what is the theme of genesis and who is genesis written to?

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 inside the book of Genesis.

This commodity focuses on the development of Genesis and its limerick. Its sister-article is on the historicity of the legends in Genesis and tin exist found hither. Like usual, we will examine the show concerning the limerick of Genesis and have things every bit they are without highly-seasoned to unnecessary apologetics or religious dogma. We must accept the truth whether or non we feel comfortable with it. This refers to both Orthodox dogma equally well Bible Criticism dogma that unfortunately has get somewhat of a organized religion in its own sense mimicking the appeal of authorities that organized religion does.

What we will now do is demonstrate the antiquity of Genesis, followed by evidence for a later authorship. What this will exercise is demonstrate that there are several layers inside Genesis and we ought not to engagement the entire Genesis to one particular flow. We will go along to evidence evidence for several layers inside Genesis written at different times by different people. After doing this, we will become more speculative with theories of when certain parts of Genesis were written and for what purpose.

It should exist noted that many of these arguments presented hither tin be answered on an private basis. Merely instead of coming with an calendar to answer all these arguments, nosotros should instead weigh all the prove 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 sis-in-police (which is prohibited in Lev. xviii:18). If this were all written subsequently, then why would they write the story this way? It would contradict the legal organization that they were trying to gear up upwardly. This would exist a political nightmare.

Similarly, Reuben's thought of promising the life of his 2 sons^[i] seems to be taken from common do at the time based on the Lawmaking 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.^[iii]

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

2. The other books of Tanakh, including the early books, make frequent mention of the Torah'due south history of the Jews, implying aboriginal origins of these stories that were well-ingrained in the Israelite civilisation. For case, the prophets mention the Garden of Eden (Is. 51:3), Noah (Is. 54:9), Abraham (Ezek. 33:24; Is. 29:22), Sodom (Ezek. xvi:46; Zeph. ii:9; Hos. 11:8), Jacob buying land (Josh. 24:32).
3. Familiarity with Egyptian culture and lingo would propose 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 championship Zaphenath-pa'neah (Gen. 41:45 "Nourisher of the land of the living one") are all Egyptian in origin. The expression "over the firm" (Gen. 39:4) was used in aboriginal Egyptian literature. The word "wizard" (Gen. 41:8) is Egyptian –not Hebrew.^[v]

Egyptian Civilization: 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 globe such every bit every righteous homo,' and 'May he [the god Amun] give me the 110 years every bit to every living righteous homo.' Could information technology be that Joseph's age at death reflects the use of this Egyptian honorific number that represented the platonic life?"^[6]

The expression 'abrēk (Gen 41:43—translated 'bow the knee') is apparently the Egyptian 'b rk ('O centre, bow downwardly!'), although many other explanations have been offered for this; weights and measures, such as zeret ('a span') from drt—'manus'; ' ēphah (tenth of a homer) from 'pt; hīn (near v quarts book) 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]

Peradventure an author during the Monarchy period purposely gave it Egyptian words to enhance the Egyptian groundwork only a simpler explanation is that information technology was written past people coming from Egypt.

4. Genesis thirteen: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 sometime. Similarly, Genesis 33:eighteen 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 than 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 proper name YHWH within them – in Genesis (to the exception of Judah) in dissimilarity to the Monarchical menses until the 2nd 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 nearly never reused in Tanakh.^[eight] We would expect them to use mutual names if they fabricated upward 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 engagement to the early 2d-millennium BCE, the fourth dimension that these figures are claimed to have existed. Information technology 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.^[ix]

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. Nosotros discuss many of these examples in the sister-article that can exist found hither along with their counterarguments. But we volition bring ane convincing example hither.

Scientists have recently discovered that a meteorite has likely destroyed a massive metropolitan urban district near the Expressionless Ocean, some iii,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 not-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 ready the Showtime Temple era culture. These narratives serve as edifice blocks to empathise and justify the political and ideological realities of the Monarchy flow in ancient Israel.

Interestingly enough, information technology only serves to explain the Monarchy period – and not anything afterward 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 mail service-hoc explanation for the realities that the authors were seeing in their Outset 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.

