biased and shoddy scholarship. Part of the problem here is that Higher Critics have gotten away with so much because, 1) the ancient Flood texts they referred to as being the REAL source of Genesis (ex. Gilgamesh) were written in languages only a few experts could sort out and 2), that access to the said documents is often severely restricted, which give museum curators the opportunity to filter out researchers with "undesirable" perspectives. This has insured that a serious re-examination of the Higher Criticism school of thought has been kept at arms' length for so long. In my view, the Higher Criticism school of thought primary objective from the very beginning has always been undermining the authority of the Old Testament as a historical document, as for the rest, it amounts to little more than plunking the Bible down on the Procrustean Bed of Enlightenment presupposition and lopping off anything sticking out. For an unusual take on Higher Criticism, read CS Lewis' brief essay (1959) Fern-Seed and Elephants. And this essay was written at a time when very FEW scholars dared make any serious critiques of this rather prestigious school of thought (the product of serious-minded and hard-working German scholars after all...). As usual this article has Lewis' effective logic as well as tidbits of irony and humour.
Now to be fair-minded about all the historical and ethnographical evidence that Cooper has collected one must NOT bring along unrealistic expectations when examining it. It would be unreasonable to expect that one will find exact replicas of Genesis in all details, as if copies of Genesis had been faxed to all cultures. In my view the situation demands we view the evidence as we would for a hypothetical situation. For the old farts reading here, think back to the 60s and 70s when a nuclear exchange between the US and the Soviet block was a real possibility. Suppose for example that a MAD (mutually assured destruction) tit-for-tat scenario actually did go down and pretty much all the major cities in the world got hit by nuclear strikes. Well that would be pretty much the end of Western civilisation... Ok, but what about the survivors out in the woods? After such a catastrophe, the first priority would be simply physical survival, but once that was taken care and time worn on, inevitably the survivors would want to pass on the story of the catastrophe they experienced to their children, and so on, on down the generations.
But predictably, as the intervening gap in generations grew, noise would collect in the transmission of this text and over time the story would become garbled. Just like in the kids party game where a sentence is whispered in the ear of one child sitting in a circle of other kids, then to the next kid in line, then on to the next. At the end of the line, often there are barely one or two words that faithfully reflect the original sentence.
Well this is what we find with the Flood stories around the world and as well as with other Genesis parallels. As the Flood survivors dispersed after Babel, they brought with them the Flood story, but in a short matter of time, elements of the story got dropped and local cultural ideas got coloured in. This is entirely to be expected.
This is the case with one First Nations group I have studied, the Montagnais-Naskapi, who reside in the densely wooded central area of the province of Québec (for Americans, Texas would fit twice into Québec with room left over). While the south of Québec is densely populated, the centre is mostly boreal forest, lakes, moose and mosquitoes... In any case, the Montagnais have their own Flood story, but in theirs, humans have been dropped from the story. Only animals make it aboard (which fits with their mythology). But despite being so garbled, the story does maintain key elements of Genesis story, that evil conduct provoked the Flood which was in effect punishment for this conduct. And once the Flood was in the waning phase, you also have an animal sent out to see if any land has come to the surface. In this case the animal is not a bird, but (if memory serves) a muskrat or otter. And this Flood story was collected and published by secular cultural anthropologists who of course have NO predisposition at all to finding evidence supportive of Genesis.
Cooper (appropriately) spends a couple of chapters on the works by British ethnologist Sir James Fraser (his multi-volume The Golden Bough Is more well-known) who made the oft quoted claim that Flood stories around the world are the product of Christian missionaries meddling in non-Western cultures. Myself, taking introductory university courses in Cultural Anthropology in the late 70s, I ran into this claim a number of times, with profs mindlessly parroting the claim that "Everyone knows that missionaries spread these Flood stories". But here's a question Cooper does not appear to raise in his book: "Can the Genesis-doubters and Fraser-followers point to ONE single case where there is clear documented evidence that in fact missionaries were OBSERVED to have inoculated a culture with Flood stories, when in fact this culture did NOT have such stories before the arrival of said missionaries?" Over the years I have run into quite a few discussions by secular cultural anthropologists and ethnologists regarding Flood stories in non-Western cultures and I have NEVER seen anyone offer any such evidence, even though this is considered as the "consensus" in the Social Sciences. In my view this is just a cheap excuse to ignore the evidence, actually an escape-hatch, to quickly avoid having to deal with "unpleasant" fact that from multiple directions has lines pointing back to Genesis...
