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GENESIS, BOOK OF

The first book of the Bible.

Name and Early Interpretation

The name “Genesis” comes from the title given to the book in the ancient Greek (LXX) translation of the book. This name in turn was taken from the Greek version of Gen. 2:4: “this is the book of generations of heaven and earth. . . ,” which points to the genealogical character of Genesis. Not only does the book contain many genealogies, but it describes the “genesis” of the 12 sons of Israel. As such, Genesis forms a semi-genealogical backdrop to the emergence of the nation of Israel in Exodus and following.

The Hebrew title of the book, bĕrēʾšîṯ (“in the beginning” or “when . . . first . . .”), derives from the first word of Genesis. This Hebrew name also points to a crucial aspect of the book. However one translates bĕrēʾšîṯ, the expression points to the fact that Genesis stands at the outset of both the Torah narrative and the Bible as a whole. As literary critics have taught us, narrative beginnings can be quite significant. They shape the expectations of a reader as he or she moves through the following story. This has certainly been true for Genesis as it has been interpreted by both Christian and Jewish communities. Although each faith community has read the book through the lens of those beliefs it holds most dear, both have devoted disproportionate attention to Genesis.

Structure and Contents

As mentioned above, the book functions in part to give genealogical background to the “descendants of Israel” featured in Exodus and the rest of the OT. Indeed, the book is dominated by a series of labels (Gen. 2:4; 5:1; 6:9; 10:1; 11:10, 27; 25:12, 19; 36:1, 9; 37:2) which introduce many sections of Genesis as focusing on the “descendants” of a given figure. For example, Gen. 11:10 introduces the genealogy which follows as focusing on the “descendants of Shem.” To be sure, there is ongoing debate about the translation of the crucial term in these labels, tôlĕḏôṯ, and many have argued that this term means “descendants” at some points (e.g., 5:1; 10:1; 11:10) but “history” or “story” at points where the term labels a narrative rather than a genealogy (cf. 37:2 RSV, NRSV). Nevertheless, the term tôlĕḏōṯ is derived from the root for “have children” (yld) and generally refers in Biblical Hebrew to descendants, a genealogical series, or a genealogy (cf. Num. 3:1; Ruth 4:18; 1 Chr. 1:29; 5:7; 7:2, 4, 9; 8:28; 9:9, 22; 26:31). The consistent use of this term to introduce both strict genealogies and extended narratives in Genesis gives the whole book a semi-genealogical quality.

Interpreters have generally distinguished within the whole between a “primeval history” focusing on all of humanity and an “ancestral history” (previously often termed “patriarchal history”) focusing on Abraham and his descendants. The primeval history is variously defined as extending from 1:1 to 11:9, 11:26, 11:31, or even 12:3. Its primary orientation points are the Creation and Flood. First, the story of Creation leads into the rebellion and multiplication of the first family and their descendants, culminating in God’s decision to destroy all human life, with the exception of Noah and his family (1:1–6:8). Then, in the Flood narrative, God destroys and then re-creates the living spaces of the cosmos, and starts over with Noah’s family and the animals (6:9–9:19). Nevertheless, similar patterns of human rebellion and striving emerge in the stories that follow. The story of Noah and his sons in 9:20-27 resembles those about the first family (2:4–4:16), and the story of a human attempt to cross the divine-human boundary with the tower of Babel (11:1-9) revisits many of the same issues that dominated the brief pre-Flood story of divine beings crossing the same boundary to have children by human daughters (6:1-4). Thus both the pre-Flood (2:4–6:8) and post-Flood (6:9–11:9) narratives trace a pattern of linkage of human population growth with division between humans and threats to the divine-human boundary.

These primeval stories then set the scene for the story of promise that follows in the ancestral history. Soon after a genealogy tracing the single genealogical line leading from Noah’s family to Abram (11:10-26), this ancestral history opens with God’s call for Abram to go to the land God “will show” him (12:1) and God’s promises (vv. 2-3), including commitments to make him into a great nation, protect, and bless him so that he becomes a paradigm of blessing for others. When Abram goes to the land of Canaan (12:4-6), God promises that land to his offspring (v. 7) and shows it to him (13:14-17). This then sets in motion an overall promise-centered narrative that extends beyond Genesis. The rest of the Abraham story (11:27–25:11) focuses in large part on Abraham and Sarah’s failed attempts to secure an heir for this promise and on God’s strengthening of the promise into a covenant (15:1-21; 17:1-21) and the miraculous provision of a child, Isaac, to inherit it (18:1-15; 21:1-7; 22:1-18).

After a brief digression to survey the descendants of Ishmael (25:12-18), the story of Isaac’s descendants (25:19–35:29) traces another story of reception of promise and protection. In contrast to the Abraham story, Isaac’s heir, Jacob, is produced early in the story (25:21-26) and soon receives the promise (28:13-15; cf. vv. 3-4; 31:3; 35:10-12). But this story is complicated by Jacob’s conflicts first with his brother Esau (25:19–33:17), and then with local Canaanites and even his own sons (33:18–35:22). By the end of the Jacob narrative the 12 sons of Jacob/Israel have been born, all of whom will inherit the promise, but Esau ends up excluded from the promise and dies outside the land (36:1-43).

