Who Wrote Genesis?

For most of history, both Jews and Christians believed that Moses was the author of Genesis.1 However, starting in the 1700s, theologically liberal, “critical” scholars began to question the traditional attributions of the biblical books, and this especially was the case for the Torah. Since then, anyone who asserted the Mosaic authorship of the Torah would have been ridiculed as an unscholarly “fundamentalist.” Today, with advanced computer analysis of the text, there are growing textual arguments for the unity that we would expect from a document that was authored by a single person. New information unearthed by archaeology regarding the world during the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is confirming that Genesis provides accurate details regarding the geography, customs, and people groups of Canaan in that time—which would be impossible if the supposed later authors of Genesis were separated by centuries of time and geography from events recorded in Genesis.

This hypothesis is still taught in many seminaries, and many pastors today have been trained to think of the first five books of Scripture as an ahistorical patchwork of Jewish myths.

So the pendulum is swinging back, and many are criticizing the documentary hypothesis. But this hypothesis is still taught in many seminaries, and many pastors today have been trained to think of the first five books of Scripture as an ahistorical patchwork of Jewish myths. We will examine the evidence that strongly supports the Mosaic authorship of Genesis. But first, let’s consider a little more about the documentary hypothesis and why Christians should reject it.

What Is the Documentary Hypothesis? (JEDP)

The documentary hypothesis was developed by a number of Jewish and theologically liberal Christian scholars in the late seventeenth to the late nineteenth centuries. They produced many different theories about who wrote what in the Bible and when.

By the end of the nineteenth century, liberal scholars had reached general consensus that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses in the 1400s BC, but that it was compiled by many authors who generated the sources over many centuries after the events recorded in in the Pentateuch. These groups of authors are represented by J, E, D, and P.

J stands for Jahwist. The Jahwist authors are credited with being the source of passages, verses, or phrases that preferred to use the Hebrew name for God, Yahweh, which is also transliterated as Jehovah. These authors wrote between 950 and 850 BC.

E stands for Elohist. This person or group of writers is behind the parts of the Pentateuch that preferred to use Elohim as the name for God and supposedly wrote sometime between 850 and 700 BC.

D stands for Deuteronomist. Most of the fifth book in the Torah is credited to a different group of authors around the time of King Josiah’s reforms in 621 BC. Some proponents of the theory suggest that when King Josiah found the Book of the Law (2 Kings 22:8–10), it was invented and introduced at that time. Other documentary hypothesis proponents say that it may be as old as the E-source. Opposition to the idea that the Law was composed when it was “discovered” is almost as old as the notion. Keil and Delitzsch, two German Old Testament scholars, wrote in 1869:

For the account contained in 2 Kings 22 and 2 Chron. 34. of the discovery of the book of the law, i.e., of the copy placed by the side of the ark, cannot be construed, without a willful perversion of the words, into a historical proof, that the Pentateuch or the book of Deuteronomy was composed at that time, or that it was then brought to light for the first time. On the contrary, we find that, from the time of Joshua to the age of Ezra and Nehemiah, the law of Moses and his book of the law were the only valid and unalterable code by which the national life was regulated, either in its civil or its religious institutions.2

P stands for Priestly. This was a writer or group of writers of the priestly class in the tribe of Levi writing after 586 BC during the exile in Babylon. This is said to be responsible for most of Leviticus and texts elsewhere in the Pentateuch, including much of the chronological and genealogical information in Genesis.3

Historical Development of the Documentary Hypothesis

The development of this theory took many confusing twists and turns before we get to Wellhausen, the most influential proponent of the documentary hypothesis.4

Ibn Ezra was a very influential Jewish rabbi in the twelfth century AD. While he believed in the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, he noticed that a few verses (e.g., Genesis 12:6, Genesis 22:14) had some phrases that seemed mysteriously out of place (i.e., they looked like editorial comments added by someone after Moses). But he never pursued these mysteries to resolve them.

