Hi Robert
Have you ever seen a "rainbow Bible", that is one where the different
traditions are printed in different inks? It looks really bizarre and
it is hard to imagine how any redactor would actually function in such a
fashion.
That, together with the untestable assumption that the different names
for God point to different original documents or traditions, the
culturally arrogant assumption (very 19th century) that the way the
western world would tell a story must be the way the ANE would do so,
and the framework on how the religion of the Hebrews really developed
(as opposed to how the test says in developed) makes the whole
documentary hypothesis (DH) very suspect, at least in my eyes.
Finally I find Wenham's demonstration of the unity of the flood story
convincing. As I recall it rests on two grounds, the chiastic structure
of the story, which would be hard to achieve with a stitching together
of two separate accounts, and the fact that the whole story has far more
parallels with the Babylonian equivalents than do either of the supposed
sources when separated. The flood story has always been the showpiece
of the DH, if Wenham is correct then this showpiece is nothing of the
sort. That leaves the relation of Genesis 1 to Genesis 2, and one can
recognise that Genesis 1 is a separate account or prologue without
resorting to the DH. The same applies to some late explanatory
editorial insertions.
At least Wiseman's theory is testable (and, if Paul is correct has been
falsified) and intrinsically more likely likely way to put together
Genesis. The DH is not testable as far as I can see, but perhaps I am
wrong. How would one test the DH? It seems to be a circular argument.
It may be cynical of me but I do wonder whether the limited acceptance
of PJ Wiseman's ideas was in any way related to the fact that he was an
outsider. Had he been a German theologian it might have been more
accepted.
But then I am but a hairy knuckled geologist, what would I know?
Jon
Robert Schneider wrote:
> I would suggest that the documentary hypothesis is more nuanced and
> developed than "the posited clumsy cut and past composite" description
> given below. A. E. Speiser's commentary on Genesis also points to
> "many Mesopotamian elements and words in the early chapters of
> Genesis," and anyone who has compared the story of Utnapishtim in the
> Gilgamesh Epic with the story of Noah, or noted other near eastern
> parallels would be likewise aware. But I do not think that such
> elements in and of themselves argue for a tablet hypothesis. Bob
> Schneider
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From:Jonathan Clarke
> Cc: asa@calvin.edu
> Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2002 3:43 PM
> Subject: Re: BIBLE: Genesis tablets
>
>
>
> 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.. Wiseman's theory
> is completely different from the posited clumsy cut and
> paste composite authorship of the documentary hypothesis.
> It is many years since I read the book but Wiseman would
> reject the methodology of identifying authorship on the
> basis of different names for God, and points to many
> Mesopotamian elements and words in the early chapters of
> Genesis and the appearance of Egyptian elements later.
>
> Blessings
>
> Jon
>
>
> Robert Schneider wrote:
>
> > Hello, all, I've renamed this Subject to pursue
> > Allen's response to Jim's comments. I have some questions
> > regarding Wiseman's "Tablet Theory"? Perhaps Allen can
> > answer them. (1) First, the clay tablets. What
> > evidence is there for clay tablets written in Hebrew
> > (Semitic) script or a cuneiform script that turns out to
> > be Hebrew? If there are such tablets, how far back can
> > they be dated? Have any such tablets been found in any
> > excavations in the Holy Land or elsewhere in the Middle
> > East? Wiseman's hypothesis--it is that rather than a
> > theory--requires the existence of such tablets if it is to
> > have any merit. (2) In what language were these
> > hypothetical Genesis tablets written? Can anyone
> > know? (3) I think what Allen means by "literary
> > style" is "literary form": (Title, Body and Colophon).
> > According to the Documentary Hypothesis, distinct literary
> > styles can be discerned in the text of Gen. 1-11 and
> > elsewhere, which is one of the major arguments for JEPD.
> > I want to focus on Gen. 6-9. Many ordinary readers as
> > well as literary critics have discerned two strands within
> > the Flood Story, based on differences of language,
> > expression, the name of God (Yahweh in some places, Elohim
> > in others), and style (things like instructions to Noah
> > are repeated, but with differences, etc.) When I ask my
> > students to read 6-9 very carefully many of them spot
> > these differences. Does Wiseman grant that this is so, or
> > does he insist that these distinctions are illusory and
> > that this is an integrated text in the same style by one
> > writer? Using his hypothesis, perhaps a supporter might
> > concede that there are two accounts woven together and
> > postulate that some unknown writer at some unknown time
> > took down the oral tradition of one of Noah's sons and a
> > second writer put down another oral tradition of another
> > son(?), likewise, on these hypothetical clay tablets, and
> > that Moses redacted them. That would be a kind of
> > documentary hypothesis within the tablet hypothesis.
