Really, since what
was formerly known as the “Documentary Hypothesis” had its inception
based upon an unrealistic premise: the presumption that a single author
would not be likely to use more than one name to designate God, it does not
come as a surprise to discover that the modern end-product of such a line of
reasoning is a totally artificial form of analysis; a butcher-like activity,
ruthlessly cleaving across the natural structure of the scriptural texts - so
chopping and hewing them into fragments that their original form and shape are
no longer recognisable.
This article is all
about the essential structure of the Book of Genesis – a structure that is so
simple and straightforward, I believe (and as the reader will discover), that
even a child would have no trouble understanding it in its basic form. The
chief credit for having laid bare this structure in all its profound
simplicity belongs to the British scholar, Percy John Wiseman (1888-1948), upon whose thesis the following article will be based.
Wiseman: New Discoveries in Babylonia about Genesis
(Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1936); Clues
to Creation in Genesis (Marshall, Morgan & Scott (1936); Die Entstehung der Genesis (Wuppertal,
1958); Ancient Records and the Structure
of Genesis (Thomas Nelson, 1985). The Hebrew word toledôt (תוֹלְדוֹת),
“generations”, is a feminine plural noun.
Introduction
As
the brilliant Australian philosopher Dr. Gavin Ardley pointed out (Aquinas and Kant, Longmans, Green &
Co., 1950, p. 5), there are two ways of going about the process of analysing or
dissecting something, depending upon one’s purpose. Ardley well illustrated his
point by comparing the practices of the anatomist and the butcher. When an
anatomist dissects an animal, he traces out the real structure of the animal; he
lays bare the veins, the nerves, the muscles, the organs, and so on. “He reveals
the actual structure which is there before him waiting to be made manifest” (p.
6). The butcher, on the other hand, is not concerned about the natural
structure of the animal as he chops it up; he wants to cut up the carcass into joints
suitable for domestic purposes. In his activities the butcher
ruthlessly cleaves across the real structure laid bare so patiently by the
anatomist. “The anatomist finds his structure, the butcher makes his”.
The
same sort of analogy may be applied to, I would suggest, the different methods
that have been employed to analyse the structure of the Book of Genesis.
Here I shall contrast only the archaeologically-based approach, as used by P.J.
Wiseman and others - which method, I believe, resembles that of the anatomist
in Ardley’s example -
Wiseman’s findings
have captured the imagination of, for instance, the renowned Old Testament
scholar, Professor R.K. Harrison. See e.g. his Introduction to the Old Testament (Eerdmanns, 1969), on pp. 545-553
of which he summarizes Wiseman’s toledôt
theory. Also, the linguist, Dr. Charles Taylor, who - on the basis of the same
theory - wrote The Oldest Science Book in
the World (Assembly Press, 1984). It is also worth mentioning here that
P.J. Wiseman’s son, Donald J. Wiseman, who wrote the Foreword to Ancient Records, is considered to be one
of the preeminent Assyriologists of our time.
with
the Graf-Wellhausen approach - that to my mind approximates to the activities of
the butcher.
Astruc’s Theory
Jean
Astruc (d. 1766) was really he who invented the theory of separate documents,
based on the Divine names used. The French physician had noticed that in the
first 35 verses of Genesis (chapters 1-24a), the word Elohim (אֱלֹהִים), “God”, was used, and no other Divine
name; while in chapters 2:4b to 3:24, the only designation given is Yahweh Elohim (יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים), “Lord God” – except where Satan uses the word God. Astruc
claimed that the passages must have been written by different writers; for
if Moses himself had written the whole of it, firsthand, then we should
have to attribute to him this singular variation, in patches, of the Divine
name.
This
was really the beginning of the documentist dissection, into fragment upon fragment, of the Book of Genesis.
By
the middle of the C19th, owing largely to the efforts of the German critics
Karl Heinrich Graf (1815-1868/9) and Julius
Wellhausen (1844-1918), liberal scholarship had, to its own satisfaction,
isolated four main Pentateuchal sources: J,E,D,P. Thus it was alleged that a
writer who used Elohim was the author
of a so-called E document, and the writer who used Yahweh was the author of J (for Jehovah,
the German version of Yahweh).
But since some verses that were obviously written by the same person contained
both names for God, an editor had to be introduced, then a “redactor”.
Then
a Deuteronomist source was identified (which R.K. Harrison considered to be the
only valid one amidst the JEDP ‘sources’). After a century of conjectures and
further redactors, it was decided that a further document, P (Priestly)
had been written nearly 1,000 years after Moses, and so on ....
In
this way Genesis has been reduced to a series of confused fragments and
authors, in order to account for the way in which the name of God is used in
the book. The fourfold sigla, JEDP, of Graf-Wellhausen is now dogmatically
retained (though in modified form) in academic institutions the world over.
Nonetheless, the critical scholars have to admit that their literary
expedients break, not only the logical, but also the grammatical sequence of
the passages. As Wiseman commented (Clues,
p. 143): “It is confusion confounded!”
Really,
since what was formerly known as the “Documentary Hypothesis” had its
inception based upon an unrealistic premise: the presumption that a
single author would not be likely to use more than one name to designate God,
it does not come as a surprise to discover that the modern end-product of such
a line of reasoning is a totally artificial form of analysis; a butcher-like activity,
ruthlessly cleaving across the natural structure of the scriptural texts - so
chopping and hewing them into fragments that their original form and shape are
no longer recognisable.
