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. 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 endeavour - 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." This crucial assumption, he stated, "has resulted in the desperate literary tangle of the documentists, and the difficulties of the defenders of Mosaic authorship."⁽⁴⁴⁾

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. 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?"⁽⁴⁵⁾. The critical "explanations" only increase their difficulties!

All these evasions are made because neither side in this great and prolonged debate has realised 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"⁽⁴⁶⁾ 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":

"... 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 (17:1, 28:3, 35:11 and 48:3)."⁽⁴⁷⁾

"... 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: "Now that God had revealed to him the new name "I Am Who Am," which word for God should he use in transcribing these ancient tablets?"⁽⁴⁸⁾

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 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:

"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."⁽⁴⁹⁾

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.

FIRST CHAPTER OF GENESIS

Really, the whole documentary approach to Biblical interpretation is due to mythologising tendencies that - employing all possible and impossible kinds of combinations - seek to work into the Genesis stories - and even into the narratives of the Patriarchs - features and elements drawn from the Babylonian or Egyptian myths that are absolutely remote from, and completely alien to, the Hebrew spirit.

One has only to compare the Genesis account of Creation with the Babylonian one, for instance, to realise how intrinsically different they are. The two accounts are as follows:

Bible.....................Babylonian Creation Tablets

Bible: Light
Babylonian: Birth of the gods, their rebellion and threatened destruction.

Bible:. Atmosphere, water
Babylonian: Tiamat prepares for battle.

Bible: Land,
Babylonian: The gods are summoned and wail bitterly at vegetation their threatened destruction.

Bible4: Sun and Moon
Babylonian4: Marduk promoted to rank of 'god': he receives (regulating the lights) his weapons for fight. These are described at length; he defeats Tiamat, splits her in half like a fish and thus makes heaven and earth.

Bible:. Fish and birds
Babylonian: Astronomical poem.

Bible: Land animals
Babylonian: Kingu who made Tiamat to rebel is bound and, as a punishment, his arteries are severed and man created from his blood. The 600 gods are grouped; Marduk builds Babylon where all the gods assemble.

A comparison of the two accounts makes it immediately apparent that the Bible owes nothing whatever to the Babylonian tablets, despite the efforts of commentators to try to convince us that whoever wrote this portion of Genesis had actually borrowed his concepts from these corrupted Mesopotamian myths. If we rely solely on the text of Genesis, without being biased by the Babylonian mythology, we find no trace of any contest with a living monster in the sense of the Babylonian myth of the fight of the gods.

The Primeval Deep

Almost all the modern biblical critics take it for granted that 'tehom,' the Hebrew word translated as 'deep' or 'waters' - as used in the Creation and Flood stories (Genesis 1:2 & 7:17) - is identical with 'the Akkadian word, 'tiamat'; the name of the dragon of darkness that Marduk slew in bitter conflict, before the creation of the world. Maly⁽⁵⁰⁾ for instance, in the Jerome Biblical Commentary, makes this identification.

A notable dissenter from this view, however, was the brilliant linguist, Professor A. S. Yahuda. He, commenting upon this almost universal identification of the biblical with the Akkadian word, wrote:

"The positiveness with which this assumption is put forward, and the stubbornness with which it is maintained, are based on no intrinsic or philologically well-founded facts; since besides the similarity of sound of [tehom] and tiamat, no other proofs for such an identification can be put forward."⁽⁵¹⁾

The fact that the documentists have so stubbornly persisted with a view that has so little in its favour, is due, I believe, to the stranglehold that those mythologising tendencies (to which I have already referred) have over them. The word 'tehom,' according to Yahuda, "means nothing else but the primeval water, that ocean which filled the chaos";⁽⁵²⁾ a fact that becomes quite apparent from the complete biblical phrase itself, translated into English as "on the face of the waters [that is, 'tehom']" (Genesis 1:2). This unmistakably indicates the real nature of 'tehom' as water.

From its biblical context, Yahuda concluded that 'tehom' ought to be identified philologically, not with 'tiamat', but with another Akkadian word, 'tamtu'; a word that, he said, often occurs - not only in Creation myths, but also in many other kinds of myths - most distinctly in the sense of primal ocean, exactly like 'tehom,' "and not as the personi-fication of any divinity like tiamat.'"

THE ACCOUNT OF THE FLOOD

Regarding the story of the great flood, one might perhaps be inclined to ask us: If the Toledoth theory is correct, then how would you account for the fact that commentators of the Graf-Wellhausen persuasion have been able to identify two - or in the case of Astruc, three - accounts of the Flood story interwoven into the text of Genesis chapter 7?

Well, thanks to Wiseman's findings, I believe that one ought no longer have any difficulty at all in answering this sort of query; for it is quite naturally accounted for by his Toledoth theory. Chapter 7 of Genesis is, as we saw, part of Tablet (series) 4, written, or owned, by Noah's three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, and signed by them.⁽⁵³⁾

Their story is taken up almost entirely with the account of the Flood of which they were the only eye-witnesses. Jean Astruc, who claimed to have discerned "three accounts" of the Flood story, instanced in support of his claim such repetitious passages as:

Genesis Chapter 7, verse 18: "And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth." 19: "And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth." 20: "Fifteen cubits upwards did the waters prevail."

Also: Verse 21: "And all flesh died that moved upon the face of the earth." 22: "All in whose nostrils was the breath of life and all that was in the dry land died." 23: "And every living substance was destroyed."

