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I've been operating under the assumption that Moses was the author the book of Genesis (or at least the recorder of a bunch of oral traditions).

This document suggests a different view. http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/article_pentateuch_wenham.html

Who was the probable author of Genesis?

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In "author" do you mean the person who came up with the story or wrote it down? Either way, I'm not sure how anyone could be certain. – Dan Andrews Feb 26 '12 at 18:10
It may not have been Moses, but rather a different man of the same name ;). Seriously, the tradition of authorship is in the work, and even if we found out the scribes name, it would still be "historically ascribed to 'Moses'" – Affable Geek Feb 27 '12 at 0:08
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I suppose Moses wrote "his" last book which described his death? Agreed that Moses has been attributed as the author. However, if Moses wrote it, it was more likely to be in Egyptian hieroglyphs than Hebrew. – Dan Andrews Feb 27 '12 at 13:43
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@Dan, would attaching an obituary as the last chapter of Dt detract from Moses writing the rest of it? – Frank Luke Feb 27 '12 at 14:42
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FWIW, there is a rabbinic interpretation that Joshua wrote the last few verses of Deuteronomy. There is another that Moshe did with tears in his eyes. (The words could be written down before he died if God told him to.) – Monica Cellio Feb 28 '12 at 13:58
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3 Answers

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P.J. Wiseman posits the theory that the 'toledoth' indicates authors who were eyewitnesses to the events mentioned in Genesis. This is based on the pattern of writing found on ancient Babylonian tablets predating Abraham where the word translated 'generations of' is used to indicate the ownership or authorship of the clay tablet.

He suggests that the pattern in Genesis indicates that Moses transcribed the text from tablets retaining these signature lines.

The tablets would have been passed down Father to son to Jacob, then to Joseph, who placed them in the library of Pharaoh where Moses had access to them. Whether it was Moses of one of Pharaoh's scribes who moved the text from tablets to papyrus is immaterial.

R.K. Harrison spoke favorably of the theory, and the Southern Baptist publishing house has used it from time to time.

The theory suggests that God himself wrote Gen 1, and some suggest the indication that Esau wrote Jacob's history, and Jacob wrote Esau's, is a problem, but then we marvel that their foibles are retained in the record.

Other popular views were well entrenched by the time of the discovery of the tablets prior to WWII.

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Scholars have been raising doubts about Moses' authorship since the mid-1600s, when Thomas Hobbes noted that certain passages in the five books of the Torah seemed to indicate they had been added by a later writer.

  • Genesis 12:6, "At that time the Canaanites were in the land." And they still were in Moses' time.
  • Numbers 21:14, referring to "the Book of the Wars of the Lord", which probably not written before the Torah.
  • Deuteronomy 34, the account of Moses' death, including the phrase in verse 6, "no one knows his burial place to this day."
  • Numbers 12:3, stating, "Moses was very humble, more so than anyone else on the face of the earth," which would not have been true if he had written it himself.

About 100 years later Jean Astruc identified pairs of stories, or "doublets", indicating two streams of oral tradition that he believed were combined by Moses in writing the Torah. In these doublets, one story refers to God as "Elohim", and the other uses the divine name "YHWH".

  • Creation: Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 ("six days", Elohim); Genesis 2:4-25 ("Garden of Eden", YHWH)
  • God's covenant with Abraham: Genesis 15:1-21 (YWHW); Genesis 17:1-27 (Elohim, though it refers to YWHW in verse 1)
  • Abraham calls his wife his sister: Genesis 12:10-20 (YHWH); Genesis 20:1-18 (Elohim, though it uses YHWH in verse 18)

Other scholars followed Astruc's lead and identified other doublets.

  • God renames Jacob to Israel: Genesis 32:22-32 (after wrestling God at Peniel); Genesis 35:9-15 (at Bethel)
  • Moses' father in law: Exodus 2:17-22 (Zipporah's father is Reuel); Exodus 18:1-6 (Zipporah's father is Jethro)
  • Covenant of the Ten Commandments: Exodus 34 (on Mount Sinai); Deuteronomy 5 (on Mount Horeb) — Deuteronomy 5 is written as a reminder of the covenant from Exodus 34

By the early 1800s the majority of scholars argued that these two independent sources were combined much later than Moses' day, and that two additional sources could be identified within the Torah.

