Introduction to the New Book of Genesis

The Book of Genesis has been the subject of debate, mystery, and curiosity throughout Western and Middle Eastern civilizations for thousands of years. The texts of Genesis have been the focus of many scholars, scientists, and philosophers as they have tried to grapple with and understand its meaning in practical terms.

The deeper teachings contained in the Book of Genesis have largely been lost among popular translations and interpretations of Genesis. This is the result of two major issues. The first of which is the serial mistranslation and misinterpretation of these texts in ways that accommodate certain fanatical doctrines, some of which developed many centuries ago. We will elaborate on this further below.

The second issue regards the origin of the Book of Genesis. Is it a single “book” as assumed by many? Was it written by Moses as some put forth? What is this “book” and who authored it?

The origins of the Book of Genesis coincide with the written Torah, which was put together during the 6^th Century. This is when the theretofore orally communicated תורה שבכתב (Torah Shebe’al Peh – “Torah that is spoken”) was was seemingly transcribed into Torah Shebichtav תורה שבעל פה (Torah Shebichtav – “Torah that is written”).

The five books of the Torah – which Genesis, “Bereshit” was the first – were eventually combined into a single “Hebrew Bible” now called the Tanakh.

This sounds pretty straight forward but it isn’t. It is not as if there was one “oral book” that became the “written book” of Genesis (or the other five books of the Torah). The reality is there was a myriad of oral teachings and even some scrolls that had been circulating prior to the Torah. There were multiple lineages and schools that had developed  by the 6^th Century BCE. And each wanted their input into any overarching text.

It is important to distinguish these parts of the texts from the devotional teachings that had been handed down orally for centuries through this teachings lineage prior to being put to writing in the 6^th Century BCE.

It has been claimed that the Torah was first written by Moses. But this is not completely supported by the empirical record. Rather, what Moses appears to have written down equates to the Ten Commandments. They were apparently written onto stone tablets that were placed beside the Ark of the Covenant.

Other critical lessons now contained in the scriptures were orally taught by Moses, which were eventually passed on by Joshua, one of Moses’ students.

The reality is that much of the Torah scrolls were put into written form just during and just following a period when Judean tribes were forced into exile in Babylon between 586 and 538 BCE. These events along with other struggles for control over lands with Assyrians, Persians, Greeks and Romans, led to the strong incentives for suggesting that God granted certain lands to those within a certain ancestry.

This leads to the understanding that narrative was added to the Book of Genesis and the rest of the Torah in addition to the oral teachings. This is confirmed by the many verses where the context is far in the future from the events being discussed. There are numerous verses where the discussion refers to a name given to a location or person with the Hebrew phrase that means, essentially, “to this day.”

That “day” we find in many cases, was thousands of years after the events being told. This of course indicates that later scribes were commenting on the reference in their current time.

The bottom line is that despite its formatting as a single text, scholars have confirmed that Genesis is not a single book. Rather, Genesis is a collection of different oral teachings, many including various legends and myths, combined into a homogeneous text eventually formatted with chapters and page numbers.

Yes, many parts of the text documents multiple oral teachings from multiple lineages that passed down their teachings from one generation to the next for many centuries. But as these various teachings were combined, there were many additions as well. These covered the range, from patching the works together to adding new literal statements and making commentary as mentioned.

This view has become widely accepted by scholars over the past two centuries. The texts themselves illustrate that the authors of Genesis wrote their comments well after Moses.

Consider for example Genesis 12:6 and others that indicate a recording centuries after the events being told, centuries after Moses’ lifetime.

The consensus of scholars has been that the Torah was combined from at least four main sources and before being redacted into a single version. The sources have been described as Yahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, and Priestly writers.

This Documentary hypothesis states the Yahwist source comes from Southern Judah, the Elohist source from Northern Israel, the Deuteronomist from Jerusalem and the Priestly source from Babylon. This Documentary hypothesis holds that the texts had individual lineages, each accompanied by manuscripts that were pieced together to form what is referred to as the Torah.

Others believe there were many other sources. Recent scholars contend that Genesis alone is the compilation of no less than nineteen different manuscripts – many disconnected with each other.

