Who Wrote Genesis?

By faith Abraham the Hebrew claimed the promises of God.

Alice C. Linsley


Who wrote Genesis? That important question can’t be answered definitely as there is much we don’t know about the dating of the material. However, an inter-disciplinary approach to the question offers some satisfying, if not fully verifiable, answers. In this essay we consider the challenges when trying to date the authorship of the Book of Genesis.


Dating the Genesis “Prehistory”

Attempts to date the so-called “primeval history” of Genesis require shifting through layers of material. There are the creation narratives which have their closest parallels among African narratives. Some of those stories are older than the Bible itself. Elements of those stories are found in the Genesis creation narratives and are likely received from the early Hebrew (4200-2000 BC).

Then there is the question of dating the Hebrew rulers listed in Genesis 4, 5, 10, 11, 25 and 36. These are all members of the Hebrew ruler-priest caste. That can be verified by the fact that all of these rulers share a common kinship pattern which is characterized by caste endogamy. That means that Hebrew people married only Hebrew people. Further, great thought was given to the selection of marriage partners. (See Marriage Partner Selection Among the Hebrew.)

The Hebrew caste was organized into two ritual groups (moieties), the Horite Hebrew and the Sethite Hebrew. Funerary texts collected in the Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts (2400-2000 BC) make it clear that the Horites and the Sethites maintained separate settlements. Utterance 308 addresses them as separate entities: "Hail to you, Horus in the Horite Mounds! Hail to you, Horus in the Sethite Mounds!" PT Utterance 470 contrasts the Horite mounds with the Sethite mounds, designating the Horite Mounds "the High Mounds." (See Competition Between the Horites and Sethites.)

The Horite and Sethite Hebrew were devotees of HR (Horus in Greek), the archetype of the Son of God. He was also the patron of high kings. The oldest known site of Horite Hebrew worship was at Nekhen on the Nile (4000 BC). It was a city dedicated to Horus whose totem was the falcon.

Long before Judaism emerged, the Hebrew had dispersed across the ancient Near East and parts of Africa. 

Analysis of the social structure of the early Hebrew indicates a hierarchy of sons. The Hebrew marriage and ascendancy pattern that led to this hierarchy is already evident in Genesis 4 and 5. (See the Lamech Segment Analysis.)

The early Hebrew organization for mutual defense was the 3-clan confederation. The idea of 12 tribes developed much later under Judaism. Some of the 3-clan confederations are:

Cain, Abel, Seth

Shem, Ham, Japheth

Nahor, Abraham, Haran

Uz, Huz, Buz

Og, Gog, Magog (Gen. 10 and Nu. 21:33)

Korah, Aaron, Moses

The Hebrew confederation of 3 sons only makes sense when we recognize that these sons share the same father but have different mothers. (See Hebrew Rulers with Two Wives.)

The primary loyalty of the firstborn son of the first wife (usually a half-sister as was Sarah to Abraham) was to his father and his mother. That son was the Hebrew ruler's proper heir (as was Issac to Abraham.)

The loyalty of the firstborn son of the second wife (usually a patrilineal cousin as was Keturah to Abraham) was to his father and the clan of his mother. His son belonged to the household of his maternal grandfather and sometimes served as a high official in the territory of his maternal grandfather, as did Joseph in Egypt. (See Royal Sons and Their Maternal Uncles.)

The first loyalty of the firstborn son of a concubine depended on the status of his mother. This explains why concubines sometimes tried to usurp the rights of the firstborn sons of the ruler's two wives. Likely, this is the reality behind the story of Sarah's conflict with Hagar.

A Bedouin proverb summarizes the order of loyalty. 

I against my brother.
I and my brother against my cousin.
I, my brother, and my cousin against the world.

The final hand on the Book of Genesis recognized the 3-clan confederation pattern but attempted to shape the material to fit a Jewish narrative involving the land holdings of 12 tribes in Canaan and Transjordan. 

In other words, the final editorial hand on Genesis was an adherent of Judaism, a religion that emerged long after the time of the Hebrew rulers listed above. His religion and cultural context were quite different. Rabbi Stephen F. Wise, former Chief Rabbi of the United States, explains: "The return from Babylon and the introduction of the Babylonian Talmud mark the end of Hebrewism and the beginning of Judaism.”

Related reading: Hebrew, Israelite or Jew?; The Substance of Abraham's Faith; The Religious Symbolism of Green Malachite; Why the Name Jesus?; Reading Genesis as Verifiable History; BIBLICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: Midrash in Genesis