The four sources were labeled J, E, P, and D:

  • J: these always used YHWH to refer to God (most of the scholars were German, and German J = English Y)
  • E: these almost always used Elohim (or a related form, e.g. El Shaddai or El Elyon) to refer to God
  • P: these passages referred to matters relating to Priests
  • D: the book of Deuteronomy did not fit any of these, and was considered to have its own distinct source

Additionally, archaeological findings have not shown any evidence of a written Hebrew alphabet prior to the time of the earliest kings of Israel. If the Torah can be traced back to Moses in any way, it is likely to be only as an oral tradition.

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The concept of doublets greatly increases my interest in the JEPD hypothesis. It certainly hasn't received a fair shake from me since I've never read any analysis as clear as this. An emphatic +1. – Jon Ericson♦ Feb 27 '12 at 6:55
(Which isn't to say I agree with the hypothesis. ;-) – Jon Ericson♦ Feb 27 '12 at 6:59
Walter Kaiser spends some time showing why the documentary hypothesis is faulty in The Old Testament Documents: Are They Reliable and Relevant. See also his Recovering the Unity of Scripture. – Frank Luke Feb 27 '12 at 14:43
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@RonMaimon: I never noticed the doublets--not their significance, anyway--until someone pointed out the pattern to me. Accusing others of willful blindness is not likely to help the conversation. – Bruce Alderman Apr 11 '12 at 14:07
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@BruceAlderman: I agree you need someone to tell you, and then you notice, but once you notice, if you reject it, this is is a lie to yourself and to others. I read Gen/Exo, and the E,J doublets, along with the textual divisions, are absolutely manifest to the eyes. I can't condone people who read this text and don't say so. It's like half is in caps and the other half small. – Ron Maimon Apr 11 '12 at 15:59
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up vote 1 down vote

No, Genesis, as a whole, was written during the exile. The best assumption to operate under when reading Genesis is that it is a counter-story to Enuma Elish, and Babylonian civilization in general.

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Reading Enuma Elish, it is only E's narration which matches it, and then only in gross ways that suggest social familiarity, not detailed textual borrowings (I didn't see any). It is very plausible that E's narrative is exilic period, no arguments there, but J does not have a Babylonian start--- J starts with God watering the earth and making a garden. If you could expand the answer with parallels, it would be easier to upvote--- it's kinda short as it is now. The one thing going for you is that J is pretty fixated on Babylon too--- tower of Babel, and Nimrod making Babel are J. – Ron Maimon Apr 10 '12 at 7:17
Thinking about it more, there is always the issue of Samaritans--- when Jews returned to the second temple, there were people in Israel who spoke Hebrew and claimed to be the real Jews, who have the first month of the year on the passover celebration (unlike Masoretic Jews, and like Exodus says), and who roast a lamb on passover (as Exodus demands, and unlike Masoretic Jews). There are a few hundred of these people around, and they reject all but the Pentateuch as scripture. These are the Samaritans, and Samaritans are to Jews as Jews are to Christians. If Pentateuch is exilic, why Samaritans? – Ron Maimon Apr 10 '12 at 7:24
Well I don't go in for the whole documentary hypothesis thing, so I don't know how far we can get in these little comments. I don't think the whole Pentateuch is exilic, just Genesis. Exodus is early, written around the time the Saul, David, Solomon succession stories were (Pharaoh sure does look a lot like Solomon...). One good bit of evidence for later Genesis is there's no mention of "Eden" in any of the older books. – tladuke Apr 10 '12 at 7:41
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I see! That's an interesting idea. The problem is that the authorial voices of J and E are 100% clear (see my question "How many doves on Noah's ark 14 or 2?" for obvious interpolation of J and E narratives which should convince even the most hardened skeptic of the truth of the documentary hypothesis--- also if you read Wikisource translation, it keeps all the Yahweh's without "the LORD" silliness, so you can see the text boundaries for yourself and see that DH makes sense) and they continue through without break into early Exodus. Further, Samaritans have Genesis. – Ron Maimon Apr 10 '12 at 7:51
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I don't see an answer here--- people have argued for anywhere between 1200BC and 600BC. DH is more about internal evidence than dating--- it's so hard to date. If we had more Hebrew texts with definite dates, maybe, you could compare the grammar and vocabulary over time. – Ron Maimon Apr 13 '12 at 8:13
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