Genesis B

Genesis B, also known as The Later Genesis, is a text of Genesis, one of the poems in Old English included in the partially illustrated Junius Manuscript, which has been held in the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford since 1677. Scholars regard Genesis B and other poems in the Junius Manuscript as among the "best of the Anglo-Saxon corpus"

The manuscript is incomplete, having in particular missing pages (conjectured to be two leaves, or four sides) between pages 22 and 23.

The poem commonly known as Genesis B or The Later Genesis is embedded in another Old English poem called now Genesis A. Scholars once believed that the legendary first Old English poet Cǣdmon was responsible for not only the Genesis poems but also the entire Junius Manuscript. This theory has long since been disregarded. The separate existence of Genesis B (lines 235-851 of the Genesis A poem) was inferred in the 1870s by Eduard Sievers, who by philological and stylistic analysis showed convincingly that these lines were translated from an Old Saxon (continental Low German) original. In 1894 his hypothesis was dramatically confirmed by the discovery of parts of the Old Saxon original in a manuscript in the Vatican: about two dozen lines of the Old Saxon text coincide almost word-for-word with part of Genesis B. Marsden entitles his transcription of Genesis B “Satan’s Challenge (Genesis B)”, effectively summarizing the poem’s general contents. Genesis A is a paraphase of the Vulgate Latin version of the Book of Genesis chapters 1 to 22, whereas Genesis B is a strikingly original and dramatic retelling of the Fall of the Angels and the Fall of Man.

Genesis B depicts the fall of Lucifer from heaven, at which point he is renamed "Satan" and assumes authority as the ruler of Hell. The text goes on to describe the temptation and subsequent fall of Adam and Eve from God’s grace, but the account presented in this manuscript differs largely from any other version. Oldrieve addresses this controversy in terms of the language used to describe Satan’s bodily form. According to Genesis B, Satan appears to Adam as an angel, as opposed to the serpent which typically represents Satan. Woolf even goes as far as to compare Satan to Loki of Norse mythology, stating that the similarities between the two are "undoubtedly sufficient". The controversies, however, are not as superficial as the depiction of the devil, which is still crucial to the overall meaning of the poem, but complicate much more significant plot points and characters. One of these major differences that Hill cites is the portrayal of Eve; while Genesis A claims that Eve is motivated by the desire to be more God-like, Genesis B shows that she was tempted by Satan and is instead trying to help save Adam by fulfilling God’s wishes. Oldrieve’s conclusion that Eve was so deceived by the devil and his words that she believed she saw an angel instead of a serpent blend these two controversies and offer further support of Eve’s innocence and lack of manipulation, much like the discrepancy noted by Hill.

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