About 500 years later, the famous Jewish philosopher Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza (1632–1677) picked up on Ibn Ezra’s comment about mysterious verses. In his book Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670), Spinoza raised several arguments against Mosaic authorship of the Torah: 1) Numbers 12:3 says that Moses was the most humble man of his day, but a humble man would not write that about himself, 2) Moses is spoken of in the third person in the Pentateuch, which he would not do if he were the author, and 3) Moses could not have written his own obituary (Deuteronomy 34:5–6). Spinoza was a pantheist and was subsequently excommunicated from the Jewish community and denounced by Christians. In the following decades, they rightly noted that even if points 1 and 3 reflected additions to the text after Moses, that wouldn’t prove that Moses didn’t write the rest of the Torah. And writing in third person was common among other ancient writers, as it is today.

Further attacks on the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch came through Jean Astruc in France. In 1753, he published Conjectures About the Original Memoirs Which It Appeared That Moses Used in Composing the Book of Genesis with certain remarks that help clarify these conjectures. He believed Moses was the author of the Pentateuch, but conjectures led to greater skepticism by later scholars.

Astruc wondered how Moses could write about events prior to his own life, (i.e., the history recorded in Genesis). He also noticed that Elohim is used for God in Genesis 1:1–2:3, but Yahweh is used in chapter 2. Astruc claimed that these name changes indicated different sources that Moses used. Specifically, he thought that Genesis 1:1–2:3 was one creation account and Genesis 2:4–24 was a different creation account. These became known as the E and J documents. So the first assumption of the documentary hypothesis became established: The use of different divine names means different authors of the text.

The German scholar Johann Eichhorn took the next step by applying Astruc’s idea to the whole of Genesis. For example, he supposed that the flood account in Genesis 6–8 came from two sources. In his 1780 Introduction to the Old Testament, Eichhorn said that Moses copied pre-Mosaic texts. But in later editions, he agreed that the J-E division could be applied to the whole of the Pentateuch, which was written after Moses.

Following Eichhorn, other ideas were advanced in denial of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. In 1802, Johann Vater insisted that Genesis was made from at least 39 fragments (hence called the “fragmentary theory”). Some of the fragments dated back to Moses’ period, but the final combination and arrangement did not happen in the time of the Babylonian captivity (587–538 BC). In 1805, Wilhelm de Wette contended that none of the Pentateuch was written before the time of King David and that Deuteronomy was concocted by and written at the direction of Hilkiah the high priest and King Josiah (about 621 BC) to serve the efforts of abolishing all worship and sacrifice to Yahweh outside of Jerusalem.

A couple decades later, several other German scholars advocated for the “supplementary theory” for the origin of the Pentateuch. This assumed the existence of one basic document or tradition dated at 1050–950 BC that acquired additions or supplements from the times of the Judges, Solomon, and Elijah. An alternative to the supplementary theory was the “crystallization theory,” which regarded each successive contributor to the Mosaic corpus as a reworking of the whole material, rather than just adding to it. Over the years, the order of the sources varied among the scholars from JEDP to PEJD to PEJDP and back to JEDP, which was solidified by Wellhausen.

Although the German Old Testament scholar, Julius Wellhausen (1844–1914), contributed no significant innovations, he did restate and synthesized the various theories with great skill and persuasiveness and linked it to the theory of evolution. He became the most influential proponent of the documentary hypothesis through his 1876 book, The Composition of the Hexateuch (the Pentateuch plus Joshua) and his Introduction to the History of Israel (1878).

Several lines of evidence should lead us to reject the documentary hypothesis as a fabrication of unbelievers.

Even though a great many scholars and much of the public have accepted this view, is it really true? Did Moses have little or nothing to do with the writing of the book of Genesis or the rest of the Pentateuch? Several lines of evidence should lead us to reject the documentary hypothesis as a fabrication of unbelievers.

