Thursday, October 19, 2006

Authorship of Genesis

Who wrote Genesis? Tradition points to Moses. Can we trust tradition? What does Scripture say? In youth group last night we dug into Scripture to see whom it pointed to as the author of Genesis. First, we made some general assumptions about the author. For example:
- He had to have had a lot of alone time with God to really know the entire creation story.
- He had to be well educated. Smart.
- A Hebrew who understood the language and how to write.
- Organized.
- Thoughtful.

We dug into several Old Testament passages (mostly in Exodus) and learned:
*Click on the Scriptures to read them
- Moses was well educated in Egypt and later in the desert by God. (Exodus 2:1-10)
- He was a Hebrew. (Exodus 2)
- He had 40 days alone with God on the mountain. (Exodus 24:12-18)
- God, face to face, spoke to Moses. (Exodus 33:7-11)
- After receiving the Lord’s commands, Moses gave them all to the Israelites. (Exodus 34:32)
- Even Jesus mentions Moses as an author of Old Testament books. (Luke 24:27)
- Paul does the same thing. (Acts 26:22)

So, was Moses the author of Genesis? It seems pretty clear where the tradition comes from and why we have it. What do you think? Could it be possible that Moses had help writing some of the Old Testament books? Could it be possible he had nothing to do with writing any of the Old Testament books? What do you think?

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