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112-492: In the Book of Genesis , Genesis 36:15 , the Teman is a son of Eliphaz , Esau 's eldest son. Job 's friend Eliphaz is said to have been from Teman. ( Job 2:11 ). According to bibleatlas.org and author W. Ewing, Teman or te'-man (תימן) means "on the right," i.e. "south" (Thaiman) and it is the name of a district and town in the land of Edom , named after Teman the grandson of Esau ,

224-460: A great flood to wipe out the rest of the world. When the waters recede, God promises he will never destroy the world with water again, making a rainbow as a symbol of his promise . God sees humankind cooperating to build a great tower city, the Tower of Babel , and divides humanity with many languages and sets them apart with confusion. Then, a generation line from Shem to Abram is described. Abram,

336-624: A vassal of Israel. David placed over the Edomites Israelite governors or prefects, and this form of government seems to have continued under Solomon . When Israel divided into two kingdoms Edom became a dependency of the Kingdom of Judah . In the time of Jehoshaphat (c. 870 – 849 BC) the Tanakh mentions a king of Edom who was probably an Israelite deputy appointed by the King of Judah . It also states that

448-585: A Seleucid general named Gorgias as "Governor of Idumaea"; whether he was a Greek or a Hellenized Idumean is unknown. Some scholars maintain that the reference to Idumaea in that passage is an error altogether. According to Josephus , the Judeans under Judas Maccabeus first defeated the Idumaeans in the two Idumaean border towns of Hebron and Marisa and plundered them around 163 BC. About 50 years later, Judeans under John Hyrcanus I again attacked Marisa and

560-461: A bowl of stew. His mother, Rebekah, ensures Jacob rightly gains his father's blessing as the firstborn son and inheritor. At 77 years of age, Jacob leaves his parents and later seeks a wife and meets Rachel at a well. He goes to her father, his uncle , where he works for a total of 14 years to earn his wives, Rachel and Leah . Jacob's name is changed to Israel after his wrestle with an angel , and by his wives and their handmaidens he has twelve sons,

672-634: A kingdom ("Edom") in the southern area of modern-day Jordan and later migrated into the southern parts of the Kingdom of Judah ("Idumea", modern-day Mount Hebron ) when Judah was first weakened and then destroyed by the Babylonians in the 6th century BC. The Hebrew word Edom means "red", and the Hebrew Bible relates it to the name of its founder Esau , the elder son of the Hebrew patriarch Isaac , because he

784-551: A long period of time. The involvement of multiple authors is suggested by internal contradictions within the text. For example, Genesis includes two creation narratives . By the early 1860s, the leading theory for the Pentateuch's composition was the old supplementary hypothesis. This theory held that the earliest portions, the so-called Book of Origins (containing Genesis 1 and most of the priestly laws in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers),

896-493: A male heir, and the story is constantly complicated by the fact that each prospective mother— Sarah , Rebekah and Rachel —is barren. The ancestors, however, retain their faith in God and God in each case gives a son—in Jacob's case, twelve sons, the foundation of the chosen Israelites . Each succeeding generation of the three promises attains a more rich fulfilment, until through Joseph "all

1008-473: A man descended from Noah, is instructed by God to travel from his home in Mesopotamia to the land of Canaan . There, God makes a promise to Abram, promising that his descendants shall be as numerous as the stars, but that people will suffer oppression in a foreign land for four hundred years, after which they will inherit the land "from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates ". Abram's name

1120-470: A minority of contemporary Jews argued Herod could not be Jewish because of his genealogical origins. These beliefs were promoted by works such as Jubilees and 4QMMT , which were of Essene , Hasidean or Sadducee origin. These Jews did not openly express their views because Herod violently suppressed critics. Evie Gassner believed the sages disparaged Herod because he supported the Sadducees, who opposed

1232-514: A number of variations and revisions of the documentary hypothesis have been proposed. The new supplementary hypothesis posits three main sources for the Pentateuch: J, D, and P. The E source is considered no more than a variation of J, and P is considered a body of revisions and expansions to the J (or "non-Priestly") material. The Deuteronomistic source does not appear in Genesis. More recent thinking

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1344-549: A pillar of salt for going against his word. Lot's daughters, concerned that they are fugitives who will never find husbands, get Lot drunk so they can become pregnant by him, and give birth to the ancestors of the Moabites and Ammonites . Abraham and Sarah go to the Philistine town of Gerar , pretending to be brother and sister (they are half-siblings). The King of Gerar takes Sarah for his wife, but God warns him to return her (as she

1456-507: A result, historians have toned down the Hasmonean history of Idumaea as recounted by Josephus in several ways: (a) Traditional account: Some historians still maintain that the events happened largely as Josephus describes. (b) Moderated Conquest: This view was first moderated by the assumption that only Maresha and Adoraim, located on Idumaea's northern border, were actually conquered, while other Idumeans voluntarily aligned themselves with

1568-502: A single law code accepted by the entire community. The two powerful groups making up the community—the priestly families who controlled the Second Temple and who traced their origin to Moses and the wilderness wanderings, and the major landowning families who made up the "elders" and who traced their own origins to Abraham, who had "given" them the land—were in conflict over many issues, and each had its own "history of origins". However,

1680-594: A special relationship with one people alone (Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob). In Judaism , the theological importance of Genesis centres on the covenants linking God to his chosen people and the people to the Promised Land . The name Genesis is from the Latin Vulgate , in turn borrowed or transliterated from Greek Γένεσις , meaning 'origin'; Biblical Hebrew : בְּרֵאשִׁית , romanized:  Bərēʾšīṯ , 'In [the] beginning'. Genesis

