Wondering through a bookstore some years back, I ran across a book that interested me, especially because I had apparently written it. You would think that I would have known! As the image shows, it is a translation of Genesis by Stephen Mitchell. I had to buy it, of course.
According to Wikipedia, “Stephen Mitchell is a poet, translator, scholar, and anthologist.” “Stephen Mitchell was educated at Amherst College, the University of Paris, and Yale University, and de-educated through intensive Zen practice.”
Just to clarify, this is not me. I knew when I saw the Genesis 1 title: “The Creation: According to P”.
Again, according to Wikipedia, “The documentary hypothesis posited that the Pentateuch is a compilation of four originally independent documents: the Jahwist (J), Elohist (E), Deuteronomist (D), and Priestly (P) sources. The first of these, J, was dated to the Solomonic period (c. 950 BCE).” This does not hold up under examination. For instance, the customs and covenant formulas reflect the times that they wrote about and this would not have been true if it was written 500 years later. (see Kenneth Kitchen’s “On the Reliability of the Old Testament”. The assumptions on which the JEDP proposal stood have collapsed over and over. Genesis stands as a unified document, not a cobbled patchwork.
For the record, I see no reason not to believe that Moses was responsible for Genesis, though he may have worked through some others. For instance, his death accounts were added later. We don’t know what sources he had available to him. Perhaps God revealed some parts directly to him. Perhaps creation was revealed to one of his ancestors and passed down.
The Stephen Mitchell translation is mildly interesting, but reflects his religious views and does not claim the degree of translation accuracy that I find important.
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