This understanding gradually came about as the Torah texts themselves were analyzed, and three commanding theories of its composition rose to the forefront by scholars:

- The Documentary: The Torah was a compilation of separate and complete written manuscripts.

- The Supplementary: An original work that was later supplemented with various additions and deletions.

- The Fragmentary: The Torah is a compilation of fragments of different teachings and scrolls.

These views, taken from the evidence of the texts themselves, have offered rational explanations for the various duplications, schisms and irregularities present among the texts of the Torah in terms of timeline, context, history, and language.

Some more recent scholars have contended that the evidence presents that the Torah is a combination of all three – it contains some complete manuscripts; was supplemented with additions and deletions; and also contains various fragments of other manuscripts.

The essence here is that practically every Biblical scholar accepts that the books of the Torah – including Genesis – is a compilation of a variety of manuscripts and fragments that were transcribed and eventually presented as a single document, together with additions and deletions as the document was further transcribed over the centuries.

In addition, these transcriptions were subjected to literary manipulation by 6^th Century scribes to appease the Persians, and those in positions of authority who sought to maintain their authority and land ownership following the Israelites having been exiled from their territories by the Babylonians.

This manipulation resulted in, among other things, the claim that Abraham’s family had been awarded certain Middle Eastern lands by God. It also meant defining a priestly order based upon ancestry instead of teaching lineage as had been the practice for thousands of years, following the teaching succession of Moses by Joshua, who was not a family member.

Defining a priestly class and a landowner class was also a requirement of the Persians’ release of the Israelites, who were exiled by the Babylonians after they conquered Judea.

The Persians, who were victorious over the Babylonians, gave the Israelites their freedom to return to their homeland.

Before their release, the Persians wanted the Israelites to show they could govern themselves and provide some written law.

This provided at least some of the motivation for the recording of at least some of the Torah. The Israelites provided a historical basis for many of the rules and rituals that were practiced at the time by the Israelites. These included burnt offerings, circumcision and of course the Ten Commandments.

The oral teachings of the Torah, which include teachings now making up Genesis, were thus incorporated with certain legends and myths that provided substantiation for the adoption of primary rituals and land rights.

During this passage of the oral information over the centuries, according to the time, circumstance and society, naturally much of the Hebrew teachings assumed an allegorical quality. This allegorical quality conferred moral and devotional lessons upon the audience as it was passed on from generation to generation.

At the same time, some of these oral teachings also accommodated many societal issues prevalent during those times. Of prime importance was the feudal tribal nature of nomadic Judean tribes, who suffered from forced displacement and warfare from place to place. These tribes valued the ability to control certain territorial lands, as this was vital to their survival.

As a result we find in transcriptions of these texts included awkward verses of granting certain lands, ostensibly by the Supreme Being. As if the Almighty Creator and Supreme God would need to repeatedly make appearances to Abraham, Jacob and other family members in order to reiterate that God had exclusively given their family practically all the lands of the Middle East in perpetuity?

We can factually prove a literal interpretation of such verses false. First by the reality that much of those lands are now owned by a myriad of other governmental agencies and private parties other than Abraham’s family.

If God truly granted these lands to Abraham and his family in perpetuity, this would suggest that God wasn’t able to guarantee the family’s continued ownership. This would imply that God wasn’t really in control of the lands as promised by those verses. Such an implication would negate the entire thesis of Genesis and the other Books of the Bible regarding the omniscience of God.

Or it would indicate that those verses themselves were manipulated by those who sought to use scripture to underwrite control over certain lands to certain people.

When taken in totality, we find many verses in Genesis and other parts of the Torah allowed scribes authorized by tribal lords to convey political authority and dominance for their particular tribe and leaders.

It must be remembered that those scribes that put these texts into writing performed their work under the supervision and employment of their tribal leaders. This naturally led to a powerful Temple institution that flexed control over the region in the centuries after the Persians allowed the Israelites to return to their homeland.

This resulting Temple institution grew stronger and more fanatical over the centuries, until the Romans conquered them.

