Since there has been considerable discussion here about who wrote Genesis I went off and did a little (a very little) research. I jumped straight into "Asimov's Guide to the Bible: The Old Testament" by Isaac Asimov. Asimov is careful to say that this is not original research on his part, it comes from his study of a great many sources. And for full disclosure Asimov is a scientist and an atheist, in addition to being a science fiction author.
Here is what he has to say about the matter.
By ancient tradition, the first five books of the Bible were written by Moses, the folk hero who, according to the account given in the second through fifth books, rescued the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. Modern scholars are convinced that this theory of authorship is not tenable and that the early books of the Bible are not the single work of any man. Rather, they are the combined and carefully edited version of a number of sources. Despite this, the full name of the first book of the Bible as commonly given in English translation remains "The First Book of Moses, Called Genesis."
The first five books of the Bible give not only the traditional history of the ancestors of the Israelite people, but also describe a legal code as having been given to Moses by Cod and by Moses to the Israelites generally. Because of Moses' traditional role in what was, in actual fact, a set of laws that developed slowly over the centuries, the whole is termed the "Mosaic law" or, more simply still, "the Law." The Hebrew word for the first five books is "Torah," which is the Hebrew word for "law."
Bill Gill