Wellhausen
himself had in fact acknowledged that the result of all of this dissecting was
“an agglomeration of fragments” (as quoted by Wiseman, Clues, p. 144). Despite this, Wellhausen’s History of Israel (1878) “gave him a
place in Biblical studies comparable, it was said, to that of Darwin in biology” (Clues, p. 145).
The Archaeological
Approach
Because
of the newness of the science of archaeology (only about 150 years old) we can
say that, from a stratigraphical/historical point of view, the study of
Scripture is still in its infancy. Pre-archaeological theories, such as those
advanced by the C19th documentists, suffer from an almost total ignorance of
the methods and styles of the ancient scribes, since these really became known
only in the previous (20th) century, after the vast libraries of the
ancient world had been excavated and their data slowly and painstakingly
sifted by modern scholars. The modern awareness of ancient scribal methods
would serve to show up with embarrassing starkness the numerous defects in the
old “Documentary Hypothesis”.
P.J.
Wiseman, on the other hand, was fortunate to have had the opportunity of
participating in some of the most important archaeological digs that took place
in Mesopotamia midway through the C20th; for example, that of Sir Leonard
Woolley at the site of Ur, and of Professor S. Langdon at Kish. Wiseman
had many discussions about ancient writing methods and related subjects with
these and other scholars (most notably, Professor Cyril Gadd). In the
light of all of this firsthand evidence and expertise that had become available
to him, Wiseman found himself perfectly equipped to re-examine the structure
and authorship of the Book of Genesis. He discovered that the book’s structure
was really quite straightforward, and was completely explained by the facts of
archaeology. In true anatomist fashion - according to Dr. Ardley’s analogy -
Wiseman was able to lay bare the real structure of the Book of Genesis, and
thereby scientifically to expose, by stark contrast, just what an unholy mess
the JEDP dissectors were leaving behind them. In fact, nowhere do the clumsy
techniques of the documentists show up so embarrassingly as when contrasted
against the light of Wiseman’s patient uncovering of the essential structure of
the Genesis texts. Wiseman had at least been prepared to concede on behalf of
the early documentists, as an excuse for their radical fragmenting of the
texts, that they had not been in a position to compare the literary form and
structure of Genesis with other ancient methods of writing, that would have
enabled them to have read Genesis in the light of the times and circumstances
in which it was written. But, in the case of contemporary exegetes, he considered
that: “... it cannot be regarded as other than serious that notwithstanding
archaeological discoveries, many still read Genesis not as ancient, but as
though it had been written in relatively modern times” (Clues, p. 143). The mistake had been made, he said, despite the
very obvious fact that the Genesis narrative itself “is constructed in a
most antique manner by use of a framework of repeated phrases” (ibid., p. 144).
These
phrases, that form the skeleton of the structure of Genesis, are of two kinds,
namely:
- COLOPHON phrases, and
- CATCH-LINE phrases,
the
former being the more important.
In
the following pages I shall try to bring home to the reader the full significance
of these literary indicators, colophon and catch-line phrases, that reveal the
Book of Genesis to be a most ancient document - much older than the
documentists would have it. My explanation will lead naturally into a special
consideration of the controversial and famous first chapter of Genesis. A
grasp of the proper structure of the Book of Genesis will enable the
reader to understand why, for example, biblical commentators have proposed the
so-called “two accounts of Creation” theory (Genesis 1 and 2), and how this
theory ought to be modified. Also I should be able to, following Wiseman,
account quite simply for the perplexing problem of the variations of the
Divine Names throughout Genesis; a variation that has led the documentists to
fragment so much of the Scriptures into their J and E compartments.
Who borrowed from
whom?
Did
the authors of the scriptural books really borrow much of their written
material, their stories, their poetry, their wisdom, from the pagan
mythology and the literature of the Mesopotamians and Egyptians, for instance,
or do the latter owe a debt to the Hebrews?
Since
here I am interested only in the Book of Genesis; my question can be more
specific:
Which are the more
ancient, the accounts of Creation, the Fall, the Flood, Babel, etc.
in the
Mesopotamian and/or Egyptian writings, or those recorded in Genesis?
This
is a further question that I shall hope to be addressing in the course of this
series.
Part One (a):
Colophon Key
to the
Structure of Genesis
It does not take
the attentive reader long to discover that the toledôt phrase
does not always belong to a genealogical list, for in some instances no
genealogical list follows.
(i) The Colophon Phrase
Documents
written in Mesopotamia were generally inscribed upon stone or clay tablets. As
explained by Wiseman, it was customary for the ancient scribes to add a colophon note at the end of the account,
giving particulars of title, date, and the name of the writer or owner,
together with other details relating to the contents of a tablet, manuscript or
book (Clues, p. 143). The
colophon method is no longer used today - the information originally given in a
colophon having been transferred in our day to the first or title page.
But in ancient documents the colophon with its important literary information
was added in a very distinctive manner. Thus the colophon ending to the
mythological Babylonian creation story, Enuma
Elish, reads:
First tablet of ... after the tablet ...
Mushetiq-umi ... A copy from Babylon; written like its original and collated.
The tablet of Nabu-mushetiq-umi [5th] month Iyyar, 9th day, 27th year of
Darius.
My
primary purpose in this series will be to demonstrate that the MASTER KEY to
the method of compilation that underlies the structure of the Book of Genesis
is to be found in the use of the colophon. Now, scholars seem to agree at
least that structurally the most significant and distinguishing phrase in the
Book of Genesis is the phrase (אֵלֶּה
תוֹלְדוֹת):
“THESE ARE THE GENERATIONS OF ...”.
