The Genesis of Genesis: On the Origins of the Book

Overview: Arguments for early authorship, arguments for later authorship, legends based on kernels of truth, legends that served political and ideological agendas, and the several layers found within the book of Genesis.

This article focuses on the development of Genesis and its composition. Its sister-article is on the historicity of the legends in Genesis and can be found here. Like usual, we will examine the evidence concerning the composition of Genesis and take things as they are without appealing to unnecessary apologetics or religious dogma. We must accept the truth whether or not we feel comfortable with it. This refers to both Orthodox dogma as well Bible Criticism dogma that unfortunately has become somewhat of a religion in its own sense mimicking the appeal of authorities that religion does.

What we will now do is demonstrate the antiquity of Genesis, followed by evidence for a later authorship. What this will do is demonstrate that there are several layers within Genesis and we ought not to date the entire Genesis to one particular period. We will proceed to show evidence for several layers within Genesis written at different times by different people. After doing this, we will get more speculative with theories of when certain parts of Genesis were written and for what purpose.

It should be noted that many of these arguments presented here can be answered on an individual basis. But instead of coming with an agenda to answer all these arguments, we should instead weigh all the evidence together, and the combined weight of all the arguments together, and make an objective judgement.

Arguments for older authorship

1. The actions of the patriarchs in Genesis are greatly opposed to the Law of Torah. Jacob marries his sister-in-law (which is prohibited in Lev. 18:18). If this were all written later, then why would they write the story this way? It would contradict the legal system that they were trying to set up. This would be a political nightmare.

Similarly, Reuben’s idea of promising the life of his two sons^[1] seems to be taken from common practice at the time based on the Code of Hammurabi.^[2] This practice would have been shunned upon in ancient Israel after the giving of the Torah which forbids punishing a son for the sins of their father.^[3]

This would suggest that this narrative was around prior to the giving of the Torah and prior to when these specific laws became laws in ancient Israel.

2. The other books of Tanakh, including the early books, make frequent mention of the Torah’s history of the Jews, implying ancient origins of these stories that were well-ingrained in the Israelite culture. For instance, the prophets mention the Garden of Eden (Is. 51:3), Noah (Is. 54:9), Abraham (Ezek. 33:24; Is. 29:22), Sodom (Ezek. 16:46; Zeph. 2:9; Hos. 11:8), Jacob buying land (Josh. 24:32).
3. Familiarity with Egyptian culture and lingo would suggest a Mosaic authorship at the time of the exodus from Egypt.

Examples include:^[4]

Egyptian Names: The name Pithom (“the house of Atum”), Potiphera (“the gift of Ra”), Asenath (“the favorite of Neith”), and Joseph’s title Zaphenath-pa’neah (Gen. 41:45 “Nourisher of the land of the living one”) are all Egyptian in origin. The expression “over the house” (Gen. 39:4) was used in ancient Egyptian literature. The word “magician” (Gen. 41:8) is Egyptian –not Hebrew.^[5]

Egyptian Culture: Joseph lives for 110 years, which was the ideal life span for an Egyptian –symbolic for wisdom or blessing. Hoffmeier writes, “More than thirty references are known from Egyptian texts in which a 110-year life span is mentioned. It was a symbolic figure for a distinguished sagely man. One such example is Ptahhotep, who left to posterity a wisdom text from c. 2320 BC. Another individual was Amenhotep, son of Hapu, who served Pharaoh Amenhotep III (1390-1352 BC). Often references to 110 years appear in prayers or wishes such as, ‘May I reach 110 years on earth such as every righteous man,’ and ‘May he [the god Amun] give me the 110 years as to every living righteous man.’ Could it be that Joseph’s age at death reflects the use of this Egyptian honorific number that represented the ideal life?”^[6]

The expression ’abrēk (Gen 41:43—translated ‘bow the knee’) is apparently the Egyptian ’b rk (‘O heart, bow down!’), although many other explanations have been offered for this; weights and measures, such as zeret (‘a span’) from drt—‘hand’; ’ ēphah (tenth of a homer) from ’pt; hīn (about five quarts volume) from hnw; gōme’ (‘papyrus’) from ḳmyt; qemahi (‘flour’) from ḳm ḥw (a type of bread); . . . ye’ōr (‘Nile, river’) from ’trw—‘river’ (which becomes eioor in Coptic).^[7]

Perhaps an author during the Monarchy period purposely gave it Egyptian words to enhance the Egyptian background but a simpler explanation is that it was written by people coming from Egypt.

