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	Tracing the Hand of Moses in Genesis

by Damien Mackey
March 2005

	*Prologue *

/Three/ lines of evidence will be used in this article in support of the
traditional view that Moses was substantially the editor, or compiler
(though not the actual author), of the Book of Genesis. The first two
lines of evidence, upon which two colleagues and I in 1987 built our "A
Critical Re-appraisal of the Book of Genesis", /SIS Chronology &
Catastrophism Workshop/, UK, Nos. 1 & 2), will be derived from a
combination of:

	

	(i)  P.J. Wiseman's /colophon/ (Hebrew /toledôt/) theory on the
ancient *_structure_* of Genesis (/Ancient Records and the Structure of
Genesis. A Case For Literary Unity/, Thomas Nelson, 1985), and

	(ii)  Professor A. Yahuda's thesis that Genesis - and indeed the
entire Pentateuch - is saturated with the Egyptian *_language_* (/The
Language of the Pentateuch in its Relation to Egyptian/, Oxford U.P.
1933).

	These two theses, when combined, are an explosive package capable
of completely shattering the documentary (JEDP) theory. The third line of
evidence will be taken from/ /

	(iii)  I. Kikawada and A. Quinn (/Before Abraham Was. A
Provocative Challenge to the Documentary Hypothesis/, Ignatius Press,
1989), an argument for *_unity_* in the arrangement or compilation of
Genesis.

	
That the Book of Genesis shows evidence of having been derived from
various sources, at least in part, none but the very obstinate, or
excessively pious, would deny. The clever pair of I. Kikawada and A.
Quinn, who are able to prove against the JEDP documentary theorists that
Genesis is in fact /a unity/, nevertheless regard it as /"mere polemic"/
to dismiss the claims of the documentists out of hand, without giving them
a hearing; or, more especially, without being prepared to confront the
JEDP assertions in the process of one's arguing for an alternative [010
<#bawi>]. That is why I found quite unrealistic a recent paper sent to me
for evaluation; an article written in French in which the author attempts
to uphold a traditional view that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch
(or first five books of the Bible). This paper seemed to be proposing (as
far as my knowledge of French would allow me to grasp it) a blanket view
of this tradition: namely, that Moses wrote every single word of the
entire Pentateuch, even the account of his own death. And that no
extra-Mosaïc sources whatsoever were involved (whether pre- or
post-Moses). My own view, based on the tradition of /substantial/ Mosaïc
authorship of the Pentateuch [020 <#map>] is, that, whilst Moses
substantially wrote the books of Exodus to Deuteronomy, he was the editor
or compiler, not author, of Genesis.

In this new article, *"Tracing the Hand of Moses in Genesis"*, I hope to
update this 1987 /SIS/ article and to arrive at a more exact view of what
was Moses' own personal contribution to the Book of Genesis.

But let us firstly listen to what Kikawada and Quinn have to say about the
JEDP theory, about its virtually complete grip on contemporary biblical
scholarship - for which very reason they think it cannot simply be brushed
aside without one's mounting a properly constructed challenge to it.
Whereas others (e.g. P.J. Wiseman) have been content largely to replace
JEDP theory with what they consider to be a far more scientific
alternative, without going through all the painstaking process of
assessing and refuting it on its own grounds, Kikawada and Quinn have done
the valuable and necessary service of tackling the JEDP theory as it
stands, and attempting to refute it according to its very premises. I, on
the good advice of a colleague, did the very same as Kikawada and Quinn in
regard to Eduard Meyer's Sothic theory of Egyptian chronology (in an MA
thesis I wrote); whereas my own inclination had been to bypass Meyer
completely and erect an entirely new system. Today I realize the value of
this good advice. But the product of such a necessary effort, delving to
the very foundations of what is identified as a defective system, does
make for arduous reading, as with Kikawada and Quinn. So I do not intend
to go through all the twists and turns that they already had to, but
rather to build upon their new foundation, largely summarizing their
thesis. Here, though, I take a portion of what they have to write about
the pervasive influence of the JEDP theory (Introduction):

    No thesis has had a more liberating effect on biblical scholarship
    during the past hundred years than the documentary hypothesis of the
    Pentateuch. It has taught us to perceive the Pentateuch as a mixture
    of literary layers of varying antiquity. The greatest drama recorded
    in the Pentateuch becomes not the explicit history that is narrated,
    but the implicit history of the Pentateuch's own composition. The
    formation of the Pentateuch itself becomes for us the most important
    guide to the evolution of ancient Hebrew religious consciousness.

The authors now make a most relevant comment about the historical era in
which the documentary hypothesis first reared its head:

    Not surprisingly, this approach to the Pentateuch first came to the
    fore in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Within
    this intellectual milieu, the documentary hypothesis was not an
    isolated phenomenon. This was the great age for the discovery of
    time: process, history, change were found everywhere, even in rocks.
    And if rocks could be made to yield the story of their formation,
    then the Torah, with some coaxing, should tell its story as well.
    The documentary hypothesis was, in short, a characteristic product
    of its time - but it has also turned out to be much more than that.

On p.11 I shall also allude briefly to the Kantian philosophical
influence of that very time and how it too may well have influenced the
thinking of Graf and Wellhausen. Julius Wellhausen, Goettingen

Kikawada and Quinn now turn to the complex evolution of the fourfold
JEDP sigla itself:

    Since its original formulation the documentary hypothesis has had
    its own complex historical evolution. A recent survey of that
    evolution has distinguished no less than ten separate stages. The
    traditional designation of four layers -J, E, P, D- has been
    subjected to many further refinements. Some scholars have thought
    they could distinguish a separate stratum L; others have argued for
    distinguishing between E^1 E^2 E^3 , and so forth. Of course, these
    suggested refinements, at least some of them, are easily enough
    ridiculed for their excesses, but such ridicule does not touch the
    central core of the hypothesis. The simple fact is that by the
    1880s, as a result of the work of Wellhausen, the documentary
    hypothesis was supported by a broad consensus of critical biblical
    scholars. And by the midtwentieth century, thanks to the work of
    other great scholars like Gerhard von Rad <eop9.html#rs> and Martin
    Noth [025 <#grmn>], that consensus had become so strong that it
    seems virtually unquestionable today.