This
formula is used eleven times throughout the Book of Genesis.
Wiseman,
commenting on the importance of this phrase, wrote (Ancient Records, p. 60): “... for so significant did the Septuagint
translators regard it, that they gave the whole book the title ‘Genesis’,”,
which is the Greek version of the Hebrew word for “generations”. Following
Wiseman, though, I shall be preferring the Hebrew word for “generations”,
toledôt.
The
toledôt formula, “These are the generations of ...”,
is to be found in the following places throughout the Book of Genesis:
- the history of the heavens and the earth (Genesis 2:4)
- the book of the genealogy of Adam (Genesis 5:1)
- the genealogy of Noah (Genesis 6:9)
- the genealogy of the sons of Noah: Shem, Ham and Japheth (Genesis 10:1)
- the genealogy of Shem (Genesis 11:10)
- the genealogy of Terah (Genesis 11:27)
- the genealogy of Ishmael (Genesis 25:12)
- the genealogy of Isaac (Genesis 25:19)
- the genealogy of Esau/Edom (Genesis 36:1)
- the genealogy of Esau, father of the Edomites (Genesis 36:9)
- the genealogy of Jacob (Genesis 37:2)In the past, scholars of all schools had recognized what was obvious, and had admitted the importance of the repetitious toledôt phrase. However, as we are going to find, there is a disturbing tendency amongst more recent exegetes practically to ignore the phrase, as though it did not even exist in the text. Moreover, it seems that virtually all have misunderstood both its use and its meaning. There is a simple reason for this, as Wiseman has explained. Many of these sections of Genesis that conclude with the toledôt, commence, “as is frequent in ancient documents, with a genealogy or a register asserting close family relationships” (loc. cit.). This has led commentators to associate the toledôt phrase, “These are the generations of ...”, with the genealogical list where this follows. Hence they have assumed that this phrase is used as a preface or introduction.For instance, S.R. Driver (as quoted here by Wiseman) wrote in his Genesis:This phrase ... properly belongs to a genealogical system; it implies that the person to whose name it is prefixed is of sufficient importance to mark a break in the genealogical series, and that he and his descendants will form the subject of the section which follows, until another name is reached prominent enough to form the commencement of a new section.But Dr. Driver’s assertion is plainly contrary to the facts, as anyone will realize simply by reading through the narrative of the Book of Genesis.R.K. Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament (pp. 543-553),discusses this mistake made by some modern scholars.It does not take the attentive reader long to discover that the toledôt phrase does not always belong to a genealogical list, for in some instances no genealogical list follows. Hence Wiseman was entirely correct when he stated that “the main history of the person named has been written before the toledôt phrase and most certainly it is not written after it” (Ancient Records, p. 61). To illustrate this fact, Wiseman pointed firstly to what he called the “classic example” of the second toledôt: “This is the book of the generations of Adam” (Genesis 5:1). After this toledôt we learn nothing more about Adam, “except his age at death”.Again, the record following the phrase, “These are the generations of Isaac” (Genesis 25:19), clearly is not a history of Isaac, but of Jacob and Esau.Similarly, after, “These are the generations of Jacob” (Genesis 37:2), we read mainly about his son Joseph.Commentators have been puzzled by these presumed peculiarities. But the whole thing ceases to be puzzling as soon as one realizes that the toledôt phrase is not an introduction, or the preface to the history of a person, as is so often imagined. “Rather”, as Wiseman had discerned, “it is to be read as a colophon ending, for only as such does it make proper sense”.So much for the first part of Dr. Driver’s statement that the toledôt is tied to a genealogical system. When we test the second part of his statement we find that it, too, does not square with the facts and is therefore quite erroneous. Driver had imagined that the toledôt phrase had served to introduce the next “prominent” person in the narrative. Who would doubt, however, that the most “prominent” individual in the Book of Genesis is ABRAHAM? He, more than all the other great Patriarchs, would be entitled to be named were Driver’s interpretation correct. “Yet”, as Wiseman had observed, “it is remarkable that while lesser persons such as Ishmael and Esau are mentioned, there is no such toledôt phrase as ‘These are the generations of Abraham’.” (Clues, p. 35).Toledôt, or Family HistoryThe Hebrew word toledôt was used to describe history, usually family history, in its origins. Wiseman had proposed, as an equivalent phrase in English for toledôt: “These are the historical origins of ...”. It is evident, he wrote, that the use of the phrase in Genesis “is to point back to the origins of the family history”, and not forward to a later development through a line of descendants. Wiseman’s conclusion here is entirely consistent with what we find in the New Testament. The colophon phrase is used only once in the New Testament, where in Matthew 1:1 we read: “The book of the generations of Jesus Christ”, following which is a list of ancestors. In this context, Wiseman noted (Ancient Records, p. 63), it certainly meant quite the opposite to descendants, for it was used to indicate the tracing back of the genealogy to its origin.This is precisely the meaning of the Greek word, genesios (γένεσεως), translated as “generation”. The first use of the toledôt phrase is in Genesis 2:4: “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth”. Amazingly, in this one instance only, the majority of scholars have found themselves logically forced to accept the natural placement of the toledôt formula: “... for they have seen that it obviously points back to the narrative of the creation contained in the previous chapter, and that it cannot refer to the narrative which follows, for this section contains no reference to the creation of the heavens”. The phrase is appropriate only as a concluding sentence.So, most commentators (against the usual practice) make the story of creation end with the toledôt.