1792-490: A state when it was conquered by Nabonidus in the 6th century BC. Edom is mentioned in Assyrian cuneiform inscriptions in the form 𒌑𒁺𒈪 Údumi and 𒌑𒁺𒈬 Údumu ; three of its kings are known from the same source: Kaus-malaka at the time of Tiglath-pileser III (c. 745 BC), Aya-ramu at the time of Sennacherib (c. 705 BC), and Kaus-gabri at the time of Esarhaddon (c. 680 BC). According to

1904-503: Is aluf , used solely to describe the dukes of Edom and Moab , in the Torah . However beginning in the books of the later prophets the word is used to describe Judean generals, for example, in the prophecies of Zachariah twice (9:7, 12:5–6) it had evolved to describe Jewish captains, the word also is used multiple times as a general term for teacher or guide for example in Psalm 55:13. Aluph as it

2016-533: Is circumcision ; and the last, which does not appear until the Book of Exodus, is with Israel alone, and its sign is Sabbath . A great leader mediates each covenant ( Noah , Abraham, Moses), and at each stage God progressively reveals himself by his name ( Elohim with Noah, El Shaddai with Abraham, Yahweh with Moses). Throughout Genesis, various figures engage in deception or trickery to survive or prosper. Biblical scholar David M. Carr notes that such stories reflect

2128-720: Is a similar god to Yahweh . Qaus seems to have descended from a cultural heritage common between Edomites and Jews, with the worship of both the Edomite Qaus and the God of the Israelites being described by Egyptians. Qaus's popularity during the Persian and Hellenistic periods appears, according to Tebes, to have forced the purportedly pro-Yahwist authors of the Book of Chronicles to portray several Edomite persons as 'pious Levites '. Clues about their Edomite heritage appear to be hidden in their theophoric names. Josephus states that Costobarus

2240-553: Is about to lay the knife upon his son, "the Angel of the Lord" restrains him, promising him again innumerable descendants. On the death of Sarah, Abraham purchases Machpelah (believed to be modern Hebron ) for a family tomb and sends his servant to Mesopotamia to find among his relations a wife for Isaac; after proving herself worthy, Rebekah becomes Isaac's betrothed. Keturah , Abraham's other wife, births more children, among whose descendants are

2352-651: Is also known as a Sidra (or Sedra / s ɛ d r ə / ). The parashah is a section of the Torah (Five Books of Moses) used in Jewish liturgy during a particular week. There are 54 weekly parshas, or parashiyot in Hebrew, and the full cycle is read over the course of one Jewish year. The first 12 of the 54 come from the Book of Genesis, and they are: Edom Edom ( / ˈ iː d ə m / ; Edomite : 𐤀𐤃𐤌 ʾDM ; Hebrew : אֱדוֹם ʾĔḏōm , lit.: "red"; Akkadian : 𒌑𒁺𒈪 Údumi , 𒌑𒁺𒈬 Údumu ; Ancient Egyptian : jdwmꜥ )

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2464-536: Is changed to "Israel", and through the agency of his son Joseph , the children of Israel descend into Egypt, 70 people in all with their households, and God promises them a future of greatness. Genesis ends with Israel in Egypt, ready for the coming of Moses and the Exodus (departure). The narrative is punctuated by a series of covenants with God, successively narrowing in scope from all humankind (the covenant with Noah ) to

2576-399: Is changed to 'Abraham' and that of his wife Sarai to Sarah (meaning 'princess'), and God says that all males should be circumcised as a sign of his promise to Abraham. Due to her old age, Sarah tells Abraham to take her Egyptian handmaiden, Hagar , as a second wife (to bear a child). Through Hagar, Abraham fathers Ishmael . God then plans to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for

2688-432: Is divisible into two parts, the primeval history (chapters 1–11) and the ancestral history (chapters 12–50). The primeval history sets out the author's concepts of the nature of the deity and of humankind's relationship with its maker: God creates a world which is good and fit for humans, but when man corrupts it with sin, God decides to destroy his creation, sparing only the righteous Noah and his family to re-establish

2800-562: Is eliminated. This antiquity was needed to prove the worth of Israel's traditions to the nations (the neighbours of the Jews in the early Persian province of Judea), and to reconcile and unite the various factions within Israel itself. Describing the work of the biblical authors, John Van Seters wrote that lacking many historical traditions and none from the distant past, "They had to use myths and legends for earlier periods. In order to make sense out of

2912-461: Is given. No trace of the name has yet been found. It may have been on the road from Elath to Bozrah. The exact location of Teman remains unknown, but there is a possibility that if the city of Teman ever existed as a more permanent location of shepherds during the time of Job, present-day Ma'an ( Arabic : معان ) in Jordan could be its successor. The possible location of Teman given by bibleatlas.org

3024-575: Is in the vicinity of the Jordanian town Ma'an. There is other strong evidence that Teman could be identified in the site of the modern Ma'an. There is some information that says that the state which emerged in the south of the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen during the year 1200 BC extended its influence in the north and made the city of Ma'an a commercial and political center. The city acquired a gloss because of

3136-416: Is interpreted by Christians as the " fall of man " into sin . Eve bears two sons, Cain and Abel . Cain works in the garden, and Abel works with meat; they both offer offerings to God one day, and God does not accept Cain's offering but does accept Abel's. This causes Cain to resent Abel, and Cain ends up murdering him. God then curses Cain . Eve bears another son, Seth , to take Abel's place in accordance to