    Von Rad in the last edition of his famous commentary on Genesis
    (published not long before his death in 1971) could write proudly,
    "How can we analyze such extremely complex materials [as Genesis]?
    There is now no fundamental dispute that it is to be assigned to the
    three documents J, E, and P, and there is even agreement over
    detail". His claim was, if anything, understated.

Moreover, challenges to the JEDP theory, they claim, have generally not
been adequate:

    Of course, there have always been those who have dissented from the
    consensus, more often on theological than on critical grounds.
    Compared with the calm understatement of a von Rad, these dissenters
    often express their view with a shrillness that makes them difficult
    to take seriously. Perhaps the most persuasive of these voices in
    the wilderness is Umberto Cassuto. He offers many plausible
    alternatives to documentary readings of individual passages. And
    yet, even he concludes his own discussion of the documentary
    hypothesis with the assertion, "This imposing and beautiful edifice
    has, in reality, nothing to support it and is founded on air".

    This is mere polemic. The documentary hypothesis is supported by
    more than a century of scholarship - and a remarkable body of
    scholarship it is. After reading even a fraction of it, someone who
    had not already prejudged the issue cannot help sympathizing with
    the exasperation expressed by Cassuto's contemporary, Gressmann:
    "Anyone who does not accept the division of the text according to
    the sources and results flowing therefrom, has to discharge the
    onus, if he wishes to be considered a collaborator in our scientific
    work, of proving that all research work done until now was futile".

    Gressmann and more recent proponents of the documentary hypothesis
    (a virtual Who's Who of Old Testament scholarship) obviously feels
    that a rejection of the documentary hypothesis entails a rejection
    of all the scholarly research done under its aegis, and therefore a
    rejection of the cumulative results of more than a century's work. A
    rejection of the documentary hypothesis becomes tantamount to a
    rejection of modern biblical scholarship, a *reductio ad absurdum*
    for any but the most reactionary of fundamentalists.

P. J. Wiseman, whom we shall encounter further on - by no means 'shrill'
in his criticism of the documentary theorists - will tend though to
bypass their theories, whilst partly excusing the documentists on the
grounds that they would never have advanced their internal critical
theories had they been aware at the inception of JEDP theory of:

    (a) the great antiquity of writing (then thought not to post-date
    c.1000 BC) and
    (b) the ancient scribal methods,

Kikawada and Quinn, on the other hand, will even argue for some genuine
insights in JEDP theory. Avoiding polemic, they have tactfully preferred
to employ the following clever analogy between the JEDP theory and the
development of the physical sciences:

    And yet does a rejection of the documentary hypothesis really entail
    this broader rejection? Certainly it does not if we take the
    physical sciences as an appropriate analogy. In the twentieth
    century many of the most cherished principles of Newtonian science
    have been unceremoniously overturned. Alfred North Whitehead could
    write, "I was taught science and mathematics by brilliant men and I
    did well in them; since the turn of the century I have lived to see
    every one of the basic assumptions of both set aside; not, indeed,
    discarded, but of use as qualifying clauses, instead of as major
    propositions; and all this in one life-span - the most fundamental
    assumptions of supposedly exact sciences set aside".

Kikawada and Quinn look to put this scientific evolution into proper
perspective:

    These changes, however, were regarded by no one as having rendered
    futile all physics done since the scientific revolution of the
    seventeenth century. It was precisely the developments within
    Newtonian physics that required the resolutions of the twentieth
    century. If the new physics swept away Newtonian principles, this
    same physics did so in order to fulfill Newtonian inquiries and
    aspirations.

I shall leave Kikawada and Quinn on this last tactful note, to return to
them again soon (on p.8) when I come to discuss the matters of the Flood
narrative and the unity of the Book of Genesis, their strong point. As
with previous writings on the subject of Genesis, as a literary
construct, I shall be most indebted to P.J. Wiseman's /toledôt/ theory.
This explanation provides, I believe, a far more satisfactory approach
to the subject of the sources and structure of the Book of Genesis - due
to its being archaeologically-based - than does the Graf-Wellhausen
theory, which I shall argue, with Wiseman, archaeology has rendered
quite obsolete in some of its major premises. Or, to paraphrase the
Kikawada and Quinn analogy from science, "? the new [science -
archaeology has] swept away [Wellhausian] principles ?".

Once again, too, I shall be indebted to the linguistic discoveries of
Professor A. Yahuda in regard to the Pentateuch, which make something of
a mockery of Pan Babylonianism - a close relative of that aspect of the
documentary theory that proposes a C6th BC Babylonian Exile era for the
writing of a large part of the Pentateuch. The most extreme Pan
Babylonianists would place the entire Book of Genesis into a
Mesopotamian context, dating its composition to that C6th BC era, whilst
however being apparently entirely oblivious to the profound influence of
Egypt - especially its language - upon Genesis.

*Introductory Section*

The great contribution of Air Commodore P.J. Wiseman to the subject of
the literary composition of the Book of Genesis was that he was able to
identify the very sources (or documents) of which Genesis is actually
composed. Whereas the documentists recognized that there were literary
layers here and there - and invented or exaggerated others - the
clear-minded and aptly-named Wiseman positively identified the Genesis
sources from his first-hand experience of cuneiform documents. Though
himself an amateur (his son, D.J., would go on to become a foremost
Assyriologist), P.J. Wiseman discerned what no one else had.

He had the privilege of being /in situ/ at times during Sir Leonard
Woolley's excavations at Ur and Professor S. Langdon's at Kish and
Jemdet Nasr. Though he could not actually read the cuneiform tablets
being unearthed in their thousands by these legends of archaeology, P.J.
Wiseman took a vital interest in all that was going on and was able to
cross check his own ideas with these experts [030 <#wgo>]. Wiseman came
to learn that the ancient scribes often added to a written series of
tablets:

	

	(i) 	a /colophon/ indicating the writer and/or owner of the tablet,
sometimes including a date. He also learned of other literary devices,
such as 	

	(ii) 	/catch-lines/, used to link a series of tablets and 	

	(ii) 	/parallelism/ between one tablet and another. 	

