SOURCE: “Theme in Genesis 1-11,” The Catholic Bible Quarterly, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 4, October, 1976, pp. 483-507.

In the following essay, Clines studies the theme of the first eleven chapters of Genesis, emphasizing that this thematic investigation focuses on these chapters as a portion of Penteteuchal text, rather than on the individual sources from which Genesis was created. Clines goes on to survey the historical setting and literary pre-history of Genesis.

I. the Nature of “theme”

Most recent studies of theme in the Pentateuch turn out to be investigations of the theme of the individual sources of the Pentateuch. Even though the chorus of dissent from the classic four-source analysis is swelling,¹ most scholars still believe that the Graf-Wellhausen theory is the best we have,² and articles and books are being written on “The Kerygma of the Yahwist,”³ The Yahwist. The Bible's First Theologian,⁴ “The Elohistic Fragments in the Pentateuch...