How Genesis came to be

* February 2nd, 2010 12:21 am ET
* By Terry Hurlbut, Creationism Examiner


Moses receiving the tablets of the law (João Zeferino da
Costa, 1868)

One of the most contentious debates known to Biblical scholarship is the question of how the first book of the Bible, called Genesis, came to be. Most "Higher Critics" of the Bible do not even accept that it was written, in the belief that writing did not exist at that time. But archaeological evidence developed in the twentieth century shows that Genesis was indeed written, on a series of clay tablets containing clear clues that Moses was able to use to compile this remarkable work.

The favorite Higher Critical theory of Genesis is the Documentary or JEDP Hypothesis, officially credited to K. H. Graf and Julius Wellhausen but which probably began centuries earlier, with the French physician Jean Astruc. According to this theory, the Bible had four separate sources, each of which used a different name for God: the Yahwist or Jehovist, the Elohist, the Deuteronomic, and the Priestly. These documents were supposed to have been first written at about 800 BC (well into the era of the Divided Kingdoms of Israel and Judah).

Jean Astruc (National Library of Medicine)

But early in the twentieth century, archaeologists found clay tablets clearly predating this era and going back as far as the time of Abraham. Notable among these were the Ebla Tablets, at least one of which named all five Cities of the Plain mentioned in the War of the Ten Kings, in which Abraham had to come to the rescue of his nephew Lot after King Chedorlaomer of Elam had conquered the five cities and taken Lot hostage.

Air Commodore P. J. Wiseman, RAF, examined many of the ancient tablets and discovered certain common features. He first published his findings in 1936, and after that his son, D. J. Wiseman, published a revised edition of his book, Ancient Records and the Structure of Genesis: A Case for Literary Unity, in 1985. (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, ISBN 97808407750223.)

The key feature of these tablets were colophon phrases, placed at the end of the tablets and naming the author or owner, the subject, and a date (usually as a king's regnal year). The elder Wiseman compared this feature to a turn-of-phrase that appears ten times in the Book of Genesis, and once in the Book of Exodus. In each case it begins with the word ?????? (toledoth), traditionally translated as "generations" and more literally meaning "genealogical annals" or "family history." Wiseman concluded that all these phrases, traditionally considered to introduce the text following, were actually identifiers of the text preceding them. Thus, "Annals of Adam" (Genesis 5:1), or "Annals of Noah" (Genesis 6:9a), or "Annals of Shem, Ham and Japheth" (Genesis 10:1).

A clay tablet found at Ebla, Syria (Wikipedia)

Most of these toledothim were probably on clay tablets, though the literal translation of the phrase tzeh sepher toledoth Adam (this is the scroll of the annals of Adam), for example, suggests that the annals of Adam came to Moses in scroll form. Only one of these annals (the first, or the Annals of Creation) had no author's name; Sewell, in Bible and Spade, suggested (1994) that God dictated these annals directly to Adam, thus making them the first-ever written document, the first-ever instance of stenographical dictation and transcription, and perhaps even the first writing lesson.

The remaining tablets are all attributable to the person named after the appearance of the word toledoth. The eleventh and last section of Genesis remains in minor dispute. Sewell suggested that it ended with Exodus 1:6 and is properly called "The Annals of Joseph and his Brothers." Damien Mackey asserts that this section is not part of the toledothim at all, but is an account written on papyrus, largely at the direction of Joseph and perhaps by Joseph's vice-regal scribes. In support of Mackey's hypothesis, the word toledoth does not appear in Exodus 1:6; instead one finds the Hebrew ???? (ha'dor), literally "the generation."

That Exodus is very short on details from the death of Joseph to the birth of Moses cannot be coincidence. Obviously Moses began writing with the frankly hazardous circumstances of his birth and (temporary) adoption into the Egyptian court. Eventually he would inherit the toledothim, in all their forms (tablet, scroll, or papyrus), and compile them into one continuous and chronological narrative.

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Taken from: http://www.examiner.com/creationism-in-national/how-genesis-came-to-be?render=print