Evidence Against the JEDP Theory of the Pentateuch

1. Most importantly, we should reject this theory because God’s Word outside the Pentateuch clearly teaches that Moses wrote the first five books, as we will demonstrate below. But there are some other reasons we can mention.
2. We have hundreds of manuscript (handwritten) copies of the Hebrew Pentateuch that match what we have today, and not one ancient copy of a J, E, D, or P has ever been found. Nor is there any mention of these supposed documents in the Bible or other ancient literature.
3. A significant reason for the acceptance of Wellhausen’s theory was his skillfully presented defense of the evolutionary development of the Israelite religion. But few scholars hold that view today.
4. Proponents imagined different authors because of different literary styles. But style is affected by the subject matter. So there is no reason why one author cannot write a historical narrative, then a statistical report, then give a list of laws.
5. Likewise, the different names of God do not point to different authors as one author could have reasons for using different names in different contexts.
6. Repetitions or duplications of material do not prove multiple authors. Some so-called duplications are actually referring to different but somewhat similar events. Some alleged repetitions are summaries at the beginning or end of an account that provide emphasis and aid learning.

Was Genesis Produced by Multiple Authors?

There is no purported Deuteronomist material in Genesis, so we are only concerned here with the J, E, and P sources. According to this theory currently, Genesis in its final form was compiled around 400 BC, only about a century before it was translated into Greek as part of the Septuagint.

It’s important to understand why many scholars began positing multiple authors for Genesis, even though we think they are incorrect. For example, there are places where Genesis seems to repeat itself. So it is noted that Genesis 1:1–2:3 presents the six-day creation of the whole universe, and Genesis 2:4–25 focuses on the creation of the first two humans. The former passage uses Elohim. It is highly structured and uses repetition of words. It is therefore regarded by some scholars as “liturgical.” So it is credited to P-writers rather than E-writers. In contrast, Genesis 2 uses Yahweh Elohim. So on the surface, it might seem reasonable to say that perhaps there were two different sources that focused on different details of creation and used a different name for God. But then we have the flood account in Genesis 6–9 that uses both names of God and repetition of wording!5 For example, Genesis 6:5–7 says the Lord (Yahweh) saw the wickedness and sent the flood to destroy the earth, but Genesis 6:11–13 says God (Elohim) saw and did this. According to Genesis 6:22, Noah did all that God (Elohim) commanded, but Genesis 7:5 says Noah perfectly obeyed all that the Lord (Yahweh) commanded. After the flood, Genesis 8:21 says the Lord (Yahweh) promised to never again destroy the earth with a flood, but Genesis 9:8–17 says God (Elohim) made the promise.

Genesis does not read like a patchwork of legends and myths. Rather, it has a unified structure and its message flows directly into Exodus, just as Luke flows directly into Acts.

However, there are rhetorical reasons that a single author might have used repetition, which was a common practice in ancient writings from around Israel. It also aids memorization and provides emphasis for key truths. And the interchange of the names of God is a way of showing that God is the Lord. Also, Genesis does not read like a patchwork of legends and myths. Rather, it has a unified structure (as will be shown below) and its message flows directly into Exodus, just as Luke flows directly into Acts. The Jewish scholar Umberto Cassuto recognized this in the early to mid-twentieth century, and his successors have built on his work.6

So in summary, Genesis has very interesting literary characteristics that some people interpret to mean it came about from a long process of redaction and combining multiple sources. But other scholars point out that Genesis does not have the characteristics of a book that was cobbled together by many people over a long period of time. Ultimately, the question comes down to one’s presuppositions about the text. Is it the inspired, inerrant Word of God or merely the result of fallible human attempts to explain, defend, or develop their religion? However, there are many other compelling reasons to accept the Mosaic authorship of Genesis, to which we now turn.

