How Old Is the Bible?

“How old is the Bible?”

Great question! First, we have to understand that the Bible isn’t just one book, but 66! Those books were written at different times by different people, but God inspired them all.

• The earliest book of the Bible is probably the book of Job, which seems to depict life during the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob almost 4,000 years ago!
• Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible around 500–600 years later.
• The books of the New Testament were written after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension in 30 AD and before the death of John, the last apostle, in the 90s AD.

So all of the books of the Bible were written between 2,000 and 4,000 years ago.

Some people say that the Bible was written so long ago that we can’t possibly know if what we have in our Bibles today is the same as what was in the Bible originally, because we don’t have the original documents, but copies of copies of copies of those books. But we have so many copies of the Bible’s books that we can be very confident that not only did God inspire his Word, but he preserved it so we can be sure that our current Bibles contain what God originally inspired.

Do you have a question about the Bible? Ask your parents to help you submit your question today. We’d love to hear from you!