When was the book of genisis written?

Answer 1

The truth is, no one knows the exact dates of when or where Genesis was written, however, we do know that it was written by Moses.

another answer:

Genesis was written in the wilderness by Moses at God's dictation. The wilderness years were from 3324 to 3284 years ago.

The content of Genesis was not unfamiliar to the Israelites, since they had received the traditions of the Creation, the Flood, and the narratives of Abraham's family from the forefathers.

Answer 2

The Book of Genesis is traditionally attributed to Moses, writing around 1400 BCE. However, scholars now say that the Book of Genesis was really written in stages over a period of several centuries during the first millennium BCE.

One of the contributors to Genesis was an anonymous author, now known as the Yahwist, who wrote during the eighth or ninth century BCE and provided material from the perspective of the southern kingdom of Judah. Another anonymous early contributor wrote during the eighth century BCE, providing material from the perspective of the northern kingdom of Israel, and is now known as the Elohist. The two traditions were combined by the 'JE Redactor' probably soon after the destruction of Israel in 722 BCE. The last major contributor to Genesis was the Priestly Source, writing during the sixth-century-BCE Babylonian Exile. The Book of Genesis, more or less as we know it today, was completed by the Redactor soon after the Return from Exile.

Answer 3

While many biblical scholars still hold to the JEDP model or some variant thereof, the details have been continuously debated and modified since the hypothesis was first proposed. Since the 1970s, there has been much debate over, for example, whether E ever existed as a separate "source," and whether the P material originated before, during, or after Judah's Babylonian crisis.

Going further, scholars like Rolf Rendtorff have criticized the over-reliance of the Documentary Hypothesis on models of literary production that seem unrealistic for the ancient Near East, and have moved away from a focus on long continuous parallel narratives to a focus on blocks of oral tradition growing around common core themes (the patriarchs, the exodus, and so on) before being committed to writing and joined end-to-end almost like boxcars on a train. The Society of Biblical Literature's 2006 volume Farewell to the Yahwist? contains several studies along these lines.

As of 2010, the 19th-century Documentary Hypothesis can no longer be considered the consensus view of biblical scholarship. The following may be said with confidence:

• The majority of biblical scholars still consider the canonical form of Genesis a product of the Judean community in the Persian era (approximately 540-330 BCE).
• Scholars are sharply divided over questions of how much earlier one can trace written components of the book of Genesis.
• The translation of the book of Genesis from Hebrew into Greek around 285 BCE tells us that the Hebrew canonical form of the book must have existed by that time.

These considerations still leave a very large "margin of error" in trying to pin down the composition of the book of Genesis or any of its constituent parts.

Answer:

The Book of Genesis (and the rest of the Torah), as we possess it today (in Hebrew), was written by Moses (Deuteronomy 31:24). The traditional date for this is 1272 BCE, during the lifetime of Moses.

Answer 4

A:

The Book of Genesis is the work of four main sources over a period of nearly five hundred years.

The earliest material was written by the anonymous source now known as the Yahwist, writing in Judah around 900 BCE. The Elohist, another anonymous source, wrote some material in the northern kingdom of Israel, a little later than the Yahwist.

The two writings of the Yahwist and the Elohist were combined around 700 BCE, probably in Jerusalem. This was now an early prototype of the Book of Genesis.

The Priestly Source added further material to the Book of Genesis around the time of the Babylonian Exile, probably in Babylon.

The Redactor finalised the Book of Genesis into more or less the form we know today, probably in Jerusalem after the end of the Babylonian Exile.

Answer 5

According to tradition, the earliest narratives of Genesis were recorded in writing by the Forefathers themselves. This is how the Israelites were able to have had it before the Exodus (midrash Shemot Rabbah 5:18 and 5:22). Later, Moses wrote the entire Torah, including Genesis (Deuteronomy 31:24). Moses died in 1272 BCE.