Nosotros volition now bring examples of Genesis narratives that serve obvious political or ideological letters more often than not pertaining specifically to the Beginning Temple era. And following that volition exist other arguments for post-mosaic authorship.

1. Gen. nine gives a narrative to explicate why the Canaanites were to be subjugated as slaves to the Israelites, every bit was the reality in the Monarchy era of Israel. This seems to exist an obvious justification for the facts on the basis of the Judges and Monarchy eras.^[xi]
2. Gen. 19 tells of ii bastard children, shortly to exist the fathers of Israel's neighbors, and frequently 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, every bit 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 in that location'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; come across here for more than on that.
4. Similarly, in that location'southward 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 before long to be called Jerusalem.

Whereas in Northern State of israel, a shrine was set upwards in Bethel^[12] by Jeroboam, the starting time king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and Gen. 12 too equally 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 equally the capital letter 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 Showtime Temple era.
8. The blessing of Jacob in Gen. 49:10 serves every bit political propaganda for Judah retaining the kingship.
9. The Genesis narratives also savour explaining the etymology of certain Hebrew words, basing it on various details of the storyline. Examples are the names Boom-boom, Beersheba, Sukkoth, Mahanayim, Edom, Seir, and the names of the patriarchs and the twelve tribes. It is unlikely that and then many cities were named by the same 3 insignificant people that are non attested anywhere in the vast Canaanite literature that archeologists accept discovered.
10. The Table of Nations in Gen. Ch. 10 only records the nations that were known to the ancient Virtually Due east in the kickoff or 2d millennium BCE, with no mention of the tribes and civilizations beyond their noesis, such as in the Far East, Northern Europe, or Southern Africa and the Americas. This suggests a human writer from the Nigh East, instead of a prophetic divine slice of work in Genesis. Had Moses been writing an accurate presentation of the descendants of Noah who inhabited the earth, we would expect him to have written nigh the factual nations that existed across the civilization known to the aboriginal Near Easterners.
11. Often at that place seems to be two or 3 versions of a like legend. An instance is the dual narrative of the Beersheba naming by both Abraham (Gen. 21) and Isaac (Gen. 26). Aforementioned goes for ii times Bethel being named (Gen. 28:nineteen and 35:15). Similarly, at that place'due south a story about Abraham disguising his wife as his sister so that the pharaoh would not impale him in gild to take her (Gen. 12). A strikingly like story takes place with Abraham onetime 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 State of israel." (Genesis 36:31)

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

13. "And Abraham named that identify, "the Lord will run across," as it is said nowadays: on the mountain, the Lord will exist seen." (Genesis 22:14)

This reference to Mt. Moriah in Jerusalem is described every bit the identify 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 business firm, three hundred and eighteen, and he pursued [them] until Dan." (Genesis 14:fourteen)

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

15. "And Abram passed through the land, until the identify of Shechem, until the patently of Moreh, and the Canaanites were then in the state." (Genesis 12:vi)

The phrase "and the Canaanites were then in the state" implies that at the writer'south 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 all the same 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 all the same 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 nowadays in the Americas.

16. "Later these incidents, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, 'Fright not, Abram; I am your Shield; your reward is exceedingly great.'" (Gen. 15:1)

The phrase "the Give-and-take of the Lord" (dvar adonai in Heb.) is a later term used repeatedly in the Prophetic books of Tanakh. The phrase is not constitute anywhere else in Torah, suggesting a later writing of this particular episode.

17. "Ur of the Chaldeans (kasdim)" (Gen. xi:31)

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

Various layers within Genesis

Genesis is not a singular unit of measurement of work; instead, information technology's a composition of many earlier documents, legends, and historical records. In that location are a few indications of this in the text. This thought is starting time presented in a liberal-thinking Midrash that says Moses nerveless from ancient documents the Israelites were preserving in Egypt and wrote Genesis with these manuscripts.^[thirteen]

In the text of Genesis itself we have "This is the book of toledot Adam" (Gen. five: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.

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

Similarly, we will shortly argue that the flood story was altogether absent in the original narrative in Genesis, but to be added by a later on writer.