	P.J. Wiseman would come to the firm conclusion that the Book of Genesis
itself gave clear evidence of its having been written on tablets
according to the most ancient scribal methods, with 11 /colophon/
divisions (the very key to the structure of the book, see his ch. V),
also /catch-lines/ and, in places, /parallelism/. [040 <#kaq>].

	

	* Kikawada and Quinn, in their ch. III, have also pointed to
/parallelism/ (adding to that /chiastic structure/ that Wiseman does not
address) to explain the complexities of Genesis 1, though they have -
due to their purely literary, not archaeological, approach - completely
missed out on the Wiseman notion that this is evidence for ancient
tablets. *	

	
Wiseman concluded that the sources of which Genesis were comprised were
determinable from the names featured in the colophon divisions (like
signatures at the end of each section), basically the names of the
biblical patriarchs from Adam to Jacob; that these were 'family
histories' (Hebrew /toledôt/). Genesis was in fact the history of the
great pre-Mosaïc patriarchs. Moses was the compiler or editor of this,
his family history collection going right back to antediluvian antiquity.

The first tablet series, however, has no human name in the colophon,
only God. Was this a direct revelation by the Creator to the creature?
See section Genesis 1:1-2:4 below.

	

	*Wiseman did what many who approach a literary study of the Bible fail
to do, including the documentists and even the astute Kikawada and
Quinn. He read (with expert help) the entire Book of Genesis from the
point of view of an ancient scribe, not from a modern Western point of
view. And that is why he was so successful in unravelling the structure
of the book and writing an even more compelling argument for literary
unity in Genesis than Kikawada and Quinn could possibly hope to achieve. * 	

	
P.J. Wiseman, being an amateur, could easily be dismissed by critics for
that reason. Hence sometimes I think that it was a pity that his
brilliant son, Donald (D.J.), did not develop his father's
ground-breaking work, though he did edit, and wrote the Foreword to,
/Ancient Records and the Structure of Genesis/, a single volume
presentation of his late father's 1936 study, /New Discoveries in
Babylonia about Genesis/.

/Ancient Records .../ was published as D.J. wrote: "In response to a
growing number of requests ?". Perhaps D.J. thought that his father had
done so complete a job and that there was no necessity for him to try to
improve upon it, except for some minor editing.

What was P.J. Wiseman's great insight?

All of a sudden he, having been an eye-witness to the birth of the 'new
science' (archaeology) that would sweep away the very foundations of the
documentary theory, can point to the documents that comprise Genesis and
say who owned (or perhaps wrote) them. He could say, for instance, that
this part of Genesis was *Adam's* history, that this one was *Noah's*,
that this belonged to the *three sons of Noah*, recording their
eye-witness account of the Great Flood.

Wait a minute, did I just say that one of the toledôt 'family histories'
belonged to 3 persons? Even to 3 persons who had eye-witnessed the Flood?

But isn't this exactly where the documentary theory first began, when
the French physician Jean Astruc (late C18th) thought that he had
discerned multiple versions of the Flood in Genesis? Here is what the
biblical expert R.K. Harrison [050 <#biex>], a great admirer and
promoter of P.J. Wiseman's /toledôt/ theory, has to say about Astruc,
and how close to the truth of the matter the Frenchman came (Preface to
/Ancient Records and the Structure of Genesis/):

    Only in the seventeenth century did serious questions begin to be
    raised about the composition of Genesis, and even these dealt with
    source criticism rather than with the author himself. Thus Jean
    Astruc (1684-1766) published an anonymous work which maintained that
    the material in Genesis had been transmitted either in written or
    oral form up to the time of Moses, and that he organized these
    ancient sources by making a chronological narrative out of them.

    Astruc was probably much closer to the truth of the matter than he
    realized. Had he been in possession of information that has since
    come to light, he could well have performed a valuable service to
    the scholarly community and others in isolating or characterizing
    the underlying literary sources of Genesis. But having no option
    save to speculate, he marred his observations from the beginning by
    speaking of "duplicate narratives" of the Creation and the Flood in
    Genesis.

    Even a casual observation of the material involved shows that the
    sections are not in fact duplicates, but constitute passages in
    which the longer accounts represent expansions of summary
    statements, as for example in connection with the creation of
    humanity (Gen. 1:27 and 2:7-23).

While Harrison may well be right in his last comment, I think that his
rejection of any notion of /"duplicate narratives"/ in the Flood account
is unrealistic. Astruc was I believe perfectly correct in this regard,
since the account of the Flood was probably co-written by Noah's 3 sons,
Shem, Ham and Japheth (one could even add Noah's partial account to make 4).

On the basis of Wiseman the Flood narrative was not therefore written,
as the documentists would claim, by un-connected writers scattered down
through the centuries, one writer tending to prefer to use /Elohim/ for
God, hence the E document, exhibiting less familiarity with God than
another who used /Jehovah/ (in German), hence the J document. No they
were written all at once, contemporaneously, by perhaps the three sons
of Noah (though the general consensus, as we shall see, seems to be 2,
not 3, distinct narratives here).

	

	*This, the case of the Flood narrative in Genesis, being the beginning
of JEDP theory, gives us a perfect view of how right the documentists
could be (recognizing sources involved), and yet - at the same time -
how pitifully wrong (positing various post-Mosaïc sources). * 	

	
Now here, in regard to the Flood narrative at least, is where the
documentary scrutinisers may have provided a real service. Their
analytical dissection of the narrative may enable some astute scholar
ultimately even to separate from the Flood narrative the individual
contributions of the sons of Noah (be they 2 or 3 as regards actual
contribution).

But that may not be all.

Since another very useful possible contribution of the documentary
theory, this time specifically in regard to Moses' editing hand in
Genesis - the very theme of this article - may perhaps be discerned in
the writings of E. Speiser, I shall persevere a bit longer with
Kikawada's and Quinn's account of the late source theory - still in
connection with the Flood story in Genesis 6-10 - including how cleverly
they thought Wellhausen had manipulated this narrative to his own
seeming advantage. This biblical narrative certainly indicates a degree
of duplication [060 <#dit>]:

    The narrator of [the story of Noah and the Flood] moves easily back
    and forth from Elohim to Yahweh, from an imminently anthropomorphic
    God [68 <#anth>] to a supremely transcendent lawgiver, from
    formulaic expression to human drama. All the contrasts found earlier
    between separate sections are here together in a single story of
    considerable charm and power. The documentary hypothesis drowns in
    the flood - or so it seems.