Biblical View of Genesis Authorship

When Christians are confronted with a question like “Who wrote Genesis?” we should first examine what Scripture has to say about the topic. Genesis itself is formally anonymous (nothing in Genesis itself claims who wrote it), but the rest of the Bible has much to say about it. Here are some relevant passages:

Evidence Within the Pentateuch

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.” (Exodus 17:14)

And Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD. (Exodus 24:4)

And the LORD said to Moses, “Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” (Exodus 34:27)

These are the stages of the people of Israel, when they went out of the land of Egypt by their companies under the leadership of Moses and Aaron. Moses wrote down their starting places, stage by stage, by command of the LORD, and these are their stages according to their starting places. (Numbers 33:1–2)

Then Moses wrote this law and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and to all the elders of Israel. And Moses commanded them, “At the end of every seven years, at the set time in the year of release, at the Feast of Booths, when all Israel comes to appear before the LORD your God at the place he will choose, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing.” (Deuteronomy 31:9–11)

Evidence in the Rest of the Old Testament

Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. (Joshua 1:7–8)

At that time Joshua built an altar to the LORD, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal, just as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded the people, as it is written in the Book of the Law of Moses . . . . And there, in the presence of the people of Israel, he wrote on the stones a copy of the Law of Moses, which he had written . . . . And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the Book of the Law. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel. (Joshua 8:30–35)

And keep the charge of the LORD your God, walking in his ways and keeping his statutes, his commandments, his rules, and his testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses. (1 Kings 2:3)

But he did not put to death the children of the murderers, according to what is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, where the LORD commanded, “Fathers shall not be put to death because of their fathers  . . . But each one shall die for his own sin.”( 2 Kings 14:6)

And I will not cause the feet of Israel to wander anymore out of the land that I gave to their fathers, if only they will be careful to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the Law that my servant Moses commanded them. (2 Kings 21:8)

And they set the priests in their divisions and the Levites in their divisions, for the service of God at Jerusalem, as it is written in the Book of Moses. (Ezra 6:18)

On that day they read from the Book of Moses in the hearing of the people. (Nehemiah 13:1)

All Isarel has transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing to obey your voice. And the curse and oath that are written in the Law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out upon us, because we have sinned against him . . . . As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us; yet we have not entreated the favor of the LORD our God, turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth. (Daniel 9:11–13)

Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb [i.e., Mt. Sinai] for all Israel. (Malachi 4:4)

Evidence in the New Testament

And Jesus said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a proof to them.” (Matthew 8:4)

They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?’ He said to them, ‘Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.” (Matthew 19:7–8)

For Moses said, “Honor your father and your mother”; and, “Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.” (Mark 7:10)

And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?” (Mark 12:26)

He said to him, “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.” (Luke 16:31)

Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” (Luke 24:44)

For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. (Romans 10:5)

Summary of the Biblical Evidence

Anytime the first books of the Bible are discussed regarding authorship, Moses is credited. There is not a single instance when another person is credited with the authorship of the Pentateuch. In fact, Moses’ authorship of the Pentateuch is so uncontested that in Luke 24:44, the three-fold division of the Old Testament is given as the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.7

Did Moses Use Preexisting Documents?

Moses could have written Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy from his own experience (except for the account of his death at the end of Deuteronomy). But Genesis recounts historical events that happened long before Moses was born. How could Moses have reliably borne witness to events that happened hundreds or even thousands of years before him?

First, God could have directly told Moses about the history of the world from creation through Joseph. However, the text itself does not read like that. If God gave the text to Moses that way, we would expect God to speak in the first person and for Moses to explicitly say that God told him things, as he does in the rest of the Torah and as the other prophets do in the Old Testament. We know what it looks like when Moses is transcribing God’s direct speech (as in Exodus 17:14 and 24:4). Genesis does not match what we would expect, if God dictated the whole book to Moses.