Regarding the MASSIVE cultural evidence drawn from the five continents pointing back to Genesis, I think the typical Enlightenment-influenced ethnographers and anthropologists in our universities are in a position comparable to a Everest-denier actually travelling to base Camp at the foot of Everest and deliberately going down streets where there was no line of sight to Everest and, when this could not be avoided, then deliberately turning one's back to the mountain to avoid seeing it. Carefully sticking to such avoidance behaviour, our Everest-denier could then (truthfully?) claim: "I have personally travelled to Tibet and NOT seen the legendary mountain called Everest. The consensus among informed scholars is now that the legendary mountain called Everest does NOT exist and has it's real roots in the confused wits of hippy trekkers who appear to have over-generously partaken in the abundant poppy by-products of the region. Another hypothesis put forward is that this legend has it's source in the ecstatic experiences described as "ascensions" of the addled and oxygen-deprived brains of those who call themselves 'mountain-climbers' and who actually claim to have set foot on the Highest of the high mountains in the course of their mystical experiences. Of course maps put out by the local tourist industry with routes to the mythical mountain have further enshrined this legend."
July 7, 2023
Several years ago, I was talking to a friend, describing a book I’d read recently, and she said, “Oh—that sounds like a book I have!” My interest was piqued enough that I ended up borrowing this book from her, and although it took me several years to finally start it and then get through it, I heartily agree with her pronouncement that it’s a worthwhile read. What a book!
This isn’t for the faint of heart. Bill Cooper does his best to bring it down into “layman’s terms”, but there is still so much technical detail in here that, even though I am an avid reader, I had to slow down and take my time with it. This isn’t a lighthearted read; it’s a deep dive into examples, histories, and proofs of how the book of Genesis is accurate and can be trusted. It’s in-depth for a reason, and it is well-researched (I was impressed by the copious numbers of footnotes and bibliographical pages after each chapter or section!), and somehow, Cooper still generally manages to maintain a descriptive, fairly easy-to-understand narrative.
I feel like I learned a lot from this book—mostly little nuggets of facts from history—but I know there was a lot more that I wasn’t able to grasp. I hope I’ll have a chance to read it again sometime in the future, and hopefully, I can take more in then! The part of this book I found most interesting was probably part one, especially the sections devoted to what we know of laws from the Middle East at the time of the patriarchs. That was fascinating! I also enjoyed the retelling of many flood legends from around the world—it was interesting comparing their similarities and differences.
If you want encouragement for your faith, and enjoy something that is firmly rooted in facts, I’d recommend you read this book. I came away blessed, strengthened, and with much to mull over, and I’m sure you will do the same. I hope I can have a copy of this book on my shelf one day—it’s a good one!
This isn’t for the faint of heart. Bill Cooper does his best to bring it down into “layman’s terms”, but there is still so much technical detail in here that, even though I am an avid reader, I had to slow down and take my time with it. This isn’t a lighthearted read; it’s a deep dive into examples, histories, and proofs of how the book of Genesis is accurate and can be trusted. It’s in-depth for a reason, and it is well-researched (I was impressed by the copious numbers of footnotes and bibliographical pages after each chapter or section!), and somehow, Cooper still generally manages to maintain a descriptive, fairly easy-to-understand narrative.
I feel like I learned a lot from this book—mostly little nuggets of facts from history—but I know there was a lot more that I wasn’t able to grasp. I hope I’ll have a chance to read it again sometime in the future, and hopefully, I can take more in then! The part of this book I found most interesting was probably part one, especially the sections devoted to what we know of laws from the Middle East at the time of the patriarchs. That was fascinating! I also enjoyed the retelling of many flood legends from around the world—it was interesting comparing their similarities and differences.
If you want encouragement for your faith, and enjoy something that is firmly rooted in facts, I’d recommend you read this book. I came away blessed, strengthened, and with much to mull over, and I’m sure you will do the same. I hope I can have a copy of this book on my shelf one day—it’s a good one!
October 26, 2014
This book is really a mixed bag at best. Cooper utilizes the Tablet theory of Genesis developed by Wiseman, Wiseman's son D.J. Wiseman, and Duane Garrett (though he doesn't note Garret's work). Cooper makes some interesting claims, but they are not backed up by any contemporary sources. Many of his references come from the Albright era of biblical archaeology. He makes some good points about the idea of a universal flood across all cultures, and he defends a traditional understanding of Genesis 1-11 which is good. However, I cannot recommend this book. His research practices are questionable, and he spreads the lie about Westcott and Hort (two british New Testament Scholars from the late 19th century) being involved in the Occult, which is sheer idiocy. He also doesn't reference any work of modern biblical scholarship. This is across the board concerning both liberal and conservative scholars.
I would also like to add that I am a very conservative evangelical Calvinist. I hold to an early date of the Exodus, and a traditional understanding of Genesis 1-11. I simply find this book to not deliver very well on its claims. Better books would be: Kenneth Kitchen's "On the Reliability of the Old Testament, Provan, Longmann, and V. Phillop's Long "A Biblical History of Israel", Eugene Merrill's "Kingdom of Priests", Michael Grisanti's "Giving the Sense", etc.