    Actually, the documentary hypothesis had its own Noah, and his name
    was Wellhausen. Perhaps Wellhausen's greatest achievement was to
    show how the Noah story could be transformed from a decisive defeat
    into a decisive triumph for the documentary hypothesis.

    E.A. Speiser summarizes how this transformation was achieved in his
    own much praised 1964 commentary on Genesis: "The received biblical
    account of the Flood is beyond reasonable doubt a composite
    narrative ?. Here the two strands have become intertwined, the end
    result being a skilful and intricate patchwork. Nevertheless - and
    this is indicative of the great reverence with which the components
    were handled - the underlying versions, though cut up and
    rearranged, were not altered in themselves".

Firstly, here is Kikawada's and Quinn's impression of Speiser's
explanation [070 <#cwt>]:

    The last sentence of this quotation is the key to why the
    documentary arrangement at this point is not circular. The claim is
    that the *two* flood accounts, although patched together, have been
    each kept intact. Hence each account can be almost completely
    recovered from the received text, and each of these will have a
    greater unity and coherence than the story as a whole. The claim is
    clear and germane - and the concrete textual argument in its favor
    is utterly stunning.

	

	* _Important Comment_: Speiser's observation here, that so impressed
Kikawada and Quinn, may actually provide us with a very good guide as to
the degree of involvement of Moses in the editing of Genesis
(significantly more than I had previously estimated), with a fair bit of
cutting and pasting of the original that he had before him, to achieve
his own literary creation, but without however altering the underlying
texts out of "the great reverence" that he held for them. *	

	
The interested reader can look up for him/herself the painstaking
comparisons that Kikawada and Quinn now have to undertake between the
Priestly (E) and Yahwist (J) accounts of the Flood, beginning on their
p.24, and how cleverly the documentists have managed to 'secure' these
in favour of their own theses (especially p.30). Surprisingly, after all
this, Kikawada and Quinn will not themselves make their own critical
analysis of these documents, saying that this has already been done by a
new generation of scholars. Fair enough. But Kikawada and Quinn will
later use these very same texts to show that they actually comprise a
unity, not only within themselves, but in the context of Genesis as a
whole. Here in brief, is their reference to this new generation of
documentist refuters, thereby excusing themselves from what they would
regard as further, unnecessary literary toil [080 <#unl>]:

    Indeed, to tell the truth, we are not going to attempt an original
    analysis of the Noah story. Over the past decade the Wellhausen
    interpretation of Noah has been systematically dismantled by younger
    scholars. There have been at least a half a dozen important
    contributions here. Typical of these critiques is the one made
    (almost by the way) in F.I. Andersen's *The Sentence in Biblical
    Hebrew*.

Sentences used in the present chapter cut across passages generally
assigned to 'J' and 'P' documents? This means that if the documentary
hypothesis is valid, some editor has put together scraps of parallel
versions of the same story with scissors and paste, and yet has achieved
a result which from the point of view of discourse grammar, looks as if
it had been made out of whole cloth.

    What Andersen has done from his own grammatical specialty, others
    have done from theirs. Objections to a unitary reading of Noah have,
    one after another, been explained, and objections to a documentary
    reading - apparently unanswerable objections - have been, one after
    another, raised.

Again the authors may be, at least here in regard to the Flood narrative
- and due to their application of modern literary techniques, whilst
apparently lacking any familiarity whatsoever with ancient scribal
methods (Wiseman) - actually underestimating the insights of
documentists like Speiser, whose view they now dismiss, though still
tactfully, as outdated [090 <#tsta>]:

    Speiser was accurately representing the situation when, in 1964, he
    wrote that the documentary interpretation of Noah was established
    beyond doubt, much as Gilbert Murray was accurate in 1934 when he
    said that no competent scholar believed Homer the single author of
    *The Iliad*. The wheel has now come full circle in Homer. And anyone
    who has examined recent studies of Noah will find it hard not to
    conclude that it is coming full circle here as well. (It is a
    measure of the strength of the documentary consensus that these
    specific studies have not been used to challenge the hypothesis in
    general).

*Against a Late Authorship of Genesis*

It could be said that the ancient literary methods pointed out by
Wiseman in favour of Mosaïc compilation of Genesis were also around much
later than Moses, prevailing even into New Testament times (e.g. Matthew
1:1 gives a /toledôt/ of Jesus Christ in the Gospels), and hence these
literary methods could therefore have been inserted into texts composed
at the time of, say, the Babylonian Exile (C6th BC), almost a millennium
after Moses, to give these texts an air of sacredness or antiquity.
After all, what Wiseman was drawing his information from were
/Babylonian scribal techniques/, not, say, Egyptian ones, which were
quite different. So, why would Moses necessarily have had any
involvement in the Book of Genesis (let alone the patriarchs who
preceded him)?

Well, this is where the linguistic contribution of Professor A. Yahuda
[100 <#lic>] comes in to deal a shock blow to both the documentary
theory and to the related Pan-Babylonianism. Yahuda, unlike Wiseman, was
an expert in his field. His profound knowledge of Egyptian and Hebrew
combined (not to mention Akkadian) gave him a distinct advantage over
fellow Egyptologists unacquainted with Hebrew, who thus could not
discern any appreciable Egyptian influence on the Pentateuch. Yahuda
however realized that the Pentateuch was absolutely saturated with
Egyptian - not only for the periods associated with Egypt, most notably
the Joseph narrative including Israel's sojourn in Egypt, but even for
the periods associated with Babylonia (presumably the Flood account that
we have already discussed, and certainly the Babel incident). For
instance, instead of the Akkadian word for 'Ark' used in the
Mesopotamian Flood accounts, or even the Canaanite ones current
elsewhere in the Bible [112 <#mfa>], the Noachic account Yahuda noted
[110 <#nay>] uses the Egyptian-based /tebah/
<im/hebrew_lexicon.html#taw> (Egyptian /db.t/, `box, coffer, chest')[115
<#ewo>].

