Therefore all I shall say about the matter is that the first chapter
of Genesis, and the first three verses of the second, may be the
writing of a prophet older than Moses, because they call God Elohim,
which was his name before Moses' time; and that Moses may have used
them, and worked them into a book of Genesis; while he, in the part
which he wrote himself, called God at first by the name Jehovah
Elohim, The Lord God, in order to show that Jehovah and El were the
same God, and not two different ones; and after he had made the Jews
understand that, went on to call God simply Jehovah, and to use the
two names, as they are used through the rest of the Old Testament,
interchangeably: as we say sometimes God, sometimes the Lord,
sometimes the Deity, and so forth; meaning of course always the same
Being.
That, I think, is the probable and simple account which tallies most
exactly with the Bible.
As for the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, having
been written by Moses, or at least by far the greater part of them,
I cannot see the least reason to doubt it.
The Bible itself does not say so; and therefore it is not a matter
of faith, and men may have their own opinions on the matter, without
sin or false doctrine.
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