Second, these accounts could have been preserved through oral tradition. Structured passages like Genesis 1 and the Genesis 5 and 11 genealogies would lend themselves to easy repetition and memorization, and much of the narrative in Genesis is structured in a way to be easily recounted. In cultures with no written language or with low literacy rates, long accounts can be preserved with very high rates of accuracy over time.8

Third, these accounts could have been preserved through written tradition. We know that God created Adam intelligent and gave him the ability to speak, allowing him to understand God’s command and name all the animals God brought him on day six. With long lifespans (averaging almost 900 years) before the flood, we would expect there to be not only innovations in mining, metallurgy, and musical instruments brought about by Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-Cain (Genesis 4:20–22) but also similar technological invention across the board. Large building projects (like Noah’s ark and the tower of Babel) would need written instructions and records.

God would have told Adam about the events that preceded his own creation and about how Eve was created.

A mix of the second and third options is likely. It should be noted that every culture or people group (no matter how “primitive” by Western standards) preserves a history of their people. A person who does not have a historical context for his life is a very confused person. God would have told Adam about the events that preceded his own creation and about how Eve was created. Adam would have surely told his children and grandchildren and more about the events of Genesis 2–4 that he witnessed. It is most reasonable to conclude that the other patriarchs also passed on the history before and after their birth to the next generations as well.

Noah and Shem lived hundreds of years after the flood. They would have transmitted to their ancestors the history of the pre-flood world and the details of the flood and post-flood period (including the judgment at the tower of Babel, which they both outlived by more than a hundred years). So we don’t have to posit anyone being able to read a putative pre-flood language, just that Shem and Abraham had the same post-Babel language. The accounts of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the progenitors of the 12 tribes could have easily been preserved in family history, or even Egyptian records, given Joseph’s importance to Egypt and Moses’ education in the court of Pharoah.

One important feature of Genesis that may hint at preexisting documents is the repeated use of the Hebrew word toledoth in Genesis. It is variously translated as “generations” or “account” or “history.” It appears 11 times in Genesis tying the whole narrative together as a historical account.

These are the generations [toledoth] of the heavens and earth. (Genesis 2:4)

This is the book of the generations [toledoth] of Adam. (Genesis 5:1)

These are the generations [toledoth] of Noah. (Genesis 6:9)

These are the generations [toledoth] of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Genesis 10:1)

These are the generations [toledoth] of Shem. (Genesis 11:10)

Now these are the generations [toledoth] of Terah. (Genesis 11:27)

These are the generations [toledoth] of Ishmael. (Genesis 25:12)

These are the generations [toledoth] of Isaac. (Genesis 25:19)

These are the generations [toledoth] of Esau. (Genesis 36:1)

These are the generations [toledoth] of Esau. (Genesis 36:9)

These are the generations [toledoth] of Jacob. (Genesis 37:2)

It is possible that these uses of toledoth point to preexisting written documents, especially since the Hebrew word translated “book” in Genesis 5:1, sepher, is the normal word for a book, scroll, or inscription.

If toledoth refers to written documents, with the earliest going back to Noah, Shem, or even Adam, then it makes sense that the pre-flood accounts appear as if they were written by eyewitnesses. Noah and Shem could have described the geography of the region of Eden as in Genesis 2 and given a detailed account of what happened prior to and during the flood.

Moses working from previously written documents would also explain how he was able to give accurate information about the geography, people, and culture of Canaan, when he never set foot in it. We can tell when ancient authors are trying to describe places they’ve never been and never heard an accurate description of. The Letter of Aristeas is a document from a few hundred years before Jesus that purports to be from a Palestinian Jew describing the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, which became known as the Septuagint. However, we know that the author was an Alexandrian Jew who had never seen Jerusalem because his fantastical description of the city bears no resemblance to the actual place. It’s easy to contrast The Letter of Aristeas with any given geographical description given in Scripture, which is invariably correct and often able to be confirmed through archaeology.

Is It Accurate to Say That Moses Wrote Genesis If He Compiled It from Earlier Records?

