Beginning with Moses and the Prophets
The Book of Beginnings - An Intro, Part II
Luke 24:27, 44; Exodus 17:14a; Deuteronomy 31:24; Romans 10:5; John 5:45-47
Introduction
Genesis is about grace – Amazing Grace – The main theme of Genesis could be summed up in Paul’s observation in Romans 5:20 – Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more-
Genesis breath’s God’s grace & provides us with the grand revelation of His faithfulness –
We’re given a clear view that when His people are faithless, become a threat to the fulfillment of His promises, He none the less remains faithful.
Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 2:13, if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.
The bulk of Genesis declares strongly our sinfulness. You see the best of the patriarchs as being helpless, hopeless sinners -
Not one of them comes to salvation by merit. Moses makes it quite clear so that we understand that salvation from the very start comes through faith only; in Genesis 15: 1-6 –
After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
Faithfulness is a primary reality about God – It is the reality of Genesis – It’s nothing new, but it is everything.
Transition – ‘Who Wrote the Accounts in Genesis?
The Holy Spirit
As with all the other books of Scripture, Genesis has in common with them the fact that they were written under the inspiration / the guidance of the Holy Spirit – In his second letter Peter records - no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. (1:21) – and as is with all the other books of Scripture it’s “ . . . inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; (2 Timothy 3:16).
The question though, pops up as to whom exactly were the men moved by the Holy Spirit to write the great words of the Book of Genesis?
Just like Ripley’s ‘Believe it or Not’ there have been some suggestions in attempts to answer this.
Various Authors After Moses
Liberal theologians & commentators, along with not so few conservatives followed the theory of a number of unknown writers/editors from around the time of Hezekiack to Ezra the scribe, compiled & edited several old legends & traditions verbally transmitted not just by the Israeli ancestors but also by the Egyptians, Babylonians, & others into the Book of Genesis.
They let circulate that it all came down from Moses so there would more authority invested in them with the equal authority of their great Law giver.
This is called the “Documentary Hypothesis” – It has been applied to all the other books of the Pentateuch & to Joshua.
It’s called the J.E.P.D. Hypothesis – The Letters stand for the supposed group of writers of each of the sections represented by the letters.
[In your insert it has the breakdown]
It’s called a patch work approach because of their commitment to the evolutionary concept of development. The so called “higher critics” / scholars, were convinced that man hadn’t evolved to the culture as is described in Genesis until much later than the time of Moses and in fact, Moses couldn’t have written any part of Genesis or the Pentateuch because writing was unknown in his days. Now there’s much more but that entails more than the purpose of this message/series.
Moses as the Author
Most conservative scholars accept Moses as the author, as having written Genesis- That’s been the uniform tradition of Jewish scribes & the Church Fathers. Genesis as the first book of the Pentateuch, followed by the others: Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers & Deuteronomy – these five making up the Law.
Jesus Himself apparently accepted this view – “beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures. . . He said to them, “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms”
All right then, let’s go with the assumption that Moses wrote Genesis – the questions then comes up as to the method Moses received & then transmitted the book of Genesis.
Three possibilities are given:
One, He got it all by direct revelation from God, either in audible words dictated by God and transcribed by him, or in visions of great events in the past and then he put them down in his own words, subconsciously guided by the Holy Spirit;
Two, He got it all by oral tradition, that is word of mouth, passed down over the centuries, then collected all the stories and wrote them down; again guided by the Holy Spirit;
And three, he could have taken actual written records of the past, collected them & brought them all together into a final form; again as guided by the Holy Spirit.
Any one of these methods would be consistent with the doctrine that each word, not just the general concept or ideas, was chosen meaningfully under the superintendence, supervision, of God; God specifically chose each & every word & consistent with the authorship of Moses - It’s called “plenary verbal inspiration”, if you wish to know.
The first two methods – direct revelation & oral traditions collected and later written do not have any parallel in the canon of scripture –
Genesis is in the form of a narrative of historical events – parallels of this are found in Kings, Chronicles, Acts – Where the writer collected documents & edited them or else recorded the events which he witnessed himself or had ascertained from others who were witnesses; Luke’s writing of the gospel and Acts.
Evidence does favor the explanations that Moses did write Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, and compiled & edited the material of the book of Genesis.
This in no way diminishes the work of the Holy Spirit, who infallibly guided him in this laborious compilation & editing, as He, the Holy Spirit, would do for the compiler of Kings and Chronicles.
