Who Wrote Genesis?

I minored in Christianity at a small private school that was affiliated with a major church denomination. I remember my excitement at the start of my first Christianity class - I thought it would be like Sunday School. We would just read and talk about the greatness of God.

How wrong I was! The aim of the professors and textbooks was to convince us that the Bible was not accurate, original, or even fully inspired! I took the bait (sounds kind of like she gave me the apple, eh?) and began to question my faith and distrust God's Word.

The Lord was faithful to me even in my faithlessness and He called me back Home very quickly. Now as I have started classes at DTS, I am so thankful for the seminary's absolute belief in the inerrancy of the Bible.

In my first class on Genesis through Judges, we discussed who wrote the Pentateuch. Tradition holds that Moses wrote it, but many scholars today believe it was composed by four different authors 1500 years after Abraham lived. My professor examined both theories with the class and then dismissed the latter idea. He said, "At DTS, we believe Moses was the author." It was a great moment.

One of the reasons we believe that Moses authored Genesis is the amazing unity found within the book. After the initial creation story, each story in Genesis starts with the Hebrew word toledoth (pronounced toll-e-dot) which means the history of, the result of, the account of, from the birth of. Here are the ten toledoths found in Genesis:

• Toledoth of Heavens and the Earth - Gen 2:4-4:26
• Toledoth of Adam - Gen 5:1-6:8
• Toledoth of Noah - Gen 6:9-9:29
• Toledoth of Shem, Ham and Japeth - Gen 10:1-11:9
• Toledoth of Shem - Gen 11:10-26
• Toledoth of Terah - Gen 11:27-25:11
• Toledoth of Ishmael - Gen 25:12-18
• Toledoth of Isaac - Gen 25:19-35:29
• Toledoth of Esau (Edom) - Gen 36:1-37:1
• Toledoth of Jacob - Gen 37:2-50:26

It would be pretty difficult for four different authors over 300 years with different perspectives to arrive at such a powerful and unified framework or table of contents for the first fifty chapters of the Bible. But it does provide a powerful way to study the book of Genesis in a methodical manner.

It is such a blessing to be at a place where our chief job is not to argue with the Bible but study it and draw closer to God through it.