Deovox

Genesis Further Study

A few brief words on authorship

As you may know, there is dispute regarding the authorship of Genesis. Tradition ascribes the book to Moses, but in the 19th century, a theory arose attributing the first five books of the Bible to four different authors. It's variously called the Documentary Hypothesis, the Wellhausen theory, or simply the JEDP theory.

Deovox makes no comment on these theories. Nor do we attribute the book to Moses. The wording used is "the writer of Genesis." The reason for this is that deovox is a devotional. Discussion of authorship is an important component of biblical studies, but in a format like deovox, it would become a distraction from the main focus. However, we strongly encourage any rigorous study of the Bible that addresses such questions.

RECOMMENDED READING                                         

FEATURED BOOK

The NIV Application Commentary: Genesis. John Walton. Zondervan. 2001.

This series of commentaries links discussion of the biblical text to a life application. It's helpful to supplement a reading of this commentary with one of the texts below to provide some balance.

FURTHER READING

A book that is very strong on the contemporary parallel myths to Genesis.  This book is now considered a classic.

This commentary takes the reader verse by verse through the first chapters of Genesis. However, each chapter also has a section in which the author provides a short summary, so the reader can choose whether to dig deep, or simply get a helpful overview. Gordon Wenham is a first rate scholar.

A shorter commentary than the ones above. Insightful and helpful. 

RECOMMENDED PODCASTS

Chris Tweitmann serves as Associate Pastor of John Knox Presbyterian Church in Seattle, WA.  His podcast is a broadcast of his sermons. Some of them deal with the book of Genesis.

http://www.coramdeo.typepad.com/podcasts 

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