4. Genesis 13:10 describes the banks of the Jordan in Canaan as the beauty of the land of Egypt, indirectly yet tellingly implying the reader’s familiarity with the latter over the former. Similarly, Genesis 33:18 also implies the reader’s familiarity with cities like Shechem in Canaan, despite it being from the most prominent cities of the North of Canaan. This would make much more sense to have been addressed to a nation leaving Egypt rather than to a nation dwelling in Canaan/Israel for many generations.
5. The general absence of YHWH theophoric names – names that contain God’s name YHWH within them – in Genesis (to the exception of Judah) in contrast to the Monarchical period until the Second Temple era in which theophoric names were very common, with over 200 instances of Yahwistic names in Tanakh.

Similarly, the names of the patriarchal era are almost never reused in Tanakh.^[8] We would expect them to use common names if they made up the story in the 7th century.

Furthermore, the names Abram, Levi, Zebulun, and perhaps Isaac and Jacob are Amorite in origin rather than Semitic. These Amorite names date to the early second-millennium BCE, the time that these figures are claimed to have existed. It would be rather surprising for a first-millennium BCE writer in Monarchal Israel to give these names to the patriarchs that would have been very rare at the time.^[9]

6. Genesis flexes an incredible familiarity and accuracy of ancient history in the early bronze age era, the time it claims to be speaking about. We discuss many of these examples in the sister-article that can be found here along with their counterarguments. But we will bring one convincing example here.

Scientists have recently discovered that a meteorite has likely destroyed a massive metropolitan urban district near the Dead Sea, some 3,700 years ago.^[10] This area is none other than the location of Sodom and Gomorrah that Genesis claims was destroyed some 3,700 years ago by a fire from God.

Arguments for non-Mosaic authorship of Genesis

An overall theme that we see is that Genesis is a book of compiled legends that serve ideological and political purposes that set up the First Temple era culture. These narratives serve as building blocks to understand and justify the political and ideological realities of the Monarchy period in ancient Israel.

Interestingly enough, it only serves to explain the Monarchy period – and not anything after that. It does not focus on the realities of the Babylonian exile, nor the Second Temple era, nor the Roman exile and its long aftermath. This strongly suggests that Genesis is not a prophetic book that explains the future of the Israelites, but rather a post-hoc explanation for the realities that the authors were seeing in their First Temple era land of Israel. This is why it seems obvious that Moses didn’t write these parts of Genesis; instead it being the product of Monarchy-era scribes and myth-developers.

We will now bring examples of Genesis narratives that serve obvious political or ideological messages mostly pertaining specifically to the First Temple era. And following that will be other arguments for post-mosaic authorship.

1. Gen. 9 gives a narrative to explain why the Canaanites were to be subjugated as slaves to the Israelites, as was the reality in the Monarchy era of Israel. This seems to be an obvious justification for the facts on the ground of the Judges and Monarchy eras.^[11]
2. Gen. 19 tells of two bastard children, soon to be the fathers of Israel’s neighbors, and often monarchy-era political rivals, Amon and Moab. This seems like an obvious shame-story about their (brotherly) rivals. Same goes with the brotherly rivalry between Jacob and Esau, described as the father of the Edomites, as he is shamed over and over in the Genesis storyline and is proclaimed inferior to his brother Jacob and his offspring the Israelites.
3. In Gen. 26 there’s a treaty made between Isaac and the Philistines. This seems like a narrative intended to raise the aspirations for a peace treaty with the Monarchy-era military rivals of Israel, the Philistines. On a sidenote, there’s the historical question of whether the Philistines were even in Canaan at the time that this story is alleged to have happened; see here for more on that.
4. Similarly, there’s the peace treaty between Laban and Jacob in Gen. 31, reflecting the peace treaty between King David and Aram.
5. There’s the binding of Isaac narrative in Gen. 22 on Mt. Moriah that serves as sanctification of the God-chosen mountain that is soon to be called Jerusalem.

Whereas in Northern Israel, a shrine was set up in Bethel^[12] by Jeroboam, the first king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and Gen. 12 as well as 28 serve as justification for a shrine in that particular city. Similarly, the building of an altar in Shechem by Isaac (Gen. 12:6-7) serves as justification for that city being erected as the capital by Jeroboam.