Most important was the linguistic observation by Yahuda [120 <#oby>]:

    Whereas those books of Sacred Scripture which were admittedly
    written during and after the Babylonian Exile reveal in language and
    style such an unmistakable Babylonian influence that these
    newly-entered foreign elements leap to the eye, by contrast in the
    first part of the Book of Genesis, which describes the earlier
    Babylonian period, *the Babylonian influence in the language is so
    minute as to be almost non-existent*.

	

	*[Dead Sea Scrolls expert, Fr. Jean Carmignac, had been able to apply
the same sort of bilingual expertise - in his case, Greek and Hebrew -
to gainsay the received scholarly opinion and show that the New
Testament writings in Greek had Hebrew originals: his argument for a
much earlier dating than is usual for the New Testament books].* 	

	
While Yahuda's argument is totally Egypto-centric, at least for the Book
of Genesis, one does also need to consider the likelihood of 'cultural
traffic' from Palestine to Egypt, especially given the prominence of
Joseph in Egypt from age 80-110. One might expect that the /toledôt/
documents borne by Israel into Egypt would have become of great interest
to the Egyptians under the régime of the Vizier, Joseph (historically
Imhotep of Egypt's 3^rd dynasty), who had after all saved the nation of
Egypt from a 7-year famine, thereby influencing Egyptian thought and
concepts.

The combination of Wiseman and Yahuda, in both cases clear-minded
studies based on profound analysis of ancient documents, *is an absolute
bomb waiting to explode all over any artificially constructed literary
theory of Genesis*. Whilst Kikawada and Quinn have managed to find some
merit in the JEDP theory, and I have also suggested how its analytical
tools may be useful at least when applied to the apparent multiple
sourcing in the Flood narrative (and perhaps in the Esau and Jacob
narrative), the system appears as inherently artificial in the light of
archaeological discoveries.

Cassuto may not have been diplomatic, but nevertheless he was basically
correct in his estimation of documentism: "This imposing and beautiful
edifice has, in reality, nothing to support it and is founded on air".
It is no coincidence that documentary theory was developed during the
era of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, who proposed an /a priori/
approach to extramental reality, quite different from the common sense
approach of the Aristotelian philosophy of being [130 <#arph>]. The
philosophy of science is saturated with this new approach. Kantianism I
think is well and truly evident too in the Karl Heinrich Graf and Julius
Wellhausen <eop9.html#thsc> [135 <#hgjw>] attitude to the biblical
texts. And Eduard Meyer carried this over into his study of Egyptian
chronology, by devising in his mind a quantifying /a priori/ theory - an
entirely artificial one that had no substantial bearing on reality -
that he imposed upon his subject with disastrous results. Again an
"imposing and beautiful edifice ? founded on air".

* The Case For Unity in Genesis*

Kikawada and Quinn will demonstrate a unity in Genesis 1-11 in various
ways; for instance, by showing a pattern common to the /Adam and Eve/
story, the /Cain and Abel/ story and /Noah's Flood/. [140 <#inco>] I
suspect that the reader will find the following tripartite tabulation
generally very compelling:

	

	*Adam and Eve *	*Cain and Abel *	*Noah's Flood *	

	A. Origin of human (/`âdâm/) principals accounted for: 			

	1. Origin of mankind 	Origin of 2nd generation 	Origin of the multitude 	

	`/âdâm/ and plants created 	Children of /hâ 'âdâm/ 	/hâ 'âdâm/ began to
multiply 	

	2:5-14 	4:1-2 	6:1 	

	2. Animals and Eve created 			

	2:15-25 			

	*I *			

	B. Peaceful setting on the ground: /`adâmâh /			

	1. There was not a man to till /hâ âdâmâh /	Tiller of /adâmâh /	Upon
the face of /hâ âdâmâh /	

	2. To till /hâ âdâmâh/ in garden 	Shepherd of flock 	Daughters were born 	

	2:15 	4:2 	6:1 	

				

	C. Trigger action: 			

	Eating of tree's fruit after woman /saw how good./ 	1. Offering of
fruit of the ground by Cain. 	Sons of God /saw/ daughters /how good/ and
married and had children. 	

	3:6 	4:3 	6:2-4 	

		2. Cain murders his brother Abel. 		

		4:8 		

	*II *			

	D. YHWH's unfavorable reaction: 			

	"What is that you have done?" 	1. He did not gaze upon the offering of
Cain. 	YHWH was sorry ... "I will blot out man." 	

	3:9 	4:5 	6:5-7 	

		2. "Where is Abel your brother?" 		

		4:9 		

				

	E. Human Counter-reaction: 			

	"The woman whom you gave me, she gave me fruit ... and I ate. 	1. Cain
became angry, his face fell. 	Earth being destroyed and filled with
violence 	

	3:12 	4:5 	6:11-13 	

		2. "Am I my brother's keeper?" 		

				

	F. Curse involving the ground (/adâmâh/) pronounced by YHWH: 			

	"/Cursed: `arûrâh/ is the ground because of you". //	"Cursed: `/arûr/
are you more than the ground." 	1. Never again to /curse:/ /l^e qallel/
the ground. 	

	3:17 	4:11 	8:21 	

			2. Noah - /cursed: `arûr/ are you (Canaan). 	

			9:25 	

				

	*III *			

	G. Threefold mitigation/protection: 			

	Leather clothing 	Vengeance 	1. Not curse again 	

	Banishment 	Sign of protection 	Not to smite again 	

	Guarding of the tree of life 	Wandering and Nod (city of refuge) 	Not
to cease 	

	3:21-24 	4:15-16 	8:21-22 	

			2. Blessing: "Be fruitfull ..." 	

			Food - animals and plants 	

			Scattering of people 	

			9:8-19 	

				

				

	
The authors then proceed to demonstrate how the story of Babel is "an
appropriate conclusion to Genesis 1-11" [150 <#htsb>]:

    ?important ?is the general point that the Tower of Babel story does
    tell of the fulfillment of the creation story. Genesis 1:28 has the
    blessing/command, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth",
    whereas the Tower of Babel story tells of the dispersion that is the
    means of realizing this blessing/command concretely.

