Author of Genesis

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God is the principal author of the Bible. The Catechism:

vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s1c2a3.htm
105 God is the author of Sacred Scripture. "The divinely revealed realities, which are contained and presented in the text of Sacred Scripture, have been written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit."69
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"For Holy Mother Church, relying on the faith of the apostolic age, accepts as sacred and canonical the books of the Old and the New Testaments, whole and entire, with all their parts, on the grounds that, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author, and have been handed on as such to the Church herself."70
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106 God inspired the human authors of the sacred books. "To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while he employed them in this task, made full use of their own faculties and powers so that, though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more."71
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107 The inspired books teach the truth. "Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures."72
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108 Still, the Christian faith is not a “religion of the book.” Christianity is the religion of the “Word” of God, a word which is “not a written and mute word, but the Word is incarnate and living”.73 If the Scriptures are not to remain a dead letter, Christ, the eternal Word of the living God, must, through the Holy Spirit, "open [our] minds to understand the Scriptures."74
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See also the Vatican II document:

DOGMATIC CONSTITUTION ON DIVINE REVELATION ‘DEI VERBUM’
vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html
 
I think he or she was asking what human was inspired to write it down. 😉

Moses is generally thought of as the person who set it down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He is the author of the first five books of the Bible - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy - the Pentateuch.

Regarding Genesis, Moses probably had access to patriarchal records written on clay tablets by Adam, Seth, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.
 
PaulfromIowa said:
God is the principal author of the Bible. The Catechism:

vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s1c2a3.htm

See also the Vatican II document:

DOGMATIC CONSTITUTION ON DIVINE REVELATION ‘DEI VERBUM’
vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html
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In other words, it’s not important who the human author(s) of Genesis was/were, whether it was written by Moses himself (the traditional view) or whether it was a compilation of oral traditions that had been written down in bits and pieces over the centuries (the view most widely accepted by today’s Biblical scholars). The important part is that the book is inspired by God Himself.

By the way, as for Dei Verbum - this Vatican II document is included either as a preface or an appendix in most modern-day Catholic translations of the Bible, including as a preface in the New American Bible.
 
powerofk said:
In other words, it’s not important who the human author(s) of Genesis was/were, whether it was written by Moses himself (the traditional view) or whether it was a compilation of oral traditions that had been written down in bits and pieces over the centuries (the view most widely accepted by today’s Biblical scholars). The important part is that the book is inspired by God Himself.

By the way, as for Dei Verbum - this Vatican II document is included either as a preface or an appendix in most modern-day Catholic translations of the Bible, including as a preface in the New American Bible.
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Well, the whole Bible was written under the guidance of the Holy Spirit; I think we all know that.
 
Lily_Bernans said:
It’s in my Catholic study bible; you’d have to take exception with the authors of that commentary
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Moses is *traditionally * recognized as the author of the first five books of the Bible but scholars recognize many hands and many different literary styles in Genesis that strongly work against the idea of a single author.
 
Tim_D said:
Moses is *traditionally * recognized as the author of the first five books of the Bible but scholars recognize many hands and many different literary styles in Genesis that strongly work against the idea of a single author.
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Yes, of course. I have no problem referring to the Books of Moses (the Torah), but knowing perfectly well that the entire five books were a collaboration over many generations. Personally I still pretty much go with the JEPD (and C) theory. I use the Anchor Bible Series and find that E. A. Speiser’s work on Genesis still stands.
 
The Church doesn’t have one official position as to the authorship. From what I’ve seen, it encourages the more traditional approach (Moses) as the source insofar as there isn’t evidence otherwise. However, many also argue to that texts we have today did not exist until after thr Babylonian Exile.

As a complete layman on the topic with no scholarly education on the matter, I favor the idea that the text we have today received their final form/editing through and after the Exile, but that they weren’t made then from scratch, but were taken from oral and written sources that long predated the Exile but have since been lost.
 
thistle said:
If your study Bible is the NAB you would have to take the notes with a pinch of salt.
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Actually, the notes (and prefaces to each book) of the NAB generally deny that Moses wrote Genesis, stating instead that the Pentateuch/Torah was written by compilation from several traditions (what they call the Yahwist, Elohist, Priestly, and Deuteronomic sources) and then put together to make a continuous narrative. This is noticed by ever so slight discrepencies in the text, especially in Genesis (for example, two stories of creation; the animals going into Noah’s ark - in one place, there is one pair of each species, while in another, there is one pair of each unclean species, but seven pairs of each clean species; three incidents of the wife-sister problem: Abraham and Sarah with Pharoah, Abraham and Sarah with Ahimilech, and Isaac and Rebekah with Ahimelech, etc.)
 
thistle said:
If your study Bible is the NAB you would have to take the notes with a pinch of salt.
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It’s not the footnotes she’s talking about; it’s the particular commentary for that particular “Catholic study Bible”. So, no need to go bashing the big, bad, evil NAB… :rolleyes:

I Googled the phrase “Moses probably had access to patriarchal records written on clay tablets by Adam, Seth, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob”, and found that it shows up – nearly verbatim! – in a number of places. However, these are all non-Catholic sites, and they teach a certain fundamentalism that the Catholic Church does not teach.

That’s why it would be interesting to learn the name of the Catholic Study Bible that teaches things this way – since that teaching (of ‘patriarchal records’ and ‘clay tablets’) isn’t particularly what the Church teaches… 🤷
 
Thankyou everybody that provided such thought provoking information re my query who wrote Genesis! Nyika
 
I agree with the traditional belief that Moses wrote most of it. Though it could’ve been edited by later inspired Authors. Also it doesn’t go against the Church’s teaching to believe Moses used clay tablets.

God Bless
 
rabbitdonkey said:
I agree with the traditional belief that Moses wrote most of it. Though it could’ve been edited by later inspired Authors. Also it doesn’t go against the Church’s teaching to believe Moses used clay tablets.

God Bless
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If that makes you feel better, then go for it.
 
The Holy Bible, and the opinions about it, is an interesting study. Especially from the protestant perspective since it is their only source of doctrine. From the King James Only crowd to the modern critical translations it is interesting to read the verbal sparring about translations and base texts.my own personal favorite is the Douay-Rheims Challoner edition, although some ultratrad groups dispute that edition as not acurate to the original.
As to the OP, I believe Moses wrote Genesis as well as the majority of the other first five books. But it is obvious that other hands have been involved in adding to the books over time. Scribes, both Hebrew and Catholic, have hand translated Scripture for centuries until the printing press. It would be foolish to believe that a word here or there was not omitted or added.
But i do believe that the message that God intended for us to receive has never changed.
 
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