6. Similarly, the exalting of Joseph – particularly the Ephraim line – throughout the later narratives of Genesis serve as justification for Jeroboam’s ascent to the throne as a member of the Ephraim tribe.
7. The Blessings of Jacob in Gen. 49 describe the geographical and economical circumstances of the tribes during the First Temple era.
8. The blessing of Jacob in Gen. 49:10 serves as political propaganda for Judah retaining the kingship.
9. The Genesis narratives also enjoy explaining the etymology of certain Hebrew words, basing it on various details of the storyline. Examples are the names Babel, Beersheba, Sukkoth, Mahanayim, Edom, Seir, and the names of the patriarchs and the twelve tribes. It is unlikely that so many cities were named by the same three insignificant people that are not attested anywhere in the vast Canaanite literature that archeologists have discovered.
10. The Table of Nations in Gen. Ch. 10 only records the nations that were known to the ancient Near East in the first or second millennium BCE, with no mention of the tribes and civilizations beyond their knowledge, such as in the Far East, Northern Europe, or Southern Africa and the Americas. This suggests a human writer from the Near East, instead of a prophetic divine piece of work in Genesis. Had Moses been writing an accurate presentation of the descendants of Noah who inhabited the world, we would expect him to have written about the factual nations that existed beyond the civilization known to the ancient Near Easterners.
11. Often there seems to be two or three versions of a similar legend. An example is the dual narrative of the Beersheba naming by both Abraham (Gen. 21) and Isaac (Gen. 26). Same goes for two times Bethel being named (Gen. 28:19 and 35:15). Similarly, there’s a story about Abraham disguising his wife as his sister so that the pharaoh would not kill him in order to take her (Gen. 12). A strikingly similar story takes place with Abraham sometime later with King Abimelech (in Gen. 20). Yet again this story happens with Isaac and Abimelech in Gen. 26. The details differ in each of these narratives, but the common theme and details suggest a common root to competing legends all recorded in Genesis.
12. “And these are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before any king reigned over the children of Israel.” (Genesis 36:31)

When Moses would have written this verse, there would have been no king in Israel, rendering this verse meaningless. It would therefore seem that this verse was written sometime after King Saul became the first king of the Israelites. For more on post-Mosaic verses in Torah, see here.

13. “And Abraham named that place, “the Lord will see,” as it is said nowadays: on the mountain, the Lord will be seen.” (Genesis 22:14)

This reference to Mt. Moriah in Jerusalem is described as the place where people exclaim “on the mountain the Lord will be seen.” This, in all likelihood, refers to the Israelites of later times who sanctified Jerusalem and built the Temple on Mt. Moriah.

14. “And Abram heard that his kinsman had been taken captive, and he armed his trained men, those born in his house, three hundred and eighteen, and he pursued [them] until Dan.” (Genesis 14:14)

According to the Book of Judges, prior to the Tribe of Dan occupying the land, the town was known as Laysha (Judges 18:7 and Isaiah 10:30) or Laish (Joshua 19:47, Judges 18). Only after the Danites inhabited that Northern land (Judges 18:1) did they rename the city Dan (18:29). Thus, it would make little sense that Moses wrote “Dan” in this verse since the place was not yet called Dan.

15. “And Abram passed through the land, until the place of Shechem, until the plain of Moreh, and the Canaanites were then in the land.” (Genesis 12:6)

The phrase “and the Canaanites were then in the land” implies that at the writer’s times the Canaanites no longer inhabited the land. This would suggest a post-conquest authorship of this verse since at Moses’ times, the Canaanites were still well in control of the land of Canaan. Akin to this, a historian of the 21st-century would write “In 1491, when the Native Americans were still in the Americas, etc. etc.” Such a statement would be meaningless had the statement been written in 1491 when the Native Americans would have still been very present in the Americas.

16. “After these incidents, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, ‘Fear not, Abram; I am your Shield; your reward is exceedingly great.’” (Gen. 15:1)

The phrase “the Word of the Lord” (dvar adonai in Heb.) is a later term used repeatedly in the Prophetic books of Tanakh. The phrase is not found anywhere else in Torah, suggesting a later writing of this particular episode.

17. “Ur of the Chaldeans (kasdim)” (Gen. 11:31)

The Chaldeans have not yet migrated to the southern Mesopotamian city of Ur until about the 10th-century BCE, much after Moses is alleged to have written this verse. This would suggest a much later writing of this verse to be able to refer to Ur as the city of the Chaldeans.

However, there is a theory that the Ur here is in northern Mesopotamia (near Haran), the origin place of the Chaldeans. There may be evidence for this theory.[22] If this were the case, then the association of Ur to the Chaldeans would not be an indication of later authorship.

