Genesis 8:21 KJV
And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.
In the case of Genesis, I do not subscribe to the documentary hypothesis, but neither do I believe that Moses was the primary author of Genesis. (More on this shortly.) However, I do believe that the Bible we now have is, as stated by Peter and Paul, inspired, but not dictated.
Therefore, if the Holy Spirit inspired the work of the prophets, there is no difficulty that they recorded what is in "God's heart" as per Gen 8:21.
Genesis Construction
Almost all commentators now structure the literary form of the book of Genesis around the “Toledoths” – a Hebrew word that is variously translated as, “the generations of”, “the history of”, “the account of”, “the record of”, etc. The debate in Genesis concerns the function of these Toledoths – do they form a heading (for what follows) or a colophon (footnote and “signature” of what has preceded)? Wiseman suggested [Wiseman, P. J. (1936). New Discoveries in Babylonia about Genesis. London: Marsh, Morgan and Scott.], after studying Akkadian documents, that these Toledoths were colophons containing the identity of the author, and created an elaborate Tablet theory about Genesis.
What are the facts? The 11 Toledoths in Genesis are:
If the Toledoths are intended as a Colophon (footnote containing the author’s “signature”) to each section, then:
By contrast, if each Toledoth is a section heading:
This leads to a simple idea about the possible origin of the book of Genesis. It is probable (in agreement with Wiseman) that each Toledoth was written by a different (unstated) person (NOT the person in the Toledoth), and later, Moses collected and collated them, edited and arranged them, with an added introduction about creation, to create the book of Genesis, essentially as we now have it.
Genesis, Book of , an article published in 1906 V10 pp 599-611 The Jewish Encyclopedia by Benno Jacob, Emil G. Hirsch summarises some of the compositional evidence put forward by Jeanne Astruc and subsequent, that led to his theory of Genesis being a non-uniform authored work. It sets this out in table form, (that can’t be reproduced here), on page 608.
Since the time of Astruc (1753) modern criticism has held that Genesis is not a uniform work by one author, but was combined by successive editors from several sources that are themselves partly composite, and has received its present form only in the course of centuries; its composition from various sources being proved by its repetitions, contradictions, and differences in conception, representation, and language. According to this view, three chief sources must be distinguished, namely, J, E, and P. (1) J, the Jahvist, is so called because he speaks of God as "Yhwh" In his work (chiefly in the primal history, ch. i.-xi., as has been asserted since Budde) several strata must be distinguished, J1, J2, J3, etc. (2) E, the Elohist, is so named because down to Ex. iii. he calls God "Elohim." A redactor (RJE) at an early date combined and fused J and E, so that these two sources can not always be definitely separated; and the critics therefore differ greatly in regard to the details of this question. (3) P, or the Priestly Codex, is so called on account of the priestly manner and tendencies of the author, who also calls God "Elohim." Here again several strata must be distinguished, P1, P2, P3, etc., though only P2 is found in Genesis. After another redactor, D, had combined Deuteronomy with JE, the work so composed was united with P by a final redactor, who then enlarged the whole (the sequence J, E, D, P is, however, not generally accepted). Hence the present Book of Genesis is the work of this last redactor, and was compiled more than one hundred years after Ezra. The works of J, E, and P furnished material for the entire Pentateuch (and later books), on whose origin, scope, time, and place of composition see Pentateuch.
As it would take too much space to give an account of all the attempts made to separate the sources, the analysis of only the last commentator, namely, of Holzinger, who has made a special study of this question, will be noted. In his "Einleitung zum Hexateuch" he has given a full account of the labors of his predecessors, presenting in the "Tabellen" to his work the separation into sources laid down by Dillmann, Wellhausen, Kuenen, Budde, and Cornill. The commentary by Gunkel (1901) is not original as regards the sources.
The article also summarises objections, which I've attempted to precis:
(1) It is unsupported by evidence because no sources are preserved in original form. (2) ‘Modern’ rules of composition and style might not apply (3) Even if demonstratable that Genesis is compiled from various sources, attempt to trace the origin of each verse and of each part of a verse will never meet with success (4) Even if repetition and contradiction can be demonstrated, this is not certain proof of more than one author (5) It misconceives the theology and language of Genesis (6) It contains exegetic errors.
As far as I can tell, the many and various developments of arguments since then follow this basic structure. Lacking original physical evidence, there is only compositional and exegetic analysis. And we are left to make our minds up based on this and historical context, and the few scraps we have. It will never be known in this life for certain.
I should add, none of which (IMHO) alters conveyance of the spiritual meaning of Genesis, no matter what it’s authorship.
There are two basic approaches to this question: the first is based on the idea of biblical inerrancy, the second based on the findings of source criticism.
To those who hold that the Bible is an inspired scripture that cannot be mistaken in any significant way, the answer is that the author of the first nine chapters of Genesis is Moses, inspired directly by God. And thus the answer to the second question is also yes, we are definitely to believe that the author knew what God said in His Heart.
To readers who look at the text through the lens of the documentary hypothesis and related analytical approaches, Genesis involves several distinct sources that have been woven together by a later editor. A very simple form of the hypothesis is that when the text uses the term The LORD (actually "yhwh" in ancient manuscripts) this is probably the J source (standing for Jehovah/Yahweh) while the word "God" (elohim) signals the "E" source. This verse is a "J" verse, so its author is probably the person critics call the Yahwist. The question of knowing what God felt in His Heart is left up to the reader because it is still possible that the Yahwist was inspired by God to write this verse.