Also we accept 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'due south past, scribes in the Monarchy era would have written tales well-nigh these known figures to teach a moral, political, or ideological lesson. This practice connected fifty-fifty 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 tin can be argued that the legends of Genesis are portrayed with potential historical-figures and historical settings.^[xiv] Some of the stories may have originally been in oral grade 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 hither 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 tin exist used as justification for a Davidic monarchy and the controversies of his fourth dimension. Here are examples:

1. The entire Levant is promised to Abraham in Gen. fifteen:eighteen. Such a hope is very conceivable in Davidic/Solomon times when they defeated many surrounding nations and were militarily engaged in acquisition the balance of the Levant. At that menses of the fourth dimension, 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 past 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 take been used as propaganda against the anti-monarchists who claimed that only God should be male monarch for the tribes of State of israel.
3. Subjugation of Edom to Israel equally 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 fabricated peace with Male monarch David (Two Samuel 10:xix), like 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. "Notwithstanding past your sword you lot shall live, and you shall serve your brother; only when you grow restive, y'all shall break his yoke from your neck." (Genesis 27:40)

Cogitating 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 Two Samuel seven where God promises David that his descendants will forever rule.

7. King of Salem, curt for Jerusalem according to mainstream scholarship, is given a priestly tithe from Abraham. Abraham declares this Supreme God EL to be YHWH (Gen. xiv:eighteen-22). This is validation for Jerusalem being selected equally the central place of worship for the Temple. At that place may also be a connection between MalchiZedek equally 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 equally Jerusalem.^[16]
8. Youngest son favoritism is a phenomenon repeated in the many storylines in Genesis. We accept information technology 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-kid-favoritism would serve their ranking among the populace.
9. There's much sibling rivalry in Genesis, perhaps reflecting the strife at the fourth dimension between Adonijah and Solomon every bit 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:five) in a hit accident to his public image. They both commit a sin with a woman and both are later on tricked into admitting their guilt.^[17]

The Northern Kingdom propaganda

As stated before, in Northern Israel, a shrine was set up in Bethel^[18] past Jeroboam, the showtime king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and Gen. 12 as well as 28 serve as justification for a shrine in that particular metropolis. Similarly, the edifice of an altar in Shechem past Isaac (Gen. 12:six-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'southward 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 only a theory and is not stated as a affair of fact.

Babylonian render to Israel

The Babylonian captivity (597 BCE) resulted in Israelite yearning to render to their ancestral land. The narrative of Abraham traveling from Ur in Babylon to the country of Canaan (Gen. 12) promised to his descendants (Gen. xv) is used every bit encouragement to render from Babylon to their bequeathed land. Similarly, Joseph and his brothers are in the foreign land of Arab republic of egypt and yearn that their basic exist cached in Israel and their descendants return to their homeland (Gen. 24-25). This is at least co-ordinate to one leading theory in biblical scholarship. Only against this theory is the fact that no undisputed Persian loan-words announced in the Torah, or Genesis, in contrast to the exilic and post-exilic books of Esther, Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah. This would propose that Genesis was written before the Western farsi conquest of Babylon in 539 BCE.

The flood narrative as a later addition to Genesis

Arguments here are from David Grand. Carr.^[19] The statement goes that the original early Genesis narratives did not comprise a universal inundation story. Just 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 Ballsy, the early Genesis manuscripts are lacking in our archaeological record, making this theory but speculation rather than fact. Here are some arguments that early on Genesis originally lacked a alluvion narrative.

1. In Gen. 4, we are told of the origins of professions (or the people/tribes who mastered it) similar musicians and metal-workers as well equally the origins of the renowned brave-warriors. These details would be meaningless if these people/tribes were afterward wiped out of extinction past the flood.
2. Cain seems to be the father-figure of whom the Kenites descend from (annotation the same Hebrew spelling), the neighbors of the Israelites mentioned in Gen. xv and in other places in Tanakh.
3. The Nephilim wouldn't survive the overflowing that only spares the lives of Noah'due south household (Gen. 7:23). Yet they somehow reappear after the overflowing in Numbers 13:33.
4. The Noah mentioned in the genealogy of Gen. 5 is named Noah to hateful "he who will save us from the expletive of the land" (Gen. v:29). Yet surprisingly, his character is aught of that sort but rather equally a flood hero. This would suggest that the original Noah was a renowned farmer of sorts. In fact, Gen. 9:20 nicknames Noah "the human being of the land." Information technology was just later that he took the flood here character subsequently the narrative was added to the original primal history of Genesis.

