The Genesis Site - The Author(s) of Genesis
Genesis 1
Who is the author of Genesis chapter 1? Let's first look to the book of Genesis.
Genesis is commonly called the first book of Moses. I'm not denying Moses is the author of Genesis. But I'm asking from where, or from who, did Moses receive his information? Someone must have told him what happened long before he lived.
Did God inspire Moses to write the stories about creation, Adam and Eve, Lamech, flood, Peleg, confusion of tongues? Or was there some kind of oral tradition? But we all know how oral tradition can change the facts. And what about all the names and dates in the first chapters of Genesis? Could this have been told from father to child for centuries without mistakes?
If we could find some indication about authors in Genesis it would become clear where Moses found his information. Indeed, Genesis is divided in several parts and they all are signed with a name. Let's take a closer look.
The point about writers in Genesis is found in the Hebrew word tôledôth. This word means: generations, descent or descendant, history. So it is clear it has something to do with history. Let me first show you where we meet this tôledôth in Genesis.
- 2:4a
These are the generations (tôledôth) of the heavens and the earth when they were created.- 5:1a
This is the book of the generations (tôledôth) of Adam.- 6:9a
These are the generations (tôledôth) of Noah.- 10:1a
These are the generations (tôledôth) of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham and Japheth.- 11:10a
These are the descendants (tôledôth) of Shem.- 11:27a
Now these are the descendants (tôledôth) of Terah.- 25:12a
These are the descendants (tôledôth) of Ish'mael.- 25:19
These are the descendants (tôledôth) of Isaac.- 36:1
These are the descendants (tôledôth) of Esau.- 36:9
These are the descendants (tôledôth) of Esau.- 37:2a
This is the history (tôledôth) of Jacob.
(Or, in some translations: the family of Jacob.)
So we see how tôledôth is translated in several ways. Why is this? There is one clear answer: we don't know the exact meaning of toledoth and so we don't know for sure it is the beginning or the end of a new section of Genesis. (Remember the dividing in chapters and verses is not found in the original text of Genesis!)
The result: tôledôth was made the headline of new sections. But this was not a clever decision. Take for instance 37:2a, the history of Jacob. The following part has nothing to do with the history of Jacob. To solve this problem some translations are not giving Jacob, but the family of Jacob.
Another striking example is 2:4a. Do the heavens and the earth have generations? So some translations have the history of heaven and earth. But note the following words: when they were created. This makes clear the tôledôth of the heavens and the earth is a caption of the creation story of Genesis 1, not the head of the next part! In fact Genesis 1 doesn't have a tôledôth-headline.
And what about the generations of Noah (6:9a)? Nor in the following, nor in the previous part is dealt with the generations of Noah. So a better translation should have been: history of Noah (as in fact some Bible translations do).
Of course there is much more to say about the tôledôth problem [1]. But study this tôledôth subject yourself and you will find out it is more logic to take the tôledôth as a headline of some section. In fact each section will confrontate you with a headline and a corresponding tôledôth bottomline. See the next table. Consequently I've translated tôledôth with history.
| 1:1 | In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. |
| 2:4a | This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created. |
| 2:4b, 7 | In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, .... then the Lord God formed man (Hebrew: haAdam) of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man (Hebrew: haAdam) became a living being. |
| 5:1a | This is the book of the history of Adam. |
| 5:1b-29 | When God created man, .... and Adam became the father of .... and Lamech became the father of Noah .... |
| 6:9a | This is the history of Noah. |
| 6:10 | Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. |
| 10:1a | This is the history of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham and Japheth. |
| 10:1b | Sons were born to them (to Shem, Cham and Japheth) after the flood. |
| 11:10a | This is the history of Shem. |
| 11:10b | When Shem was a hundred years old, he became the father of .... and Nahor became the father of Terah. |
| 11:27a | Now this is the history of Terah. |
This sounds logical, isn't it?
We do have authors now and we found the part they have written. If you watch closely, you will find out that each part is dealing only with events that must have been known to the author. For instance, you will never find the dead of a person in his own tôledôth! Notice what is said about the history of Adam: he wrote it down in a book!
But what about Genesis 1:1-2:4a? Who is the author of this part? It's clear there is only one witness of the creation: the Creator. (Well, in fact there were many more witnesses, but I don't suppose angels were writing this particular story.) So now two things can be possible:
a) God is the author of this part. I mean this literally. Why couldn't have God been writing some text? Didn't Moses say He wrote the Ten Words too (Exodus 31:18 and 34:1)? Perhaps God gave it as an example to Adam how to write his own report. The style difference between Genesis 1:1-2:4a and 2:4b-5:1a has always been a source of much criticism on the origin of Genesis!
b) God dictated these words to Adam. In this case Adam is the author of the creation story. In both cases Genesis 1 is the oldest book on earth!
[1] For more study:
P.J. Wiseman, Ontdekkingen over Genesis.
(In English: New Discoveries in Babylonia about Genesis.)