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(i) The Colophon Phrase
Documents written in Mesopotamia were generally inscribed upon stone or clay tablets. 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 [90]. 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 one of the mythological Babylonian accounts of creation reads [95]:
"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 article 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:
"THESE ARE THE GENERATIONS OF ...".
The formula is used eleven times throughout the Book of Genesis.
Wiseman, commenting on the importance of this phrase, wrote [98]:
"... 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", 'Toledoth'. [100]
The Toledoth formula , "These are the generations of ...", is to be found in the following places throughout the Book of Genesis:
Verse
2:4
5:1
6:9
10:1
11:10
11:27
25:12
25:19
36:1
36:9
37:2
Wording
"These are the generations of the heavens and the earth".
"This is the book of the generations of Adam".
"These are the generations of Noah".
"These are the generations of the sons of Noah".
"These are the generations of Shem".
"These are the generations of Terah".
"These are the generations of Ishmael".
"These are the generations of Isaac".
"These are the generations of Esau".
"These are the generations of Esau".
"These are the generations of Jacob".
In the past, scholars of all schools had recognized what was obvious, and had admitted the importance of the repetitious Toledoth 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 a Toledoth, commence, "as is frequent in ancient documents, with a genealogy or a register asserting close family relationships" [105]. This has led commentators to associate the Toledoth 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 wrote in his Genesis [110]:
"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 [115]. It does not take the attentive reader long to discover that the Toledoth 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 'Toledoth' phrase and most certainly it is not written after it" [120].
To illustrate this fact, Wiseman pointed firstly to what he called the "classic example" of the second Toledoth: "This is the book of the generations of Adam" (Genesis 5:1). After this Toledoth 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 [125].
Commentators have been puzzled by these presumed peculiarities. But the whole thing ceases to be puzzling as soon as one realizes that the Toledoth 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" [130].
So much for the first part of Dr. Driver's statement that the Toledoth 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 Toledoth 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 in a Toledoth 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 Toledoth phrase as `These are the generations of Abraham'" [135].
'Toledoth', or Family History
The Hebrew word Toledoth was used to describe history, usually family history, in its origins. Wiseman had proposed, as an equivalent phrase for Toledoth in English [138-24]: "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 [140], it certainly meant quite the opposite to descendants, for it was used to indicate the tracing back of the genealogy to its origin.[145]
This is precisely the meaning of the Greek word, 'genesios', translated as "generation". The first use of the Toledoth 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 Toledoth formula [150]:
"... 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 Toledoth. "Had they seen that all sections of Genesis are concluded by the use of this 'Toledoth' formula", wrote Wiseman, "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 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 Toledoth formula begins a section, and not realizing that it ends it, "have used this key to its compilation upside down" [155]. Consequently, the problem of the composition of the book of Genesis has remained unsolved for them.
For instance, we read in Skinner's Genesis [160]: "The problem of the TOLEDOTH headings [sic] has been keenly discussed ... and is still unsettled".
Eugen Maly
Again, Eugene Maly, the commentator on "Genesis" in the Jerome Biblical Commentary - with only the bankrupt JEDP theory to guide him - has fallen into the double trap of thinking that [165]: 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 Toledoth phrase).
Written on Tablets
Another important fact needs to be emphasized in connection with the use of the Toledoth 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, translated "book", means "written narrative", or as F. Delitzsch has translated it, "finished writing" [170].
The Septuagint actually goes so far as to render the first Toledoth (Genesis 2:4) as: "This is the book of the origins of the heavens and the earth" ". Regarding this fact, Wiseman has pointed out [175]: "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 on to 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 Toledoth 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 Toledoth, or colophon is really like a kind of signature from a contemporary of the events recorded. In the case of Noah's document, the Toledoth 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 the 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 [180].
Nature of the Colophon
To summarize so far, we find that we have learned three important things about the Toledoth, 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.
Genesis therefore contains the following series of tablets possessed by the persons whose names are stated in the various colophons:
TABLET # CONTENTS WORDING
1
2
3
4
5
6
7 & 8
9 - 11 1:1 to 2:4
2:5 to 5:2
5:3 to 6:9a
6:9b to 10:1
10:2 to 11:10a
11:10b to 11:27a
11:27b to 25:19a
25:19b to 37:2a
This is the book of the origins of the heavens and the earth.
