Leupold Genesis part 1

Exposition of Genesis by H. C. LEUPOLD, D. D

Professor of Old Testament Exegesis
in the Capital University Seminary
Colombus, Ohio

To the memory of my FATHER and to my MOTHER

The full work is available at www.ccel.org

This is the first in a very multi part series. Its a great work, in my view, so, while its available on the net as a whole, it is serialised here for discussion.

INTRODUCTION

Name of the Book

The name universally used in English for this book is "Genesis." This name is a transliteration of the Greek word genesis, which constitutes the regular title from of old in the Septuagint and was taken over by Jerome into the Vulgate--Liber Genesis. Luther made a new departure when he substituted in his German Bible the title "The First Book of Moses"--a designation requiring no further commentary. In the Hebrew Bible the book constitutes the first part of the Pentateuch. As a distinct part it so naturally stands out as a unit that there can be no doubt that it was designed to be just such a unit; and so even criticism from its point of view is ready to accept the division of the Pentateuch as a whole into five parts and that the book of Genesis in particular was a part of it at so early a date as at least four centuries before the Christian era. Though no evidence is available, we are inclined to believe that the Jews discerned the fivefold division of the Pentateuch from the time that the work was put into their hands. They are wont to refer to the book by the title of Bereshith, the very first Hebrew word, meaning: "in the beginning."