Untitled Sermon

genesis

Holman QuickSource Guide to Understanding the Bible Author and Date of Writing

Author and Date of Writing:

Moses, perhaps around 1445 B.C.

The book is technically anonymous. On the other hand, according to uniform Jewish and early Christian belief, the first five books of the Bible were written by Moses. Collectively these five books are called the Torah (Hebrew), the Pentateuch (Greek), or the Law (English). Both Jesus and Paul affirmed that Moses wrote the Law (

A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Exodus 1–18, Volumes 1 & 2 a. Medieval Jewish Manuscripts

There are earlier manuscripts which contain just the Pentateuch (or most of it), among which ms. Or. 4445 of the British Library (B) is especially important and highly regarded. The original text of over three-quarters of Genesis and most of Deuteronomy (with any colophons which there may have been) no longer survives (it was replaced in the sixteenth cent.), but the whole of Exodus is intact. It conforms only a little less closely than mss A and L to the Ben Asher pattern. It was once regarded as the very oldest Masoretic manuscript, from the ninth century, and Dotan (who has made a special study of it) still inclines to this view; but others including Yeivin (p. 19) prefer a date c. 925