3248-497: Is invoked in the blessing formula in letters and appear in personal names found in ancient Edom. As close relatives of other Levantine Semites and Arabs , they seem to have worshiped such gods as El , Baal and 'Uzza . In some Jewish tradition stemming from the Talmud, the descendants of Esau are the Romans (and to a larger extent, all Europeans). Juan Manuel Tebes argues that Qaus

3360-514: Is mentioned in proximity to Teman Jer 25:23 ; and when judgment is pronounced on Edom, the people of Dedan are warned to stay back; that is, to retreat into the desert ( Jer 49:8 ). This understanding of Dedan is consistent with a southern Teman. Eusebius ' Onomasticon knows a district in the Gebalene region called Theman, and also a town with the same name, occupied by a Roman garrison, 15 miles from Petra . Unfortunately no indication of direction

3472-471: Is normally excluded). Since the name YHWH had not been revealed to them, they worshipped El in his various manifestations. (It is, however, worth noting that in the Jahwist source, the patriarchs refer to deity by the name YHWH, for example in Genesis 15.) Through the patriarchs, God announces the election of Israel, that is, he chooses Israel to be his special people and commits himself to their future. God tells

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3584-441: Is really Abraham's wife) and he obeys. God sends Sarah a son and tells her she should name him Isaac ; through him will be the establishment of the covenant (promise). Sarah then drives Ishmael and his mother Hagar out into the wilderness (because Ishmael is not her real son and Hagar is a slave), but God saves them and promises to make Ishmael a great nation. Then, God tests Abraham by demanding that he sacrifice Isaac . As Abraham

3696-575: Is that J dates from either just before or during the Babylonian Exile, and the Priestly final edition was made late in the Exilic period or soon after. The almost complete absence of all the characters and incidents mentioned in primeval history from the rest of the Hebrew Bible has led a sizeable minority of scholars to conclude that these chapters were composed much later than those that follow, possibly in

3808-580: Is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament . Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word , Bereshit ( 'In the beginning' ). Genesis purports to be an account of the creation of the world , the early history of humanity, and the origins of the Jewish people . Genesis is part of the Torah or Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. Tradition credits Moses as

3920-541: Is used to denote teach or guide from the Edomite word for duke is used 69 times in the Tanakh. If the account may be taken at face value, the kingship of Edom was, at least in early times, not hereditary , perhaps elective . The first book of Chronicles mentions both a king and chieftains . Moses and the Israelite people twice appealed to their common ancestry and asked the king of Edom for passage through his land, along

4032-697: The ketubbot used by Jews. However, despite these cultural similarities, some Jews maintained a distinct boundary between themselves and the Idumeans. This is evident in Ben Sira 50:25–26, which expresses disdain for three "nations," including "the inhabitants of Se'ir", referring to the Edomites/Idumeans. During the revolt of the Maccabees against the Seleucid kingdom (early 2nd century BC), II Maccabees refers to

4144-665: The Babylonian Exile ( c.  598 BC  – c.   538 BC ). At the end of the 19th century, most scholars adopted the documentary hypothesis . This theory held that the five books of the Pentateuch came from four sources: the Yahwist (abbreviated as J), the Elohist (E), the Deuteronomist (D) and the Priestly source (P). Each source was held to tell the same basic story, with

4256-422: The Book of Ezekiel 25:13 desolation is pronounced upon Edom: "From Teman even unto Dedan shall they fall by the sword." From this it has been argued that Dedan (modern Arabic Al-'Ula ) being in the south, Teman must, therefore, be in the north. But this does not automatically follow. Dedan is in fact in northern Arabia, being related to the peoples of Asshur or Assyria and other northern tribes Gen 25:3 . It

4368-546: The Garden of Eden . In the second chapter, God commanded the man that he is free to eat from any tree, including the tree of life, except from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil . Later, in chapter 3, a serpent , portrayed as a deceptive creature or trickster , convinces Eve to eat the fruit. She then convinces Adam to eat it, whereupon God throws them out and punishes them—Adam was punished with getting what he needs only by sweat and work, and Eve to giving birth in pain. This

4480-587: The Midianites . Abraham dies at a prosperous old age and his family lays him to rest in Hebron (Machpelah). Isaac's wife Rebekah gives birth to the twins Esau (meaning 'velvet'), father of the Edomites , and Jacob (meaning 'supplanter' or 'follower'). Esau was a couple of seconds older as he had come out of the womb first, and was going to become the heir; however, through carelessness, he sold his birthright to Jacob for

4592-702: The New Testament . During the 2nd century BC, the Edomites were forcibly converted to Judaism by the Hasmoneans and were incorporated into the Jewish population . Other scholars believe that the assimilation was voluntary. Edom and Idumea are two related but distinct terms; they relate to a historically-contiguous population but to two separate, if adjacent, territories which the Edomites/Idumeans occupied in different periods of their history. The Edomites first established

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4704-596: The Pharisees . By 66 CE, during the First Jewish–Roman War , the Zealot leader Simon bar Giora attacked the Jewish converts of Upper Idumaea and brought near complete destruction to the surrounding villages and countryside in that region. It was part of his wider plan to attack Jerusalem and seize authority for himself. According to Josephus, during the siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE by Titus , 20,000 Idumaeans, under

