Genesis Anonymous?

Question

Who actually wrote the book of Genesis? I mean, writing didnt exist in the time of the Garden of Eden, and if the story was passed down thru generations, it probably got mixed up. And God's not just going to share his story with us mortals, is he?

Answer 1

Of course, Genesis was written (made up) by men. In biblical times, people thought that the earth and heaven were all that there was... and that the earth was essentially a 'terrarium' (you might want to look that up). They thought that the sky was a solid object, called the 'firmament', and that the sun, moon, and stars were affixed to it. So, essentially, heaven is 'on the other side of the sky'.



The story of Genesis is comprised of the myths, superstitions, fairy tales and fantastical delusions of an ignorant bunch of Bronze Age fishermen and wandering goat herders, lifted from the oral traditions of other cultures, and crafted into a tale that incorporated some of their own folk tales and pseudo-history. This collection of ignorance provides the basis for the Abrahamic death cults of desert monotheism... Judaism, Christianity and Islam.



The cosmological aspects of Genesis are perfectly understandable, if you contemplate it in the proper context. At the time the bible stories were concocted, the perception was that the earth was the object and the center of creation. Why? Because they had no reason to think otherwise. Today, as we advance science, we stand upon the shoulders of all the scientists that came before. Back then there were no shoulders to stand upon... so they did the best they could with what they had... their senses and their imaginations.



* They had no concept of 'outer space', and so they conceived that in the beginning all that existed were dark waters.



* They had no concept of 'nothingness'. Remember, the concept of 'zero' wasn't invented (discovered?) until thousands of years later. With that in mind, the term 'void', as it is employed in Genesis, can not refer to 'nothingness'... it can only be applied in its alternative definition, which is 'empty'. So, the waters were dark, formless and empty (devoid of content).



* They thought that all of creation consisted of the earth and an unseen 'heaven', and they thought that the sky was a 'thing'... a substantive 'firmament' (the sky) that was created by god to separate the waters and differentiate earth from heaven, when both were created.



# They had no idea that Earth was a planet, orbiting the sun.



# They had no idea that there is no firmament... that the sky is not a 'thing'.



(If you don't believe that they thought the sky was an object... a solid barrier... consider the Tower of Babel, that they were building to reach heaven. Apparently, God ALSO thought that the sky was an object, since it concerned him so much that he confounded their speech, so as to disrupt their project and keep them from reaching his domain. God must be pretty much of a dumbass, if he doesn't even know the actual configuration of the universe that he created. So much for the 'inerrant' bible.)



* They thought that the sun was a light that god had placed upon the 'firmament' to differentiate night from day.



# They had no idea that the sun is a star... the center of our solar system.



# They had no concept of 'stars' in the same sense that we understand them today.



* They had no idea that night and day were a consequence of the earth's rotation.



* They thought that the moon was a 'lesser' light that god had caused to travel across the firmament to enable man to differentiate the seasons, and provide illumination at night.



# They had no concept of the moon as a satellite.



* They thought that the stars were tiny lights that god had placed upon the firmament to provide for omens. (Some thought that the stars were 'holes' in the firmament that allowed the 'light of heaven' to shine through.)



# They had no idea that the stars were suns, just like our own sun.



# They thought the eyeball-visible planets (Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn) were 'wandering stars'.



# They had no idea that the planets were actually sun-orbiting bodies, just like earth.



* They had no idea that the earth, itself, is a planet.



# They had no clue as to the actual nature of the earth, our solar system, the place of our solar system in the galaxy... or even of the existence of our galaxy. (Up until very recently, we didn't even know that there were other galaxies. Our galaxy, when it was first known that there actually WAS a galaxy, was thought to be the whole universe.) From their perspective, the 'earth' and 'heaven' (i.e., whatever existed on the other side of the sky) represented all that there was. A terrarium.



I do not say this things to disparage what they thought back then. They were trying to do what science is trying to do today... trying to understand reality. Today, we have technology and disciplined meta-procedures (scientific method) to help us extract answers from nature.



Back then, they did not.



Today, we have 'theories' to provide consistent explanations for what we are able to observe in nature, supplemented and validated by the additional information that we are able to extract from nature by means of our technology, our disciplined methods and our intellectual tools (mathematics, logic). Most of our theories are incomplete, so we continue to work on them... because we know that they are incomplete.



Back then, they did not have disciplined methods, and they did not have the technology to extract answers from nature. The only information they had access to was what they could see with their own eyeballs. There was no technological knowledge base or scientific context in which to interpret their observations, so they had to appeal to their imaginations... and the 'supernatural'... in order to make sense out of what they saw. Actually, what they really achieved was deluding themselves into thinking that they knew the truth. Amazingly, over time, this delusion has become codified, institutionalized, and incorporated... complete with franchises.