“Had they seen that all sections of Genesis are concluded by the use of this ‘Toledoth’ formula”, Wiseman wrote, “they would have recognized the key to the composition of the book”.Since, as we are now coming to appreciate, the scribal method used in the Book of Genesis was the general literary method of early antiquity, then surely the genuineness of the Genesis records is attested by their adherence to the prevailing literary method of these remote times! Commentators generally, however, having assumed that the toledôt formula begins a section, and not realizing that it ends it, “have used this key to its compilation upside down” (Clues, p. 40). Consequently, the problem of the composition of the book of Genesis has remained unsolved for them. For instance, we read in Skinner’s Genesis (1929): “The problem of the TOLEDOTH headings [sic] has been keenly discussed ... and is still unsettled”.Again, Eugene Maly, the commentator on “Genesis” in The Jerome Biblical Commentary (1968) - with only the bankrupt JEDP theory to guide him - has fallen into the double trap of thinking that (2:21): The “Toledoth [story] usually refers to a genealogical account [sic]”, and that it serves as an introduction: “In P [sic] it marks the important stages in salvation history .... It is placed here [i.e. in Genesis 2:4] to preserve the majestic beginning [sic]”.This is exactly the sort of hopeless tangle in which the exponents of the JEDP “dissection” inevitably end up. (Though some of them actually opt for the easy way out, by entirely ignoring the crucial toledôt phrase).Written on TabletsAnother important fact needs to be emphasized in connection with the use of the toledôt formula. The second time that it occurs, in Genesis (5:1), we read: “This is the book of the origins of Adam”. Here the Hebrew word sepher (סֵפֶר), translated as “book”, means “written narrative”, or apparently, as F. Delitzsch has translated it, “finished writing” (as quoted by Wiseman in Ancient Records, p. 67). The Septuagint actually goes so far as to render the first toledôt (Genesis 2:4) as: “This is the book of the origins of the heavens and the earth”. Regarding this fact, Wiseman has pointed out (loc. cit.): “We must realize that the ‘books’ of antiquity were tablets, and that the earliest records of Genesis claim to have been written down, and not as is often imagined passed onto Moses by word of mouth”.Moreover, a careful examination of the name of the person stated at the end of the various phrases, “These are the generations of ...”, makes it clear that the toledôt phrase refers to the owner or writer of the tablet, rather than to the history of the person named. Thus for instance: “These are the generations of Noah” does not necessarily mean: “This is the history about Noah”, but rather the history written or possessed by Noah.To put this into a modern perspective, the toledôt, or colophon, is really like a kind of signature from a contemporary of the events recorded. In the case of Noah’s document, the toledôt would convert to something like: “This is Noah signing off”.As previously mentioned, nowhere is there a phrase: “These are the generations of Abraham”, yet that great Patriarch’s story has been written in full; for we are told that Abraham’s own sons, Isaac and Ishmael, either wrote or owned the series of tablets containing their father's story.This does not mean, of course, that Abraham could not have had his own separate history, or could not perhaps have written part of his sons’ records. Again, whilst his sons may have owned the tablets, Abraham may have written them.Nature of the ColophonTo summarize so far, we find that we have learned three important things about the toledôt colophon phrase:(a) it is the concluding sentence, not the beginning, of each section and therefore points back to a narrative already recorded;(b) the earliest records claim to have been written;(c) it normally refers to the writer of the history or the owner of the tablets containing it.In this way the compiler of the Genesis documents (traditionally believed to have been Moses) clearly indicated the source of the information available to him, and named the persons who originally possessed the tablets from which he gained his knowledge. “These”, Wiseman insisted, “are not arbitrarily invented divisions. They are stated by the author to be the framework of the book” (Ibid., p. 69).Now, hopefully, we are really beginning to understand the nature of the sources used for the compilation of the first book of our Bible. Genesis, it appears, was not compiled from sources that long post-dated the Mosaïc era – as Graf/Wellhausen and their colleagues had imagined. These latter had commenced their analysis, “without a single piece of writing of the age of Genesis to assist them” (Clues, p. 77). They ended up by dissecting Genesis into a series of unknown writers and editors all of whom they alleged could be detected by their “style” or “editorial comments”.They committed the fallacy of subjecting Genesis to a type of contemporary literary analysis, just as if it were a piece of modern writing.They were clearly wrong!Genesis was in fact compiled from multiple sources that predated the time of Moses. And, while the book does indeed disclose many “styles” - as the documentists have correctly observed - it does not, as they have claimed, disclose a plurality of authors in its final form.The Supporting FactsFinally, Wiseman had been able to provide two remarkable confirmations of the accuracy of his toledôt thesis. These were that (Clues, p. 42):
- “In no instance is an event recorded which the person or persons named could not have written from his (their) own intimate knowledge, or have obtained absolutely reliable information”.
- “It is most significant that the history recorded in the sections outlined above ceases in all instances before the death of the person named, yet in most cases it is continued almost up to the date of death, or to the date on which it is stated that the tablets were written”.
To
give a couple of examples: TABLET 4, written or owned by Noah’s sons, contains
the account of the Flood and of the death of Noah. How long Ham and Japheth
lived after Noah’s death we are unaware, but we know from Scripture that
Shem long survived Noah. Hence there is nothing in this section that could not
have been written by the sons of Noah.
TABLET
5, was written or owned by Shem, who wrote of the birth and the formation into
clans of the fifth generation after him. We know that he survived the last
generation recorded in this tablet, namely the sons of Joktan (Gen. 10:29).
