Book of Genesis

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The Book of Genesis redirects here. For the comics, see The Book of Genesis
(comics).

The Creation of Man by Ephraim Moses Lilien, 1903

Jacob flees Laban by Charles Foster, 1897

Joshua 11 as recorded in the Aleppo Codex
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The Book of Genesis (from the Latin Vulgate, in turn borrowed or transliterated
from Greek ???es??, meaning Coming into Being; Hebrew ????????????, B?rei?, In
[the] beginning) is the first book of the Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh) and the
Christian Old Testament.[1]

The basic narrative of the Book of Genesis is centered around a few themes God, the
creation of the world, the creation of Adam and Eve and how man was appointed as
the regent of God. Later on the book describes man's disobedience of God, and the
exile of Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden.

The book continues to describe how God destroyed the world through the Flood. The
new post-Flood world is also corrupt. God does not destroy it, instead calling one
man, Abraham, to be the seed of its salvation. At God's command Abraham descends
from his home into the land of Canaan, given to him by God, where he dwells as a
sojourner, as does his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob. Jacob's name is changed to
Israel, and through the agency of his son Joseph, the children of Israel descend
into Egypt, 70 people in all with their households, and God promises them a future
of greatness. Genesis ends with Israel in Egypt, ready for the coming of Moses and
the Exodus. The narrative is punctuated by a series of covenants with God,
successively narrowing in scope from all mankind (the covenant with Noah) to a
special relationship with one people alone (Abraham and his descendants through
Isaac and Jacob).[2]

The book's author or authors appear to have structured it around ten toledot
sections (the these are the generations of... phrases), but modern commentators see
it in terms of a primeval history (chapters 111) followed by the cycle of
Patriarchal stories (chapters 1250).[3] In Judaism, the theological importance of
Genesis centers on the covenants linking God to his chosen people and the people to
the Promised Land. Christianity has interpreted Genesis as the prefiguration of
certain cardinal Christian beliefs, primarily the need for salvation (the hope or
assurance of all Christians) and the redemptive act of Christ on the Cross as the
fulfillment of covenant promises as the Son of God.

Tradition credits Moses as the author of Genesis, as well as Exodus, Book of

Leviticus, Numbers and most of Book of Deuteronomy, but modern scholars
increasingly see them as a product of the 6th and 5th centuries BC.[4][5]

Contents [hide]
1 Structure
2 Summary
3 Composition
3.1 Title and textual witnesses
3.2 Origins
3.3 Genre
4 Themes
4.1 Promises to the ancestors
4.2 God's chosen people
5 Judaism's weekly Torah portions
6 First phrase
7 See also
8 Notes
9 References
10 Bibliography
10.1 Commentaries on Genesis
10.2 General
11 External links
Structure[edit]
Genesis appears to be structured around the recurring phrase elleh toledot, meaning
these are the generations, with the first use of the phrase referring to the
generations of heaven and earth and the remainder marking individualsNoah, the
sons of Noah, Shem, etc., down to Jacob.[6] It is not clear, however, what this
meant to the original authors, and most modern commentators divide it into two
parts based on subject matter, a primeval history (chapters 111) and a patriarchal
history (chapters 1250).[7][note 1][note 2] While the first is far shorter than
the second, it sets out the basic themes and provides an interpretive key for
understanding the entire book.[9] The primeval history has a symmetrical structure
hinging on chapters 69, the flood story, with the events before the flood mirrored
by the events after.[10]

Summary[edit]
See also Primeval history and Patriarchal age

The Angel Hinders the Offering of Isaac (Rembrandt, 1635)

God creates the world in six days and consecrates the seventh as a day of rest. God
creates the first humans Adam and Eve and all the animals in the Garden of Eden but
instructs them not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. A
talking serpent portrayed as a deceptive creature or trickster, entices Eve into
eating it anyway, and she entices Adam, whereupon God curses them and throws them
out in the fall of man. Eve bears two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain kills Abel after
God accepts Abel's offering but not Cain's. God then curses Cain. Eve bears another
son, Seth, to take Abel's place.

After many generations of Adam have passed from the lines of Cain and Seth, the
world becomes corrupted by the sin of man and Nephilim, and God determines to wipe
out mankind. First, he instructs the righteous Noah and his family to build a huge
boat and put examples of all the animals on it. Then God sends a great flood to
wipe out the rest of the world. When the waters recede, God promises that he will
not destroy the world a second time with water with the rainbow as the symbol of
his promise. But upon seeing mankind cooperating to build a great tower city, the
Tower of Babel, God divides humanity with many languages and sets them apart with
confusion.

God instructs Abram to travel from his home in Mesopotamia to the land of Canaan.
There, God makes a covenant with Abram, promising that his descendants shall be as
numerous as the stars, but that people will suffer oppression in a foreign land for
four hundred years, after which they will inherit the land from the river of Egypt
to the great river, the river Euphrates. Abram's name is changed to Abraham and
that of his wife Sarai to Sarah, and circumcision of all males is instituted as the
sign of the covenant. Because Sarah is old, she tells Abraham to take her Egyptian
handmaiden, Hagar, as a second wife. Through Hagar, Abraham fathers Ishmael.

God resolves to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for the sins of their
people. Abraham protests and gets God to agree not to destroy the cities if 10
righteous men can be found. Angels save Abraham's nephew Lot and his family, but
his wife looks back on the destruction against their command and is turned into a
pillar of salt. Lot's daughters, concerned that they are fugitives who will never
find husbands, get him drunk to become pregnant by him, and give birth to the
ancestors of the Moabites and Ammonites.

Abraham and Sarah go to the Philistine town of Gerar, pretending to be brother and
sister (they are half-siblings). The King of Gerar takes Sarah for his wife, but
God warns him to return