Information technology should be noted as a sidenote, that the Septuagint'southward lifespans in Gen. 5 accept unlike numbers than the Masoretic version of the Torah's text, with some of the figures living into the post-inundation 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.

Decision: We have demonstrated that at that place are several strands within Genesis. Parts of information technology, mayhap 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 take no impact on one'due south religious do since Genesis has fiddling 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 improver to the Torah Laws and the Exodus narrative.

___________________

^[1] Gen. 42:37.

^[2] Code of Hammurabi sections 229-230.

^[iii] Ex. 21:31 and Deut. 24:16.

^[four] (Taken from here)

^[5] (Archer, Gleason L. A Survey of Old Testament Introduction. Third Edition. Chicago, IL: Moody, 1998. 122.)

^{[half dozen]} (Hoffmeier, James Karl. The Archaeology of the Bible. Oxford: Lion, 2008. 48.)

^[7] (Gleason Archer, A Survey of Onetime Testament Introduction, exp and rev ed (Chicago: Moody Press, 2007), 95-96.)

^[viii] They only first reappear during the second temple era when it becomes common to proper name subsequently ancestors (custom until this very twenty-four hours).

^[nine] To This Very Day by Amnon Bazak p. 256-257.

The Patriarchal Age: Myth or History, past Kenneth Kitchen (tin be found hither).

^[10] https://phys.org/news/2018-12-shooting star-air-years-obliteratinGodead.html

^[11] I Kings 9:xx-21, Joshua 17:12–xiii, Judges i:27–33. There's also the enslavement of the Gibeonites (Josh. 9), a descendant of Canaan. Then there's the Nethinim, discussed in Joshua and Ezra as servicemen in the Temple, and counted along the "servants of Solomon." Most scholars understand these Nethinim and servants to exist non-Israelites. The "sons of Solomon's servants" are noted in Ezra 2:55-58 and Nehemiah 7:57-lx; 11:3 as having been merged with Nethinim or Temple servants.

^[12]  According to the biblical book of Kings, Jeroboam I, the first ruler of the newly seceded northern kingdom of Israel, established two sanctuaries to rival the temple of Solomon in Jerusalem: Dan, along his northern border, and Bethel, forth his southern edge not far from Jerusalem. He deputed the construction of 2 aureate calves and installed one at each shrine. It remained a place of service in later times as well (II Kings ten:29, Two Kings 17:24-28).

^[13] See Shemos Rabbah five:22 and Midrash Aggadah on Shemos 5:9.

^[fourteen] The names of people in Genesis as well equally the Sodom and Gomorrah narrative – discussed earlier – would strengthen the merits that Genesis is dealing with historical people and historical settings.

[15] "Reading David in Genesis" Bible Review Feb 2001 found here.

^[16] Mt. of the Lord ever refers to Jerusalem although from later biblical sources (Isa. 2:3, thirty:29, Micah 4:2, Zechariah eight:3, Ps. 24:three).

^[17] See the parable of Nathan the Prophet in II Samuel 12:1-13.

^[eighteen]  According to the biblical book of Kings, Jeroboam I, the commencement ruler of the newly seceded northern kingdom of Israel, established two sanctuaries to rival the temple of Solomon in Jerusalem: Dan, along his northern border, and Bethel, along his southern border not far from Jerusalem. He commissioned the construction of two aureate calves and installed one at each shrine. It remained a place of service in later times as well (II Kings 10:29, Two Kings 17:24-28).

^[19] https://www.thetorah.com/article/the-original-primeval-history-of-the-hebrews

^[20] Encounter here.

^[21] Known as tikunei sofrim in rabbinic literature, their amendments to the text are not kept a surreptitious in rabbinic writings. See here for more on this discipline.

Footnotes

smithhiliblaw.blogspot.com

Source: https://jewishbelief.com/the-genesis-of-genesis/

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