It
could not be a mere coincidence that each of these sections, or series
of tablets, should contain only that which the person named at the end
of them could have written from personal knowledge. For, as Wiseman had correctly
suggested (Ancient Records, p. 79): “Anyone
writing even a century after these Patriarchs could and would never have
written thus”. Hence, we can see that the key-formula: “These are the origins
of ...”, that is acknowledged by reliable scholars as constituting the
very framework upon which the records of Genesis are constructed, is
consistently used by the compiler of the book. A rule to which Bible
exegetes often adhere is that ‘the first use of a word or phrase fixes its
future meaning’. We have seen that the obvious and admitted meaning of the
first toledôt (Genesis 2:4) is appropriate for the remaining
instances of its use. With this key in hand, we are delivered from having to
grope like blind creatures in a dark labyrinth of conflicting guesses; for
we find, in the scriptural text itself, clearly indicated sources.
Part One (b): Catch-Lines
It “is remarkable
confirmation of the purity with which the text has been transmitted to us, that
we find [these literary aids] still embedded in this ancient document”,
which we know as the
Book of Genesis.
(ii) The Catch-Lines
Apart
from the presence of the toledôt colophon phrases throughout
Genesis, there is further compelling evidence that these ancient records were originally
written on tablets, and in accordance with ancient methods. In ancient
Babylonia the size of the tablet used depended upon, as Wiseman has explained (Ancient Records, p. 79), how great a
quantity of writing was to be inscribed upon it. If this were a smallish
quantity, for instance, it would be written on one tablet of a size that would
contain it satisfactorily. But when the quantity to be inscribed was of such a
length that it became necessary to use more than one tablet, it was customary:
- “to assign each series of tablets a ‘title’,”;
- “to use ‘catch-lines’, so as to ensure that the tablets were read in their proper order”.
In
addition, as has already been explained, the colophon with which many tablets
concluded, frequently included - among other things - the name of the
scribe who wrote the tablet, and the date when it was written.
Now
there are clear indications throughout Genesis of the use of some of these
methods. Though naturally, of course, since these literary aids relate to the
tablets as they came into the possession of the final compiler, it is unlikely
that we should find them all in the document as completed by that compiler,
which we call “Genesis”. But one of the sure proofs that the Book of Genesis
was compiled at an early date is indicated by the presence of these literary
aids.
To
quote Wiseman on this subject (loc. cit.):
It “is remarkable confirmation of the purity with which the text has been
transmitted to us, that we find [these literary aids] still embedded in this
ancient document”, which we know as the Book of Genesis.
Evidence
of these catch-lines serving as literary aids may be observed in the following
significant repetition of words and phrases connected with the beginning or
ending of each of the series of tablets, now incorporated in the Book of
Genesis:
1:1 “God
created the heavens and the earth”
2:4
“Lord God made the heavens and the earth”
2:4
“When they were created”
5:2
“When they were created”
6:10
“Shem, Ham and Japheth”
10:1
“Shem, Ham and Japheth”
10:32
“After the Flood”
11:10
“After the Flood”
11:26
“Abram, Nahor and Haran”
11:27
“Abram, Nahor and Haran”
25:12
“Abraham’s son”
25:19
“Abraham’s son”
36:1
“Who is Edom”
36:8
“Who is Edom”
36:9
“Father of the Edomites”
36:43
“Father of the Edomites”
According
to P.J. Wiseman (ibid., pp. 80, 81):
“... the very striking repetition of these phrases exactly where the tablets
begin and end, will best be appreciated by those scholars acquainted with
the methods of the scribes in Babylonia”, for this arrangement was the one then
in use to link the tablets together. The repetition of these catch-phrases,
precisely in those verses attached to the colophon, he continued, “cannot
possibly be a mere coincidence. They have remained buried in the text of
Genesis, their significance apparently unnoticed”.
Part One (c): Title
and Date
After a tablet had
been written and the name impressed upon it, it was customary in Babylonia to
insert the date on which it was written. In the earliest times this was done in
a very simple fashion, for it was not until later that tablets were dated with
the year of the reigning king. It was the custom for the ancient scribes to
date their tablets in the following way:
“Year in which
canal Hammurabi was dug”.
(iii) Titles and Dating of Tablets
On
cuneiform tablets the TITLE was
taken from the commencing words of the record. Similarly, the Hebrews called
the first five books of the Bible by the title taken from their opening words.
Thus they called Genesis, “Bereshith”, the Hebrew word (בְּרֵאשִׁית) for “in
the beginning”. Wiseman explained exactly how this practice was carried out in
the ancient Near East.
When
two or more tablets formed a series they were identified together because the
first few words of the first tablet were repeated in the colophon (or title-page)
of the subsequent tablets, “somewhat similar to the way in which the name of
the chapter is repeated at the head of each page of a modern book” (Ancient Records, p. 81). Where pages of the book were not bound
together, as they are now, the advantage would be obvious; for, Wiseman
explained, “... by the repetition of such words as those listed above, the
whole of the Genesis tablets were connected together”.
In
addition to the title, Wiseman pointed out that some of these tablets showed evidence
of DATING (Ibid., p. 82). After a
tablet had been written and the name impressed upon it, it was customary in
Babylonia to insert the date on which it was written. In the earliest times
this was done in a very simple fashion, for it was not until later that tablets
were dated with the year of the reigning king. It was the custom for the
ancient scribes to date their tablets in the following way:
“Year in which canal Hammurabi
was dug”.