I would also like to add that I am a very conservative evangelical Calvinist. I hold to an early date of the Exodus, and a traditional understanding of Genesis 1-11. I simply find this book to not deliver very well on its claims. Better books would be: Kenneth Kitchen's "On the Reliability of the Old Testament, Provan, Longmann, and V. Phillop's Long "A Biblical History of Israel", Eugene Merrill's "Kingdom of Priests", Michael Grisanti's "Giving the Sense", etc.
July 1, 2020
I thought this was an interesting way to look at the Biblical and extra-Biblical views of the flood story, and the different migration stories of ancient peoples including striking similarities between them.
June 27, 2014
"The Authenticity of the Book of Genesis" by William R. Cooper is a brilliant book in any sense of the word. I will borrow my following summary liberally from the back cover.
In this single volume Dr Bill Cooper takes on the challenge of the globally accepted media's opinion of the Scriptures we call the Bible. He argues from hard evidence that the Bible is historically accurate throughout - in everything, prophetical, geographical, linguistic and doctrinal.
A) Part One of this book deals with the antiquity of Genesis (Creation to Joseph), showing how each of its component parts is considerably older than any of the sources proposed for it by the modernist school.
B) Part Two deals with the pre-Christian Flood traditions that are found around the world, which together present a formidable body of evidence for the truth of Genesis when it speaks of the Flood of Noah. This section takes up over half of the book's total content and the nature of the topic makes for some redundancies, but far less than you would believe.
C) Finally, Part Three draws the reader's attention to a certain clay tablet which makes nonsense of the modernist claim that the Flood account found in Genesis is modelled on or derived from the Epic of Gilgamesh or an other proposed source. We call it here the Genesis Flood Tablet.
"The Authenticity of the Book of Genesis" is well-written and resourced and provides an excellent balance of being both scholarly and a reasonably easy read. There are very few issues with the book. Part One was fascinating but details were slim in some of the early chapters. The cover art is appropriate but the design is rather average. Several pictures are included but I would've loved to see more of them. Overall, I highly recommend this book. It presents a formidable amount of evidence for the case that Genesis is both ancient truth and literal history.
9/10
In this single volume Dr Bill Cooper takes on the challenge of the globally accepted media's opinion of the Scriptures we call the Bible. He argues from hard evidence that the Bible is historically accurate throughout - in everything, prophetical, geographical, linguistic and doctrinal.
A) Part One of this book deals with the antiquity of Genesis (Creation to Joseph), showing how each of its component parts is considerably older than any of the sources proposed for it by the modernist school.
B) Part Two deals with the pre-Christian Flood traditions that are found around the world, which together present a formidable body of evidence for the truth of Genesis when it speaks of the Flood of Noah. This section takes up over half of the book's total content and the nature of the topic makes for some redundancies, but far less than you would believe.
C) Finally, Part Three draws the reader's attention to a certain clay tablet which makes nonsense of the modernist claim that the Flood account found in Genesis is modelled on or derived from the Epic of Gilgamesh or an other proposed source. We call it here the Genesis Flood Tablet.
"The Authenticity of the Book of Genesis" is well-written and resourced and provides an excellent balance of being both scholarly and a reasonably easy read. There are very few issues with the book. Part One was fascinating but details were slim in some of the early chapters. The cover art is appropriate but the design is rather average. Several pictures are included but I would've loved to see more of them. Overall, I highly recommend this book. It presents a formidable amount of evidence for the case that Genesis is both ancient truth and literal history.
9/10
December 20, 2015
A remarkable book with an amazing amount of references. Great breath and scope. Synchronizes and correlates ancient recordation on ancient tablets that align with Genesis creation and flood. Provides great insight in to the modern academic narrative which degrades the authority of the scriptures and suppresses truth. I don’t doubt the veracity of this book, but I do question the use of some of his internet references to validate his points. Case in point is the Hawaiian folk stories of the Flood. The link was broken, yet I was able to find the source document that he was ultimately pointing to (Hawaiian Folk Tales, Thomas G. Thrum, 1907) which is readily available in pdf via google books. This book (Hawaiian Folk Tales) clearly documents some amazing and highly correlated flood and creation stories. Though tempted to give a 3 or 4 star due to his reference technique, I retained the 5. I liked the British sarcasm.
July 14, 2014
I really enjoyed this book! I always appreciate an author who can take you through something familiar but show you heaps of things you haven't noticed before. There is a depth and breadth to the authors research that is impressive and he provides some great information from ancient sources that authenticates the age and accuracy of the Genesis account of creation and ancient history. Would highly recommend this book for anyone searching or wanting a fresh insight into this pivotal book of the Bible.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews