The Book of Genesis

Genesis opens the Bible with these words: "In the beginning God created heaven, and earth" (Genesis 1:1). What the Church believes about God the Creator, about man made in His image, about sin, death and the promise of a Redeemer, has its root in these fifty chapters. The Hebrews named the book from its first word, Bereshith, "in the beginning"; the Septuagint and the Vulgate call it Genesis, "origin", because it tells the origin of the world, of mankind and of the chosen people. Below this guide you will find every chapter, St Jerome's Latin beside the English of the Douay-Rheims.

Who wrote the Book of Genesis?

The Church has received Genesis as the work of Moses, who wrote it with Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, the five books called the Pentateuch or the Law. The Council of Trent, listing the canon in Session IV (1546), begins with "the five books of Moses, to wit, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy".

The witness is constant. The Jews of every age called these books "the Law of Moses". Our Lord speaks of Moses as their author: "For if you did believe Moses, you would perhaps believe me also; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?" (John 5:46–47). The Fathers treat Moses as the author without hesitation.

How could Moses write of things long before him, from the creation to the death of Joseph? Catholic commentators answer that he drew on the genealogies and traditions handed down from the patriarchs, and wrote under divine inspiration, which kept him from error. The book bears the marks of such sources: it is arranged under the repeated heading "These are the generations" (in Hebrew toledoth), beginning with "These are the generations of the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 2:4).

The Pontifical Biblical Commission, answering in 1906 under St Pius X, taught that the arguments of the critics do not overturn the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. It allowed that Moses may have used written or oral sources, that he may have entrusted the writing to secretaries who set down his thought faithfully under his authority, and that small additions or changes of wording may have entered the text later, without harm to its substantial Mosaic origin. Many modern scholars propose instead that Genesis was woven together over centuries from several later documents; the traditional teaching above is the one the Church has handed down.

When was Genesis written?

On the traditional view, Moses composed Genesis during the forty years in the desert, after the Exodus and the giving of the Law on Sinai. Scripture dates the Exodus by Solomon's Temple, begun "in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel came out of the land of Egypt" (3 Kings 6:1). On the reckoning commonly drawn from that verse, Moses lived about the fifteenth century before Christ, which makes Genesis, in substance, more than three thousand years old.

It was written first for the Israelites in the wilderness, who needed to know who the God of Sinai was, how the world fell under sin, and why He had chosen the sons of Abraham. Its story leads straight into the Book of Exodus.

What is the Book of Genesis about? A summary

Genesis falls into two parts: chapters 1 to 11, the early history of mankind from the creation to Babel; and chapters 12 to 50, the history of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph.

The creation of the world and of man (chapters 1–2)

In chapters 1–2 God creates heaven and earth and orders them in six days: light, the firmament dividing "the waters that were under the firmament, from those that were above the firmament" (Genesis 1:7), the dry land and the plants, the sun, moon and stars, the creatures of sea and air, and the beasts of the earth. Last of all He makes man: "And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27).

On the seventh day He rests, and blesses and sanctifies that day. Chapter 2 returns to man in detail: God forms him "of the slime of the earth", breathes into him "the breath of life", places him in the paradise of pleasure, forbids him the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and forms the woman from his side. "Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh" (Genesis 2:24): Our Lord cites these words in Matthew 19 when He teaches the indissolubility of marriage as God instituted it.

The fall and its consequences (chapters 3–5)

In Genesis 3 the serpent tempts Eve, she and Adam eat of the forbidden tree, and they are cast out of paradise. Death and toil enter the world: "for dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return" (Genesis 3:19). Yet in the same chapter God promises victory over the serpent through the woman and her seed. In chapter 4 Cain murders his brother Abel, whose offering God had accepted. Chapter 5 traces the line of Seth from Adam to Noe (Noah), with the mysterious end of Henoch (Enoch): "And he walked with God, and was seen no more: because God took him" (Genesis 5:24).

The Flood (chapters 6–9)

Chapter 6 opens on the corruption of the earth after "the sons of God went in to the daughters of men", when "giants were upon the earth in those days" (Genesis 6:4). God commands Noe to build the ark. In chapter 7 the waters cover the earth; in chapter 8 they abate, the dove returns with an olive branch, and Noe offers sacrifice. In chapter 9 God makes His covenant with every living thing: "I will set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be the sign of a covenant between me, and between the earth" (Genesis 9:13).