As
an early example in which the method of dating the Genesis tablets can be
seen, Wiseman pointed to the end of the second tablet series, Genesis 5:1,
where we read: “This is the book of the origins of Adam in the day God created
man”.
Later
tablets were dated by indicating the dwelling-place of the writer at the time
that the colophon was written, and these dates were immediately connected with
the ending phrase, “These are the generations of ...”. Instances of this are:
25:11: “And Isaac
dwelt by Beer-lahai-roi”
36:8: “And Esau
dwelt in Mount Seir”
37:1: “And Jacob
dwelt in the land wherein his father sojourned ...”.
Clearly
both the purity of the text, and the care with which it has been handed down to
us, are manifested by the fact that such ancient literary aids and cuneiform
usages as these are still discernible in the Genesis narrative. Their presence
also signifies, according to Wiseman, that in the earliest times these records
were written on clay tablets, and that these tablets, forming a series from
Genesis 1:1 to 37:1, were joined together in the same manner as we have them today.
Joseph’s History
The
long last section of our Book of Genesis, that is, Genesis 37:2 to 50:26, does
not conclude with a colophon.
Why
not?
Because
this last section of Genesis is mainly a history of Joseph in Egypt. At least
the family history centres around him. This record begins with the words, “and
Joseph being seventeen years old”, and ends with, “and he [Joseph] was put in a
coffin in Egypt”. In this section we have passed from a more easterly
influence, to Egypt, where in all probability the account of the Patriarch’s
history would be written on papyrus.
Since
the Egyptians did not use the colophon ending, the lack of one at the end of
the Joseph narrative is perfectly harmonious, I believe, with the toledôt theory.
Part Two:
Titles for God
When the compiler
of the Genesis texts came into possession of these tablets, he would have found
on some of them the cuneiform equivalent of “God”. In others, he would find
the cuneiform equivalent of ‘El Shaddai’, “God Almighty” … the name by
which Exodus 6:3 plainly stated that He appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
As
we have read earlier in this series, one of the chief imputations made against
Genesis by the documentists is that different names for God are used in
various parts of the book. Each different writer, they allege, had only one
name for God, and so they endeavour - from this rather tenuous assumption - to account
for the use of different names. They assert that each section of verse in
which a particular Divine name is mentioned indicates that it was written by
the writer who uses that name exclusively or predominantly. Numerous
contradictory explanations of the variations in the use of the Divine name have
been given both by critics and by defenders, to account for the fact that in
Exodus 6:3 we are told that God was not known to the Patriarchs by the name of יְהוָה
‘I AM WHO AM’
(that
is, ‘Yahweh’ or, in German, ‘Jehovah’) - while, on the other hand, Genesis
frequently represents Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as using that name.
But
P.J. Wiseman was convinced that these contradictory explanations and evasions “have
been due to a fundamental mistake made by both sides in assuming that no part
of Genesis had been written until the time of Moses” (Ancient Records, p. 81). This crucial
assumption, he stated, “has resulted in the desperate literary tangle of the
documentists, and the difficulties of the defenders of Mosaic authorship”. The
critics find themselves in the hopeless position of having to concede that the
numerous editors who (so they think) had a hand in the compilation of Genesis,
must have had before them the explicit statement of Exodus 6:3:
‘And
I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God
Almighty, but by my name YAHWEH was I not known to them’.
In
the face of such a theory, Wiseman asked: “Are we supposed to assume that the
final editor was unaware that he was contradicting himself?” The critical “explanations”
only increase their difficulties! All these evasions are made because neither
side in this great and prolonged debate has realized that the Book of
Genesis is a record written by the persons whose names are stated in it, in the
colophons.
The Problem for
the Compiler
There
cannot be the slightest doubt, so Wiseman thought, that the tablets that
Abraham would have taken with him from his original home in “Ur of the Chaldees” would
have been written in the cuneiform script prevalent at the time. When the
compiler of the Genesis texts came into possession of these tablets, he would
have found on some of them the cuneiform equivalent of “God”. In others, though,
he would find the cuneiform equivalent of ‘El Shaddai’ (אֵל שַׁדָּי), “God
Almighty”, the Divine name by which Exodus 6:3 plainly stated that He appeared
to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Now, in regard to the word, ‘Shaddai’, Wiseman
wanted to draw attention to certain facts “to which sufficient attention has
not been given” (ibid., p. 129):
“... in the first place, the full composite title ‘El Shaddai’, as stated in Exodus
6:3, is not used elsewhere than in Genesis, and these uses are on important
occasions”.
These
special occasions were:
- The announcement of a son for Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 17:1).
- Isaac speaking to Jacob at the occasion of his escape to Mesopotamia from before the countenance of Esau (Genesis 28:3).
- Jacob’s blessing and new name “Israel” (Genesis 35:11).
- Jacob’s blessing over Ephraim and Manasseh (Genesis 48:3).
Continuing
on, Wiseman notes “... the next impressive fact is that the word ‘Shaddai’
alone is used 42 times, and in almost every instance by persons writing or
living outside Palestine, and in contact with Babylonian cuneiform modes
of expression”.
When,
at a date later than the revelation of Exodus 6:3, the compiler - who we take
to have been, substantially (though not entirely), Moses:
Tracing the Hand of Moses in Genesis
Tracing the Hand of Moses in Genesis. Part Two.
