And the Pentateuch
Moses lived in another age than Adam and even of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. The Book of Genesis was inspired by God and Moses was caused to write it for his generation. The Abrahamic covenant has produced a nation called Israel. That nation needed to know its origins and its God. Genesis was written to explain the origins and the God of Israel. As we read it, we find ourselves in a cross-cultural context.
Just for your thinking, here’s what was going on - So, a 21st Century reader, like me; has to recognize Moses’ generation as the intended reader. May a partial answer is in the concept of progressive revelation first to Adam (I assume the revelation was first given to him. The next reader would have been the generations of Adam up to Moses’ mother who would have communicated the oral tradition to Moses. As Moses was guided by the Holy Spirit ( I assume in the Tabernacle), he wrote Genesis as he gazed on the lamps and features of the covenant God revealed there. This is very dynamic. The progressive revelation in the Old Testament is then stabilized and codified in the New Testament so that we in our century are not obligated to look further than the New Testament for a correct interpretation of Genesis.
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