Leupold Genesis part 2 author

Genesis contains no statement as to who its author was. Yet we hold very definitely to the conviction that Moses wrote Genesis as well as the rest of the Pentateuch, except (Deut. 34). In our day such a position is regarded as so utterly outmoded that we must indicate, at least briefly, what grounds we have for standing thus. Our grounds are those which have satisfied conservative scholarship in the church throughout the ages. Neither is the group of those who still accept these arguments so inconsiderable as critics would have us believe.

The internal evidence of the Pentateuch runs as follows. In Exodus the passages (17:14; 24:4; 34:27), if rightly construed, indicate that Moses wrote more than the specific passages that appear under immediate consideration, in fact, all of Exodus. In like manner the numerous statements of Leviticus to the effect that "the Lord spake unto Moses" ("and unto Aaron"), such as (Le 1:1; 4:1; 6:1, 8, 19, 24; 7:22, 28; 8:1), etc., again, if rightly construed, lead to the same result, in fact, cover Leviticus. For why should the exact nature of the revelation be emphasized, unless it be presupposed that this revelation was immediately conserved in writing in each case? In fact, the assumption that these directions were not committed to writing is most unnatural. The same argument applies to much of what is found in Numbers; but in this book the special portion that came by immediate revelation requires the background of the rest of the historical material of the book. (Nu 33:2) is the only passage that refers to the fact that Moses wrote, a statement inserted at this point in order to stamp even what might seem too unimportant to record as traceable to Moses. In Deuteronomy a comparison of the following passages establishes the Mosaic authorship: (De 1:1; 17:18,19; 27:1-8; 31:9; 31:24). If, then, on the basis of the evidence found in these four books we may very reasonably conclude that they were written by Moses, the conclusion follows very properly that none other than the author of these later four books would have been so suitable as the author for Genesis also. Certainly such a conclusion is far more reasonable than that Genesis--or for that matter the entire Pentateuch--is to be ascribed to another one of these genial Nobodies of whom criticism has a large number in reserve as authors.