Following the persecution of Jesus and the century-long Jewish-Roman Wars, the Roman government dominated Judea with an iron fist. The Temple institution no longer had governmental authority, but they still flexed their power over the people through the Temple system.

After the Jewish-Roman wars, the Romans sought to erase the Jewish religious system by amalgamating the Jewish texts into a neo-Christian philosophy.

As a result, during the Fourth Century AD, the Roman Emperor Constantine contracted with Eusebius to have selected books from the Judean scriptures combined with selected Christian texts to form what would become the first Bible.

To summarize this complicated process, Eusebius’ work to assemble the first Bible was driven by a desire to organize and control the religious nature of the people within what was then known as the Roman Empire, into one cohesive religion that could be controlled from Rome.

Following Constantine’s order, Eusebius hired professional translators and transcribers who oversaw the translation (and thus interpretation) of varying texts from Greek, Arabic and Hebrew languages, into Latin. This Latin translation provided the foundation for the future interpretation of the Bible, which was translated into English many centuries later.

The Book of Genesis was arranged into the first book of this commissioned manuscript now called the Bible, inferring the literal creation history.

After the early Bible’s manuscripts were selected, translated into Latin and assembled into the Bible, the Roman Empire and its surrogate Church systematically burned and destroyed any library that included books outside of those selected for the Bible or otherwise were “approved” by Church fathers. Some were quarantined within the Church’s library in Rome; others were burnt, never to be found.

The Church also systematically squelched any alternative interpretations of Genesis and the creation, such as those that were taught amongst the Gnostics for centuries.

The Gnostics were practically driven out of existence. Their villages were burnt, their teachers were murdered, and their libraries of manuscripts were destroyed. This activity – of forcibly removing ‘heretics’ for their alternative interpretations of scripture – continued for over a thousand years among the Church and its proxies.

As far as the texts themselves, the Romans kept a tight lid on alternative interpretations or translations. For centuries, the Latin Bible was the only Bible allowed to be read, and only the priests and Church officials had access to a Latin Bible. The rest of the people among the regions controlled by the Roman Catholic Church and its surrogates had no direct access to scripture.

Common people could only hear its Latin from the priests, who also controlled its literal interpretation. This was the status quo for many centuries until parts of the Bible was (illegally according to the Church) translated into English and other languages. The first complete English Bible – translated from the Latin Bible – came into being during the 14th Century – more than a thousand years after Eusebius’ Latin Bible.

And even then, John Wycliffe, the English Bible’s translator, was declared a heretic by the Roman Catholic Church. By the command of the Church and its Pope Martin V, his Biblical texts were ordered to be burnt, and his then-dead body was exhumed and burnt, and his ashes were thrown into a river.

This ‘scorched earth’ policy of virtually eliminating any and all interpretations of Genesis and other parts of the scriptures outside of those approved by the Church and Roman Empire created a single literal interpretation of the Biblical scriptures throughout all of the Holy Roman Empire for thousands of years. Most of this interpretation is still accepted today by modern sects of Christianity.

The bottom line is these texts, originally passed down orally from one generation to the next by devoted teachers now called Prophets, underwent a cascade of manipulation over the centuries by those who sought to use these texts to maintain power and authority over certain societies.

Meanwhile, the oral teachings traveled history in parallel through a lineage of prophets. These prophets include Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainen, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, Shem, Melchizedek, Abraham, Isaac, Lot, Jacob, Joseph, Ephraim, Elias/Esaias, Gad, and later, Samuel, Jeremy, Jeremiah, Elihu, Moses, Joshua, Balaam, Samuel, Nathan, David, Ahijah, Jahaziel, Elijah, Malachi, Elisha, Job, Joel, Jonah, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Oded, Micah, Nahum, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Obadiah, Daniel, Zechariah, Haggai, Ezra, Nehemiah and Malachi.

Most of these prophets are documented in one way or another among Old Testament texts. But for each of these there are many others. These include Enoch, Zenock, Ezias, Iddo, Jehu, Nathan, Zenos Neum, Shemaiah and many others.