4816-413: The Torah's author . It was probably composed around the 5th century BC , although some scholars believe that primeval history (chapters 1–11), may have been composed and added as late as the 3rd century BC. Based on scientific interpretation of archaeological , genetic , and linguistic evidence, some mainstream Bible scholars consider Genesis to be primarily mythological rather than historical . It

4928-584: The Victorian crisis of faith as evidence mounted that the Earth was far older than six thousand years. It is a custom among religious Jewish communities for a weekly Torah portion , popularly referred to as a parashah , to be read during Jewish prayer services on Saturdays, Mondays and Thursdays. The full name, פָּרָשַׁת הַשָּׁבוּעַ , Parashat ha-Shavua , is popularly abbreviated to parashah (also parshah / p ɑː r ʃ ə / or parsha ), and

5040-420: The land of Goshen . Jacob calls his sons to his bedside and reveals their future before he dies. Joseph lives to old age and tells his brothers before his death that if God leads them out of the country, then they should take his bones with them. In 1978, David Clines published The Theme of the Pentateuch . Considered influential as one of the first authors to take up the question of the overarching theme of

5152-519: The pharaoh of Egypt asks him to interpret a dream he had about an upcoming famine, which Joseph does through God. He is then made second in command of Egypt by the grateful pharaoh, and later on, he is reunited with his father and brothers, who fail to recognize him and plead for food as the famine had reached Canaan as well. After much manipulation to see if they still hate him, Joseph reveals himself, forgives them for their actions, and lets them and their households into Egypt, where Pharaoh assigns to them

5264-434: The "King's Highway", on their way to Canaan , but the king refused permission. Accordingly, they detoured around the country because of his show of force or because God ordered them to do so rather than wage war ( Deuteronomy 2:4–6 ). The king of Edom did not attack the Israelites, though he prepared to resist aggression. Nothing further is recorded of the Edomites in the Tanakh until their defeat by King Saul of Israel in

5376-448: The 16th to the 19th century treated the book of Genesis as factual. As evidence in the fields of paleontology , geology and other sciences was uncovered, scholars tried to fit these discoveries into the Genesis creation account. For example, Johann Jakob Scheuchzer in the 18th century believed that fossils were the remains of creatures killed during the flood. This literal understanding of Genesis fell out of favor with scholars during

5488-520: The 3rd century BC. As for why the book was created, a theory which has gained considerable interest, although still controversial, is that of Persian imperial authorisation. This proposes that the Persians of the Achaemenid Empire , after their conquest of Babylon in 539 BC, agreed to grant Jerusalem a large measure of local autonomy within the empire, but required the local authorities to produce

5600-522: The Edomites settled during the Persian period in an area comprising the southern hills of Judea down to the area north of Be'er Sheva . The people appear under a Greek form of their old name, as Idumeans or Idumaeans , and their new territory was called Idumea or Idumaea ( Greek : Ἰδουμαία, Idoumaía ; Latin : Idūmaea ), a term that was used in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, also mentioned in

5712-525: The Egyptian inscriptions, the "Aduma" at times extended their possessions to the borders of Egypt. The existence of the Kingdom of Edom was asserted by archaeologists led by Ezra Ben-Yosef and Tom Levy, by using a methodology called the punctuated equilibrium model in 2019. Archaeologists mainly took copper samples from Timna Valley and Faynan in Jordan’s Arava valley dated to 1300-800 BC. According to

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5824-632: The Idumeans joined Judeans, Jerusalemites, Tyrians , Sidonians and east Jordanians in meeting Jesus by the Sea of Galilee . The Mishnah refers to Rabbi Ishmael 's dwelling place in Kfar Aziz as being "near to Edom." The nature of Edomite religion is largely unknown before their conversion to Judaism by the Hasmoneans. Epigraphical evidence suggests that the national god of Edom was Qaus (קוס) (also known as 'Qaush', 'Kaush', 'Kaus', 'Kos' or 'Qaws'), since Qaus

5936-541: The Israelites. Hence the Book of Psalms says "Moab is my washpot: over Edom will I cast out my shoe". According to the Torah , the congregation could not receive descendants of a marriage between an Israelite and an Edomite until the fourth generation. This law was a subject of controversy between Shimon ben Yohai , who said it applied only to male descendants, and other Tannaim , who said female descendants were also excluded for four generations. From these, some early conversion laws in halacha were derived. Compared to

6048-538: The Judeans. The reports of forced conversions, in this view, are either anti-Hasmonean propaganda or, conversely, Hasmonean propaganda, which Josephus (mistakenly) incorporated into his historical work. (c) Fictional Conquest: Atkinson takes this further by considering the entire account of the conquest to be fictional. He also believes that "many Idumeans [...] never fully embraced Judaism." (d) No Annexation: However, while Atkinson still maintains that archaeology suggests "the region south of Judea [including Maresha]

6160-534: The Messiah's rulership, according to the prophets. Despite this, many Edomites peacefully migrated to southern Judea, which continued even during the reign of Nabonidus . Regarding the territory of Edom, the book of Jeremiah states that "no one will live there, nor will anyone of mankind reside in it". Although the Idumaeans controlled the lands to the east and south of the Dead Sea, their peoples were held in contempt by

6272-485: The Pentateuch, Clines' conclusion was that the overall theme is "the partial fulfilment—which implies also the partial nonfulfillment—of the promise to or blessing of the Patriarchs". (By calling the fulfilment "partial", Clines was drawing attention to the fact that at the end of Deuteronomy the people of Israel are still outside Canaan.) The patriarchs , or ancestors, are Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, with their wives (Joseph