In regard to Astruc's theory, then, it is sufficient here to note with Wiseman "two significant facts":⁽⁵⁴⁾

- firstly, the conclusion of the tablet informs us that more than one person was connected with the writings of the narrative, "for it is the history of the three sons of Noah."

- secondly, an examination of the story reveals every indication that it was written by several eye-witnesses of the tragedy.

The documentists have given considerable attention to the Flood narrative, thinking that the Hebrews would have borrowed it from the Babylonian mythology (we have already accounted for one of the main philological reasons why they have been under this impression). Although they have been quite correct in identifying multiple accounts of the Flood story; they have completely missed the mark when it has come down to identifying the actual authors of it.

TWO ACCOUNTS OF CREATION

Ignorance of the nature of the sources from which the Book of Genesis was compiled has led modern scholars into saying things like: "The second chapter of Genesis is more ancient than the first," or: "The order of Genesis is wrong," or again: "There are two accounts of creation, each written centuries after Moses."

The documentist view is that the first chapter of Genesis was put into writing by an unknown author, or school of writers, in about the 8th century BC (many hundreds of years after Moses). I believe that the arguments presented in this article completely lay to rest any such claims.

But, asked Wiseman, does the narrative of the first chapter of Genesis itself give any clue as to the time when it was written? To which question he answered that, in addition to the ancient literary method of the colophon dating, there are "some pieces of evidence which seem to assist us in ascertaining the chronological place of Genesis chapter 1 in the Old Testament."⁽⁵⁵⁾ And he went on to list these as follows:

1. No anachronisms: "...it contains no reference whatever to any event subsequent to the creation of man and woman, and of what God said to them." By contrast, the Babylonian version of creation, for instance, contains reference to events of a relatively late date, such as the building of Babylon.

2. Universality: All the references in this chapter "are universal in their application and unlimited in their scope." We find no mention of "any particular tribe or nation or country, or of any merely local ideas or customs. Everything relates to the earth as a whole and to mankind without reference to race."

3. Simplicity: The Sun and Moon, for instance, are referred to simply as the "greater and lesser lights" (Genesis 1:16). It is well known that astronomy is one of the most ancient branches of knowledge. In earliest times the Babylonians had already given names to the Sun and Moon.

4. Brevity: Compared with the lengthy Babylonian series of six tablets of creation, the Bible uses only one fortieth the number of words.

Tablet (series) 2

The universality of the references in Genesis chapter 1 cannot be found in the second series (Genesis 2:4b to 5:1). In this second series there are historical notes: rivers are named, as are countries. Minerals are being developed. This, we believe, is Adam's own recorded history. It is not a repetitious second account of chapter 1, and even more ancient, as scholars would have us believe. The writer gives more detail about the creation of the first man; the Garden is planted; geographical locations for Eden are given; the animals are named, and so on. Tablet (series) 2 is utterly different from chapter 1 in style and content, and would seem to be a much later production.

FROM ADAM TO MOSES

We do not know the extent of writing before the Flood, but, if our thesis is correct, we can know something about the literary method employed. It appears that the original form of the ancient tablets was considered to be so sacred that future copyists and translators left it embedded in their new texts. Adam's and Noah's histories (and probably those of other antediluvian Patriarchs, such as Enoch) were preserved in the Ark and were then taken into the post-diluvian world by the sons of Noah, who, according to the sources compiled by Ginzberg, had books.⁽⁵⁶⁾

These sacred histories, undergoing translation and possible transliteration, were brought from Mesopotamia by Abraham and his family and remained in Canaan during the years of sojourning there. They were added to by each successive generation. Finally, when Jacob migrated to Egypt, he would have carried the histories with him; copies of which almost certainly found their way into the Egyptian archives to which Joseph would have had access. Later Moses, too, had access to these same archives and to all the wisdom of Egypt (Acts 7:22).

The Compiler

The compiler⁽⁵⁷⁾ would have summarised the histories of his forefathers, making textual notes for the sake of his contemporaries. For instance, the names of some of the locations in Canaan had changed since the time of Abraham and so the compiler had to indicate the new name of an ancient site. There are some examples in Genesis 14 of the compiler's identifying for his contemporaries some of the ancient place names of Abraham's time. We have:

"Bela (which is Zoar)" in verses 2 and 8;
"Vale of Siddim (which is the Salt Sea)" verse 3;
"En-mishpat (which is Kadesh)" in verse 7;
"Hobah (which is to the left of Damascus)" in 15;
"Valley of Shaveh (which is the King's Dale)" in verse 17.

Furthermore, it seems that the compiler greatly edited the texts of his ancestors. Doubtless, the original series of Isaac, for instance, or Esau, would have been much longer than has come down to us in Genesis. The compiler retained only what he considered to be fitting and beneficial to his people. This does not mean that the texts that he had before him were necessarily fragmentary, but rather that he found little that he considered to be relevant to the book that he was editing, that we now call "Genesis."

Nowhere in the Scriptures is there any statement suggesting that Moses actually wrote the narratives and genealogies of Genesis. Not even in Genesis itself do we find any statements referring to Moses in the same way as, or similar to, those so often repeated in the remainder of the Pentateuch, "The Lord said unto Moses ..." Wiseman claimed that the non-occurrence of this phrase in the book is surely a clear indication that when it is used in the remaining Books of Moses, it is likely to have been used authentically and accurately, the text being preserved in a pure state.⁽⁵⁸⁾

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