Page 2,
Back to Page 1These clay tablets were made of clay from the Euphrates Valley that was mixed
with chalk or gypsum to keep the tablets from shrinking or cracking. They were
dried in the sun or a kiln. It may very well have been these kind of Tablets
that God wrote the ten commandments on that He gave to Moses (Exod 32:15-16).
All archaeological evidence indicates clearly that everything written before
Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees was written on clay tablets in cuneiform. The book
of Job, written before Abraham, talks about this kind of writing in Job 38:14.
Papyrus was the common writing material in Egypt, but the Tell-el-Amarna
tablets found in Egypt in 1888 revealed that these clay tablets were letters
dated about 1400 B.C. from Palestinian officials to the Egyptian government in
cuneiform. Therefore Egypt knew and used the cuneiform method of writing as
well.
The most significant and distinguishing phrase in Genesis is "These are
the generations of. . . ." The book of Genesis is usually divided around
this phrase which is found eleven times (2:4, 5:1, 6:9, 10:1, 11:10, 11:27,
25:12, 25:19, 36:1, 36:9, 37:2). Even the translators of the Old Testament into
Greek around 250 B.C., known as the Greek Septuagint, gave so much
significance to this that they named the book Genesis meaning
"generations." The word Genesis is equivalent to the Hebrew
Word tdol]/T (toledoth)
also meaning "generations."377
What is the significance of this and how does this give evidence of Adam
having engraved the genealogy of his life until his death? Ancient records
almost always begin with a genealogy or a register documenting close family
relationships. Because several of the phrases with the word toledoth were
followed with a genealogy in Genesis, for years scholars assumed this phrase
referred to what followed. As a result, you will find the book of Genesis
divided by these phrases. However due to the large amount of discovered clay
tablets of surrounding cultures of the times of the Old Testament, scholars now
realize that due to the similarity and customs of the time that these phrases in
Genesis do not refer to what follows after but are at the end of each of these
genealogies referring to what was just stated previously. This is consistent
with the meaning of the word toledoth itself which means "history,
especially family history" meaning something associated with origins not
descendants. The word toledoth by definition talks about looking backward
rather than forward.
The first toledoth is mentioned in Genesis 2:4 which states,
"These are the generations of the heavens and the earth." Many liberal
scholars realizing that Genesis 2:4 referred to what was stated previously
thought that the redactor had placed this verse in Chapter two by mistake and
should have been at the beginning of Genesis instead. However, in light of the
evidence of archaeology we now realize that this is a concluding statement of
what Moses has recorded in Genesis Chapter 1 about the creation of the heavens
and the earth. As a result this should be a part of Genesis Chapter 1 rather
than the beginning of the narrative which follows in Genesis Chapter 2. This
phrase in Genesis 2:4 is the key as to how all other toledoth phrases in
Genesis are to be interpreted which is a looking back, not forward.
In light of this new understanding about how letters and genealogies of
families were recorded on cuneiform tablets, in 1936 P.J. Wiseman suggested that
the material in Genesis was written by several authors based on these concluding
toledoth phrases. He suggested rightly that the authors of the material in
Genesis are the following:
Moses, the writer, editor and redactor of the Book of Genesis, recorded this
information in Genesis word for word in its proper order as it was recorded on
the tablets, including their colophon prases. Wiseman’s son, Donald P.
Wiseman, a well known evangelical scholar himself who is the general editor of
the Tyndale Old Testament Commentary series, endorses his father’s work along
with R.K. Harrison, professor of Old Testament University of Toronto who has
incorporated this material in his book, Introduction to the Old Testament.291
These phrases at the end of these genealogies are what are known as colophons.
A colophon is a scribal devise that was placed at the conclusion of a literary
work written on a clay tablet which gave the title or description of the
narrative, the date or occasion of the writing and the name of the owner or
writer of the tablet. This is just the opposite how we do it today, but this
practice in ancient times continued unchanged for over three-thousand years.
Colophons are found in cuneiform tablets in
Ebla (3500 B.C.), in northwest Syria (2700 B.C.), in the Akkadian texts from Ras
Shamra (1300 B.C.), and continued until the time of Alexander the Great (333
B.C.).
The name at the end of the tablet always referred to the owner of the tablet.
Even if the owner had a scribe write it, the scribe never put his name at the
end but the owners name. The word in Genesis 5:1, rp,se
(sepher), means "book" or "a complete writing."292
This is why the phrase in Genesis 5:1 indicates that Adam was probably not only
the author of the material which precedes it but the owner of the tablets on
which they were recorded as well.
Another example in the Torah of evidence of second millennium
authorship rather than first millennium is the form of treaties that were used
in Moses day recorded by Moses in the Book of Deuteronomy. George Mendenhall, in
1954, published an article in which he described the ancient suzerainty
(sovereign) treaties. In this article he described the similarities between
these treaties and the treaty forms described in the Book of Deuteronomy. A
typical Hittite Suzerainty treaty of the second Millennium B.C. contained the
following information:
-
Preamble or title
, identifying the author of the covenant.
Historical prologue
or retrospect, mentioning previous relations between
the two parties involved; past benefactions by the suzerain are a basis for the
vassal’s gratitude and future obedience.
Stipulations
basic and detailed; the obligations laid upon the vassal by
the sovereign.
(a). Deposition of a copy of the covenant in the vassal’s sanctuary
and
(b). Periodic public reading of the covenant terms to the people.
