Original photo by Brett Jordan
The Book of Genesis is the first book of both the Hebrew and Christian Bibles (Christian Old Testament). In the Hebrew Bible, it’s also part of the Torah (Law), also known as the Pentateuch (first five books). In the Hebrew Bible, it’s titled Bereshit.
Titles and Labels
Each of the book’s labels are from different times in human history and for various purposes, which is why there are several.
According to Timothy H. Lim, author of The Formation of the Jewish Canon, Hebrew (or Jewish) scripture wasn’t canonized until somewhere between 150 and 250 C.E., as noted by the Biblical Archaeology Society. By that time, there were already Latin and Greek versions of Hebrew scriptures, hence the linguistic variety of labels.
- In Judaism, the first five books of the Bible are called the Torah, which is Hebrew for “law.” Genesis contains creation stories not only of the world, in general, but also of the specific origins of the Hebrew people, which leads into the eventual giving of the Mosaic law to the Israelites.
- The term Pentateuch is Greek and simply means “five books,” referring to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, including Genesis. Christianity started within the Roman empire in the first century C.E., and many of the first non-Jewish Christians were Greek, hence the Greek term pentateuch. Note that this term is divorced from the moral implications of “torah.” It’s a category label.
- While “Old Testament” refers to many of the same books as “Hebrew Bible,” the term is specific to Christianity. Since Judaism has no “New Testament,” it has no “Old Testament” label. Genesis is the first book of both Bibles, but only the first book of the Old Testament in reference to Christianity.
- The name Bereshit is the title of the book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible because that’s the first word of the book in Hebrew. Bereshit is the word that gets translated “in the beginning” in most English Bibles.
- Genesis was the title given in the Latin and then Greek translations of scripture. Genesis means “origin,” and that title has remained into Christian traditions. It’s a reference to the creation stories and the origins of the Hebrew people.
When Was the Book of Genesis Written?
The book of Genesis seems to be writings from three different sources over the course of several hundred years. The precise centuries of the different sources is still debated by Biblical scholars and range from as early as the tenth century B.C.E. to as late as the fourth century B.C.E.
Britannica.com, for example, lists 950 B.C.E., 900-700 B.C.E., and the fifth century B.C.E. as plausible dates for the three sources for Genesis, while Ronald Hendel, in The Book of Genesis: Composition, Reception, and Interpretation, argues that nothing later than ninth-eighth centuries for the earliest sources and seventh-sixth centuries for the latest source is supported by linguistic and historical considerations. (pg.63)
When Do the Events of the Book of Genesis Take Place?
Because no specific date is given for the creation events in Genesis 1-2, estimates for any Old Testament timeline have to be reverse engineered. This is tricky, because not all of the events, people, and places mentioned in the Old Testament can be corroborated with archaeological or other historical data. Even among young-earth creationists, there’s disagreement over some 6000 years concerning the precise date of Genesis 1:1.
Regardless of the precise dates, the events in the book of Genesis encompass a majority of the timeline in the Pentateuch. Genesis ends with the death of Joseph, son of Jacob, in Egypt, and the book of Exodus begins shortly before Moses’s lifetime and ends 120 years later with the death of Moses. That means the entire rest of the Pentateuch (Exodus through Deuteronomy) is 120 years plus the time between Joseph’s death and Moses’s birth.
I’m not particularly familiar with the Talmud, but I’ve heard that it has much more specific dates for certain events in the Hebrew Bible, including the year of Joseph’s death and the day and year of Moses’s birth. Even then, I’ve read differing timelines. Jewish tradition seems to be that about 59-64 years passed between the two events. This conflicts with Exodus 12:40-41, and I’ve yet to hear any convincing way to reconcile the two.
The time that the Israelites had lived in Egypt was four hundred thirty years. At the end of four hundred thirty years, on that very day, all the companies of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.
Exodus 12:40-41, NRSVUE
John H. Walton, in Chronological and Background Charts of the Old Testament, estimates events in the Pentateuch only go as far as 1406 B.C.E. (chart on pg.12), while others, such as lawrencebush writing for the Jewish Current, place Moses’s life within the 14th-13th centuries. That is, there’re at least 300 years between the last events of the Pentateuch and when the earliest parts of the book of Genesis were written, and there’re only about 60-400 years from the end of the Book of Genesis to the end of the Pentateuch.
The book of Genesis, then, spans from creation in Genesis 1 and 2 through the death of Joseph in the 15th-14th centuries B.C.E. and those events account for 90-99% of all the events in the Pentateuch.
What Are the Three Sources of the Book of Genesis?
