"Josephus is unquestionably the most important Jewish historian outside of Scripture. Were it not for
Josephus, entire periods of Jewish history would have been lost in the mists of time. Like any good Jew, Josephus recognized that one could not understand Jewish history without first understanding its religion. As Scripture defines Judaism, Josephus first explained Judaism by defining Scripture and the Jewish love of their holy books.
‘For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from, and contradicting one another, [as the Greeks have], but only twenty-two books, which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine; and of them five belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death. This interval of time was little short of three thousand years; … the prophets … in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of human life.’As always, Josephus cuts to the heart of the matter. No further explanation is needed to clarify his plain words. He explicitly states that man had been around for only 3,000 years by the time of Moses." CMI
These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created,
in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,
Genesis 2:4