If one adheres to the idea of biblical inerrancy the author is Moses, who received it directly from God. If one accepts modern theories such as the documentary hypothesis, the author is a theoretical writer of a later period, and one has to decide for oneself whether this author knew God's inner thoughts and feelings.
Note: Another possible author here according to the documentary hypothesis would be "P," signifying the "priestly" source, since the verse involves God's response to Noah's sacrifice, anticipating later priestly tradition.
Let me add to Dottard's excellent answer.
Regarding the authorship of the Genesis in general, and specifically the first eight chapters, there are several theories.
Let me first note that in my opinion, the general modus operandi of Bible minimalists is to devise a theory that discredits part of the Bible, award the theory and its author acclaim and acceptance by other Bible minimalists, mock any dissenters, destroy the faith of their seminary students, and when archaeological discoveries eventually discredit one of their theories, either ignore the finding, lie about it, dismiss it with a new theory explaining why the discovery doesn’t disprove their pet theory, destroy the site with their own excavations by never publishing their findings, become hyper-skeptical of the find itself, or scoff at the director of the archaeological dig.
But, on the reverse side of the same coin are Bible sensationalists, who make spectacular claims based on little or fabricated evidence, cater to what they think gullible Christians want to hear, and coincidentally receive generous donations from them. When confronted with Biblical or archaeological evidence, they double down on their claims or make newer, even more preposterous claims. In a few cases, they were caught fabricating evidence. Two sides, same coin.
I’ve found many such areas of controversy.
Mosaic authorship of the Law (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) is mentioned by Jesus in John 5:45–47. It was long assumed that Genesis was written or compiled by Moses.
However, Jean Astruc (1684-1766) proposed the “JEDP Documentary Hypothesis” that was further developed by the theologian K.H. Graf (1815-1868), and his student Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918). They noticed that portions of Genesis referred to God as YHWH (J) and in other portions as Elohim (E). The P was a supposedly a “Priestly” author and the D was supposedly a different, “Deuteronomist” author. For example,
“In the beginning, God [Elohim] created the heavens and the earth.” -Genesis 1:1 ESV
The word, God, is translated from Elohim exclusively through Genesis 2:4, where the name of God, YHWH (Yah-weh or Yah-hu-way), first appears. Perhaps the hypothesized J and E authors are playing “tag team” here:
“These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God [i.e. Yahweh Elohim] made the earth and the heavens." -Genesis 2:4 ESV
And in Deuteronomy with Hebrew text inserted . . .
“I am YHWH your Elohim, who brought you out of slavery in Egypt.” -Deuteronomy 5:6
An excellent description of the use of YHWH versus Elohim is in the answer that starts with a section subheading, The Meaning of the Names.
The JEPD Hypothesis originally asserted that the earliest parts of the Old Testament could not have been written during the times they described because the technology of writing had not evolved until about 1000 BC. The conclusion that the first five books, Torah, “musta been” passed down orally for hundreds of years before then and the Bible was assumed to have been put into writing by unknown authors beginning well after the time of David, beginning about 800 BCE. Since then, archaeologists have found written cuneiform tablets such as the ancient Sumerian Kish tablet, dating back to around 3500 BCE, and other tablets have been dated even earlier.
In contrast to the JEPD theory, there’s actually strong archaeological evidence that the first part of Genesis was written on clay tablets in the ancient Mesopotamian style based on the "signatures" of 11 authors following (not preceding) the text they wrote. These follow the format of “These are the generations of . . .”
Air Marshall and amateur archaeologist, P.J. Wiseman noticed that the then-recently discovered Mesopotamian tablets used the same format when recording historical events, so he hypothesized that Genesis likely was originally written on clay tablets. He published his theory in 1936 in a book titled New Discoveries in Babylonia About Genesis, and I have a copy of the seventh edition (1958) in front of me.
His “tablet theory of Genesis” is widely scoffed at in academic circles, but then, how does the archaeological evidence of the tablet theory compare against the literary speculation of the JEPD hypothesis?
P.J. Wiseman also noticed that the “pages” of a set of tablets weren’t numbered, so to prevent confusion should the tablets become disordered (perhaps through an earthquake, toddler, or dastardly cat), he noticed that the text included “catch lines” that used similar text from the last line of one tablet to the first line of the following tablet.
To test his theory, the quantity of text between the catch lines connecting successive tablets would each have to fall within the maximum size of the thousands of excavated tablets, which was then about 7” by 3-1/2”. Studying the lengths of the texts, he confirmed that the catch lines bracketed the typical quantity of text for each tablet.
However, this pattern disappears in the last part of Genesis beginning with the story of Joseph, which starts in Egypt. This was explained by the fact that Egyptians didn’t use clay tablets but wrote on papyrus scrolls instead.
All this evidence mounts up significantly.
As to how the authors of the passage in Genesis 8:21 found out what "God said in his heart," I would say that God and Noah had a close relationship, and that Noah passed this assurance from God down to his sons, Shem, Ham, and Japeth, who wrote this section of Genesis according to the tablet theory. It also indicates that the tablets were passed from generation to generation continuing from Shem to Terah, Isaac, Ishmael (!), Jacob, Esau, and finally to Joseph.