It was this great lineage of teachers that Jesus belonged to, as a devoted student of John the Baptist, who was a devoted student of Zachariah, also a former devoted student within the lineage that included Isaiah, Solomon, David, Samuel, Eli, Joshua, Moses, Jacob, Abraham, Melchizedek and Noah.

This rich oral tradition also meant that the sometimes allegorical lessons of the Torah also accompanied the interpretation of the priest – who pledged their devotion to the Supreme Being. Sometimes the teacher was also the father of the student. This was more the case during earlier times, but was also seen later, as family members were sometimes teachers and students. We can cite Jesus and his brother James, who was a student of Jesus.

We can piece together the nature of this passing of information as we examine some of the student-teacher relationships that existed between Melchizedek and Abraham; Abraham and Lot; Moses and Joshua; Eli and Samuel; Samuel and Saul; Saul and David; David and Solomon and many others. It is also illustrated by Jesus’ relationship with his teacher John the Baptist, as well as Jesus’ relationships with his own disciples, whom Jesus instructed to also go out and pass on what he taught them to others.

This passing of the teachings of love for God eventually became subjected to territorialism as the Torah was transcribed from Torah Shebe’al Peh to Torah Shebichtav and then translated to Latin and then to other languages over the past few centuries.

The texts of the Torah cannot be isolated from the environment and society of their times. This region was brimming with strife with warfare between feuding empires of Babylonia, Canaan, Rome, Assyria, Judah, Egypt, and surrounding regions. Struggles for land and territory were rampant, and the implication of authority from the Supreme proved to be more than a political necessity: It was an issue of survival.

Then of course we find the Israelites were conquered by the Babylonians and exiled. When the Persians were victorious over the Babylonians they released Israelites, but only after the Israelites provided proof they had a written law in order to govern their people.

In the centuries that followed, territorial struggles continued, and the formation of the Torah gained additional substance with the writings of Ezra in the Fifth Century BCE. After the rebuilding of Jerusalem under the Persian ruler Artaxerxes, Ezra led a formation of a separated assembly of Israelites committed to following Moses’ law.

The successive assemblies following Ezra took a drastic sectarian turn over the next centuries, as priestly struggles merged with struggles for territorial rights, and the assemblies became increasingly political.

The Torah’s interpretations continued to be modified over the next five centuries as Israelite high priests formed rigid sectarian order over their assemblies. The rule of law became tantamount and the five books of the Torah were considered the constitution of the Israelite people, and the priests were their governors. That is, until the Romans conquered Jerusalem.

The necessity of a succession of rulers through this period produced political alliances between certain priests and the various kings of Judah. This drove the recognition of the Israelite assembly as a separate race of people and allowed the high priests to become ex-facto governors.

This politically driven succession of high priests became increasingly power-savvy over the centuries, as evidenced by the teachings of Jesus. We find that by the time of Jesus’ arrival, the institutional temples and its priesthood had depreciated the importance  of the teachings of devotion that had been passed down orally over the centuries from teacher to student.

This was characterized by Jesus, who condemned the nature and hierarchy of the institutional priesthood.

These devotional principles took second fiddle by the politics of necessity, as literal interpretations of  the “promised land” and the “chosen people” of Judah and Israel became further misconstrued.

Jesus’ teachings identified the two primary orders among the institutional temples – the Sadducees and the Pharisees – as focused upon retaining their politically oriented positions of “teachers of the law” over the passing down of the teachings of devotional Judaism.

Jesus vehemently criticized these two groups as misleading the people and abandoning the original precepts of the teachings of the Torah – which he emphasized were grounded upon the “first and foremost commandment” of Moses to love God.

This teaching, we find from biblical texts, had been passed through a devotional lineage that included John the Baptist and Zachariah, John’s teacher and traced back through the centuries. Many historians have shown that the Essenes – a priestly order that rejected the political ambitions of the mainstream priestly order – were also a vehicle for part of this lineage of teachers.

We find within these histories a repeating lesson: That the teachings of the Supreme Being handed down from teacher to student can at any point in time can become perverted as the burdens of power struggles overwhelm our devotional natures.