Basically, Genesis can be thought of as a 'theory', concocted by people who were constrained by lack of technology, methodology and intellectual tools... but they sure weren't constrained by lack of imagination.



Today, we try to interpret Genesis in the context of what we know to be true of the universe... galaxies, stars, planets, moons, gravity, orbits, inclination of the earth's axis, planetary rotation, etc. They problem is that Genesis can't be interpreted in terms of those things, because Genesis was written by men, based on oral traditions, and those men did not know about those things. They could only write about what they could see and what they could guess about the reasons that lay behind what they saw. In any event, it provided them with a mechanism to quell the innate anxiety that comes with fretting about how and why they came to be here.



They guessed wrong.



So... I think that the cosmological aspects of Genesis require a literal interpretation... no metaphors... no allegory... no hidden meaning. The key, though, is in understanding that the literal interpretation does not lead to a description of the way things ARE... it leads to a description of the way they THOUGHT things are. It leads to a naive description of reality, concocted by people who were doing the best they could with what they had.



It is absolutely appalling, though, to realize that hundreds of millions of people, TODAY, including participants in this forum, BELIEVE that this ignorant bovine excrement is actually TRUE.

Answer 2

For maeves_child:

He is not trying to hurt any ones feelings with this question.

It is an honest question. Who did write it?

The answer is: Even though you won't like it maeves_child, the book of Genesis (and the 4 books after it) was a story that was passed down for 1500 years before the Bible was ever put together. I never really happened, it is a story, if you don't believe me then just do the research. And try to read material written by NON Christians instead of Christians.

If Christians believe in God, The Bible and Jesus and put God on a Human level then don't you think He would have a sense of humor? A garden where everyone, and I mean everyone lives forever, never gets sick, always gets along, never has to work, and never dies????? Really, hey I've got a bridge I'd like to sell you, interested?

Research it for pity's sake instead of taking someone else's word for it.



Brother Michael,

You need to really do more research, the kind not written soley by Christians. It did get mixed up, it's a story!!

Answer 3

The account of Genesis was originally an oral tradition, and was then, along with the following four books of the Bible, written down, or caused to be written down by Moses, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.



For complete details, go here:



http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11646c.htm

Answer 4

Why do you think that people before Moses could not write? When first created Adam was able to name all the animals. They made cloths, cities, towers, an ark. People find very detailed things in coal mines all the time made from gold and silver (things made before the flood).

Answer 5

The book of Genesis was not composed by a single author and was written by groups comprised of the Yahwist source, giving sacred history, God's design through His intervention in the affairs of men, and then a second group of the Elohists and the Priestly sources, which reflect older oral traditions.

Answer 6

I like DuckPhup's answer (except for the bovine part) Maybe God reveals to us only what our limited minds can comprehend. What do you think would happen if extra-terresterial life were confirmed to exist? It would throw Christianity for a loop. It would make our government and our life on Earth seem less significant. Until we can deal with notions like this on a rational basis, the supreme benevolent force will not allow them to be revaeled, for our own good.

Answer 7

The bible has over 40 authors. The genesis was written in about 1400 BC. I don't think we're sure of who exactly wrote it.

Answer 8

Swedenborg said that Moses did not write the first 11 chapters of Genesis. It was existing scripture. The literal people in the Bible starts with Abraham.

Answer 9

If God gave up his son, Jesus to us mortals what is not stopping him from giving us anything we desire from him? God wrote Genesis...if he can write on the tablets and give it to Moses, why can't he do the same?

Answer 10

Who says writing didn't exist 5000 years ago, when Adam was still alive? And why couldn't G-d tell us?

Answer 11

The book of Genesis was writen by moses, inspiered by God. God would not let his word become corrupt.

Answer 12

You know, being so fixed on hurting someone else in their beliefs makes you just as bad as the people who try to shove those beliefs down your throat. I find this sad.

Answer 13

Moses was the author.

Answer 14

G-d dictated it to Moses.

Answer 15

Introduction to Genesis

The Book of Genesis can be separated into eleven documents or pieces of composition most of which contain additional subordinate divisions. The first of these has no introductory phrase; the third begins with ספר זה תּולדת tôledâh zeh sēpher, “this is the book of the generations”; and the others with תולדות אלה tôledâh ̀ēleh, “these are the generations.”