6384-419: The Persian promise of greatly increased local autonomy for all provided a powerful incentive to cooperate in producing a single text. Genesis is an example of a work in the "antiquities" genre, as the Romans knew it, a popular genre telling of the appearance of humans and their ancestors and heroes, with elaborate genealogies and chronologies fleshed out with stories and anecdotes. Notable examples are found in

6496-610: The Roman conquest, was of Idumean origin. Under Herod the Great , the Idumaea province was ruled for him by a series of governors, among whom were his brother Joseph ben Antipater and his brother-in-law Costobarus . Overall, Herodian influence on Judea, Jerusalem and the Temple was significant. However, this was obsfucated by later variants of Second Temple Judaism and Rabbinic Judaism . For example,

6608-455: The abundance of its waters and this is true because we can assume it from the large number of springs and their ongoing. That time any residential community surrounded by a desert was built around water sources. The glitter of the site could be interpreted by its position as it became a stop of migratory convoys between the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant , which were going there due to their need for

6720-660: The age of the world since creation. This Anno Mundi system of counting years is the basis of the Hebrew calendar and Byzantine calendar . Counts differ somewhat, but they generally place the age of the Earth at about six thousand years. During the Protestant Reformation , rivalry between Catholic and Protestant Christians led to a closer study of the Bible and a competition to take its words more seriously. Thus, scholars in Europe from

6832-466: The analysis of the Abraham cycle, the Jacob cycle, and the Joseph cycle, and the Yahwist and Priestly sources . The problem lies in finding a way to unite the patriarchal theme of the divine promise to the stories of Genesis 1–11 (the primeval history ) with their theme of God's forgiveness in the face of man's evil nature. One solution is to see the patriarchal stories as resulting from God's decision not to remain alienated from humankind: God creates

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6944-436: The ancestors of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel, and a daughter, Dinah . Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivite, rapes Dinah and asks his father to get Dinah for him as his wife, according to Chapter 34. Jacob agrees to the marriage but requires that all the males of Hamor's tribe be circumcised, including Hamor and Shechem. After this was performed and all the men were still weak, Jacob's sons Simeon and Levi murdered all

7056-500: The area during the late Persian period . Strabo identifies Idumeans with the Nabateans who were expelled to southern Judea after committing sedition. However, there is evidence for cultural continuity between the Iron Age Edom and Idumea, based on settlement patterns and religious practices . During the Hellenistic period , both Jews and Idumeans spoke Aramaic and used it for literary and legal documents. An Idumean marriage contract from Maresha, dating from 176 BCE, closely resembles

7168-406: The biblical story that there was an Edomite kingdom here." After the conquest of Judah by the Babylonians, Edomites settled in the region of Hebron . They prospered in this new country, called by the Greeks and Romans "Idumaea" or "Idumea", for more than four centuries. Strabo , writing around the time of Jesus , held that the Idumaeans, whom he identified as of Nabataean origin, constituted

7280-400: The book into the following sections: It is not clear, however, what this meant to the original authors, and most modern commentators divide it into two parts based on the subject matter, a primeval history (chapters 1–11) and a patriarchal history (chapters 12–50). While the first is far shorter than the second, it sets out the basic themes and provides an interpretive key for understanding

7392-472: The entire book. The primeval history has a symmetrical structure hinging on the flood story (chapters 6–9) with the events before the flood mirrored by the events after. The ancestral history is structured around the three patriarchs Abraham, Jacob and Joseph. The stories of Isaac arguably do not make up a coherent cycle of stories and function as a bridge between the cycles of Abraham and Jacob. The Genesis creation narrative comprises two different stories;

7504-425: The first half of the 2nd century BC. More recent excavations show that the process of Edomite settlement in the southern parts of Judah and parts of the Negev down to Timna had started already before the destruction of the kingdom by Nebuchadnezzar II in 587/86 BC, both by peaceful penetration and by military means and taking advantage of the already-weakened state of Judah. Once pushed out of their territory,

7616-406: The first two chapters roughly correspond to these. In the first, Elohim , the generic Hebrew word for God, creates the heavens and the earth including humankind, in six days, and rests on the seventh . In the second, God, now referred to as " Yahweh Elohim" (rendered as "the L ORD God" in English translations), creates two individuals, Adam and Eve , as the first man and woman, and places them in

7728-426: The generations", with the first use of the phrase referring to the "generations of heaven and earth" and the remainder marking individuals. The toledot formula, occurring eleven times in the book of Genesis, serves as a heading which marks a transition to a new subject. The creation account of Genesis 1 functions as a prologue for the whole book and is not introduced with a toledot . The toledot divide

7840-538: The influx of Idumaeans into the Mount Hebron region, shortly after the demise of the kingdom of Judah and the Judean exile in the 6th-century BC. Strabo describes western Judea as being populated by Idumeans, who commingled with Judeans and adopted their customs. Archaeological records gleaned from Maresha , though largely of Idumaean origin, attest to the region being under the influences of Greek culture , as well as that of Nabatean/Arab, Phoenician , Palmyrene and Jewish culture. The Gospel of Mark states that

7952-440: The inhabitants of Mount Seir invaded Judea in conjunction with Ammon and Moab, and that the invaders turned against one another and were all destroyed ( 2 Chronicles 20:10–23 ). Edom revolted against Jehoram and elected a king of its own ( 2 Kings 8:20–22 ; 2 Chronicles 21:8 ). Amaziah attacked and defeated the Edomites, seizing Selah, but the Israelites never subdued Edom completely ( 2 Kings 14:7 ; 2 Chronicles 25:11–12 ). In