Various layers within Genesis

Genesis is not a singular unit of work; instead, it’s a composition of many earlier documents, legends, and historical records. There are a few indications of this in the text. This idea is first presented in a liberal-thinking Midrash that says Moses collected from ancient documents the Israelites were preserving in Egypt and wrote Genesis with these manuscripts.^[13]

In the text of Genesis itself we have “This is the book of toledot Adam” (Gen. 5:1). This suggests that the genealogy list of what was to follow in that chapter was taken from a book discussing the toledot (translated as descendants or story) of Adam.

Within the Noah flood story, we find two original versions that were later interwoven by a scribe to make up the current version of the flood story we have today in Genesis. For a detailed discussion of this, see here.

Similarly, we will soon argue that the flood story was altogether absent in the original narrative in Genesis, only to be added by a later author.

Also we have different versions of what appears to be the same story in Genesis. Examples were cited above with regards to the naming of Beersheba, of Bethel, and the sister-wife narratives. This implies several legends, or strands, that were later compiled into the book of Genesis.

Using perhaps historical or legendary figures of Israel’s past, scribes in the Monarchy era would have written tales about these known figures to teach a moral, political, or ideological lesson. This practice continued even until rabbinic times, with many Midrashim inventing stories about previously-known figures like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the tribes. Likewise, the Greeks have many legends about the historical figure Alexander the Great and his campaigns in Persian and the Middle East. These are legends that are placed in historically accurate settings. In that vein, it can be argued that the legends of Genesis are portrayed with potential historical-figures and historical settings.^[14] Some of the stories may have originally been in oral form before being put down into writing. We will now speculate about when some strands of Genesis may have been written.

The David and Solomon propaganda

Arguments here are from Gary A. Rendsburg,[15] arguing that a scribe from the 10th century BCE wrote Genesis with the politics of his time in mind.

Many storylines in Genesis parallel or can be used as justification for a Davidic monarchy and the controversies of his time. Here are examples:

1. The entire Levant is promised to Abraham in Gen. 15:18. Such a promise is very conceivable in Davidic/Solomon times when they defeated many surrounding nations and were militarily engaged in conquering the rest of the Levant. At that period of the time, the Israelites were the largest they’ve ever been landwise. They subdued Amon, Moab, Edom, and many Aramean states after destroying Amalek and defeating Philistines in the battlefields. David is thus fulfilling, according to the writer of Genesis, the divine promise by engaging in battle with the surrounding Levant nations.
2. “Kings shall sprout from you” is a promise to Abraham in Gen. 17:6 and similarly to Sarah in 17:16. This would have been used as propaganda against the anti-monarchists who claimed that only God should be king for the tribes of Israel.
3. Subjugation of Edom to Israel as reflected in the inferiority of Esau, father of Edom, to Jacob, father of the Israelites. In the times of David and Solomon, the Edomites were subjected to the Israelites. Similarly, the Arameans made peace with King David (II Samuel 10:19), similar to the Genesis narrative of Laban the Aramean making peace with Jacob (Gen. 31).
4. Smear stories of Amon and Moab (Gen. 19) serve as justification for the rule over them during the David and Solomon era.
5. Enslavement of the Canaanites, which became large-scale under Solomon, is justified in Gen. 9.
6. “Yet by your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother; but when you grow restive, you shall break his yoke from your neck.” (Genesis 27:40)

Reflective of the rebellion of Edom during the days of King Solomon (I Kings 11:14-22).

Gen 49:10 declares that “The ruler’s staff shall never depart from Judah until their destined comes and to him nations shall subdue.” This is in harmony with II Samuel 7 where God promises David that his descendants will forever rule.

7. King of Salem, short for Jerusalem according to mainstream scholarship, is given a priestly tithe from Abraham. Abraham declares this Supreme God EL to be YHWH (Gen. 14:18-22). This is validation for Jerusalem being selected as the central place of worship for the Temple. There may also be a connection between MalchiZedek as the priest for EL to the Zadok anointment as priest by David to also worship EL in the same city (II Samuel 8:17). The tithes given by Abraham in this narrative may be reflective of the tithes to be given to the Temple (Lev. 27:30-34). Similarly, the binding of Isaac on Mt. Moriah (Gen. 22) is also identified as Jerusalem.^[16]
8. Youngest son favoritism is a phenomenon repeated in the many storylines in Genesis. We have it with Cain and Abel, Seth and Cain, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Judah and Reuben, Joseph and his brothers, Ephraim and Manasseh, Perez and Zerah. This seems to serve a purpose of consciously countering the dominant ancient Near East mentality of favoring the firstborn rights. David was the youngest of the seven brothers and Solomon was (from) the youngest of David’s children and some of the older brothers of Solomon were contesting for the kingship. This youngest-child-favoritism would serve their ranking among the populace.
9. There’s much sibling rivalry in Genesis, perhaps reflecting the strife at the time between Adonijah and Solomon as well as Ammon and Absalom.
10. Striking similarities appear in the story of Judah and tamar (Gen. 38) to David and Batsheba. Both Judah and David are heads of families and were shepherds in their younger years. Judah separates from his brothers to live in Adullam just as David separates from his brothers and lives among the outlaws of Adullam. Judah marries bat-shua and David marries bat-Sheva (equivalent of BatShua – I Chronicles 3:5) in a striking blow to his public image. They both commit a sin with a woman and both are later tricked into admitting their guilt.^[17]

