The authors of Genesis lived across a period spanning several centuries. The oldest strands of the selection translated here possibly date to the pre-monarchic period, as early as the eleventh century BCE; the latest strands likely date to the sixth century BCE, around the time of the Judean exile to Babylon. The authors were not monolithic in their styles and aims. While some scholars are tempted to credit certain ones with turning the text into a work of “literature,” it is only the combined effort of generations of authors that made it the tapestry that it is.