Who Wrote Genesis?

[michelle]

I started reading Genesis again and within the first few verses I started wondering who actually wrote Genesis. Obviously nobody was around when God was creating the Earth and space and nobody would have heard Him say "let there be light". So I googled "who wrote genesis" and I clicked on one of the topics and found something interesting there.

"The authors of Genesis seem to have picked up part of their story from Hindu legends of the creation and early history of humanity. Stories of Hindu heros Adimo, Heva, Sherma, Hama and Jiapheta apparently were replicated into legends about Adam, Eve, Shem Ham, and Japeth. 1"

I've heard arguments like this before stating that Biblical stories come (e.g. the flood, etc.) from legends of other cultures. Why is it that people always make the argument that the OT "borrowed" stories from other cultures, but most people don't think that other cultures could have "borrowed" the OT stories?

[Josh]

When I'm feeling better I'll post some further thoughts here, but for now, check out some related articles under the "Did pagan mythology influence Chrsitian belief?" question on the Questions about Christianity.

Link: www.aletheia.proboards76.com/index.cgi?board=mythology

[michelle]

I will take a look at those when I have a chance. Another thought that I had just after I wrote my posting was that if several cultures have similar "legends" or stories, couldn't that make a case for the fact that something actually happened? Just because the names are slightly varied doesn't mean that one culture "copied" another cultures story, right? Couldn't that be attributed to cultural variations on names (e.g. Christopher Columbus in the US is Cristobal Colon in Latin American countries)?

[Josh]

Exactly! Great thought. This is true for most of the material in Genesis 1-10- we have parallels in other culture's mythologies- often very striking parallels, even with names that are oddly similar. We researched this quite a bit when we read the book Eternity in their Hearts the other year. All this points ultimately to a SHARED HUMAN MEMORY of events. Some cultures may have preserved the memory better than others, but nonetheless, it testifies to a common root.

In your case, it is incredibly far-fetched to assume the Israelites were influenced by ancient Hindu culture considering the distances (time and geographical) between the cultures. Actually, Hebrew cosmology and stories of early humanity are much more closely related to ancient Sumerian/ Babylonian mythology than any other, because the Hebrews came out of that culture.

More on the author of Genesis later...

[Josh]

As far as the source material for the first 10 Chapters or so of Genesis is concerned, we're talking about some kind of combo of special revelation and oral tradition passed down for tens of thousands of years.

As far as the source material for the rest (the stories of Abraham through Joseph), we're talking about oral tradition handed down for about 400-800 years.

Genesis was obviously written down long after Abraham, but nonetheless the oral tradition behind it is solid. Details about the world at the time of Abraham that would not have been able to be guessed centuries later are accurate within it's pages.

When we get to the Exodus, we're talking about only a couple hundred years between the events and the writing down/ compiling. Indeed, several portions of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy were probably written down about the time of Moses, to be compiled, edited, and blended with oral tradition into the form we have now probably at least by the time of King David.