Another way that Kikawada and Quinn demonstrate unity is through a use
of repetition and /chiasmus/; thus, they argue, the Tower of Babel story
is repetitious and comprises a simple /chiastic/ arrangement; something
that will become most noticeable in the Flood narrative and the story of
Abram; /chiasmus/ <ugarit.html#poetry> being a further indication of
unity [160 <#tsoa>]:

	

	a 	human unity (vs. 1-2) 		

	b 	man speaks and acts (vs 3-4) 		

	c 	God comes down to see (v. 5) 		

	b 	God speaks and acts (vs. 6-7) 		

	a 	human dispersion (vs. 8-9) 	

	One can study their treatment of /chiasmus/ in detail in their ch. IV.
Here is a simple chiasm that they give for the Noah story [170 <#gns>]:

	

	Noah 			

		found favor 		

			in the eyes of the LORD 	

		These are the generations of Noah 	

		Noah was a righteous man 		

		perfect he was 		

		in his generations 	

			with God 	

		walked 		

	Noah 			

				

	
From their chapters on the unity of early Genesis, Kikawada and Quinn
will conclude that [180 <#tfcc>]:

    We found an author [sic] with such complete mastery over his
    materials (whatever their source) that it makes no literary sense to
    speak of him as an editor. The evidence commonly used to show that
    Genesis 1-11 is a literary patchwork does in our opinion - when
    closely examined and put in its proper context - support the view
    that Genesis 1-11 is a literary masterpiece by an author of
    extraordinary skill and subtlety.

I would suggest rather, in keeping with tradition, an editor, not
/"author"/, who nonetheless had managed to create /"a literary
masterpiece"/ out of the ancient materials available to him.

But is it too much to suggest that Moses, way back in the 2nd millennium
BC, would have been capable of such literary sophistication: fluent
narrative writing and /chiasmus/?

Moses was, according to my reconstruction of ancient history, a
contemporary of both the so-called Old and Middle kingdoms of Egypt. He
would have been a contemporary for instance of the 6th dynasty
character, Weni, whose famous autobiography has been, according to N.
Grimal, "expressed in a perfect literary form". Here is a sample of
Weni's autobiography [190 <#weni>]:

    His majesty sent me to Hatnub to bring a great *altar* of alabaster
    of Hatnub. I brought this altar down for him in seventeen days.
    After it was quarried at Hatnub, I had it go downstream in this
    barge I had built for it, *a barge of acacia wood* of sixty *cubits
    in length* and thirty *cubits of width*. Assembled in seventeen
    days, in *the third month* of summer, when there was no water on the
    sandbanks, it landed at the pyramid *'Merenre appears in splendour'*
    in safety ?.

Compare this description with Pentateuchal writings attributed to Moses
himself:

    "And Moses built an *altar* and called it, *'The Lord is my
    banner'*." (Exodus 17:15).

    "They shall make an *ark* of *acacia wood*; it shall be two and a
    half *cubits long*, a *cubit* and a half *wide*, and a cubit and a
    half high" (Exodus 25:10).

    "In *the third month* ? the Israelites ? came into the wilderness of
    Sin" (Ex. 19:1).

Yes, narrative writing was sophisticated enough in those days for Moses
to have used it. Even /chiastic/ structure is not as sophisticated as
one might think, but is very common, as attested in the following Net
extract:

	

	
* Spontaneous Ancient Literary Structure in Modern Colloquial Speech*

by Clark Cooley, Ph.DL.DD.

Part IV: Chiasmus

chi·as·mus (ki-AZ'-muss) n.
Derived from the Greek chiasmos, from chiazein (to mark with a chi, or
X)A figure of speech consisting of an inversion of the relationship
between parallel phrase elements (e.g., Mae West's "It's not the men in
your life; it's the life in your men.")

Though some would try to use their presence in a given work as proof of
its extra-natural origin (such as Mormon proselytizers purporting to
discover evidentiary support for their claims of a supernatural origin
for the so-called "Book of Mormon", a pastiche fiction cobbled together
by a certain "Joseph Smith," a minor nineteenth-century upstate New York
peeper and mountebank), literary tropes and rhetorical figures of speech
-- from whatever source derived -- are in evidence among the oldest
writings known to us. Though the phenomenon is not limited to writings
thought to be sacred, it was largely the work of certain mainly
Protestant scholars -- we might mention in particular Albertus Bengel
(Gnomon Novi Testamenti, 1742), Thomas E. Boys (fl. ca. 1820-30),
Richard Baillie Roe, Robert Lowth (Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the
Hebrews, 1787), John Jebb of Limerick (Sacred Literature, 1820), and Dr.
E. W. Bullinger (1837-1913) -- that served as the leading lamps of the
explication of most types of figurative speech in the ancient
literature. Chief among these figures (if commonness of occurrence is
the measure) would have to be the various forms of chiasmus (sometimes
referred to in the scholarly literature as antimetabole, epanodos, or
simply "correspondences," "structures," or "parallelism").

Chiasmus takes its name from the Greek letter chi, which looks like our
letter X. Why the letters of our modern English alphabet have no formal
names remains a mystery, but the modern world is nevertheless well
familiar with the chi, of course, from other contexts, such as the
following:

In literature, however, the chi finds expression in the chiasmus, which
received its name from one or both of two posited causes. (1) In its
simplest form, when diagrammed with lines drawn between its elements,
the lines of a chiasmus form a chi, such as in the following example
from Chaucer's The Book of the Duchess (line 597):

(2) Alternatively, it is possible that the figure received its name from
the half-chi that is formed when the chiasmus is diagrammed in its
classic ABBA format, as follows:

Whatever may prove to be the origin of its name, what needs little proof
is that one can find chiastic structures in the works of nearly every
major literary figure in occidental literature, from Homer (Odyssey,
11.170) to Milton ("Be still, thou waves, and thou deeps, peace" to
Shakespeare ("Moor, she was chaste; she lov'd thee, cruel Moor") to
Goethe ("Die Kunst ist lang, und kurz ist unser Leben") to Horace
("Integer vitae scelerisque purus") and back to Homer again.