After diverging to survey the descendants of Esau, the Genesis narrative turns to an extensive section on Jacob’s descendants, particularly Joseph (Gen. 37:2–50:26). In this subtle narrative, Joseph eventually creates the conditions for reconciling with his brothers, although they had earlier thought about killing him and did sell him into slavery. By the close of Genesis these “sons of Israel” have overcome a major challenge to their unity and stand ready together to inherit the promise to Abraham and become the nation of Israel. This narrative demonstrates that the issue in Genesis is not just production of those who would inherit the promise, but the move from conflictual separation of siblings into heirs and non-heirs (e.g. Isaac vs. Ishmael, Jacob vs. Esau) to the creation of a genealogically defined community of heirs where all descendants could inherit the promise and live in the land together.

Formation

Discoveries of multiple and divergent versions of texts both inside and outside Israel indicate that ancient authors diverged from us in their concept of both textual integrity and authorship. Whereas modern readers look at Genesis from the perspective of a culture where people are not allowed to add to texts authored by others, the ancient authors of Genesis worked within a culture where cherished texts were added to and where history was usually transmitted anonymously. Indeed, the Pentateuch is anonymous and nowhere claims Mosaic authorship for itself. Attribution of Genesis and the rest of the Pentateuch to Moses does not emerge explicitly until Israel had come into intense contact with the highly author-conscious Greek culture.

There are many signs that Genesis, like other important documents in Israel and elsewhere, grew over time. Already in 1753, the French physician Jean Astruc recognized signs that Genesis had been created out of at least two major sources. In subsequent centuries Astruc’s insights have been expanded and refined to recognize a basic distinction in Genesis between two basic bodies of material: a Priestly set of texts (P) beginning with the seven-day Creation account in 1:1–2:3; and a largely earlier set of non-Priestly texts beginning with the garden of Eden story in 2:4–3:24. In addition to 1:1–2:3, the Priestly layer encompasses most of Genesis’s genealogies, genealogical headings, a significant strand of the Flood narrative, and Priestly promise-oriented texts like 17:1-27; 26:34-35; 27:46–28:9; 35:9-15; 48:3-6. The non-Priestly layer encompasses almost everything else. In its present form the Priestly layer is integrally related to the non-Priestly material and forms an editorial framework for much of it. Scholars continue to debate, however, whether a large portion of the present Priestly layer in Genesis once may have been part of a Priestly source that originally stood separate from the non-Priestly material and even been designed to replace it.

Ever since the work of Karl Heinrich Graf and Julius Wellhausen in the late 1800s, most scholars have recognized that the earliest origins of Genesis probably are to be found in the non-Priestly material. Nevertheless, there is considerable debate about the history of the formation of that material. Over the last hundred years most scholars have maintained that the bulk of the non-Priestly material of Genesis was formed out of the combination of materials from two hypothesized pentateuchal sources: a “Yahwistic” document (J) written in the South during the reign of David or Solomon and an “Elohistic” document (E) written one or two centuries later in the northern kingdom of Israel. Recently, however, many would date crucial elements of the hypothesized Yahwistic document 400 years later to the time of the Exile. Moreover, many specialists working with Genesis no longer think there was an Elohistic source. Rather than non-Priestly material being formed out of interwoven Yahwistic and Elohistic documents, some scholars hypothesize that the earliest written origins of the non-Priestly material are to be found in hypothesized preexilic independent documents focusing on different parts of the story: e.g., primeval history, Jacob and/or Joseph. Thus, the early history of the written formation of Genesis and other pentateuchal books remains an unresolved problem in pentateuchal research.

Whatever one’s theories about the written prehistory of Genesis, almost all agree that many of the book’s elements were shaped by a long history of oral transmission of stories and genealogies. Overall, this traditional material falls into three categories: cosmic traditions (such as those regarding Creation and Flood), genealogies, and legendary material regarding culture heroes like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The cosmic traditions of Genesis are paralleled by similar traditions in other ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean cultures. Such materials appear to have been transmitted in temple and related contexts. The genealogical materials also have many parallels in other cultures. In particular, there is an interesting correspondence between the genealogical form of early Greek histories and that found in Genesis. Legendary material regarding culture heroes of the sort found in Genesis is also found in other cultures, and seems to have been freely transmitted in various unofficial and official oral contexts.

History

Whether cosmic tradition, genealogy, or legend — all of the materials in Genesis were shaped in the crucible of life of successive generations in Israel. As a result, the stories of Genesis tell us at least as much about the insights and beliefs of those successive generations as they do about the history of Israel before the Exodus. For example, the sabbath focus found in the 1:1–2:3 Creation account probably reflects a consciousness of the preciousness of sabbath that first arises during the Babylonian Exile. It was at that time, when Israel was far away from the land and had no temple, that the ancient practice of sabbath became a particularly central means for Israel to live out its faith. So also, although there almost certainly were figures named Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and Rachel, numerous elements of the narratives regarding them seem to have been shaped by the experience and questions of later retellers of these legends. Perhaps partly as a result of this process of reshaping of tradition over time, the book of Genesis has proven its ability to speak of people of varying cultures and times. It is not just a story about things happening in a bygone age. It is a crystallization of Israel’s most fervent beliefs and hopes as expressed through traditions which have proven their theological worth over time.

Bibliography. A. Brenner, ed., A Feminist Companion to Genesis (Sheffield, 1993); D. M. Carr, Reading the Fractures of Genesis (Louisville, 1996); T. E. Fretheim, “The Book of Genesis,” NIB 1:321-674; D. Gowan, From Eden to Babel. ITC (Grand Rapids, 1988); P. K. McCarter, “The Patriarchal Age: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” in Ancient Israel, ed. H. Shanks (Washington, 1988), 1-29; D. Steinmetz, From Father to Son: Kinship, Conflict and Continuity in Genesis (Louisville, 1991).

David M. Carr

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

GENESIS, BOOK OF

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)