Jonathan wrote,
<< If I may interject here, P.J. Wiseman's understanding of Genesis
consisted of two independent elements; that the days of Genesis 1 were
days of revelation (published, and that Genesis is a series of
sequential sub-documents, each headed by the colophon "These are the
generations..." ("New discoveries in Babylonia about Genesis",
originally published in 1948) The first is generally regarded as
texturally strained, but the second I think is still potentially valid
and was subsequently supported by PJ Wiseman's more famous son DJ
Wiseman, Professor of Assyriology at the University of London.. >>
The "tablet theory" was also accepted by R.K. Harrison in his Introduction to
the Old Testament, but does not seem to have garned a wide following with
most biblical scholars.
One of the major problems with the "tablet theory" is that colophons always
came at the end of the tablet; but, in Genesis the toledoth come at the
beginning to introduce sections; and even Gen 2:4 is understood by the
primary evangelical commentators on Genesis (Walton, Waltke, Mathews,
Hamilton, Wenham) to be an introduction to what follows, not a conclusion to
what preceded.
Of the five above evangelical authors of commentaries on Genesis, only
Mathews and Hamilton mention the "tablet theory," and both reject it.
Hamilton gives three reasons for rejecting it:
1. In the five instances where the formula precedes a genealogy, it is
difficult not to include the colophon with what follows, whereas colophons on
tablets are independent subsequent statements divorced from the text.
2. The colophons in tablets always come at the end of the tablet and give the
name of the scribe who did the copying and hence the name of the person
resposible for preserving the text. But, in the toledoth for Abraham
(11:27b-25:12), this would make Ishmael (25:12) the person who did the
preserving. And for Ishmael's history (25:13-19a), Isaac is the preserver.
For Jacob's history, Esau is the preserver; and vice-versa. Hamilton, I think
properly, find this "highly unlikely."
3. The major problem mentioned above: Toledoth lead sections; they do not
follow sections the way colophons did. (This is Mathews' only argument.)
Paul
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