Who wrote Genesis?

by Sargon 7 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Sargon

  Years ago I recall hearing theories that the first five books of the Bible may not have been written by Moses, and that in fact they may have had several different writers. I know that the WTS's stance on this is that Moses did actually write these books. Reading my Bible this morning, I came across a couple of passages wich may indicate that Genesis did have at least two different authors.

  Following the death of his father, Abram was commanded by his god to leave Haran. He took Lot, Sarai and all his slaves with him into Canaan, it the says at Gen. 12:8(NWT)
  "Later he moved from there to the mountainous region to the east of Bethel and pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on th east..."

  Later in Genesis, when talking about Jacob, Gen. 28:19(NWT)
  "Further, he called the name of that place Bethel; but the fact is Luz was the city's name formerly."

  This indicates to me that: obviously these lines had to be written by two different people, or if not; the person who wrote these two passages was so confused he couldn't recall what he had previously written. Abram couldn't have camped near Bethel, if his yet to be born grandson hadn't named it that yet.

  
  Imagination is more important than Knowledge. Albert Einstein
• 

  JosephAlward

  Every Old Testament scholar in the world knows that the first five books were not written by one man.

  The first two chapters of Genesis contain two stories of creation taken from two different cultures and traditions separated not only in space, but in time. The first story is found in Genesis 1:1-2:3; the second one is in Genesis 2:4-25.

  It is sufficient here to offer just part of the evidence that two different authors from different times were at work here. The author of the first creation story refers to the deity thirty-five times, always as “God,” while the author of the second creation story refers to the deity nine times, always as “Lord God.” It is almost certainly not coincidental that a second account of creation begins at the exact place in Genesis where the name used for the deity abruptly changes after a long stretch of thirty-five “Gods,” to nine of “Lord Gods.”

  The same is true of the flood story; it, too, is a blend of two different traditional stories.

  http://sol.sci.uop.edu/~jfalward/Two_Flood_Stories.htm

  http://sol.sci.uop.edu/~jfalward/Creation_Order.htm

  Joseph F. Alward
  "Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"

  * http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html
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  Farkel

  If Moses wrote all of the Penteteuch, he was a psychic. Read the last two chapters of Deuteronomy. Moses describes his own death and burial, and THEN praises himself posthumously to high heaven!

  Nope, it wasn't Moses who could have written that. It was definitely some OTHER myth-writer.

  Farkel
• 

  TheOldHippie

  But your examples are not the very best in the world:
  Sargon: Remember Moses lived hundreds of years after Abraham, and where is the difficulty in naming an area what it is called at the time of writing? It is like writing today that some settlers in 1650 came to New York, and then some critic stating that cannot be true, because it wasn't called New York at the time.
  Farkel: Even all pro-Moses people agree that the chapters on his death were added later, for example by Joshua.
  Some better examples are needed.
• 

  seedy3

  Hi Sargon,

  In my studies I have found there are 4 that are considered authors of the genisis account, and in fact the early writings of Moses. They are the Elohist, the Yahwist, Duderonomist, and the Priestly. They each have their own writing styles and impotance in the the books of Moses. I can not find the Web page I had that really went inot it deeply but here is one that skims the surface about the 4 different writers, or group of writers.
  http://artemis.austinc.edu/acad/hwc22/medieval/Bible/Bible.html

  I will look for the other references I have about his and find the one that mentioned it in a more full explanation.

  Seedy

  
• 

  Will Power

  Seedy
  That is also what it says in the NASB study bible.

  "The Pentateuch is thus depicted as a patchwork of stories, poems, and laws. However, this view is not supported by conclusive evidence, and intensive archaeolgogical and literary research has tended to undercut many of the arguments used to challenge Mosaic authorship."
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  Sargon

  Good points everyone, thanks. You're correct on your point too Old Hippie, I hadn't actually thought about it that way. Seedy, I think I may have read about the four authors you mentioned in a book by Karen Armstrong; you haven't happened to have read anything by her? If not i highly recommend "the battle for god' and 'a history of god'.

  
  Imagination is more important than Knowledge. Albert Einstein
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  Will Power

  Yes, I've read those 2 books as well, she definitly has good info on the writer(s) of Genesis & the Pentateuch.

  Good question. Best to keep the mind open!