-
was putting the Book of Genesis into the form of it with which we are now
so familiar, with all of his Patriarchal records before him, he would have found
the cuneiform equivalent of the Divine name ‘El Shaddai’ on many of them. At
this stage, according to Wiseman (who had accepted the traditional identification
of the compiler of Genesis as Moses), he would have found himself confronted
with the following, peculiar problem (ibid.,
p. 132): “Now that God had revealed to him the new name ‘I Am Who I Am’,
which word for God should he use in transcribing these ancient tablets?”.
Every
translator of the Bible has been confronted with this same problem.
The
title “God” may be repeated, but how is the description or name to be transcribed
where necessary, unless the new revealed name of God is used?
To
use any other name, Wiseman noted, “would be to create a misunderstanding in
the minds of those for whom Genesis was being prepared”. What name, then,
was the compiler to write? God had since revealed Himself by the name of ‘I
Am Who I Am’, and that name had been announced to the children of Israel
in Egypt and was revered by them.
Wiseman
provided the following answer to the difficulty with which the compiler would have
been, at this point, confronted (ibid., p.
133):
Now
that the ancient records of their [the children of Israel’s] race, preserved
in purity and handed down by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were being edited
and possibly translated by Moses, what name should he use? He saw that the
ancient title “El Shaddai”, God Almighty ..., had been corrupted by its use in
connection with scores of other “gods”, each of whom were called “god
almighty” by their devotees? The most natural course was to use the name
Jehovah [Yahweh]. Thus, then, is the presence of the word Jehovah in
Genesis quite naturally explained. It is not by assuming a complicated jumble
of tangled documents written by unknown writers as the modern scholars do, or
by an evasion of the literal meaning of Exodus 6:3, but by the inspiration from
God which led Moses in most instances to translate “El Shaddai” by the word Jehovah
- his distinguishing name, that separated him from the heathen gods around.
This
was, at least, Wiseman’s take on this vexed matter.
As
one discovers from reading P.J. Wiseman, tremendous instruction can be gained
from studying the pattern of the Divine names used according to the context of
each successive toledôt history.
Part Three:
First Chapter
of Genesis
One has only to
compare the Genesis account of Creation with the Babylonian one,
for instance, to
realize how intrinsically different they are.
Really,
the whole documentary approach to biblical interpretation is due to
mythologizing tendencies that - employing all possible and impossible kinds of
combinations - seek to work into the Genesis stories (and even into the
narratives of the Patriarchs) features and elements drawn from the Babylonian
or Egyptian myths that are absolutely remote from, and completely alien to, the
Hebrew spirit.
One
has only to compare the Genesis account of Creation with the Babylonian one,
for instance, to realize how intrinsically different they are:
Bible
|
Babylonian
Creation Tablets
|
1.
Light
|
1.
Birth of the gods, their rebellion and threatened destruction.
|
2.
Atmosphere, water
|
2.
Tiamat prepares for battle.
|
3.
Land, vegetation
|
3. The gods are
summoned and wail bitterly at their threatened destruction.
|
4.
Sun and Moon (regulating the lights)
|
4.
Marduk promoted to rank of 'god': he receives his weapons for fight. These
are described at length; he defeats Tiamat, splits her in half like a fish
and thus makes heaven and earth.
|
5.
Fish and birds
|
5.
Astronomical poem
|
6.
Land animals
|
6.
Kingu who made Tiamat to rebel is bound and, as a punishment, his arteries
are severed and man created from his blood. The 600 gods are grouped; Marduk
builds Babylon where all the gods assemble.
|
A
comparison of the two accounts makes it immediately apparent, as Wiseman has
correctly noted, that the Bible owes nothing whatever to the Babylonian
tablets, despite the efforts of commentators to try to convince us that whoever
wrote this portion of Genesis had actually borrowed his concepts from
these corrupted Mesopotamian myths. If we rely solely on the text of Genesis,
without being biased by the Babylonian mythology, we find no trace of any contest
with a living monster in the sense of the Babylonian myth of the fight of the
gods.
The Primeval Deep
Almost
all the modern biblical critics take it for granted that tehom (תְהוֹם), the Hebrew word translated as “deep”, or “waters” - as used
in the Creation and Flood stories (Genesis 1:2 & 7:17) - is identical with the
Akkadian word, tiamat; the name of
the dragon of darkness that Marduk slew in bitter conflict, before the
creation of the world. E. Maly, for instance, writing on the subject in The Jerome Biblical Commentary (1968), makes
this very identification (2:16).
A
notable dissenter from this view, however, was the brilliant linguist, professor
A.S. Yahuda. He, commenting upon this almost universal identification of the
biblical with the Akkadian word, wrote (The
Language of the Pentateuch in its Relation to Egyptian, Oxford, 1933, p. 127):
The
positiveness with which this assumption is put forward, and the stubbornness
with which it is maintained, are based on no intrinsic or philologically
well-founded facts; since besides the similarity of sound of [tehom] and
tiamat, no other proofs for such an identification can be put forward.
Yahuda
further noted (in footnote 3):
The
argument that ['tehom'] must be identical with tiamat because like the latter
it is feminine, is untenable, for the simple reason that in
our particular passage the gender of ['tehom'] is not apparent, and
further because, there are examples of its being used in the
masculine as a poetical expression for sea.
The
fact that the documentists have so stubbornly persisted with a view that has so
little in its favour, is due, I believe, to the stranglehold that those
mythologizing tendencies (to which I have already referred) have over them.