The Northern Kingdom propaganda

As stated earlier, in Northern Israel, a shrine was set up in Bethel^[18] by Jeroboam, the first king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and Gen. 12 as well as 28 serve as justification for a shrine in that particular city. Similarly, the building of an altar in Shechem by Isaac (Gen. 12:6-7) serves as justification for that city being erected as the capital by Jeroboam.

Similarly, the exalting of Joseph – particularly the Ephraim line – throughout the later narratives of Genesis serve as justification for Jeroboam’s ascent to the throne as a member of the Ephraim tribe.

This would suggest that Northern scribes used the patriarchs as the setting for the ideologies they are conveying in the narratives. Again, this is just a theory and is not stated as a matter of fact.

Babylonian return to Israel

The Babylonian captivity (597 BCE) resulted in Israelite yearning to return to their ancestral land. The narrative of Abraham traveling from Ur in Babylon to the land of Canaan (Gen. 12) promised to his descendants (Gen. 15) is used as encouragement to return from Babylon to their ancestral land. Similarly, Joseph and his brothers are in the foreign land of Egypt and yearn that their bones be buried in Israel and their descendants return to their homeland (Gen. 24-25). This is at least according to one leading theory in biblical scholarship. But against this theory is the fact that no undisputed Persian loan-words appear in the Torah, or Genesis, in contrast to the exilic and post-exilic books of Esther, Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah. This would suggest that Genesis was written before the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539 BCE.

The flood narrative as a later addition to Genesis

Arguments here are from David M. Carr.^[19] The argument goes that the original early Genesis narratives did not contain a universal flood story. Only at some later point was the flood narrative added to Genesis. A similar phenomenon has been documented with the Epic of Gilgamesh that originally lacked the flood narrative, and only in the 10th century BCE did the story appear there.^[20] While with the Gilgamesh Epic, this phenomenon can be proven with the many copies we have of the famous ancient Epic, the early Genesis manuscripts are lacking in our archaeological record, making this theory only speculation rather than fact. Here are some arguments that early Genesis originally lacked a flood narrative.

1. In Gen. 4, we are told of the origins of professions (or the people/tribes who mastered it) like musicians and metal-workers as well as the origins of the renowned brave-warriors. These details would be meaningless if these people/tribes were later wiped out of extinction by the flood.
2. Cain seems to be the father-figure of whom the Kenites descend from (note the same Hebrew spelling), the neighbors of the Israelites mentioned in Gen. 15 and in other places in Tanakh.
3. The Nephilim wouldn’t survive the flood that only spares the lives of Noah’s household (Gen. 7:23). Yet they somehow reappear after the flood in Numbers 13:33.
4. The Noah mentioned in the genealogy of Gen. 5 is named Noah to mean “he who will save us from the curse of the land” (Gen. 5:29). Yet surprisingly, his character is nothing of that sort but rather as a flood hero. This would suggest that the original Noah was a renowned farmer of sorts. In fact, Gen. 9:20 nicknames Noah “the man of the land.” It was only later that he took the flood here character after the narrative was added to the original primal history of Genesis.

It should be noted as a sidenote, that the Septuagint’s lifespans in Gen. 5 have different numbers than the Masoretic version of the Torah’s text, with some of the figures living into the post-flood era. Perhaps the Masorites (the precursor to the pharisees and rabbis), responsible for preserving, and at times updating, the biblical text,^[21] updated the lifespans to fit their supposed death at the flood after the flood narrative was added to Genesis.

Conclusion: We have demonstrated that there are several strands within Genesis. Parts of it, perhaps based on historically-accurate people and settings, serve political and ideological agendas specifically pertaining to the Monarchy era period, particularly the 10th-century BCE. This revelation should have no impact on one’s religious practice since Genesis has little to do with the Mitzvot and Moses doesn’t even claim to have written Genesis. It is merely a late-rabbinic tradition to assume that Moses wrote Genesis in addition to the Torah Laws and the Exodus narrative.