The nations and the tower of Babel (chapters 10–11)

Chapter 10 lists the descendants of Noe's sons, Sem, Cham and Japheth, from whom the nations spread. In chapter 11 men build a city and a tower to make their name great, and God confounds their language, "and therefore the name thereof was called Babel" (Genesis 11:9). The chapter closes with the line of Sem down to Abram.

Abraham, the father of believers (chapters 12–25)

The second part begins with a call: "Go forth out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and out of thy father's house" (Genesis 12:1), with the promise that in Abram "shall all the kindred of the earth be blessed". In chapter 14 Melchisedech, king of Salem and priest of the most high God, brings forth bread and wine and blesses him. In chapter 15 "Abram believed God, and it was reputed to him unto justice", the verse St Paul builds upon in Romans 4; in chapter 17 God renames him Abraham and gives circumcision as the sign of the covenant.

In chapter 18 three men visit Abraham at Mambre, the birth of Isaac is foretold, and Abraham pleads for Sodom; in chapter 19 Sodom and Gomorrha are destroyed, Lot is saved, and his wife, looking back, is "turned into a statue of salt". Isaac is born in chapter 21. The summit of Abraham's faith is chapter 22, when God bids him offer "thy only begotten son Isaac, whom thou lovest", and Abraham tells the boy: "God will provide himself a victim for an holocaust, my son" (Genesis 22:8). A wife is found for Isaac in Rebecca, and Abraham dies "in a good old age" (Genesis 25:8).

Isaac and Jacob (chapters 25–36)

Rebecca bears twins, and in chapter 25 Esau sells his birthright to Jacob for a pottage of lentils. In chapter 27 Jacob, at his mother's counsel, receives his father's blessing. Fleeing his brother, he sees in his sleep "a ladder standing upon the earth, and the top thereof touching heaven: the angels also of God ascending and descending by it" (Genesis 28:12), and wakes crying, "How terrible is this place! this is no other but the house of God, and the gate of heaven". He serves his uncle Laban for Lia and Rachel (chapter 29), and on his return wrestles through the night with a mysterious adversary who names him Israel (chapter 32). His twelve sons become the fathers of the twelve tribes.

Joseph in Egypt (chapters 37–50)

Israel loves Joseph "above all his sons" and makes him "a coat of divers colours" (Genesis 37:3); his jealous brothers sell him to merchants bound for Egypt. Falsely accused by the wife of Putiphar, he is cast into prison (chapter 39), then raised by Pharao after interpreting his dreams of seven years of plenty and seven of famine (chapter 41). When famine drives his brothers to Egypt, Joseph tests them and at last makes himself known (chapter 45), and Jacob goes down with all his house into Egypt. Before he dies, Jacob blesses his sons (chapter 49).

Genesis ends with forgiveness and a coffin. Joseph tells his brothers, "You thought evil against me: but God turned it into good" (Genesis 50:20), and dies at a hundred and ten years, "laid in a coffin in Egypt". The family of Israel is safe, but in a foreign land, awaiting the deliverance told in Exodus.

Themes of Genesis and the Catholic reading

Genesis teaches, first, that God is the one Creator of all things, who made the world freely and good: "God saw all the things that he had made, and they were very good" (Genesis 1:31). It teaches the dignity of man, body and soul, made to God's image; the unity of the human race descended from one pair; the sanctity of marriage; and the hallowing of a day of rest. We take up the creation chapters and the question of the six days in What Does God Say About Evolution?

It teaches, second, the reality of the fall. St Paul draws the doctrine of original sin from Genesis 3: "as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men" (Romans 5:12). The Council of Trent (Session V, 1546) defined that Adam lost holiness and justice for himself and for us, and that his sin is passed to all by propagation, not by imitation; we explain it in What Is Original Sin?

