Exposition of Genesis

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."