i got this person badgering me to ask you all a question so here goes. The book of Genesis to what time period

Answer 1

Huh? Are you asking what time period does it cover? If that is the question, then the events in Genesis END around what would be 1700BC. Abraham and his sons and grandsons (chapters 12 to 50) would have been comtemporary to the Sumerian Tablets. In fact, the Tablets have a refer to them. (So yes, there were written languages at the time of Moses and before that. We have thousands of still existing documents from that time.)

The first 11 chapters cover the time before that back to creation. If you accept the Bible chronology, the first 3 chapters of Genesis would be around 4000 BC. Chapters 4-11 cover the time from there to around 1700 BC.

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If you are asking what time period was Genesis written in, that is a different question. The most conservative scholars place the authoring of Genesis around 1500 BC, and accredit it to Moses.

There are quotes from Genesis in other literature and in inscriptions that can be traced back to at least 1100 BC. But these are few and only cover a couple percent of the material. They could mean that Genesis existed then, or it could mean that the quoted sources would eventually become part of Genesis (the quotes were put into the book).

More liberal scholars place the creation of the book of Genesis to a time after the Exile, around 450 BC. It is an established fact that at this time the Jewish Torah was officially cannonitized. Whether it was "redactored" (meaning edited) at that time or not is another issue.

For certain, the book of Genesis as we know it today was in existence by 450 BC. We have manuscripts from that time to prove it. There is evidence to argue its existence before that, but no manuscripts from that time remain.

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Hope one of those was the question you were trying to ask...

Answer 2

Time period on this one is virtually meaningless. The book itself is a whole lot more recent than many imagine, only dating to the codification of the Torah by Ezra the Scribe AFTER the Babylonian exile. Moses and the Exodus was about 1250 BCE. Genesis contains a very wide variety of materials and separate traditions. There are four distinct strands discernible in the Hebrew alone, J (Yahwist), E (Elohist), D (Deuteronomical), and P (Priestly). These refer to strata in dialect and vocabulary which correlate to other materials that can be dated, as well as the Scriptures themselves. Think of the Torah like a pearl which adds layers of nacre around a central irritant. The centre in this case is the Exodus narrative beginning with "My father was a wandering Aramaean, who went down into Egypt and sojourned there few in number, and there became a great nation...".(referring to Abraham, who with the Apiru appears in records from Sumer and Ebla circa 1650 BCE) The delivery at the Sea of Reeds, the subsequent wandering and Covenant at Mt. Horeb with the affirmation of a singular God and the Ten Sayings written on stone are what the rest is built around, layer upon layer. Patriarchal narratives grew as Israel defined itself. A religion came into being and evolved, beginning simply first with precepts taught in the household and carved on the door post, and gradually became more complex with an organised and hereditary priesthood and system of ritual sacrifice. These things were reinterpreted and interpolated into a narrative that was seen as Israel's history, their place and relationship among the nations. With alliances myths grew that showed how they were part of the same family.Tribal relationships and clans out of which finally a king was chosen to be supplanted by yet another dynasty, and then a divided kingdom which once again would merge and then be torn apart by wars and exiles shaped and reshaped the narrative. Religion and politics centralised at Jerusalem, making pilgrimage the central feature. All this takes us to about 700 BCE, when finally we have language and writing, and a book (NOT FIVE, AND NOT GENESIS) comes into being, the book we call Deuteronomy. The traditions of the South, the Kingdom of Judah who call God Yahweh (The One Who Is) merge and mesh with those of the North, the Kingdom of Israel who call God Elohim (Gods, masculine plural). Into the mix comes narratives from central Turkey along with myths from Mesopotamia and Akkadia, as well as Elam who bring strands of the Vedic narratives dating back thousands of years. During the Babylonian exile these will be harmonised and further adapted to the monotheistic Covenant. In Genesis, then you have these different strata until you come up with a smooth and highly polished gem covering a history of at least four thousand years.

Answer 3

According to the Bible it started about 6000 years ago. But Genesis covers a couple thousand years in a very condensed form. Before you dismiss this account because of science, you need to consider the unverified assumptions science makes. It was a very different world in Genesis 1. There was a band of water above that limited UV from creating carbon 14. Science assumes carbon 14 constant for millions of years. So much for carbon dating. There are many other assumptions just as questionable. Before you say I am ignorant of science, I have a degree in physics and worked as an engineer for years.

Answer 4

Consider the practical issues of that ancient time. At Moses' time (maybe around 1600 BC), there were actually not yet even any organized written languages yet! (They would develop around 400 to 600 years later. Only symbol systems such as Egyptian hieroglyphics yet existed, and they were not languages at all. Worse, they were not capable of expressing sophisticated concepts such as the Sabbath. It would likely take hundreds of picture symbols to express the single sentence, Honor the Sabbath. ) It would be hard to imagine Moses taking the time to carve thousands of picture symbols into blocks of stone, along the lines of the heiroglyphics that existed at that time