Chiasmus can take many forms -- transpositional, alternating, or
inverse, e.g., to name but a few -- but its classic form is undoubtedly
the ABBA pattern -- chiasmus inversus.

	

	
[End of quote].
------------------------------------------------------------------------

/That/ Moses (and possibly to some extent his forefathers) in fact used
/chiastic structure/ and /parallelism/ seems most likely from the fact
that parts of Deuteronomy attributed to him, notably "The Song of Moses"
(Deuteronomy 31), contain parallelism, and Deuteronomy 8 for instance
also has /chiasmus/. I take the latter example first ("Beware Lest Thou
Forget", Deuteronomy 6:12; 8:11; 25:19; 32:18; by Philip Allred):

    One final note on the virtue of repetition for memory as provided
    for in Deuteronomy is that the eighth chapter is arranged as a
    chiasmus. Chiasmus is an ancient form of poetry that serves to
    enhance its message through its form. John Welch notes that in a
    chiasmus "the repeating of key words in the two halves underlines
    the importance of the concepts they present". The repeating form
    also enhances clarity and speeds memorizing."

        a-Obedience to God's commands insures life (8:1)
        b-Wandering in the desert (8:2-6)
        c-Richness of the land (8:7-10)
        d-Do not forget the Lord (8:11)
        c'-Richness of the land (8:12-13)
        b'-Wandering in the desert (8:14b-16)
        a'-Apostasy insures destruction (8:19-20)

    The central idea of not forgetting the Lord highlighted by this
    chiastic form is further emphasized by the repetition of the words
    "remember" and "forget" (8:2, 11, 14, 18, 19).

Next, the "Song of Moses" (ibid.):

    The song of Moses is also noted to have "more polished forms of
    poetic parallelism."?. We should notice that songs bracket the
    entire Israelite exodus. Their journey began with Moses singing the
    praises of the Lord (Exodus 15:1-22) and here in Deuteronomy
    concludes with Moses warning Israel not to be "unmindful" and forget
    the "Rock that begat thee" and the "God that formed thee" (Deut.
    32:18). Songs have a truly powerful effect on the memory and Moses
    employs that at the close of his ministry as another mnemonic help
    for Israel in their new home.

Repetition as a mnemonic, for the sake of learning, now also explains
the /why/ of Mosaïc repetition (/chiasmus/ and /parallelism/) in Genesis
and in the remainder of the Pentateuch. It is a common trait of Moses
(Allred again):

    Deuteronomy is the record of Moses' last words to Israel before they
    entered the Promised Land ?. Israel would be leaving the wilderness,
    where they had been in humble dependence on the Lord, for the
    literally green pastures of Canaan. Knowing that he would not be
    joining them, Moses warned Israel against spiritual amnesia. This
    great prophet repeatedly exhorted them not to forget the covenant
    they made with God. In fact, Moses employed the words remember,
    forget and their variants in Deuteronomy more times than in all the
    rest of the Pentateuch combined (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers).

    ? To reinforce and continually nurture Israel's covenantal memory,
    Moses employed various mnemonic methods throughout the book of
    Deuteronomy. These tools of remembrance are collected as a whole
    only within that book, literally making Deuteronomy a how-to
    handbook for Israel's memory. The memory-aiding methods Moses
    marshaled in Deuteronomy include repetition, types and symbols, the
    Sabbath, seasonal feasts and festivals, significant years,
    circumcision, altars and monuments, religious attire, the "song" of
    Moses, and culture.

    Repetition and recitation help us to remember. Deuteronomy, as a
    book, was to be taught in the home to the children (4:4-9; 6:7). It
    was to be meditated upon constantly (6:7). It was to be studied by
    Israel's king on a daily basis (17:18-19; also Joshua 1:8). It was
    to be rehearsed to the entire population of Israel, including the
    resident gentiles, every Sabbatical year, during the feast of
    Tabernacles (31:10-13). Repetition is utilized within the book of
    Deuteronomy as well. The Shema, or Jewish daily prayer, consists of
    passages from Deuteronomy 6:4-9, 11:13-21, and Numbers 15:37-41.
    These references have the Lord's injunctions to teach the law in the
    family, as well as, to talk of and ponder on the law continually.
    One translation of Deuteronomy 4:7 renders "talk" as "recite" and
    notes that Moses' instruction "involves recitation and reading or
    murmuring" as an aid to remembering ?. On this point, another
    biblical scholar has written, "Consideration of the memory passages
    in Deuteronomy suggests that the mode of the remembrance was
    preaching or sacred recital in the sanctuaries and it is so
    prominent as to amount to a Deuteronomic presentation of remembrance ?.

    * The Sabbath*

    Moses required Israel to observe both weekly and seasonal festivals
    as a method to keep them in remembrance of the Lord. The weekly
    reminder came in the Sabbath.

    Earlier in Exodus Moses had taught that the Lord had ordained that
    day as a reminder of the creation of the earth. "In it thou shalt
    not do any work. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the
    sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore
    the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it" (Exodus
    20:10-11). Rabbi Abraham Heschel comments that the Sabbath is "the
    day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time,
    to turn from the world of creation to the creation of the world." ?.

    What is noteworthy about Deuteronomy's recitation of the Decalogue
    (Ten Commandments) is that Moses changed the rationale for their
    observance from the one in Exodus. "And remember that thou wast a
    servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee
    out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm:
    therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day"
    (Deut. 5:15).[200 <#sab>]

[End of quote]. See also here <old_and_new_covenant.html#dpl>!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

In similar fashion, Christians thank God /"for wonderfully creating us
but even more wonderfully redeeming us"/.