8064-453: The land of Temani ruled in his place. And Husham died, and Hadad ben Bedad , who struck Midian in the field of Moab , ruled in his place, and the name of his city was Avith . And Hadad died, and Samlah of Masrekah ruled in his place. And Samlah died, and Saul of Rehoboth on the river ruled in his place. And Saul died, and Baal-hanan ben Achbor ruled in his place. And Baal-hanan ben Achbor died, and Hadar ruled in his place, and

8176-464: The late 11th century BC ( 1 Samuel 14:47 ). Forty years later King David and his general Joab defeated the Edomites in the " Valley of Salt " (probably near the Dead Sea ; 2 Samuel 8:13–14 ; 1 Kings 9:15–16 ). An Edomite prince named Hadad escaped and fled to Egypt, and after David's death he returned and tried to start a rebellion but failed and went to Syria ( Aramea ). From that time Edom remained

8288-472: The laws of the Jews. And so, out of attachment to the land of their fathers, they submitted to circumcision and to make their manner of life conform in all other respects to that of the Jews. And from that time onward they have continued to be Jews. However, since the late 1980s, scholars have increasingly questioned the traditional account of Idumaea's conquest and forced conversion by the Hasmoneans . Several reasons have been proposed for this skepticism. As

8400-649: The leadership of John, Simon, Phinehas, and Jacob, joined the Zealots as they besieged the Temple . Idumean zealotry arguably reflected their attempts to 'prove' their Jewishness. After the Jewish–Roman wars , the Idumaean people disappear from written history, though the geographical region of "Idumea" is still referred to at the time of Jerome . Josephus, when referring to Upper Idumaea, speaks of towns and villages immediately to

8512-509: The majority of the population of western Judea , where they commingled with the Judaeans and adopted their customs, a view not necessarily shared by modern scholarly works. The Edomites' original country, according to the Hebrew Bible, stretched from the Sinai Peninsula as far as Kadesh Barnea . It reached as far south as Eilat , which was the seaport of Edom. On the north of Edom was

8624-726: The males. Jacob complained that their act would mean retribution by others, namely the Canaanites and Perizzites. Jacob and his tribe took all the Hivite women and children as well as livestock and other property for themselves. Joseph , Jacob's favourite son of the twelve, makes his brothers jealous (especially because of special gifts Jacob gave him) and because of that jealousy they sell Joseph into slavery in Egypt . Joseph endures many trials including being innocently sentenced to jail but he stays faithful to God. After several years, he prospers there after

8736-400: The name of his city was Pau , and his wife's name was Mehetabel bat Matred bat Mezahab. And these are the names of the clans of Esau by their families, by their places, by their names: clan Timnah , clan Alvah , clan Jetheth , clan Aholibamah , clan Elah , clan Pinon , clan Kenaz , clan Teman , clan Mibzar , clan Magdiel, clan Iram . The Hebrew word translated as leader of a clan

8848-568: The nation flourished between the 13th and the 8th centuries BC and was destroyed after a period of decline in the 6th century BC by the Babylonians . After the fall of the kingdom of Edom, the Edomites were pushed westward towards southern Judah by nomadic tribes coming from the east; among them were the Nabataeans , who first appeared in the historical annals of the 4th century BC and had already established their own kingdom in what used to be Edom by

8960-488: The nearby Adoraim : according to Josephus and Ammonius Grammaticus , Hyrcanus conquered the cities of Marisa and Adoraim, forcibly converted all Idumaeans to Judaism and incorporated them into the Jewish nation : Hyrcanus also captured the Idumean cities of Adora and Marisa and after subduing all the Idumeans, permitted them to remain in their country as long as they had themselves circumcised and were willing to observe

9072-515: The neighboring Moabites and Ammonites, the name "Edom" completely disappeared from the area east of Arabah . The Qedarites controlled the territory, followed by the Nabateans, thus ensuring the end of Iron Age Edom. According to ostraca from sites in Idumaea, i.e. southern Judah after the fall of the kingdom to the Babylonians, dating mainly to the 4th century BCE, a diverse population of Arabs, Edomites as well as Judeans and Phoenicians inhabited

9184-409: The patriarchs that he will be faithful to their descendants (i.e. to Israel), and Israel is expected to have faith in God and his promise. ("Faith" in the context of Genesis and the Hebrew Bible means an agreement to the promissory relationship, not a body of a belief.) The promise itself has three parts: offspring, blessings, and land. The fulfilment of the promise to each patriarch depends on having

9296-493: The promises given at 3:15, 20. After many generations of Adam have passed from the lines of Cain and Seth, the world becomes corrupted by human sin and Nephilim , and God wants to wipe out humanity for their wickedness. However, Noah is righteous and blameless. So first, he instructs the Noah to build an ark and put examples of all the animals on it, seven pairs of every clean animal and one pair of every unclean. Then God sends

9408-571: The references of the name "Teman": "proves that Teman was one of the most important of the Edomite tribes, and this is confirmed by the fact that "Teman" is used as a synonym for Edom itself (Amos i. 12; Obad. 9; comp. Jer. xlix. 20, 22; Hab. iii. 3). The Temanites were famed for their wisdom (Jer. xlix. 7; Baruch iii. 22)". Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek Γένεσις , Génesis ; Biblical Hebrew : בְּרֵאשִׁית ‎ , romanized:  Bərēʾšīṯ , lit.   'In [the] beginning'; Latin : Liber Genesis )