Some might think that there’s not much difference between the documentary hypothesis and the idea that Moses used earlier records. However, the toledoth hypothesis comes from evidence within Genesis itself, not naturalistic philosophy that is hostile to Scripture. There is a wide range of authorship practices that all result in a validly authored document—if Moses was the compiler/editor of Genesis, he is still the author by the ancient way of thinking about it, which is the standard that matters. And he is the person who God inspired to give us the completely inerrant version of earth’s earliest history.

Was Genesis Edited by Later Scribes?

There are some anachronisms in Genesis that indicate that a later person edited certain passages. For instance, Genesis 14:14 states, “When Abram heard that his kinsman had been taken captive, he led forth his trained men, born in his house, 318 of them, and went in pursuit as far as Dan.” However, we know that the place wasn’t called “Dan” in Abram’s day, but “Leshem,” and would be so known for hundreds of years. In fact, we know how the city came to be known as Dan because Joshua tells us:

When the territory of the people of Dan was lost to them, the people of Dan went up and fought against Leshem, and after capturing it and striking it with the sword they took possession of it and settled in it, calling Leshem, Dan, after the name of Dan their ancestor. (Joshua 19:47)

Judges 18:27–29 calls it Laish, which is linguistically similar to Leshem, and gives a more detailed description of how Dan captured it. There are numerous instances in Genesis and the rest of the Pentateuch where both an archaic and more current place-name are given.

Since the Holy Spirit guided the slight editing as he did the writing of the rest of the Scriptures (2 Peter 1:20–21) , the editing does not introduce error or change the meaning of the text.

This suggests that as Genesis was copied, scribes sometimes updated place-names or inserted small explanatory notes into the text. However, this was not done wholesale, and there was great respect for the text. And since the Holy Spirit guided the slight editing as he did the writing of the rest of the Scriptures (2 Peter 1:20–21), the editing does not introduce error or change the meaning of the text.

Answering Objections

A number of objections have been raised by the proponents of the documentary hypothesis. We’ll cover a few of the common ones here.

1. Moses couldn’t have written about his own death, which shows that he didn’t write Deuteronomy.
   

   The death of Moses is recorded in Deuteronomy 34:1–12. These are the last few verses of the book. Ancient interpreters before the documentary hypothesis knew about the Moses’ death “problem” as early as the Talmud (AD 200–500), which attributed that section to Joshua. If an author other than Moses wrote Moses’ obituary does not mean that Moses didn’t write the rest of the Pentateuch.

2. The author of Genesis 12:6 seems to imply that the Canaanites were removed from the land of Canaan, which took place well after Moses died.
   

   The verse in question reads:

   Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak at Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.

   The argument is that since the Canaanites were removed after Moses’ death, Moses could not have written this passage. As with updating Leshem/Laish to Dan and including Moses’ death in Deuteronomy, this could have been an editorial insertion by a later scribe.

3. The author of Genesis 36:31 obviously knew about kings in Israel, which took place well after Moses, so Moses couldn’t have written it.
   

   The verse in question reads:

   These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom, before any king reigned over the Israelites.

   Moses himself gave laws regarding the king’s conduct, whenever there would be a king in Israel. It wouldn’t even take a supernatural prophecy to anticipate that a large group of people would eventually set up a king—it had happened with literally every other large group of people around them! If Moses wrote it, he could just have been noting that Edom had kings well before Israel.

Conclusion

The first five books of the Old Testament are foundational to the whole rest of the Bible. And it is no accident that Genesis is the first book, for it explains the beginning of the creation, the beginning of sin and death, the beginning of nations, the beginning of the nation of Israel, and the beginning of the gospel message of redemption that runs through the whole Bible. It is no surprise that sinful men and demons have done everything they can to try to destroy or undermine the reliability, clarity, and authority of these books, especially the first 11 chapters.

God has given us abundant reasons from the rest of Scripture (including the explicit words of Jesus), from archaeology, from science, and even from the multitude of contradictory and fallacious attempts by unbelieving scholars to conclude that the Pentateuch is the work of Moses under the leading of the Holy Spirit and that Genesis provides us with perfectly accurate history.