There is one caveat; Moses would have had a hard time writing the last chapter of Deuteronomy, which describes his death.
The late fifteenth century BC is the time pointed to as following the Exodus when Israel wander through the wilderness – During these wanderings, as they dreamed of the promise land, they probably asked about Abraham, the patriarchs, those who brought them to Egypt – they asked about their ultimate origins.
So God met Moses with His word & not only gives him Genesis, but the five books, the first five books of the Bible.
As we consider the opening lines of Genesis, let’s keep in mind that Israel just escaped the oppressive polytheism of Egypt’s temples, the pyramids, its Solar & Lunar gods.
In Egypt, the pagan mythologies opposed Israel’s monotheism.
There are historians and biblical archeologist that question Israel’s monotheism. I’ve been watching, what has become my favorite network thanks to Richard, Netflix, a documentary called “The Bible’s Buried Secrets”. It is good but they question the biblical account of Israel being monotheistic because of the archeological evidence that they worshipped other gods. And as you know, Israel did follow the way of Jeroboam and set up idols and even old Solomon to please his wives built temples and altars to the gods of his wives.
The Israelites brought with them from Egypt what many had succumbed to, that is the liturgies of the false gods of Egypt.
Moses, though, goes head first against the many god’s and in the opening lines he establishes forever a true understanding about God, the universe, & humanity.
Moses starts off with a sweeping & radical proclamation of monotheism over polytheism –
He didn’t condescend, patronize, nor look down on by mentioning anything about the pagan world view, but answered with solemn utterances, that were deliberate, that dismissed the opposing sciences of the origin of everything by subtle allusions & silence – He starts by just saying, “In the beginning, God created the heavens & the earth. The earth was formless & void. There was no definite form or shape, there was nothing. (vv 1,2).
The Issue of Interpretation
First off, some commentators, liberals & neo-orthodox, do by rejecting the historicity of what is recorded, make Genesis out to be written as an allegory.
Jesus accepted Genesis as literal recorded history – Those scholars of today that say otherwise are arrogantly correcting Jesus and the Apostles on this matter.
Joseph’s dreams for example, were ‘symbols’ which represented real events – they weren’t allegories nor where they described as such.
Many take Paul’s reference to Sara & Hagar in Gal. 4:24 as allegory and then think that this warrants approaching Genesis allegorically. But that’s not so – Paul is using spiritual principle on how God dealt with Abraham, his wives & sons to illustrate how God deals with all men.
Paul is making an allegorical application NOT an interpretation – Abraham, Isaac, Sara, Hagar were real people, living in real time to Paul – the context demonstrates it.
All the events recorded in Genesis really happened to real people – Paul can therefore draw on this fact his conclusions as to a spiritual application as they relate to God’s plan for man.
Anticipation of Eternity
Genesis is also important not just as a history of man’s origin, but as a prophecy of man’s future – The book of Revelation should be taken literally as Genesis – If one book is allegorical then what’s to keep the others from being the same. We touched on that last week, if Adam & Eve are fiction characters, what keeps Jesus Christ, the second Adam from being?
We have in Genesis, Paradise Lost which becomes Paradise Regained in Revelation.
The first chapters describe a perfect world made for man & his dominion – If man hadn’t sinned, he would have continued to rule & develop that perfect world for man’s good & God’s glory.
God can’t be defeated in His purpose even though sin & the curse have intruded for a time; we can darn well be sure that ALL that God intended in the beginning will be consummated.
The earth is going to be restored to its original perfection & will continue eternally – Sin, the curse will be removed and death will be no more.
One can compare the events & people in Genesis & Revelation, it’s instructive.
Learn about the original world in Revelation & the final world by studying Genesis – they are essentially the same, but not quite the same; in the first world man wasn’t tested, though sinless – The first was suited as a probationary world even though it was perfect & no flaws.
In the final world, man, having experienced sin & failure, has also experienced redemption & renewal.
He will have been made perfect & eternal, so his world will be made perfect & unchanging, out of the aspects of probation – equipped fully, appropriate & equipped fully & ideally for man’s eternal home in the presence of God, his creator & savior –
Along with these in the insert, there are many other reasons as to why an understanding of Genesis is vital to an understanding of the eternal purpose of God. God’s Amazing Grace!!
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