The Pentateuch is the name given to the first five books of Holy Scripture. It occupies the most important place among other books of Holy Scripture, because it contains the fundamental truths of biblical Revelation. Firstly, these books give the most general teaching about the fact that God is the Creator of the world, about the origin of the world and about the place of man in this world. And, secondly, both the original place of man in this created world and the history of the Fall, the history of the damage of this world, are given. Then there is the history of God's blessings to the human race and the beginning of the history of the salvation of mankind, the history of God's activity, so to speak, in bringing man to his original dignity and the promise that this will be done. It is on the pages of the Pentateuch that we see the reason why there is a significant narrowing of the geographical horizons of the biblical books from all mankind to the narrow framework of one of the peoples inhabiting the earth.

The term "Pentateuch" appears for the first time in Origen and Tertullian, that is, in Christian authors. In the text of the Old Testament itself, these books are called the "Law" or "the Law of Moses" or "the books of the Law of God." The traditional Hebrew name is also "Law" – "Torah".

In the Jewish tradition, each of the books is usually named after its first words (by analogy, in modern poetry, a poem that is not inscribed by the author is named after its first words). In the tradition of the Septuagint, that is, the Greek translation of the Holy Scriptures, each of these books was titled by translators in accordance with its main content: the first book was Genesis (from the Greek genesis – origin or becoming), the second – Exodus, the third – Leviticus, the fourth book – Numbers, and the fifth – Deuteronomy. As it was said earlier, the importance of this or that book of the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament for us is determined, among other things, by the frequency of mentions and references to this book in the New Testament. Of these five books, three are among the five most frequently quoted: Genesis, Exodus, and Deuteronomy, along with books such as Psalms and the Book of Isaiah.

What events does the Pentateuch cover? Starting from the creation of the world and the history of the original mankind, the era of the patriarchs, the time of Abraham, the migration of the descendants of Abraham to Egypt, their departure from there and the journey to the borders of the land that God promised to give to the descendants of Abraham.

It must be said that until the seventeenth century, the authorship of Moses was never particularly disputed by anyone. Since the XVII century, such attempts have been made, but no convincing results have yet been obtained. The most serious arguments in favor of the fact that all these books were written very late, up to the post-exilic era, were put forward in the nineteenth century. However, the discoveries, both historical, paleographic, and archaeological, made in the twentieth century, in many respects devalued these achievements of nineteenth-century science and returned scientists to what the Church knew from the very beginning – these books were written by Moses. This, however, does not exclude some later editions that may be found in the text of these books. For example, there was nothing to prevent a later scribe from adding when describing a place that now, that is, at the time of this copyist, the name of this place is such-and-such, and this insertion should not at all mean that the whole fragment was written at the time when such a toponym was actually used.

Chapter 1. Beginning

The first book of the Holy Scriptures – the Book of Genesis – covers the period from the creation of the world to the migration of the patriarch Jacob and his sons to Egypt and ends with the death of Jacob and his burial and the death of Joseph.

The book can be divided into three large sections. The first section is the creation of the world, which is described in the first two chapters. The second is the history of the first world, beginning with the fall of man and ending with the destruction of this first world in the flood (chapters 3-8). The third period is the history of the patriarchal church, as St. Philaret of Moscow calls it, which began after the flood, which, in fact, covers the entire remaining part, that is, from the end of the eighth to the fiftieth chapter of the Book of Genesis. Here we first talk about the life of people after the flood, from Noah to Abraham, and then we talk about the origin and education of the chosen people. This last section contains four parts devoted to the patriarch Abraham, his son Isaac, grandson Jacob, and great-grandson Joseph.

In this chapter, we will look at the events described in the book of Genesis from the creation of the world and the Fall to the renewal of the world by the waters of the Flood.

1.1. The Biblical Story of the Creation of the World

The narrative of the book of Genesis begins with a description of the creation of the world: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." I will not analyze in detail the composition of each day of creation, since extensive and accessible literature is devoted to this. I focus on the most important issues.

First of all, it is necessary to note the very word "created" (Hebrew bara). "Bereshit bara Elohim," this passage begins in Hebrew. The word "bereshit" except Gen. 1:1 occurs 4 more times in Scripture (Jeremiah 26:1, 27:1, 28:1, 49:34) in the same context: "in the beginning of the reign."