Book of Genesis

Book of Genesis, book of the Old Testament. The English title is derived from the words Genesis kosmou (Greek, “origin of the cosmos”), the title of the book in the Septuagint. The Jews, who know each of the five books comprising the Pentateuch by either the opening word or the first significant word, entitle it Bereshith (or Bereshit), “In the beginning”.

Genesis, the first book of the Bible, tells of the beginning of the world from the time when “God created the heaven and the earth” (1:1) until the death of Joseph, the 11th son of the Hebrew patriarch Jacob. The book falls into two unequal parts. The first part (chap. 1-11) is concerned with the primaeval history of humankind and contains stories about the first man and the first woman, their original sin, the first man to die and the first murderer, the flood that God sent to destroy all things save the immediate family of one “just man” (6:9) and the creatures committed to him for preservation, and the confounding of the speech and scattering abroad of later people. The first part of Genesis also contains the first covenant made by God with humanity in the person of Noah (see 9:9-17). The second part (chap. 12-50) is mainly an account of the lives of the Hebrew patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that is, a history of the origins of the Hebrew nation (see Hebrews; Jews).

The basic aim of Genesis is to relate all of creation and history to God, and, specifically, to explain the role of Israel in the world. Thus, for example, the genealogies in the first part of the book (see 5, 10, 11:10-32) connect Adam with Abraham and recount the number of years between the two; and the covenants made by God with Noah and with Abraham (see 17:2-21) express new and permanently intended binding relationships between God and humankind and God and the Hebrew nation.

Scholars have shown convincingly that the Book of Genesis was compiled from several sources. For a general discussion of the process of compilation, see Bible: The Old Testament.

Genesis is regarded by many as a literal rendition of creation, the view of most Christians and Jews until the latter half of the 19th century. Some see the book as myth or legend expressive merely of tribal beliefs, superstitions, and mores. Intensive scholarship and related scientific investigation have revealed that numerous events, places, and people described and named in Genesis most probably did occur and exist. Those that could not literally or historically occur or exist as described and named had, and still have for some people, a figurative origin and existence. Therefore, although it may seem irrelevant to dwell, for example, on Adam and Eve and on their sin in Eden, the story of humanity's fall from grace remains for many contemporary inheritors of Western culture a viable, commonly understood expression of a recurring, inwardly felt, and otherwise inexplicable experience. See Biblical Scholarship.