History has taught us that even scripture can be subjected to alteration during times of challenge, depending upon the objectives and mission of those institutions that bear the responsibility for carrying those teachings forward into future times.

As a result, we find that out of the thousands of scriptural manuscripts and scrolls passed down for centuries by early Israelite and Christian teachers, only the politically-selected books of the Bible and a limited collection of mostly tattered manuscripts found buried in the desert or hidden within the Church’s secret library remain.

However, those books found in the desert – now called the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi texts – provide clear evidence that these institutions systematically eliminated many manuscripts as well as alternative interpretations.

We also find clear evidence that some of the texts that made it into the Latin Bible were manipulated with respect to their translation and inclusion. Yes, inclusion: This means that some texts were removed while some were added.

Then we have creative manipulations, such as placing the Book of Revelation as the last book of the Bible though it was not the last to be written. This was conveniently done because of the last verse of this Book that condemn adding or taking away anything in the Book of Revelation.

Putting this book last in the Bible, however, gives the reader the impression that nothing can thenceforth be added or taken away from the entire Bible – even though the writer of the Book of Revelation was referring solely to the Book of Revelation.

Such slick publishing decisions expose a larger conspiracy to utilize the Bible to control the populace. And this is exactly what occurred in the centuries to come at the hands of the Roman Empire and their surrogate Roman Catholic Church.

The bottom line is that the canon – the arrangement of the Books of the Bible – and the insertion and depletion of particular verses and words, were orchestrated as part of an overall objective to put forth the impression that Christianity (inclusive of early Judaism) was the original and only valid religious institution.

Unfortunately, these sorts of actions mean the Bible and the Torah have become tainted by politics and the quest for institutional power over the centuries.

This doesn’t mean they do not contain the Truth, however.

Over the centuries, a few other Biblical-like texts have surfaced in addition to the Dead Sea Scrolls, including the Greek Septuagint and the Arabic Peshitta. The Septuagint arose through the translation of the Rabbinical texts originally put together by Origen (who was later rejected as heretical by the Church), though its current form has been altered through the centuries.

The Peshitta, which also contained some manuscripts alternative to the Bible, to some degree escaped destruction by the Romans – although it is not clear to what degree or at what stage.

What all this indicates is evidence that the many scriptural mistranslations and misinterpretations have been orchestrated continuously by different sectarian institutions over the centuries. These orchestrations have no relation to each other outside having a common goal of gaining and/or maintaining power over people and societies of their times.

This strategy, common among so many governments of ancient times to the middles ages, has been to utilize what is held dear to most common people – the worship of a Supreme Being.

Since scripture has been held in the highest esteem by devoted societies, it is quite easy for those in positions of power to manipulate those scriptures and the institutions that distribute them in ways that maintain their positions of power.

The historical record clearly indicates a lack of separation between early religious societies and their governments. This has led to kings and tyrants who controlled scriptures for holy purposes or the purposes of retaining power.

This is why, for example, the “kings of Israel” are often confused with the “prophets of Israel.” This makes obvious the lack of separation between religious belief and the government rule.

This separation of church and state doctrine, as it is called today, is a hallmark of Western democracy. This doctrine assumes each of us has a freedom to worship or not worship in any manner we so choose individually, and the government cannot (or should not) dictate that.

This of course reflects the very freedom of worship that God gives each of us. No one can be forced to love God.

Contrasting this, most of the societies of the Judeo-Roman era back to the era of Abraham and the Pharaohs of Egypt were based on the notion that a single person – the Emperor or King – ruled that particular society or territory, and thus represented God. This meant that any religious institution and its leaders had to be authorized or controlled by that particular Emperor or King.

This emperor-feudal system of government had all the hallmarks of no freedom of religious thought. The king or emperor had all the power, and the common people had no power over their choice of religion and manner of worship.

Unfortunately, this type of governmental system (emperor-feudal) maintained power over societies in the Mediterranean, Middle East, Europe and Asia with very few exceptions (such as the Greeks) during the formative years of the texts that were combined to eventually make up the Torah, the Tanakh and the Old Testament inclusive of the Book of Genesis.