It teaches, third, the promise of redemption. In 1909 the Pontifical Biblical Commission named the facts of the first three chapters that touch the foundations of the faith and may not be doubted in their literal, historical sense: the creation of all things by God at the beginning of time, the special creation of man, the formation of the first woman from the first man, the unity of the human race, the original happiness of our first parents, the command laid on them to test their obedience, their transgression at the devil's persuasion, the loss of their first state, and the promise of a future Redeemer. The same Commission allowed that the "day" of the first chapter may be taken as a natural day or as a longer space of time.

The Protoevangelium and Our Lady

"I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel" (Genesis 3:15). This is the first Gospel, the first announcement of the Redeemer. The Vulgate reads ipsa conteret, "she shall crush", and tradition has seen in the woman the Blessed Virgin, the New Eve, as St Irenaeus taught: the knot of Eve's disobedience was loosed by Mary's obedience. Pius IX cited this verse in Ineffabilis Deus (1854) when he defined the Immaculate Conception, for she who was to crush the serpent was never under his power.

Figures of Christ and the sacraments

The New Testament itself calls Adam "a figure of him who was to come" (Romans 5:14), and the Fathers found Christ throughout the book. Abel, the just man slain by his brother, foreshadows Him. The ark, in which "eight souls, were saved by water", is a figure of baptism and the Church (1 Peter 3:20–21). Melchisedech, offering bread and wine, is the figure of Christ's priesthood, as the Epistle to the Hebrews teaches; the Council of Trent (Session XXII, ch. 1) recalls that Christ, a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech, offered His Body and Blood under the appearances of bread and wine, so that Melchisedech stands at the threshold of the Holy Eucharist. Isaac, the only son carrying the wood up the mountain, is the figure of the Passion.

Jacob's ladder is fulfilled when Christ promises that Nathanael shall see "the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man" (John 1:51). Joseph, sold by his brothers and raised to save them, is among the clearest types of Christ, and Pharao's command, "Go to Joseph" (Genesis 41:55), the Church has applied to St Joseph. Jacob's blessing, "The sceptre shall not be taken away from Juda... till he come that is to be sent, and he shall be the expectation of nations" (Genesis 49:10), the Fathers read as a prophecy of the Messias. St Paul reads Sara and Agar "by an allegory" as the two covenants (Galatians 4), and Wisdom 10 follows divine Wisdom from Adam through Noe, Abraham, Jacob and Joseph.

Famous chapters and verses of Genesis

Beyond the verses quoted above, readers most often seek Genesis 1 with "Let us make man to our image and likeness" (Genesis 1:26), in which the Fathers heard the Holy Trinity speak, and Genesis 22:18, "in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed", the promise St Paul applies to Christ in Galatians 3. Others look for Abraham at Mambre in Genesis 18, the fall of Sodom in Genesis 19, and Jacob's ladder in Genesis 28.

Genesis in the canon and in the liturgy

Genesis is the first book of the Bible and of the Pentateuch, followed by Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Its name and place are the same in Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish and Protestant Bibles, and its canonicity has never been disputed. The Douay-Rheims keeps the Vulgate forms of names: Noe for Noah, Henoch for Enoch, Pharao for Pharaoh. We give St Jerome's Latin, which Trent declared authentic, beside the English; both texts are explained in the Douay-Rheims Bible and the Latin Vulgate Bible.

The Church's year turns to Genesis before Lent: from Septuagesima Sunday the lessons of the first nocturn at Matins in the Roman Breviary are taken from Genesis, beginning with the creation and the fall, so that the Church enters the season of penance remembering how man was lost. On Ash Wednesday the priest signs our foreheads with Genesis 3:19: Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris, "Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return".

At the Easter Vigil in the 1962 Missal the first prophecy is the account of creation, Genesis 1:1–2:2. In the Roman Canon of every Mass the priest asks God to accept the Sacrifice as He accepted "the gifts of thy just servant Abel, and the sacrifice of our patriarch Abraham, and that which thy high priest Melchisedech offered to thee". And the Introit for the Dedication of a Church is Jacob's cry at Bethel, Terribilis est locus iste.

