Who wrote the book of Genesis? Who was the author of Genesis?

"All tradition, from whatever source it is derived, whether inspired or uninspired, unanimously affirms that the first five books of the Bible were written by one man, and that man was Moses. There is no counter-testimony in any quarter." With these words, Prof. William Henry Green begins his learned work on the unity of Genesis. Other learned men in past generation up to the present time stand firm for the Mosaic authorship of Genesis, and thereby affirm the fact of revelation. The cry of the higher critics--"ripe scholarship," "access to better sources," etc.--is a bluff. The best scholarship stands by the truth. Some of the arguments advanced against Moses as writer of Genesis are exactly the argument for it and the evidences of inspiration. For instance, the use of the name of God as Elohim and Jehovah. Elohim is the name of God as Creator--Jehovah is His name as entering into covenant relation with man. The use of these names is a precious evidence of the work of the Spirit of God and not an evidence of different writers and documents.

The highest authority that Moses wrote Genesis and the other four books, and that Genesis is the revelation of God, is the Lord Jesus Christ. He spoke repeatedly of Moses and reminded His hearers of the historic facts as given in Genesis. This fact is met by the critics with the statement that our Lord was not a critical scholar and limited in His knowledge. Such statements are akin to blasphemy.

According to an old tradition, not only Genesis (also called the first book of Moses), but the whole Pentateuch (from Greek pente - five and teuchos - container for scrolls) were written by Moses. As far as Exodus to Deuteronomy is concerned, Moses was an eyewitness and partly even main character. When writing Genesis, apart from direct revelations of God (for example the report on the creation of the world in Genesis 1-2), he could possibly have referred to documents from the time of the patriarchs (for example the genealogies of Genesis 5:10-11 and 36). Under the direction of the Holy Spirit of God Moses wrote everything down. As he was a prophet, the words of 2 Peter 1:21 apply to him as well: "Holy men of God spake under the power of the Holy Spirit."

There can be no question either that these first five books were written by Moses. This does not raise the question of whether other writings more or less connected may have been used by him, for instance in the book of Genesis; but we have evidently there, as a continuous narrative with a distinct object, from the first chapter to the close of the book, that which is the product of one inspired person, whatever material he may have used in the preparation of his work; just as an author now may quote largely and use much material gathered by others in the preparation of a work which is distinctly his own.

The subject, however, of the Mosaic authorship and structure of Genesis would come up in a work devoted more especially to that book. It must suffice us here to point out that our Lord evidently considered the first five books of the Bible as the inspired product of Moses. "He wrote of Me." "If ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe My words?" (John 5:47.)

The only possible question as to the Mosaic authorship is necessarily confined to the book of Genesis and the closing chapter of Deuteronomy. If the book is authentic at all, it declares again and again that it was the production of Moses, a contention borne out by the rest of the Old Testament, and substantiated by the infallible authority of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Just here, therefore, we confine ourselves to a thought or two about the book of Genesis.

In claiming the Mosaic authorship of this book, it is not meant that no records were kept before the time of the great lawgiver. There is nothing contradictory to the truth of inspiration or the thought of Moses' authorship in the possibility, we may say probability, of genealogies having been kept, and possibly also narratives more or less full, of persons and events which took place prior to the time of the Exodus. But what historian can write a narrative of former times without making large and liberal use of the material at his disposal? Thus there is no contradiction in the thought that Moses made use of whatever lists and narratives there may have been in existence before him. There is, however, something to be said even upon this side of the subject.

The writer of Genesis, who was no doubt Moses (Luke 24:27) could not get his information from anyone but God. People have supposed that he gathered material for this book from other human sources, but this is settled by 2 Timothy 3:16: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God." Humans have imagined all kinds of silly answers to the question of origins, but none of these answers comes near to the majestic dignity and truth of what God has revealed in the book of Genesis.

In verse 4 also we notice a change in the Divine Name: not now, as in Genesis 1, "God," (Elohim), but "LORD God," (Jehovah Elohim); and this name characterizes the whole passage to the end of Genesis 3. Based on this fact, the so-called "Higher Critics" many years ago began to build their theories as to Genesis being just a patchwork composition by nobody knows whom, but at any rate not written by Moses. The truth is, of course, that the Name is intentionally varied to suit the theme in hand. In Genesis 1 it is God in His supremacy, creating by His word. In Genesis 2 and Genesis 3 it is God placing man, His intelligent and responsible creature, in relation with Himself — whether in his original innocence or afterwards in his fallen condition — hence Jehovah comes in, since this name sets Him forth as self-existing, unvarying, faithful to His covenant, as is shown in Exodus 6:24. It is exactly the way in which He made Himself known to Moses, the writer of Genesis.

Now Moses, the writer of Genesis, was not present when creation took place, and could have no more the wit to write the very first verse of the Bible than he could have the power to create that which he described. The first verse of the Bible certainly bears most fully the hail mark of inspiration. Only God could have inspired it.

We thus come back with renewed assurance to the common faith of the people of God from the beginning, that the entire Pentateuch is the product of Moses. It was he whom God chose to be the appointed vehicle for carrying out His purposes and promises made known to Abraham and the fathers, and he is fittingly the historian of that great redemptive work recorded in the book of Exodus, together with the anticipative histories which are absolutely necessary to the right understanding of the narrative of Exodus itself.

We pass now to one scripture which sets its seal upon the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch: "Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me: for he wrote of Me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe My words?" Most significant indeed is this. It is unbelief which has assailed the authorship of the Pentateuch, and unbelief not merely in Moses' writings, but in Him of whom Moses wrote. We have similar confirmation by our Lord in the expression: "All things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses and in the Prophets and in the Psalms concerning Me." Here the Whole Pentateuch is again ascribed to Moses. In the face of this, we cannot afford to entertain the slightest doubt as to the authorship of the entire Pentateuch. It is one harmonious work, the author of which is not only declared upon its face to be Moses, but our Lord confirms that statement.

So too did the Son of God, both in the days of His flesh and after He rose from the dead, attest Moses, not only as the channel but as the writer of the Law or Five Books (John 5, Luke 20 and 24). But if in presence of supernatural power sons of Israel "were not afraid to speak against" him living, we need not wonder that, in fallen yet haughty and unbelieving Christendom, professing Christians take their place with infidel Jews, in denying that he wrote aught but the merest shreds. These shreds some of these men do rather pretend (for there is no ground, but their self-sufficiency) to identify among the legends of an Elohist, and a Jehovist, with as many more imaginary hands in the patch-work as the pseudocriticism may invent to hide its empty and naked impotence. Not that any prophet failed to give the word of God; but Moses, besides the divine authority which attached to what he wrote as well as spoke from Jehovah, had a divine intimacy peculiar to himself, the fruit of which is in no part of the Law more conspicuous or of richer consequence than in the book of Genesis.

Moses was the author of all these books, the single author. At their close we see him laying down his life with his pen in token of a completed work. We shall find as we go on in the study of Scripture, that this Pentateuch as it is called, (which simply means five volumes) gives us the model upon which the whole word of God is written, a key by which we can understand something of His purpose in giving us such a full revelation. I have said that they are one whole that you could not take one of them away without mutilating the rest.