> > (4) On what basis does Wiseman claim that Isaac preserved
> > the story of Ishmael, or that Esau preserved the story of
> > Isaac? I recall reading a tablet theory in one of Henry
> > Morris' books, in which he claims that these tables were
> > written down by the family descendents; does Wiseman also,
> > or does he postulate (followed by Allen) that they were
> > handed down orally and written down at a later time? And
> > on what basis can Wiseman establish that these accounts
> > are actually the work of the person postulated? "This is
> > the lineage of Isaac" does not mean "I, Isaac, am telling
> > you this story." (5) Finally, where did Moses get the
> > tablets? What evidence is there that he came into
> > possession of such clay documents? I am glad that Wiseman
> > agrees that Genesis is an edited text and based on oral
> > traditions (?), but I am exceedingly skeptical of his
> > reconstruction. A hypothesis without evidence is hardly
> > worthy of the term, so I would want to see some evidence.
> > Next fall I shall teach a course in Genesis to jr. and sr.
> > religion majors at a nearby college. It will be
> > interesting to see what they make of the literary styles
> > of the text, and whether any of them is familiar with some
> > version of this tablet hypothesis.Bob
> > Schneiderrjschn39@bellsouth.net
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From:Allen Roy
> > To: asa@calvin.edu
> > Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2002 1:23 PM
> > Subject: Re: What are the odds?....Or, a great
> > and Mighty God
> > According to Wiseman's "Tablet Theory" as
> > opposed to the JPED theory, Genesis is composed
> > of some 11 manuscripts edited by Moses into a
> > single manuscript that were originally written
> > in the literary style used on clay tablets from
> > the eras during which the events of Genesis
> > happened. That literary style consisted of a
> > Title, Body and Colophon. The colophon ending
> > stated that the preceding story in the body was
> > the account of (or belonged to, or written by)
> > some person and usually included a date. The
> > following table gives a breakdown of Genesis
> > using the known literary structure of ancient
> > clay tablets.
> >
Colophon
Tablet Number Ancestry Narrative
Body Owner/writer Date
1. 1:1-2:4 1:1 1:2-2:3 2:4a 2:4b
Creation Heaven & Earth
2. 2:4c-5:2 2:4c-2:6 2:7-4:26 5:1a Adam 5:1b-5:2
Creatin/Fall
3. 5:3-6:9 5:3-5:32 6:1-8 6:9a Noah 6:9b
4. 6:10-10:1 6:10 6:11-9:29 10:1a 10:1b
Flood Ham,Shem,Japheth
5. 10:2-11:10 10:2-32 11:1-9 11:10a Shem
6.
11:10b-11:27a 11:10b-2511:26 11:27a Terrah
7. 11:27-25:11
11:27b-25:12 11:27b 25:12 Ishmael
Abraham
7a. 25:13-18
25:13-25:19a Ishmael 25:19a Isaac
25:20-35:29
8. 25:19b-369 25:19b 36:1 Esau
Isaac
8a. 36:2-9 36:2-7 36:9 Esau 36:8
Esau Family
36:10-43
8b. Esau 37:2a Jacob 37:1
Descendants
37:2- 50:21
9. 1:1-37:1 1:1-37:1 Joseph?
Joseph
50:22-26 Moses?
Postscript
> > Within this interpretation of Genesis, the
> > literary units include a list of ancestors, the
> > narrative body, and the colophon. In the case
> > of the first "tablet," gives then ancestry of
> > the universe for the Creation Week narrative.
> > It ends with whose history it is of (the heavens
> > and the earth) and dates it to "when God made
> > heaven and earth) The second "tablet" give the
> > history of Adam.
> >
> > Chances are that these originated as oral
> > stories which were later written down in the
> > literary style of the times. Just when the
> > switch from oral to written occurred is not
> > evident in the stories. However, it is likely
> > that Moses simply edited these several documents
> > into one document still keeping the literary
> > structure of the times.
> >
> > So who wrote "In the beginning God. ...
> >
> > Who knows. The story probably began as what God
> > told Adam and Eve. They passed on the story,
> > along with their own to the following
> > generations. Eventually the stories were
> > written down and eventually ended up in the
> > Torah and the Bible.
> >
> > AllenFrom: Jim Eisele <jeisele@starpower.net>>>
> > Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens
> > and the earth.
> > > What are the odds that this was not "written"
> > by God?
> > > I would like to start the bidding at 1 in 300.
> >
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