9520-459: The reign of Merneptah reports movement of nomadic "shasu-tribes of Edom" to watering holes in Egyptian territory. The earliest Iron Age settlements—possibly copper mining camps—date to the 11th century BC. Settlement intensified by the late 8th century BC, and the main sites so far excavated have been dated between the 8th and 6th centuries BC. The last unambiguous reference to Edom is an Assyrian inscription of 667 BC. Edom ceased to exist as

9632-569: The relationship between man and God. The ancestral history (chapters 12–50) tells of the prehistory of Israel , God's chosen people . At God's command, Noah's descendant Abraham journeys from his birthplace (described as Ur of the Chaldeans and whose identification with Sumerian Ur is tentative in modern scholarship ) into the God-given land of Canaan , where he dwells as a sojourner , as does his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob . Jacob's name

9744-482: The remaining Idumeans may have entered into an alliance with the Judeans, within which the Idumaean religion could continue to be practiced. This reinterpretation leaves the prior depopulation of Idumaea as an open question, comparable to the simultaneous depopulation of Galilee and Philistia . Antipater the Idumaean , the progenitor of the Herodian dynasty along with Judean progenitors that ruled Judea after

9856-539: The results of the analysis, the researchers thought that Pharaoh Shoshenk I of Egypt (the Biblical " Shishak "), who attacked Jerusalem in the 10th century BC, encouraged the trade and production of copper instead of destroying the region. Tel Aviv University professor Ben Yosef stated "Our new findings contradict the view of many archaeologists that the Arava was populated by a loose alliance of tribes, and they’re consistent with

9968-415: The sins of their people. Abraham protests, but fails to get God to agree not to destroy the cities (reasoning with Abraham that not even ten righteous persons were found there; and among the righteous was Abraham's nephew Lot ). Angels save Abraham's nephew Lot (who was living there at the same time) and his family, but his wife looks back on the destruction, (even though God commanded not to) and turns into

10080-453: The son of his firstborn, Eliphaz . A chief of Teman is named among the chiefs of clans of Edom. He does not however appear first, in the place of the firstborn. Husham of the land of the Temanites was one of the ancient kings of Edom. From Obadiah 1:9 we gather that Teman was in the land of Esau (Edom). In the Book of Amos 1:12 it is named along with Bozrah , the capital of Edom. In

10192-502: The sources later combined by various editors. Scholars were able to distinguish sources based on the designations for God. For example, the Yahwist source uses Yahweh, while the Elohistic and Priestly sources use Elohim. Scholars also use repeated and duplicate stories to identify separate sources. In Genesis, these include the two creation stories, three different wife–sister narratives , and

10304-476: The south and south-west of Jerusalem, such as Hebron ( Antiq . 12.8.6, Wars 4.9.7), Halhul , in Greek called Alurus ( Wars 4.9.6), Bethsura ( Antiq . 12.9.4), Begabris ( Wars 4.8.1.), Dura (Adorayim) ( Antiq . 13.9.1, Wars 1.2.5), Caphethra ( Wars 4.9.9), Bethletephon ( Wars 4.8.1), Tekoa ( Wars 4.9.5), and Marissa ( Antiq . 13.9.1, Wars 1.2.5), the latter being a principal city of Idumaea after

10416-509: The supply of water and food and to take a rest. The inhabitants of Teman seem to have been famous for their wisdom ( Jeremiah 49:7 , Book of Obadiah 1:8 ). Eliphaz the Temanite was chief of the comforters of Job ( 2:11 , etc.). The manner in which the city is mentioned by the prophets, now by itself, and again as standing for Edom, shows how important it must have been in their time. According to some biblical scholars and commentators, Teman

10528-453: The territory of Moab . The boundary between Moab and Edom was the brook of Zered . The ancient capital of Edom was Bozrah . According to Genesis , Esau's descendants settled in the land after they had displaced the Horites . It was also called the land of Seir; Mount Seir appears to have been strongly identified with them and may have been a cultic site. According to biblical narrative, at

10640-726: The text of surviving copies varies. There are four major groupings of surviving manuscripts: the Masoretic Text , the Samaritan Pentateuch (in Samaritan script ), the Septuagint (a Greek translation), and fragments of Genesis found in the Dead Sea Scrolls . The Dead Sea Scrolls are oldest but cover only a small proportion of the book. Genesis appears to be structured around the recurring phrase elleh toledot , meaning "these are

10752-522: The time of Amaziah (838 BC), Selah was its principal stronghold, Eilat and Ezion-geber its seaports. Genesis 36:31-43 lists the kings of Edom "before any Israelite king reigned": These are the kings who ruled in the land of Edom before a king ruled the children of Israel. And Bela ben Beor ruled in Edom, and the name of his city was Dinhabah . And Bela died, and Jobab ben Zerah from Bozrah ruled in his place. And Jobab died, and Husham of

10864-430: The time of Nebuchadnezzar II the Edomites may have helped plunder Jerusalem and slaughter the Judaeans in 587 or 586 BCE ( Psalms 137:7 ; Obadiah 1:11–14 ). Some believe that it is for this reason the prophets denounced Edom ( Isaiah 34:5–8 ; Jeremiah 49:7–22 ; Obadiah passim ). Evidence also suggests that at that time Edom may have engaged in a treaty betrayal of Judah. The people of Edom would be dealt with during

