The events recorded date back to the creation of the world.
Many Christians believe the earth is millions of years old. They base this belief on the statements of scientists and understand Scripture in the light of these statements. Likewise, many Christians believe that the human race began hundreds of thousands of years ago for the same reason.
Most evangelicals who take the Scriptures seriously believe that the earth is not much older than 10, 000 years. They base this on the genealogies in Scripture (Gen. 5; 10; 11; et al.), which they understand to be "open"(i.e., not complete). Evangelicals usually hold to a more recent date for man's creation, also for the same reason.
A smaller group of evangelicals believes that the genealogies are either "closed"(i.e., complete) or very close to complete. This leads us to date the creation of the world and man about 6, 000 years ago.2
Liberal interpreters have placed the date of composition of Genesis much later than Moses' lifetime.
If one accepts Mosaic authorship, as most conservative evangelicals do, the date of composition of Genesis must be within Moses' lifetime (ca. 1525-1405 B.C.). This book was perhaps originally intended to encourage the Israelites to trust in their faithful, omnipotent God as they anticipated entrance into the Promised Land from Kadesh Barnea or from the Plains of Moab.3Moses may have written it earlier to prepare them for the Exodus,4but this seems less likely.