The
word 'tehom', according to Yahuda (ibid.,
p. 128), means nothing else but the primeval water, that ocean which filled
the chaos; a fact that becomes quite apparent from the complete biblical
phrase itself, translated into English as “on the face of the waters [that is,
'tehom']”. This unmistakably indicates the real nature of 'tehom' as
water. From its biblical context, Yahuda concluded that 'tehom' ought to
be identified philologically, not with 'tiamat', but with another Akkadian
word, 'tamtu'; a word that, he said, often occurs - not only in Creation myths,
but also in many other kinds of myths - most distinctly in the sense of primal
ocean, exactly like 'tehom', and not as the personification of any divinity
like tiamat.
Part Four:
Account of the
Flood
The documentists
have given considerable attention to the Flood narrative, thinking that the
Hebrews would have borrowed it from the Babylonian mythology …. Although they
have been quite correct in identifying multiple accounts of the Flood story;
they have completely missed the mark when it has come down to identifying the
actual authors of it.
Regarding
the story of the great Flood, one might perhaps be inclined to ask us: If the toledôt theory is correct, then how would one account
for the fact that commentators of the Graf-Wellhausen persuasion have been
able to identify two - or in the case of Astruc, three - accounts of the Flood
story interwoven into the text of Genesis chapter 7?
Well,
thanks to Wiseman’s findings, I believe that one ought no longer have any difficulty
at all in answering this sort of query; for it is quite naturally accounted for
by the toledôt theory.
Chapter
7 of Genesis is, as we have learned, part of Tablet (series) 4, written, or
owned, by Noah’s three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, and signed by them.
It
is an eyewitness account:
Genesis Flood Narrative An Eyewitness Account
The
ancient trio’s story is taken up almost entirely with the account of the Flood
of which they were the only eyewitnesses.
Jean
Astruc, who claimed to have discerned “three accounts” of the Flood story,
instanced in support of his claim such repetitious passages as (Genesis Chapter
7):
18: “And the
waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth”.
19: “And the
waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth”.
20: “Fifteen
cubits upwards did the waters prevail”.
Also:
21: “And all flesh
died that moved upon the face of the earth”.
22: “All in whose
nostrils was the breath of life and all that was in the dryland died”.
23: “And every
living substance was destroyed”.
In
regard to Astruc's theory, then, it is sufficient here to note, with Wiseman, “two
significant facts” (Ancient Records, p.
93):
Firstly, the conclusion of the tablet
informs us that more than one person was connected with the writings of the
narrative, “for it is the history of the three sons of Noah”.
Secondly, an examination of
the story reveals every indication that it was written by several eyewitnesses
of the tragedy.
The
documentists have given considerable attention to the Flood narrative, thinking
that the Hebrews would have borrowed it from the Babylonian mythology (we have
already accounted for one of the main philological reasons why they have
been under this impression). Although they have been quite correct in
identifying multiple accounts of the Flood story; they have completely missed
the mark when it has come down to identifying the actual authors of it.
Part Five:
Two Accounts
of Creation?
The documentist
view is that the first chapter of Genesis was put into writing by an unknown
author, or school of writers, in about the C8th BC - many hundreds of years
after Moses.
Ignorance
of the nature of the sources from which the Book of Genesis was compiled has
led modern scholars into saying things like:
- The second chapter of Genesis is more ancient than the first,
- The order of Genesis is wrong,
- There are two accounts of creation, each written centuries after Moses.
The
documentist view is that the first chapter of Genesis was put into writing by
an unknown author, or school of writers, in about the C8th BC - many hundreds
of years after Moses. I believe, however, that the arguments presented in
this series would completely lay to rest any such claims.
But,
asked P.J. Wiseman, does the narrative of the first chapter of Genesis itself
give any clue as to the time when it was written? To which question he answered
that, in addition to the ancient literary method of the colophon dating, there
are “some pieces of evidence which seem to assist us in ascertaining the
chronological place of Genesis chapter 1 in the Old Testament” (Clues to Creation in Genesis, p. 170).
And he went on to list these as follows:
- No anachronisms: “... it contains no reference whatever to any event subsequent to the creation of man and woman, and of what God said to them”. (Genesis 1:26: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness …”. By contrast, the Babylonian version of creation, for instance, contains reference to events of a relatively late date, such as the building of Babylon.
- Universality: All the references in this chapter “are universal in their application and unlimited in their scope”. We find no mention of “any particular tribe or nation or country, or of any merely local ideas or customs. Everything relates to the earth as a whole and to mankind without reference to race”.
- Simplicity: The Sun and Moon, for instance, are referred to simply as the “greater and lesser lights” (Genesis 1:16). It is well known that astronomy is one of the most ancient branches of knowledge. In earliest times the Babylonians had already given names to the Sun and Moon.
- Brevity: Compared with the lengthy Babylonian series of six tablets of creation, the Bible uses only one fortieth the number of words.
Tablet (series) 2
As
Wiseman has astutely assessed it, the universality of the references in Genesis
chapter 1 cannot be found in the second toledôt series (Genesis
2:4b to 5:1). In this second series there are historical notes: rivers are
named, as are countries, minerals are being developed.
This,
we believe to be Adam’s own recorded history.
It
is not a repetitious second account of chapter 1, and even more ancient, as
scholars would have us believe. The writer gives more detail about the creation
of the first man; the Garden is planted; geographical locations for Eden are
given; the animals are named, and so on.
Tablet
(series) 2 appears to be utterly different from chapter 1 in style and content,
and would seem to be a much later production.