The three sources for the book of Genesis, according the documentary hypothesis, are called the Yahwist (J), Elohist (E), and Priestly (P) sources. It’s important to note that these aren’t literal documents that we still have. Rather, they’re hypothesized sources from which the book of Genesis appears to have been constructed.
When Biblical scholars analyze the language and stories in the book of Genesis, they find distinct styles and patterns within the text that suggest multiple authors. The words used for God are one of those clues. Some stories consistently use Yahweh to refer to God, while others consistently use Elohim to refer to God. Hence, the names Yahwist (from Yahweh) and Elohist (from Elohim).
Other linguistic and historical clues help scholars discern between the different sources, as well. Because language evolves over time, scholars can match different passages in the book of Genesis with different time periods based on the language/dialects being used. This is part of the reason why the Priestly source is considered the most recent of the three. Having such distinctions also makes it easier to identify what each author was primarily concerned with, because the writings can more easily be grouped and examined together.
The Priestly source, for example, is named so because the author seems primarily concerned with priestly material, such as rituals and genealogies, which is one more clue about the distinct authors. The irony is that this actually seems to be the center of one of the debates in P’s dating.
While most scholars consider P to be one of the latest strata of the Pentateuch, post-dating both J and D,[38] since the 1970s a number of Jewish scholars have challenged this assumption, arguing for an early dating of the Priestly material.[39] Avi Hurvitz, for example, has forcefully argued on linguistic grounds that P represents an earlier form of the Hebrew language than what is found in both Ezekiel and Deuteronomy, and therefore pre-dates both of them.[40][41] These scholars often claim that the late-dating of P is due in large part to a Protestant bias in biblical studies which assumes that “priestly” and “ritualistic” material must represent a late degeneration of an earlier, “purer” faith. These arguments have not convinced the majority of scholars, however.[38]
Wikipedia, Priestly Source
It’s also worth noting that these three sources are for the entire Torah, not just the book of Genesis, along with at least one other source, so the evidence is rather substantial. Even so, take everything here with a grain of salt; there’s still plenty of debate about the dating of these sources. While documentary hypothesis is accepted by many scholars for both the Old and New Testaments, there’s plenty of nuance to be debated about the specifics of each document, since they didn’t actually survive the last several thousand years.
What Stories Are in the Book of Genesis?
The stories in the book of Genesis are often split into two sections:
- Creation and the expanding of humanity
- Abram and his descendants
Following are lists of all the stories found in each section of the book of Genesis with links to those stories.
Creation and the Expanding of Humanity
This section covers the two creation stories, the genealogies from Adam and Eve through Abram (Abraham), and the dispersing of humanity throughout the world (kicked out of the garden of Eden, the flood, and the tower of Babel). Some of the more commonly recognized Old Testament stories are found in this section. Some examples are:
- Adam and Eve being tempted by the serpent at the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, sometimes called The Fall
- Cain murdering his brother Abel
- The flood and Noah’s ark
- The tower of Babel
These stories and some other details throughout this section are commonly used as inspiration for books, TV shows, movies, and games (if you’re a gamer, you may recognize the reference to the Nephilim, which is found in Genesis 6:4).
| Story | Chapter : Verse |
| Creation (1) | 1:1-2:4a |
| Creation (2) | 2:4b-25 |
| The Tree of Knowledge | 3:1-24 |
| Cain and Abel | 4:1-16 |
| Descendants of Cain | 4:17-24 |
| Descendants of Adam (post-Cain) | 4:25-5:32 |
| Noah and the Flood | 6:1-8:22 |
| God’s Covenant with Noah | 9:1-17 |
| Noah Curses and Blesses His Sons | 9:18-29 |
| Descendants of Noah (Nations) | 10:1-32 |
| The Tower of Babel | 11:1-9 |
| Descendants of Shem, Son of Noah | 11:10-26 |
| Descendants of Terah, Descendant of Shem, Father of Abram | 11:27-32 |
Abram and His Descendants
This section contains stories about Abram (later Abraham), his descendants, and the covenant and promises of God with them. As a whole, this is the origin story of the people of Israel as God’s chosen people through God’s covenant with Abraham.