Witnesses
, a long list of gods invoked to witness the covenant.
(a). Curses, invoked upon the vassal if he breaks the covenant and,
(b). Blessings, invoked upon the vassal if he keeps the covenant.
Nearly all the known treaties of the fourteenth/thirteenth centuries B.C.
follow this pattern closely264/92-93 as did the Sinai Covenant in the
Book of Deuteronomy which contains the following:
-
Preamble- 1:1-5
-
Historical prologue- 1:6-3:29
-
Stipulations - 4-11 (basic); 12-26 (detailed)
(a). Deposition of text - 31:9, 24-26
(b). Public reading - 31:10-12
-
Witnesses - since pagan gods are excluded here, ancient oriental
god lists are absent. Moses’ song could have been the witness (31:16-30;
32:1-47), as Kitchen suggests.
-
Curses and Blessings - 28:1-14 (blessings); 28:15-68 (curses); the
sequence here is blessings—curses—witness as opposed to the witness—curses—blessings
sequence of ancient oriental treaties, possibly due to the different nature
of the witness here in Deuteronomy.264/96-97
K. A. Kitchen, in an article titled, "Ancient Orient, ‘Deuteronism’
and the Old Testament," from his book, New Perspectives on the Old
Testament, states:
"There can be no serious doubt. . . that the greater bulk of Deuteronomy
coincides very closely indeed with the fourteenth and thirteenth century
treaties, even more strikingly than do Exodus and Joshua. The essential
difference in literary nature is that the Near Eastern documents are formal
legal documents of the covenants concerned, whereas Deuteronomy is cast as the
report of an actual ceremony of renewing a covenant in acts and speech."265/8
Meredith G. Kline, in an article titled "Dynastic Covenant"
expresses the same conclusions:
"In the light of the evidence now surveyed, it would seem indisputable
that the Book of Deuteronomy, not in the form of some imaginary original core
but precisely in the integrity of its present form, the only one for which there
is any objective evidence, exhibits the structure of the ancient suzerainty
treaties in the unity and completeness of their classic pattern."266/41
D. J. McCarthy has done the most thorough examination of the ancient treaties
in his scholarly work titled, Treaty and Covenant. He identifies himself
more with the radical critics, but on this subject of the treaties he said the
following:
"Is there, therefore, a text in the Old Testament which exemplifies with
sufficient fullness the treaty form? For an affirmative answer we need only look
at the basic elements of the Book of Deuteronomy."267/ 110
Why am I focusing so much on the treaty form of the second millennium? The
Documentarians date Deuteronomy around the seventh century B.C. What is the
problem with this? The treaties of the seventh century have no relationship or
comparison with the treaties of the second millennium as described in
Deuteronomy. The point of this is that the Torah cannot possibly have
been written in the seventh century B.C. but shows every evidence of having been
written in the second millennium B.C.
As early as 1954, Mendenhall recognized that the covenant type which is found
in the second millennium B.C. in Deuteronomy
". . . cannot be proven to have survived the
downfall of the great empires of the late second millennium B.C. When empires
again arose, notably Assyria, the structure of the covenant by which they bound
their vassals is entirely different. Even in Israel, the writer submits that the
older form of covenant was no longer widely known after the united monarchy."268/30
These differences can be outlined as follows:
- Order
- The earlier form almost invariably places divine witnesses between
stipulations and curses; this is never found in later treaties.264/95
- The highly consistent order of the earlier treaties is replaced by more
randomness.264/96
- Content
- The customary historical prologue of the second millennium B.C. is
totally absent in the later treaties, 264/95
- The first millennium B.C. treaties are also lacking in the earlier usage
of blessings in conjunction with the cursings.264/96
What does this all mean? Kline concludes:
"Accordingly, while it is necessary to recognize a substantial
continuity in pattern between the earlier and later treaties, it is proper to
distinguish the Hittite treaties of the second millennium B.C. as the ‘classic’
form. And without any doubt the Book of Deuteronomy belongs to the classic stage
in this documentary evolution. Here then is significant confirmation of the
prima facie case for the Mosaic origin of the Deuteronomic treaty of the great
King."266/43
Josh McDowell states,
"Many scholars will allow that archaeology has demonstrated the ‘essential
reliability’ of many historical facts within the biblical record, but they
still contend that these facts, along with legend and myth were passed ‘orally’
for a millennium or more. But Deuteronomy’s form demonstrates that it had to
be written in the middle of the second millennium B.C. Otherwise no account can
be given for its literary format."35/103
CONCLUSION
All the evidence presented in this book gives strong support for an early
date for the authorship of the Torah by Moses and especially for the Book
of Genesis within his life time and even previously up to Adam concerning the
sources that Moses drew from in putting together the Book of Genesis. This
information also confirms that the Genesis creation and flood accounts are the
original accounts of these events and that they were not derived from other
cultures like the polytheistic (many gods) Babylonian accounts. This
evidence also supports the fact that monotheism (one God) was the
original religious belief and practice, not a later evolutionary refinement from
earlier polytheism. This evidence also falsifies the widespread idea that
Genesis 1 and 2 give conflicting accounts of Creation. Also the evidence
in this Section shows clearly that higher critical later dates for Genesis are not
supported by historical andarchaeological documents of cultures of the first
millennium B.C. but are more than amply supported by historical
and archaeological documents of cultures of the second and even third
millenniums B.C. All historical and
archaeological evidence points to Moses being the author of the Torah
Absolutely.