judge

I'm wondering if there is a refutation to the idea that genesis was originally nine seperate volumes based on the "colophon" phrases contained in genesis.

http://www.specialtyinterests.net/Toledoth.html

This article is all about the true structure of the Book of Genesis; a structure that is so simple and straightforward - as the reader is going to discover - that even a child would have no trouble understanding it in its basic form. The chief credit for having laid bare this structure in all its profound simplicity belongs to the British scholar, P.J. Wiseman (1), upon whose thesis the following article will be based.

gregor

If anyone wishes to read the information on the site, let me post this excerpt and perhaps save you the trouble.

_____________________
"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 (54).

Their story is taken up almost entirely with the account of the Flood of which they were the only eyewitnesses.

. . .

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 eyewitnesses of the tragedy."

______________________

The site author is positing that the flood really occurred. That Moses placed 18,000 animals on the ark. That after the flood, Shem, Ham, & Japeth each wrote their own accounts.

Save you energy.

judge

Well..yes this is true.
But I'm not sure if this is relevant to assyriologist Proffessor P.J.Wiseman's case that the colophon phrases within what we call the book of Genesis indicate that it was originally nine books.

In other words although the author of the article, one Damien Mackay, may beleive in some kind of literal flood, this does not really imapct on Professor Wisemans theory.

Has the case he made based upon colophon phrases been refuted?
Profefssor Wiseman made this case before damien Mackay was probably born. That Damien Mackay beleives in some or other idea about the flood does not seem to be relevant to a theory based upon the linguistics.

Toto

If you google "colophon phrases", you will only get hits on pages from creationists, who use colophon phrases to try to prove the documentary hypothesis wrong and argue for Genesis being an eyewitness account.

But colophon + genesis gives this response:

http://www.asa3.org/archive/asa/200108/0404.html

After listing 5 pertinent questions which would lead one to doubt the colophon theory, the author writes "Victor Matthews in his commentary on Genesis gives other reasons for rejecting the colophon theory. "

I think this might be Victor Matthews and this might be the Commentary referred to.

So it sounds like someone has refuted the argument, but it isn't considered a serious enough argument for anyone to write extensively about it on the web.

judge

Thanks Toto. I am loathe to get into an argument here but if one believes Adam was created in 4000 b.c. (I don't but tend to go for one or two thousand years earlier) then as he lived 900 odd years he would have been around for the invention of writing if that was 3000 b.c..

In other words IMHO whoever csme up with the 5 "refutations" didn't think them through much.

Thanks for the help anyway

Toto

The author of the 5 refutations probably thought that anyone who believed that Adam was created in 4000 BC and lived 900 years until the time when writing was invented and he could learn to write and then scratch out his memoirs -- is beyond arguing with.

judge

OK I can appreciate this point, but it seems to mean that the thesis is not refuted on it's merits.
If there is evidence that ancient tablets were written with colophon phrases as a kind of signature at the conclusion and we find these colophon phrases dividing the sections of genesis then it seems worthwhile to consider that perhaps what has come to us asone book may have been many (nine) seperate "books" previously.

One does not have to believe that Adam was created 4000 years ago in order to accept it was more than one book.
To automatically reject this idea simply because it is adopted by YEC's, who may use it for their own purposes, does not seem a good way to go about it (to me at least)

All the best..judge

Toto

The idea that Genesis might have originally been (or contained) nine separate books, even if not written by the persons identified in the colophon, does not seem very outrageous but it does not explain much.

I think these points are worth considering:

Certainly the colophons cannot defeat the documentary hypothesis.

DrJim

The linked article is big on claims but very short on actual arguments. One of the issues raised is the date of the Genesis 1:1-2:4 "tablet". Under the model being defended, this is fundamentally a separate document. the author discusses Wiseman's questioning the date of this indepent tablet:


"Documentary" response: the story is not yet finished: read on, dear reader...

"Documentary" response: The story is not yet finished: read on, dear reader (at least past the flood and tower of Babel).


"Documetnary" response: This is not an issue. "simplicity" is the keyword for the STYLE, not the date. One could imagine that if the writer had enough of a vocabulary to write Gen. 1, he had enough of a vocabulary to be able to name the sun and the moon... The failure to name the sun and the moon may also be explanable as a polemic agaisnt the personified heavenly bodies in other mythologies.

Response: see responsed to #1 and 2 above. There is NOTHING in this which can reasonably be used to date the passage.
The passage is separated from the rest of the bible, then described in terms of this isolation, these descriptions are then used to date the passage, and by extension, support the initial isolation. How round can a circle get?

Regarding the flood, the classical documetnary hypothesis (P+J, 19the and 20the century) is lumped together with Astruc's (1766) theory of 3 sources. Teh P+J hypothesis is not in anyway discussed in connection with the flood. For the earlier anaylsis by Astruc:

One would now expect some "facts" easily recognizable in the actual Noah story. What one gets:

Again, the point to be defended is assumed: that there is an "end" to the "tablet". Even worse, there is no justification whatsoever to read the purported "conclusion" of the tablet (Gen 10:1 as indicating anything whatsoever about authorship of "histories", if that is what the auther is implying in the words he quotes. It is the generations of the three sons: if one wants to push TOLEDOTH as "records" (as in New American Bible), then they are more plausibily "records ABOUT..." not "records by", and the Gen 10:1 most reasonably connectes with what follows, not precedes: 10;2 starts describing the offspring of Noah's kids.
The first claimed "fact" is the conclusion restated, not evidence in support of it.
The second "fact" is pure horsetwaddle (a wonderfully technical term, highly recommended..)



No such examination is forthcoming. No establishment of any criteria by which one might recognize multiple eyewitness accounts is given. No discussion as to how to differentiate these accounts from multiple versions of a fictional story. There is only a claim which restates the presumed conclusion. There is no argument, NONE.

Horsetwaddle and Codswallop.


JRL.

judge

Good point, but if the Hebrews already were in the tradition of writing on clay, then it's not too hard to think this part amy have been put on clay at some stage.
But even if it was not put on clay it is the form of the story itself rather than the material it was written on which indicates nine sepearte histories.



When Abram was circumcised he had 318 fighting men who were part of his household or "shiekdom". Some estimates have this number growing to 10,000 by the time they went to Egypt.
If so, then 50 tablets would be no problem.

Quote:

Certainly the colophons cannot defeat the documentary hypothesis.

OK