See also:

http://religion.answers.com/theory/debunking-the-jepd-documentary-hypothesis

Answer 6

Biblical tradition says that the Book of Genesis was written by Moses during the Exodus from Egypt, between 1440 and 1400 BCE.

However, most modern biblical scholars say that Genesis was really written over a period of centuries and by several authors, between the ninth century BCE and the post-Exilic period.

For more information, please visit: http://christianity.answers.com/bible/the-book-of-genesis

Answer 7

Scholars say that the Book of Exodus is a composite work, with most of the material actually written by three anonymous authors now known as the Yahwist, the Elohist , who lived during the ninth and eighth centuries BCE, and the Priestly Source, writing during the fifth century BCE. Together, they created a glorious history of the Exodus from Egypt and the wanderings of the Hebrew people. Occasionally, their stories conflict, as in the spies doublet.

Answer 8

Moses wrote the first complete Torah-scroll shortly before his death in 1272 BCE.

The Torah-scroll which we possess today is perfectly accurate, based upon other manuscripts both recent and ancient. No physical evidence has ever been presented to prove any "multiple authors" hypothesis.

See also:

How was the Torah written

Was Moses a real person

Disproving multiple-authors theories

Answer 9

We do not know the actual names of the persons who wrote the book of Genesis.

Beginning in the eighteenth century, biblical scholars began to investigate the possibility of prior written sources contributing to the canonical form of Genesis. In the Documentary Hypothesis that emerged as a result of this investigation, associated especially with the German scholars Heinrich Graf and Julius Wellhausen, the three primary sources contributing to Genesis came to be identified as the Yahwist ("J source"), the Elohist ("E source") and the Priestly source ("P source"). Each "source" may have been a single writer or a group of writers working with common intentions. Based on linguistics and other details, "source critics" infer approximate dates for the composition of each source:

• The Yahwist recorded myths and legends from the southern Hebrew kingdom of Judah, probably in the ninth century BCE. (Less plausibly,Gerhard von Rad suggested a tenth-century BCE date for the composition of J.)
• The Elohist recorded myths and legends from the northern kingdom of Israel. He is believed to have lived a little later than the Yahwist, probably in the eighth century BCE.
• At some stage, the separate works of J and E were combined into a single manuscript called "JE."
• During the Babylonian Exile, in the sixth century BCE, the Priestly writer(s) amended JE and added additional material. An alternate view sees the P material as separate and independent from JE, combined later by a hand other than that (those) of the P writer(s).
• Each stage of combining sources also involves the work of an editor or, in the preferred terminology of the Documentary Hypothesis, a "redactor." The abbreviation R is often used to mean "redactor," with a superscript showing which earlier sources any particular redactor is thought to have combined. For example, "RJE" would be the redactor who combined J and E into JE.

Answer 10

Tradition states that Moses wrote a scroll containing the narratives of Genesis, at God's command, before the formal Giving of the Torah (Rashi commentary, Exodus ch.24). It was this scroll which he read to the Israelites (Exodus 24:7) as an introduction to what God's covenant would entail. These narratives were not unknown to the Israelites, since they had carefully preserved the traditions of the events of the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (see Midrash, Shemot Rabbah 5:18 and 22).

The words of this scroll were soon incorporated in the complete Torah itself by God, including the ancient traditions of the Creation, the Flood etc. (These traditions had been known by mankind worldwide, except that among the other nations [the idolaters] they had become garbled with idolatrous drivel.)
At God's command and precise dictation (Deuteronomy 1:3), Moses penned the entire Torah (Deuteronomy 31:24) immediately before his death, so that it included events that had happened in the preceding months (such as Numbers ch.20).

No Hebrew copy of the Torah has ever been found to differ with the others, worldwide. The Torah we possess today contains the exact wording written by Moses.See also:

Refuting the multiple-authors hypothesis

What is the history of the Hebrew Bible?

Some facts about Torah-scrolls