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Is Genesis written in the first person or the third person?

Is Genesis written in the first person or the third person?

  • None of the above

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    14

Gold Dragon

Well-Known Member
Linguistically, a first person account makes use of first person pronouns like I, us, we, our in narration. Examples of first person accounts in the bible are Ezekial and Isaiah.

A third person account uses he, she, it, they and names characters in the account by name. They never make reference to the narrator using first person pronouns. Examples of third person accounts include Kings and Chronicles.

While grammatically an account cannot be both a first and third person account, that seems to be a popular choice and I will include it.
 

Gold Dragon

Well-Known Member
Oops. I accidently chose first person. Duh!

Subtract one from first person and add one to third person.
 

Johnv

New Member
It's clearly third person. The author who has nothing to do with any of the persons or events is documenting the story. In this case, the story had been in existence prior to its writing, and was likely handed down from generation to generation verbally (the early Israelites, as well as many other civilizations of the time, were oral-tradition driven).
 

Joseph_Botwinick

<img src=/532.jpg>Banned
Grammatically, it is in 3rd person. Theologically, it is also in 1st person since it is also the Word of God.

Joseph Botwinick
 

BobRyan

Well-Known Member
Genesis was written while Moses was in exile from Egypt - during that 40 years - he wrote the book of Genesis and possibly also the book of Job.

But that is not a view humanists would be happy with --

Obviously.

In Christ,

Bob
 

Helen

<img src =/Helen2.gif>
Job is probably Jobab, the son of Joktan, brother of Peleg. What he saw in terms of natural disasters fits the time of Peleg and immediately after.

Genesis is primarily first person accounts although the last section was probably written by Joseph's scribe and not by Joseph himself.

Moses came into possession of the tablets and collated and edited them. We have clear record of some of his editorial comments, such as Genesis 2:5-6
 

Gold Dragon

Well-Known Member
Originally posted by Joseph_Botwinick:
Grammatically, it is in 3rd person. Theologically, it is also in 1st person since it is also the Word of God.

Joseph Botwinick
What does that mean, to be theologically 1st person? Does God only speak in the first person, theologically, whatever that means?
 

Joseph_Botwinick

<img src=/532.jpg>Banned
It means that even though humans may have written it in 3rd person when referring to God, that since it is the Word of God itself, it is also a 1st person account of the creation as well. That is, unless you believe the Bible is simply the word of man and nothing else. I personally believe it is the Word of God. This seems so simple to me that I am surprised I even have to explain.

Joseph Botwinick
 

Gold Dragon

Well-Known Member
Originally posted by Joseph_Botwinick:
that since it is the Word of God itself, it is also a 1st person account of the creation as well.
I'm not following this logical leap here. Why does the word of God have to be in the first person? I believe the entire bible is the word of God. Does that mean the entire bible is first person, theologically? I still don't get what that means, first person theologically.

The argument could be made that God revealed a first person account of Genesis to Moses who recorded it in the third person. But that doesn't sound like what you are saying.

Originally posted by Joseph_Botwinick:
That is, unless you believe the Bible is simply the word of man and nothing else. I personally believe it is the Word of God. This seems so simple to me that I am surprised I even have to explain.
I feel like a broken record saying that the bible is God's inspired, authoritative and trustworthy word to mankind.
 

Helen

<img src =/Helen2.gif>
Gold Dragon, did you just edit out your question about sources? If so, you did it after I started looking up some stuff!

Here is an interesting article about all of this:
http://www.biblemysteries.com/library/genesis.htm

The material seems to consistently go back to Wiseman and his book New Discoveries About Genesis, written in 1936.
 

Gold Dragon

Well-Known Member
Originally posted by Helen:
Gold Dragon, did you just edit out your question about sources? If so, you did it after I started looking up some stuff!
It is in the other thread.

Thanks for the link. I'll do some research into it.
 

Helen

<img src =/Helen2.gif>
It is interesting. However, Genesis 1:1-2:4a has only one possibility of an Author, since there was only one Eyewitness to creation, so that part HAD to be divine revelation, or at least divine writing (as He did with the Ten Commandments).
 

Gold Dragon

Well-Known Member
Originally posted by Helen:
It is interesting. However, Genesis 1:1-2:4a has only one possibility of an Author, since there was only one Eyewitness to creation, so that part HAD to be divine revelation, or at least divine writing (as He did with the Ten Commandments).
I believe the entire bible is divine revelation.
 

Paul of Eugene

New Member
Why can't Genesis be a result of both complilation AND the direction of God in doing the compiling? I agree Genesis certainly shows signs of being compiled from more than one source, and the sources were obviously regarded with great reverence and treated with such devotion by the compiler(s) that we can still see the occasional conflicting accounts that remain.

But God certainly inspired the compilation of Genesis as we know it.
 
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