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The Book of Genesis (from Greek Γένεσις, Génesis; Biblical Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית, romanized: Bərēʾšīṯ, lit. 'In [the] beginning'; Latin: Liber Genesis) is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament.[1] Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, Bereshit ('In the beginning'). Genesis purports to be an account of the creation of the world, the early history of humanity, and the origins of the Jewish people.[2]
Genesis is part of the Torah or Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. Tradition credits Moses as the Torah's author. It was probably composed around the 5th century BC,[3] although some scholars believe that primeval history (chapters 1–11), may have been composed and added as late as the 3rd century BC.[4] Based on scientific interpretation of archaeological, genetic, and linguistic evidence, some mainstream Bible scholars consider Genesis to be primarily mythological rather than historical.
It is divisible into two parts, the primeval history (chapters 1–11) and the ancestral history (chapters 12–50).[5] The primeval history sets out the author's concepts of the nature of the deity and of humankind's relationship with its maker: God creates a world which is good and fit for humans, but when man corrupts it with sin, God decides to destroy his creation, sparing only the righteous Noah and his family to re-establish the relationship between man and God.[6] The ancestral history (chapters 12–50) tells of the prehistory of Israel, God's chosen people.[7] At God's command, Noah's descendant Abraham journeys from his birthplace (described as Ur of the Chaldeans and whose identification with Sumerian Ur is tentative in modern scholarship) into the God-given land of Canaan, where he dwells as a sojourner, as does his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob. Jacob's name is changed to "Israel", and through the agency of his son Joseph, the children of Israel descend into Egypt, 70 people in all with their households, and God promises them a future of greatness. Genesis ends with Israel in Egypt, ready for the coming of Moses and the Exodus (departure). The narrative is punctuated by a series of covenants with God, successively narrowing in scope from all humankind (the covenant with Noah) to a special relationship with one people alone (Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob).[8]
In Judaism, the theological importance of Genesis centres on the covenants linking God to his chosen people and the people to the Promised Land.
- ^ Hamilton 1990, p. 1.
- ^ Sweeney 2012, p. 657.
- ^ Oliver, Simon (2017). Creation. Bloomsbury. p. 12. ISBN 9780567656117.
- ^ Gmirkin 2006, p. 3.
- ^ Bergant 2013, p. xii.
- ^ Bandstra 2008, p. 35.
- ^ Bandstra 2008, p. 78.
- ^ Bandstra 2004, pp. 28–29.