Good or bad, this emperor-feudal system of government utilized and enforced those scriptures to create authority and hold onto power.

It is this utilization of forced authority over these scriptures that has produced some of the gross misunderstandings among many of the texts of today’s Bible, including Genesis.

This forced authority continues today, albeit in another form, as various religious institutions enforce the use of certain texts and interpretations on their followers under the threat of excommunication.

Even with the rise of the ‘separation of church and state’ doctrine, these institutions continue to flex their authority through the underwriting of particular versions and translations of the scriptures.

Even if people of today’s societies have the freedom to accept a particular version of scripture or not, the leaders of these sectarian institutions wield authority through the power to excommunicate followers.

Today instead of imprisonment and/or punishment by death, those who dare to accept a different version and interpretation of the scriptures become ostracized and humiliated in the court of public opinion within these institutions that control religious thought in modern society. They become, in the phraseology of cults, “shunned.”

In order to accomplish this enforcement, each Judeo-Christian sect has underwritten particular versions and interpretations among the Biblical or Torah texts.

Many of the strongest Christian sects utilize the remnant authority of the Roman Catholic church and the Holy Roman Empire. This is enforced through the acceptance of the Nicene Creed doctrine originally put forth and forcefully indoctrinated by the early Roman Catholic Church.

Among the Israelite sects we find the narrative and scriptural interpretation mostly controlled by the Orthodox Jewish institution, more loosely followed by secular Jewish institutions of today.

These institutions have become quasi governmental and policing organizations, as they enforce their interpretations upon those who seek the acceptance of their peers and family members who are  followers.

It is these structures today that are responsible for the forced authority of those ancient rulers and emperors that utilized scripture to maintain power over the people of their time.

Today’s scriptural versions, interpretations and translations serve to maintain the authority of those leaders of individual institutions, who continue to rule over their followers much as the emperors before them utilized scripture to rule over their populaces. The primary difference lies in their means of control and whether they are able to utilize violence to enforce their authority over their followers.

Despite this, the fact that these texts survived in some form through all those political efforts is a testament to the Supreme Being’s ability to ultimately provide us with a source of spiritual information, even while shrouding its true meaning from those that wish to abuse it.

This of course has provided the purpose and the mission for those who over the centuries who have worked to counter the misinterpretation and abuse of scriptural texts. 

This also gives testament to the undercurrent of confidential knowledge that has continued to quietly be passed from serious teacher to serious student through the centuries, insulated from the abuses and misinterpretations by the various emperors and religious leaders through their surrogate clergies.

This is “confidential” not because the information is secret. It is confidential because it is understood only by those who are serious about learning the real lessons of spiritual life, and by those willing to pass those lessons on to the next generation.

This is not a new concept. We can see the importance of spiritual mentorship throughout the centuries. We find even during times when religious thought was controlled by emperors and tyrants that some were willing to risk their lives to understand the Truth and pass that Truth on to the next generation.

This is of course one of the true lessons of the Old and New Testaments – the testaments of so many who stood up to the enforcers who controlled the status quo.

It is this backbone of courage that provides lessons behind those who were persecuted for their teachings by those kings and emperors who dominated their eras. These include prophets such as Elijah, Zechariah, Micaiah, Amos, Hanani, Uriah, Joseph, John the Baptist, Jesus, James, Peter, Andrew, Thomas, Philip and so many others through modern times.

Together with those who followed Jesus, this lineage of prophets and teachers has continued to pass on the teachings of devotion to the Supreme Being, often despite the forces of institutions and tyrants of their times.

The translation of New Book of Genesis gives the reader the opportunity to better understand the devotional context of these early teachings handed down orally from teacher to teacher through the generations. At the same time, some verses may contradict the fanatical teachings forced upon followers by centuries of tyrannical rulers and priests seeking power and territory.

In some instances there will be differences with the literal Hebrew translation in the New Book of Genesis. But these are minimized to those elements where there is clear incongruity from the oral tradition and devotional nature of the teachings passed between these great teachers – those describing a loving, omniscient and generous Supreme Being.