How to read Genesis

Read it in order, a few chapters at a sitting; at under two chapters a day it takes a month. Take the first eleven chapters slowly, for every line carries doctrine. Keep St Paul close, for Romans 5, Galatians 3–4 and Hebrews 11 are his commentary on Genesis; let Challoner's notes guide you to the traditional sense, and if you know a little Latin, follow St Jerome's text beside the English. Begin with Genesis 1, or browse the whole Douay-Rheims Bible.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did Moses write the Book of Genesis?

Yes: the Church has always received Genesis as the work of Moses, the first of the five books of the Pentateuch. Our Lord speaks of the writings of Moses (John 5:46–47), and Jewish tradition and the Fathers agree. The Pontifical Biblical Commission (1906) upheld Mosaic authorship while allowing that Moses used earlier sources and secretaries, and that small later additions may have entered the text. Many modern scholars hold other theories, but this is the traditional Catholic teaching.

How old is the Book of Genesis?

Tradition holds that Moses wrote Genesis during the forty years in the desert after the Exodus. By the reckoning commonly drawn from 3 Kings 6:1, which places the Exodus 480 years before Solomon's Temple, this was about the fifteenth century before Christ. In substance, then, Genesis is more than three thousand years old.

What is the main message of the Book of Genesis?

Genesis teaches that God created all things good, that man was made in His image, that sin and death entered the world through Adam's disobedience, and that God at once promised a Redeemer. Through Abraham and his sons it shows God preparing the people from whom Christ would be born. Joseph's last words sum up its spirit: men meant evil, "but God turned it into good".

How many chapters are in the Book of Genesis?

Genesis has 50 chapters, numbered alike in the Douay-Rheims, the Vulgate and other Bibles. Chapters 1–11 tell the early history of mankind, and chapters 12–50 the history of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. It is the first book of the Bible and of the Old Testament in every canon.

How many years does the Book of Genesis cover?

Using the ages given in the Vulgate, which follow the Hebrew, Adam to the Flood is 1,656 years, and the Flood to the death of Joseph a little over 650 more: about 2,300 years in all. The Greek Septuagint gives longer figures for the early generations. The Church has never fixed a chronology of the world, and the genealogies were not written chiefly to supply one.

Who were the Nephilim in the Book of Genesis?

The Nephilim appear in Genesis 6:4, which the Douay-Rheims, following the Vulgate's gigantes, renders "giants were upon the earth in those days". St Augustine, followed by most Catholic commentators, held that the "sons of God" who took the daughters of men were not angels but the sons of Seth, who forsook justice and mingled with the wicked line of Cain (City of God XV, 23). The giants, he taught, were men of uncommon stature, born in an age when "the earth was corrupted before God, and was filled with iniquity" (Genesis 6:11).

Was the Book of Job written before Genesis?

The Church has not decided when Job was written. Job seems to live in the age of the patriarchs, and an old Jewish tradition in the Talmud ascribes the book to Moses, but its date remains a matter of opinion. Genesis stands first because it begins with the creation.

What genre is the Book of Genesis?

Genesis is sacred history, arranged under the heading "These are the generations", with genealogies, narratives and prophecies. The Pontifical Biblical Commission taught in 1909 that its first chapters are not fables or myths but relate real events, even where they use figurative language suited to their first readers. The Fathers found spiritual and prophetic senses built upon that literal one.

Read the whole Book of Genesis verse by verse, in the Latin of the Vulgate and the English of the Douay-Rheims, in the Iter Fidei Catholic Bible app.

Sources. Holy Scripture, Douay-Rheims (Challoner) and Latin Vulgate: Genesis 1–50; 3 Kings 6:1; Wisdom 10; Matthew 19; John 1:51, 5:46–47; Romans 4–5; Galatians 3–4; Hebrews 7, 11; 1 Peter 3:20–21. Council of Trent, Session IV (1546), Decree on the Canonical Scriptures; Session V (1546), Decree on Original Sin; Session XXII (1562), Doctrine on the Sacrifice of the Mass, ch. 1. Pontifical Biblical Commission, responses on the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch (27 June 1906) and on the historical character of the first three chapters of Genesis (30 June 1909). Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus (1854). St Irenaeus, Against Heresies. St Augustine, The City of God XV. Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), "Genesis" and "Pentateuch". Challoner's notes to the Douay-Rheims. Roman Missal (1962) and Roman Breviary.