Editing Book of Genesis (section)

== Composition ==
{{Main|Composition of the Torah}}

Genesis was written anonymously, but both Jewish and Christian religious tradition attributes the entire [[Pentateuch]]—Genesis, [[Book of Exodus|Exodus]], [[Leviticus]], [[Book of Numbers|Numbers]] and [[Deuteronomy]]—to [[Moses]]. During the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]], the philosophers [[Benedict Spinoza]] and [[Thomas Hobbes]] questioned [[Mosaic authorship]]. In the 17th century, [[Richard Simon (priest)|Richard Simon]] proposed that the Pentateuch was written by multiple authors over a long period of time.{{sfn|Van Seters|1998|p=5}} The involvement of multiple authors is suggested by internal contradictions within the text. For example, Genesis includes [[Genesis creation narrative|two creation narratives]].{{Sfn|Longman|2005|pp=47–48}}

At the end of the 19th century, most scholars adopted the [[documentary hypothesis]].{{Sfn|Davies|1998|p=19}} This theory held that the five books of the Pentateuch came from four sources: the [[Yahwist]] (abbreviated as J), the [[Elohist]] (E), the [[Deuteronomist]] (D) and the [[Priestly source]] (P). Each source was held to tell the same basic story, with the sources later combined by various editors.{{sfn|Gooder|2000|pp=12–14}} Scholars were able to distinguish sources based on the designations for God. For example, the Yahwist source uses Yahweh, while the Elohistic and Priestly sources use Elohim.{{sfn|Van Seters|1998|p=9}} Scholars also use repeated and duplicate stories to identify separate sources. In Genesis, these include the two creation stories, three different [[Wife–sister narratives in the Book of Genesis|wife–sister narratives]], and the two versions of [[Abraham]] sending [[Hagar]] and [[Ishmael]] into the desert.{{Sfn|Boadt|Clifford|Harrington|2012}}{{page needed|date=March 2024}}

According to the documentary hypothesis, J was produced during the 9th century BC in the southern [[Kingdom of Judah]] and was believed to be the earliest source. E was written in the [[northern Kingdom of Israel]] during the 8th century BC. D was written in Judah in the 7th century BC and associated with the [[Josiah#Religious reform|religious reforms of King Josiah]] {{circa|625 BC}}. The latest source was P, which was written during the 5th century in [[Babylon]]. Based on these dates, Genesis and the rest of the Pentateuch did not reach its final, present-day form until after the Babylonian Exile. [[Julius Wellhausen]] argued that the Pentateuch was finalized in the time of [[Ezra]]. [[Ezra 7]]:14 records that Ezra traveled from Babylon to Jerusalem in 458 BC with God's law in his hand. Wellhausen argued that this was the newly compiled Pentateuch. [[Nehemiah 8]]–[[Nehemiah 10|10]], according to Wellhausen, describes the publication and public acceptance of this new law code {{circa|444 BC}}.{{Sfn|Davies|1998|p=19}}{{sfn|Van Seters|1998|p=9}} There was now a large gap between the earliest sources of the Pentateuch and the period they claimed to describe, which ended {{circa|1200 BC}}.{{Sfn|Davies|1998|p=20}}

Most scholars held to the documentary hypothesis until the 1980s. Since then, a number of variations and revisions of the documentary hypothesis have been proposed.{{Sfn|Longman|2005|p=49}} The [[Supplementary hypothesis|new supplementary hypothesis]] posits three main sources for the Pentateuch: J, D, and P.{{sfn|Van Seters|1998|p=14}} The E source is considered no more than a variation of J, and P is considered a body of revisions and expansions to the J (or "non-Priestly") material. The Deuteronomistic source does not appear in Genesis.{{sfn|Van Seters|2004|pp=30–86}} More recent thinking is that J dates from either just before or during the Babylonian Exile, and the Priestly final edition was made late in the Exilic period or soon after.{{Sfn|Davies|1998|p=37}} Russell Gmirkin argues that Genesis was composed in the late 270s BC, drawing on Greek sources like [[Berossus]]' [[Babyloniaca (Berossus)|Babyloniaca]] and reflecting the political context of the [[Seleucid]] and [[Ptolemaic dynasty|Ptolemaic]] realms.{{sfn|Gmirkin|2006|pp=240–241}}

As for why the book was created, a theory which has gained considerable interest, although still controversial, is that of Persian imperial authorisation. This proposes that the Persians of the [[Achaemenid Empire]], after their conquest of Babylon in 539&nbsp;BC, agreed to grant Jerusalem a large measure of local autonomy within the empire, but required the local authorities to produce a single law code accepted by the entire community. The two powerful groups making up the community—the priestly families who controlled the [[Second Temple]] and who [[Myth of origins|traced their origin]] to Moses and the wilderness wanderings, and the major landowning families who made up the "elders" and who traced their own origins to Abraham, who had "given" them the land—were in conflict over many issues, and each had its own "history of origins". However, the Persian promise of greatly increased local autonomy for all provided a powerful incentive to cooperate in producing a single text.{{sfn|Ska|2006|pp=169, 217–218}}