10976-511: The two versions of Abraham sending Hagar and Ishmael into the desert. According to the documentary hypothesis, J was produced during the 9th century BC in the southern Kingdom of Judah and was believed to be the earliest source. E was written in the northern Kingdom of Israel during the 8th century BC. D was written in Judah in the 7th century BC and associated with the religious reforms of King Josiah c.  625 BC . The latest source

11088-463: The variety of different and often conflicting versions of stories, and to relate the stories to each other, they fitted them into a genealogical chronology." Tremper Longman describes Genesis as theological history: "the fact that these events took place is assumed, and not argued. The concern of the text is not to prove the history but rather to impress the reader with the theological significance of these acts". The original manuscripts are lost, and

11200-497: The vulnerability felt by ancient Israelites and that "such stories can be a major way of gaining hope and resisting domination". Examples include: In both Judaism and Christianity , a genre of literature emerged dedicated to interpreting and commenting on the Genesis creation narrative, known as the Hexaemeron . By totaling the spans of time in the genealogies of Genesis, religious authorities have calculated what they consider to be

11312-473: The work of Greek historians of the 6th century BC: their intention was to connect notable families of their own day to a distant and heroic past, and in doing so they did not distinguish between myth , legend , and facts. Professor Jean-Louis Ska of the Pontifical Biblical Institute calls the basic rule of the antiquarian historian the "law of conservation": everything old is valuable, nothing

11424-510: The world and humans, humans rebel, and God "elects" (chooses) Abraham. To this basic plot (which comes from the Yahwist), the Priestly source has added a series of covenants dividing history into stages, each with its own distinctive "sign". The first covenant is between God and all living creatures, and is marked by the sign of the rainbow; the second is with the descendants of Abraham ( Ishmaelites and others as well as Israelites), and its sign

11536-401: The world" attains salvation from famine, and by bringing the children of Israel down to Egypt he becomes the means through which the promise can be fulfilled. Scholars generally agree that the theme of divine promise unites the patriarchal cycles, but many would dispute the efficacy of trying to examine Genesis' theology by pursuing a single overarching theme, instead citing as more productive

11648-462: Was P, which was written during the 5th century in Babylon . Based on these dates, Genesis and the rest of the Pentateuch did not reach its final, present-day form until after the Babylonian Exile. Julius Wellhausen argued that the Pentateuch was finalized in the time of Ezra . Ezra 7 :14 records that Ezra traveled from Babylon to Jerusalem in 458 BC with God's law in his hand. Wellhausen argued that this

11760-555: Was a city in the Land of Uz . In "The Comprehensive Commentary on the Holy Bible" it is written: " Throughout almost the whole of Hebrew history Uz or Idumea was regarded by the Jews in the same light of elegance and accomplishment, as Greece by the Romans, and Teman, the native city of Eliphaz, as the Athens of Arabia Petrea ". The Jewish Encyclopedia points out that the biblical genealogy and

11872-596: Was an ancient kingdom that stretched across areas in the south of present-day Jordan and Israel . Edom and the Edomites appear in several written sources relating to the late Bronze Age and to the Iron Age in the Levant , including the list of the Egyptian pharaoh Seti I from c. 1215 BC as well as in the chronicle of a campaign by Ramesses III (r. 1186–1155 BC), and the Tanakh . Archaeological investigation has shown that

11984-464: Was annexed without any significant conflict," Berlin and Kosmin now argue that even the annexation of Idumea and the Idumeans into the Judean state is fictional, noting that, as corroborated by archaeology, after most Idumaeans left Idumaea, Judeans did not settle in this abandoned area. In line with this interpretation, it is now often assumed that Idumaea was not annexed by the Hasmoneans at all. Instead,

12096-522: Was born "red all over". As a young adult, he sold his birthright to his brother Jacob for a portion of "red pottage". The Tanakh describes the Edomites as descendants of Esau. Edom in hieroglyphs The Edomites may have been connected with the Shasu and Shutu , nomadic raiders mentioned in Egyptian sources. Indeed, a letter from an Egyptian scribe at a border fortress in the Wadi Tumilat during

12208-425: Was composed in the time of King Solomon by a priest or Levite . This author used the Hebrew word elohim for God. This original work was expanded in the 8th century BC, with the name Yahweh used for God. In the 7th century BC, during the time of Jeremiah , the final parts of the Pentateuch were added, specifically the main parts of Deuteronomy. This would mean the Pentateuch achieved its final form before

12320-450: Was descended from the priests of "the Koze, whom the Idumeans had formerly served as a god". Victor Sasson describes an Edomite text that parallels the Book of Job , which provides insight on the language, literature, and religion of Edom. Khirbat en-Nahas is a large-scale copper-mining site excavated by archaeologist Thomas Levy in what is now southern Jordan. The scale of mining on the site

12432-403: Was the newly compiled Pentateuch. Nehemiah 8 – 10 , according to Wellhausen, describes the publication and public acceptance of this new law code c.  444 BC . There was now a large gap between the earliest sources of the Pentateuch and the period they claimed to describe, which ended c.  1200 BC . Most scholars held to the documentary hypothesis until the 1980s. Since then,

12544-455: Was written anonymously, but both Jewish and Christian religious tradition attributes the entire Pentateuch —Genesis, Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy —to Moses . During the Enlightenment , the philosophers Benedict Spinoza and Thomas Hobbes questioned Mosaic authorship . In the 17th century, Richard Simon proposed that the Pentateuch was written by multiple authors over

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