However, the subordinate pieces of which these primary documents consist are as distinct from each other as they are complete in themselves. And, each portion of the composer is as separate as the wholes which they go to constitute. The history of the fall Gen. 3, the family of Adam Gen. 4, the description of the vices of the antediluvians Gen_6:1-8, and the confusion of tongues Gen_11:1-9 are as distinct efforts of composition and as perfect in themselves as any of the primary divisions. The same holds true throughout the entire Book of Genesis. Even these subordinate pieces contain still smaller passages, having an exact and self-contained finish which enables the critic to lift them out and examine them and makes him wonder if they have not been inserted in the document as in a mold which was previously fitted for their reception. The memoranda of each day’s creative work, of the locality of Paradise, of each link in the genealogy of Noah, and the genealogy of Abraham are striking examples of this. They sit, each in the narrative, like a gem in its setting.

Whether these primary documents were originally composed by Moses, or whether they came into his hands from earlier sacred writers and were revised by him and combined into his great work, we are not informed. By revising a sacred writing, we mean replacing obsolete or otherwise unknown words or modes of expressing as were in common use at the time of the reviser, and then putting in an explanatory clause or passage when necessary for people of a later day. The latter of the above suppositions is not inconsistent with Moses being reckoned as the responsible “author” of the whole collection. We think that such a position is more natural, satisfactory, and consistent with the phenomena of all Scripture. It is satisfactory to have the recorder (if not an eye-witness) to be as near as possible to the events recorded. And it seems to have been a part of the method of the Divine Author of the Scripture to have a constant collector, conservator, authenticator, reviser, and continuator of that book which He designed for the spiritual instruction of successive ages. We may disapprove of one writer tampering with the work of another, but we must allow the Divine Author to adapt His own work from time to time to the necessities of coming generations. However, this implies writing was in use from the origin of man.

We are not able to say when writing of any kind was invented or when syllabic or alphabetic writing came into use. But we meet with the word ספר sêpher, “a writing,” from which we have our English “cipher,” as early as Gen. 5. And many things encourage us to presume a very early invention of writing. It is, after all, only another form of speech, another effort of the signing faculty in man. Why may not the hand gesticulate to the eye, as well as the tongue articulate to the ear? We believe that the former was concurrent with the latter in early speech as it is in the speech of all nations to the present day. Only one more step is needed for the writing mode. Let the gestures of the hand take a permanent form by being carved in lines on a smooth surface and we have a written character.

This leads us to the previous question of human speech. Was it a gradual acquisition after a period of brute silence? Apart from history, we argue that it was not! We conceive that speech leaped at once from the brain of man as a perfect thing - as perfect as the newborn infant - yet capable of growth and development. This has been the case with all inventions and discoveries. The pressing necessity has come upon the fitting man, and he has given forth a complete idea which can only develop after ages. The Bible record confirms this theory. Adam comes to be, and then by the force of his native genius speaks. And in primitive times we have no doubt that the hand moved as well as the tongue. Hence, we hear so soon of “the book.”

On the supposition that writing was known to Adam Gen. 1–4, containing the first two of these documents, it formed the “Bible” of Adam’s descendants (the antediluvians). Gen. 1:1–11:9, being the sum of these two documents and the following three documents, constitutes the “Bible” of the descendants of Noah. The whole of Genesis may be called the “Bible” of the posterity of Jacob; and, we may add, that the five books of the Law, of which the last four books (at least) are immediately due to Moses. The Pentateuch was the first “Bible” of Israel as a nation.

Genesis is purely a historical work. It serves as the narrative preamble to the legislation of Moses. It possesses, however, a much higher and broader interest than this. It is the first volume of the history of man in relation with God. It consists of a main line of narrative, and one or more collateral lines. The main line is continuous and relates to the portion of the human race that remains in communication with God. Side by side with this is a broken line, rather, several successive lines, which are linked not to one another but to the main line. Of these, two lines come out in the primary documents of Genesis; namely, Gen_25:12-18 and Gen. 36, containing the respective records of Ishmael and Esau. When these are placed side by side with those of Isaac and Jacob, the stages in the main line of narrative are found to be nine, that is, two less than the primitive documents.

These great lines of narrative, in like manner, include minor lines, whenever the history falls into several threads which must all be taken up one after another in order to carry on the whole concatenation of events. These come out in paragraphs and even shorter passages which necessarily overlap one another in point of time. The striking uniqueness of Hebrew composition is aptly illustrated by the successive links in the genealogy of Gen. 5, where the life of one patriarch is brought to a close before that of the next is taken up, though they actually run parallel for the greater part of the predecessor’s life. It furnishes a key to much that is difficult in the narrative.

This book is naturally divided into two great parts - the first which narrates the creation; the second which narrates the development of the things created from the beginning to the deaths of Jacob and Joseph.

The first part is equal in value to the whole record of what may take place to the end of time, and therefore to the whole of the Bible, not only in its historical part, but in its prophetic aspect. A created system of things contains in its bosom the whole of what may be unfolded from it.

The second great part of Genesis consists of two main divisions - the one detailing the course of events before the deluge, the other recounting the history after the flood.