GENESIS, BOOK OF. The name of the first book of the first division of the Hebrew Canon of the Old Testa ment (q.v.) is in the Hebrew Bible " Bershith." This is the opening word of the book, " In-the-beginning." In the Septuagint. the title is " Genesis kosmou " or " Be ginning of the World." The common abbreviation of this, " Genesis " (cp. Philo, De Abraham°, § 1), has sug gested the title which the book bears in the English Bible. The book has two main divisions. The first, chapters i.-xi. 26, gives the Primaeval History of Man kind, including stories of the Creation, of a great Flood, of the dispersion of peoples, etc. The second, chapters xi. 27-1., gives the History of the Ancestors and Patri archs of the Israelites, including stories of Joseph's adventures in Egypt. The work is composite, having been compiled from the Priestly History and Law-book (P) and the Prophetic (or Popular) History (JE). The compiler himself has made alterations and additions. G. F. Moore points out that the Genesis of P was much shorter than the account of the same period in JE. Within JE it is often possible to separate the two inde pendent documents J and E. As S. R. Driver says, " the method of the compiler, who combined J and E together, was sometimes, it would seem, to extract an entire narrative from one or other of these sources (as xx. 1-17 from E; xxiv. from J); sometimes, while taking a narrative as a whole from one source, to incorporate with it notices derived from the other; and sometimes to construct his narrative of materials derived from each source in nearly equal proportion." The use of different documents is proved not only by striking linguistic differences, but also by the presence of duplicate narra tives. There is a double account of the creation, for instance (ch. i. 1-ii. 4 a and eh. ii. 4 b-25). Compare also eh. vi. 9-13 with vi. 5-S, vii. 1-5 with vi. 18-22, viii. 20-22 with ix. 8-17, xv. with xvii., xx. with xxvi. 1-11, xxi. 22-32 with xxvi. 12-31, xxviii. 10-22 with xxxv. 9-15, xxxii. 22-32 with xxxv. 9-13, xxxvi. 15-19 with xxxvi. 40-43. The
composite character of the Book of Genesis ha's long been recognized. A more recent discovery has been that there are remarkable parallels to some of its stories in the literature of Babylonia, Egypt, and Persia. The Baby lonians had similar traditions about Creation and a Deluge (see DELUGE-STORY, BABYLONIAN). The Egyptian Tale of Two Brothers resembles the story of Joseph in Genesis (see Eneycl. Bibl., s.v. " Joseph "). There are now a number of scholars who hold that the traditions and institutions of Israel were powerfully influenced by the culture of Babylonia. But even when this is admitted, it is claimed that the Israelite version of the Flood (for instance) " is no mere copy of the Assyrian-Babylonian, for the biblical narrative is stamped by the genuine characteristics of the Israelite spirit " (K. Marti, Religion of the O.T.). A comparison of the traditions of other peoples raises the whole quest ion of the character of the Book of Genesis as a his torical source. It cannot be regarded as history in the modern sense of the term, that is to say, as " an authentic record of actual events based on documents contem porary, or nearly contemporary, with the facts narrated" (Skinner). But if it be regarded as a collection of legends, there are, nevertheless, as Prof. Skinner says, three ways in which such legends may yield sound his torical results. " In the first place, a legend may embody a more or less exact recollection of the fact in which it originated. In the second place, a legend, though an historical in form, may furnish material from which history can be extracted. Thirdly, the collateral evidence of archaeology may bring to light a cor respondence which gives a historical significance to the legend." See Encycl. Bibl.; Carpenter and Battersby, Hex.; W. H. Bennett, Genesis in the " Century Bible "; S. R. Driver, The Book of Genesis, 7th ed., 1909; A. R. Gordon, The Early Traditions of Genesis, 1907; John Skinner. Commentary on Genesis, 1910; G. H. Box, Intr.: O. C. Whitehouse.