GENESIS, Book of. Num.—The book of Genesis is the first of the so-called "Five Books of Moses" or the "Pentateuch" (q.v.),, which constitutes the first division of the He brew Bible. Its Hebrew name is Bireshith, "In Beginning,* after the opening word of the book in Hebrew. The designation Genesis, meaning "Generation" or "Origin," is derived from the translation of Genesis ii, 4a in the early Greek translation known as the Septuagint (q.v.), and is meant to be descriptive of the contents of the books.
The book of Genesis falls nat urally into two parts: I. The beginning of all things (i, 9)- II. The stories of Patriarchs xxi, 111-4, 26). All ancient peoples sought answers t6 tile questions, Whence came the World? Whence came Man? How did sin come into the world? How did differ ent languages and races arise? etc. Genesis i, 1-xi, 9, contains the answers of Hebrew religious thinkers to these questions. The chap ters tell of the creation of heaven and earth, man's original habitation, the entrance of sin into the world, the beginnings of civilization, and the growth of population. The spread of sin and wickedness, following the develop ment of civilization, was punished by a flood which destroyed the human race, with the ex ception of one family; the descendants of this family repeopled the earth and gave rise to various nations and races.
From the beginning of things in general the book passes to the beginnings of the Hebrew people, in which the author is primarily inter ested. The Hebrews possess numerous char acteristics common to the group of nations called the Semitic race. The racial relations of the Hebrews are briefly touched upon in xi, 10-26, which traces the genealogy of Shem down to Abraham, whose migration from southern Babylonia (Ur of the Chaldees, commonly identified with the modern Mukayyar, near the Euphrates, about 125 miles northwest of the Persian Gulf) to Canaan marks the first nings of the Hebrew people. The rest of the book consists of narratives centring around the three patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and around Joseph, the favorite son of Jacob. (The book gives "Abram"as the origins name of the first patriarch; the change to "Abraham" was due, according to the popular etymologyrn xvii, 5, to the promise that the tearer of the name was to become the father of a multitude of nations).
The lives of the men named are narrated with considerable fullness, down to the. descent of the family of Jacob into Egypt, with an ac-. count of which the book closes. The connect. ing bond throughout is the promise to Abraham (xii, 1-3) and the covenant based upon it, the unfolding of which is exhibited in the lives of the patriarchs and in the rise of the twelve tribes. The successive steps in the development are connected, and the interest is concentrated, by the use of the formula, "These are 0.e gener ations of": Shem, xi, 10; Terah (Abraham), xi, 27; Ishmael, xxv, 12; Isaac, xxv, 19; Esau, xxxvi, 1, 9; Jacob, xxxvii, 2.
Composition.— In its present form Genesis is a compilation of material taken from three originally separate sources, commonly desig nated by the letters J, E and P. (For proofs of this assertion and for the significance of these symbols see article PENTATEUCH). Mate rial from J and P is found throughout the entire book E does not appear to any extent until chapter xx, though some extracts are found in chapter xv. J comes from the 9th century, E from the 8th and P from the 6th or 5th. Though not without distinguishing characteris tics, in substance of tradition as also in manner of treatment J and E closely resemble each other —due in large part to the fact that both come from the creative age of prophetic nar ration; hence it is not always easy to disen tangle them; on the other hand, P is easily dis tinguished from the JE elements.
J is a first class narrator; in vigor, simplic ity and artistic skill he is without equal in the Old Testament; the style of E is perhaps a little more terse than that of J, and at times may lack the spontaneous charm and strength of the other; but on the whole it is not easy to tell where the E narratives are inferior to J. The style of P is cold, precise, stereotyped and prosaic. (For a more complete characteriza tion of the several documents and a discussion of the manner of compilation see article PEN TATEUCH ; for an analysis of the book of Gene sis according to the several sources consult any modern commentary or Old Testament Intro duction. The contents of each source are re produced consecutively in Kent, C. F., 'The Student's Old Testament' ; Carpenter and Bat tersby, 'The Hexateuch' ; Brightman, E 'The Sources of the Hexateuch').