This is the book of the origins of Adam.
These are the origins [or histories] of Noah.
These are the origins [or histories] of the sons of Noah.
These are the origins [or histories] of Shem.
These are the origins [or histories] of Terah.
These are the origins [or histories] of Ishmael and Isaac.
These are the origins [or histories] of Esau and Jacob.
(The reader will notice that the first series only does not conclude with a signature).
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" [185].
Now 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 postdated the Mosaic 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" [190]. 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 Facts
Wiseman had been able to provide two remarkable confirmations of the accuracy of his Toledoth thesis. These were that [195]:
1.
"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".
2.
"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, 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.
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 [200]: "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 Toledoth (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 men or women in a dark labyrinth of conflicting guesses; for we find, in the scriptural text itself, clearly indicated sources.
(ii) The Catch-Lines
Apart from the presence of the Toledoth colophons 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, as Wiseman has explained [205], the size of the tablet used depended upon 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:
(a)
"to assign each series of tablets a 'title'";
(b)
"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 him, 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 [210]: 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".
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:
GENESIS CATCH LINE GENESIS CATCH LINE
1:1 "God created the heavens and the earth"
11:26 "Abram, Nahor and Haran"
2:4 "Lord God made the heavens and the earth"
11:27 "Abram, Nahor and Haran"
2:4 "When they were created" 25:12 "Abraham's son"
5:2 "When they were created" 25:19 "Abraham's son"
6:10 "Shem, Ham and Japheth" 36:1 "Who is Edom"
10:1 "Shem, Ham and Japheth" 36:8 "Who is Edom"
10:32 "After the Flood" 36:9 "Father of the Edomites"
11:10 "After the Flood" 36:43 "Father of the Edomites"
According to Wiseman [215]: "... 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, "cannot possibly be a mere coincidence. They have remained buried in the text of Genesis, their significance apparently unnoticed".
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 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" [220].
Where pages of the book were not bound together, as they are now, the advantage would be obvious; for "... 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 [225]. 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" [228].
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:
GENESIS DATING
25:11
36:8
37:1
"And Isaac dwelt by Beer-lahai-roi"
"And Esau dwelt in Mount Seir" [230]
"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 [235], 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 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 centers 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 Babylonia (or, at least, from Babylonian influence) to Egypt, where in all probability the account would be written on papyrus. (We believe that it is probably more correct to say that the Babylonians learned this method from the Hebrews since we found that Hammurabi was a contemporary of Solomon.)
Since the Egyptians did not use the colophon ending, the lack of one at the end of the Joseph narrative is perfectly harmonious with our Toledoth theory.
THE TITLES FOR GOD
As we saw earlier on, 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 endeavor - 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 "I AM WHO AM" (that is, 'Yahweh' or 'Jehovah'); while, on the other hand, Genesis frequently represents Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as using that name.
But 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" [240]. 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 JEHOVA was I not known to them." [Exodus 3:16; a) Gen. 12:7; b) Gen. 26:1-2; c) Gen. 35:1]
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?" [245]. 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 that the tablets that Abraham would have taken with him from his original home in "Ur of the Chaldees" [250] 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, 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.
In regard to the word, 'Shaddai', Wiseman wanted to draw attention to certain facts "to which sufficient attention has not been given" [255]:
"... 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:
1.The announcement of a son for Abraham and Sarah, Genesis 17:1;
2.Isaak speaking to Jakob at the occasion of his escape to Mesopotamia from before the countenance of Esau, Genesis 28:3;
3.Jakobs blessing and new name Israel, Genesis 35:11;
4.Jakobs blessing over Ephraim and Manasseh, Genesis 48:3;
"... 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 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 '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 [260]: "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, as Wiseman had 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 at this point have been confronted [265]:
"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".
As one discovers from reading Wiseman, tremendous instruction can be gained from studying the pattern of the Divine names used according to the context of each successive Toledoth history.
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For complete article, see:
http://specialtyinterests.net/Toledoth.html