This section is sometimes split into two sections:
- Abraham and Sarah (12:1-25:18)
- Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph (25:19-50:26)
All of the pentateuch is foundational to the identity of the Israelites, but this section, in particular, contains the origin stories for the three major patriarchs of Israel: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God’s covenants with them and their descendants are the framework for everything else that follows in both the Old and New Testaments.
| Story | Chapter : Verse |
| God Promises Abram the Land of Canaan | 12:1-9 |
| Abram, Sarai, and Pharaoh | 12:10-20 |
| Abram and Lot Part Ways; God Promises Abram Land a Second Time | 13:1-18 |
| Lot Captured and Rescued | 14:1-16 |
| Abram, King Melchizedek, and the King of Sodom | 14:17-24 |
| God’s Covenant with Abram | 15:1-21 |
| Birth of Ishmael, Son of Abram and Hagar | 16:1-16 |
| The Sign of the Covenant (Circumcision) | 17:1-27 |
| A Son Promised to Abraham and Sarah | 18:1-15 |
| Condemnation of Sodom | 18:16-33 |
| Lot and the Angels in Sodom | 19:1-11 |
| Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah | 19:12-29 |
| Origin of the Moabites and Ammonites | 19:30-38 |
| Abraham, Sarah, and King Abimelech | 20:1-18 |
| The Birth of Isaac | 21:1-7 |
| Banishment of Hagar and Isaac | 21:8-21 |
| Abraham’s Covenant with Abimelech | 21:22-34 |
| The Binding of Isaac | 22:1-19 |
| Descendants of Nahor, Brother of Abraham | 22:20-24 |
| Sarah’s Death and Burial | 23:1-20 |
| Isaac Marries Rebekah | 24:1-67 |
| Descendants of Abraham and Keturah | 25:1-6 |
| The Death of Abraham | 25:7-11 |
| Descendants of Ishmael, Son of Abraham and Hagar | 25:12-18 |
| The Birth of Esau and Jacob | 25:19-28 |
| Esau Sells His Birthright | 25:29-34 |
| Isaac in Gerar | 26:1-33 |
| Esau’s Wives | 26:34-35 |
| Jacob Steals Esau’s Blessing | 27:1-28:5 |
| Esau Marries Mahalath | 28:6-9 |
| Jacob’s Dream at Bethel (Jacob’s Ladder) | 28:10-22 |
| Jacob Marries Leah and Rachel | 29:1-30 |
| Jacob’s Children | 29:31-30:24 |
| Jacob, Laban, and the Flocks | 30:25-43 |
| Jacob Flees from Laban | 31:1-42 |
| Jacob’s Covenant with Laban | 31:43-55 |
| Jacob Meets Angels | 32:1-2 |
| Jacob Sends Presents to Esau | 32:3-21 |
| Jacob Wrestles with God | 32:22-32 |
| Jacob Meets Esau | 33:1-17 |
| Jacob Settles in Shechem | 33:18-20 |
| The Rape of, and Revenge for, Dinah, Daughter of Jacob and Leah | 34:1-31 |
| Jacob Returns to Bethel | 35:1-15 |
| The Birth of Benjamin/Death of Rachel | 35:16-21 |
| Reuben Lays with Bilhah | 35:22a |
| The Sons of Jacob | 35:22b-26 |
| The Death of Isaac | 35:27-29 |
| Descendants of Esau and Their Clans | 36:1-43 |
| Joseph, Son of Jacob, Sold Into Slavery | 37:1-36 |
| Judah and His Daughter-In-Law, Tamar | 38:1-30 |
| Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife | 39:1-23 |
| Joseph Interprets Prisoners’ Dreams | 40:1-23 |
| Joseph Interprets Pharaoh’s Dreams | 41:1-57 |
| Joseph’s Brothers Go to Egypt | 42:1-25 |
| Joseph’s Brothers Return to Canaan | 42:26-38 |
| Joseph’s Brothers Return to Egypt | 43:1-34 |
| Joseph Reveals Himself to His Brothers | 44:1-45:28 |
| Jacob and His Family Go to Egypt | 46:1-47:12 |
| The Famine in Egypt | 47:13-26 |
| Jacob’s Burial Request | 47:27-31 |
| Jacob Blesses Joseph’s Sons | 48:1-22 |
| Jacob’s Last Words to His Sons | 49:1-28 |
| The Death of Jacob | 49:29-50:14 |
| Joseph Forgives His Brothers | 50:15-21 |
| The Death of Joseph | 50:22-26 |
Disclaimers
As always, these FAQ posts aren’t exhaustive. They’re just brief introductions to questions and topics — jumping off points to help you on your journey. You can contact me if you’d like to ask a question or request a more in-depth look at a particular topic, and you can check out some of the Bible Study or Theology posts for more.
Keep in mind that a lot of the information in this post is debated by Biblical scholars and teachers, like the specific dates, historical sources, and how the book of Genesis should be divided. I suggest you try not to get too caught up in any particular framework; these are tools for engaging with the text, not hard and fast rules.
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