For complete article, go to: https://www.academia.edu/8212564/Tracing_the_Hand_of_Moses
The Colophons
After a more recent re-reading of
P. J. Wiseman I have realized that - somewhat contrary to the impression that I
had formerly - the toledôt divisions
throughout the Book of Genesis may in fact have been added by Moses himself. I had
earlier imagined that these were the actual divisions employed by the
successive patriarchs who pre-dated Moses, and that Moses had left them
embedded in the text out of reverence.
But I now think that the
identically same formula, “These are the generations of …” (toledôt) would unlikely have been used
by men separated by millennia, and living in different parts of the ancient
world.
Moses apparently knew where the
divisions were in his set of family histories. And, indeed, he did leave them
there out of respect - and Wiseman has discerned at least some of them by
comparison with the most ancient tablets. But Moses also added the distinctive toledôt formula that we now have -
presumably for the sake of an Egyptianised Hebrew race, who would probably not
have been able to discern the original ancient divisions - a formula that is also
employed in Numbers (3:1): “These are the generations of Aaron and Moses”;
Numbers being a Pentateuchal book that, on New Testament authority and
tradition, Moses had authored.
The same comment may apply to the
catch-lines that Wiseman has
identified in the Genesis text. These, too, may have been additions by Moses,
to link together the tablets upon which he was re-casting this history for
Israel, rather than their having been embedded there in the original histories.
Having clarified these points
about the colophon and catch-lines, I shall now try to follow Moses as he works
his way through the series of sacred documents that he had inherited,
entabulating them into the Book of Genesis. Let us start with the first toledôt, the famous Genesis 1 - whose
colophon refers to no human author or owner - and work our way from there right
down to the conclusion of Genesis, the death and burial of Joseph, clarifying
as we go.
....
Continued from: http://moseseditor.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/by-damien-f.html
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