Although tradition attributes Genesis to Moses, some biblical scholars believe that it, together with the following four books (making up what Jews call the Torah and biblical scholars call the Pentateuch) is a composite work, the product of many hands and periods.[11] A common hypothesis among biblical scholars today is that the first major comprehensive draft of the Pentateuch was composed in the late 7th or the 6th century BC (the Jahwist source), and that this was later expanded by the addition of various narratives and laws (the Priestly source) into a work very like the one existing today.[6] The two sources appear in reverse order: Genesis 1:1–2:3 is Priestly and Genesis 2:4–24 is Jahwistic. As for the historical background which led to the creation of the narrative itself, a theory which has gained considerable interest, although still controversial, is Persian imperial authorisation. This proposes that the Persians, after their conquest of Babylon in 538 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 Temple, and the landowning families who made up the elders – were in conflict over many issues, and each had its own history of origins, but the Persian promise of greatly increased local autonomy for all provided a powerful incentive to cooperate in producing a single text.[12]
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 20:07:04 +0000
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