* Moses' Bible*

This study and others of mine [210 <#acr>] have led to the general
scenario that the Hebrew people at the time of Jacob (Israel) had in
their possession the family histories of their revered ancestors going
back to their faith-filled father, Abraham, and beyond, to Noah's son,
Shem (Abraham's older contemporary, Melchizedek, according to Jewish
tradition) - whose descendant Eber was likely the father of the Hebrew
nation - to Noah, and beyond the Flood even to Adam himself. The
conclusion then is that the Hebrew people had not been entirely reliant
upon oral tradition (another plank of documentism) for the early part of
their history, but were actually in the possession of written records. A
read through /Ancient Records and the Structure of Genesis/ will show
just how ancient writing is. Certainly cuneiform writing was exceedingly
common in the time of Abraham (I have dated him to the sophisticated Ur
III dynasty of Mesopotamia), and hence of his early contemporary, Shem.
Wiseman even speaks of a pre-Flood writing tablet that he had seen. And
the great Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal, claimed to have had in his
possession a tablet dating to before the Flood.

It needs to be realized that Abraham, during whose era writing was
extremely common, was chronologically only 2 patriarchs removed from
Adam. Thus P. Mauro writing (in quite Wiseman-like fashion) on the
subject of Mosaic sources [220 <#pmw>]:

    As to how the chronological facts, so clearly set down by Moses,
    were made known to him, we are not informed [sic]. It may well have
    been that God imparted to him the knowledge of those facts directly,
    just as he imparted the instructions for building the tabernacle,
    and for its ordinances. *Or He may have prompted those patriarchs
    who knew Him to preserve the necessary records*.

    How easily this might have been, will be apparent when due notice is
    taken of the facts that Adam was for 243 years the contemporary of
    Methusaleh, that Methusaleh's life overlapped that of Shem for 98
    years, and that Shem was, for 150 years, the contemporary of
    Abraham. *Thus there were but two persons between Adam and Abraham*.

These treasured family histories would have been carried into Egypt by
Abraham's grandson, Jacob. Jacob's son, Joseph, was by then a power in
the land, second only to pharaoh. Joseph (or Moses, as Wiseman thinks)
could have added the last history, Joseph's, to what we now call the
Book of Genesis. Anyway, these texts, or copies of the originals, would
subsequently have passed to Moses in Egypt; would "have served as his
only Bible". He was, after all, weaned by his own Hebrew mother,
Jochebed, before being assumed into royal Egyptian affairs.

Moses himself though will, pointedly, write absolutely nothing about his
40-year career in Egypt.

	

	*I have determined <old_kingdom.html> that Moses was a baby during the
reign of the great, and harsh, reformer and founder king Khufu-Amenemes,
and that he later served his successor, Chephren-Sesostris, from whom he
eventually fled Egypt in fear for Midian - as Sinuhe in Egyptian
literature - until that pharaoh had died. Then Moses returned to Egypt
to demand from a newly-installed pharaoh the release of his people. Upon
pharaoh's hard-hearted refusal, there came the Ten Plagues, followed by
the Exodus <exodus.html>. * 	

	
A combination of the theses of Wiseman and Yahuda strongly supports the
traditional view that Moses compiled what we now call the Book of
Genesis. He was in possession of the most ancient patriarchal texts of
his ancestors which he re-cast in accordance with the Egyptian-based
culture in which he had been educated (Acts 7). Kikawada and Quinn show
the extent to which these original documents were unified and brought to
literary perfection by one who, so masterfully did he work, that he
almost deserves to be called the 'author' of Genesis.

The Egyptianisation of the Book of Genesis (and indeed of the Pentateuch
in general) that Yahuda had so usefully discerned, would indicate that
Moses, the Egyptianised Hebrew, was responsible for re-casting the
sacred documents that he had inherited; re-casting them into an
Egyptianised Hebrew language. It is also a strong support for the
tradition of the hand of Moses in Genesis and for his substantial
authorship of the Pentateuch as a whole.

This brings us then to the real subject of this article: /To what extent
was Moses involved in the Book of Genesis as we now have it?/

* The Colophons*

On a recent re-reading of Wiseman I have realized that, somewhat
contrary to the impression that I formerly had, the /toledôt/ divisions
throughout Genesis may in fact have been added by Moses. I had earlier
imagined that these were the actual divisions employed by the successive
patriarchs who pre-dated Moses, and that Moses had left them embedded in
the text out of reverence. But that the identically same formula, "These
are the generations of ?" (/toledôt/) would have been used by men
separated by millennia, living in different parts of the ancient world,
would in fact be highly unlikely.

Moses apparently knew where the divisions were in his set of family
histories. Indeed, he did leave them there out of respect, and Wiseman
has discerned at least some of them by comparison with the most ancient
tablets. But Moses also added the distinctive toledôt formula that we
now have - presumably for the sake of an Egyptianised Hebrew race, who
would probably not have been able to discern the original ancient
divisions - a formula that is also employed in Numbers (3:1): "These are
the generations of Aaron and Moses"; Numbers being a Pentateuchal book
that, on New Testament authority and tradition, Moses authored.

The same may apply to the catch-lines that Wiseman has identified. These
may in fact have been additions by Moses, to link together the tablets
upon which he was re-casting this history for Israel, rather than their
having been embedded in the original histories.

Having clarified these points about the colophon and catch-lines, let us
now try to follow Moses as he works his way through the series of sacred
documents that he had inherited, entabulating them into the Book of
Genesis. Let us start with the first /toledôt/, the famous Genesis 1 -
whose colophon refers to no human author or owner - and work our way
from there right down to the conclusion of Genesis, the death and burial
of Joseph, clarifying as we go.

* Genesis 1:1-2:4*

    "This is the book of the origins of the heavens and the earth"

	

	
* The Patriarchal 'Family Histories'*

*1. Genesis 1:1-2:4: God*

* "These are the generations of
the heavens and the earth"
Genesis 2:4 *

	

	

This formulaïc colophon is presumably, from what I have already
discussed, Moses' own contribution to the ancient text, his purpose
being to bring in a series of clear divisions wherever each ancient
colophon occurred. Wiseman tells what the original colophon would have
been here, and it is, typically, /a date/ [230 <#tada>] (pp.81-82):

    After a tablet had been written and the name impressed on it, it was
    customary in Babylonia to insert the date on which it was written.
    In the earliest times this was done in a very simple fashion, for it
    was not until later that tablets were dated with the year of the
    reigning king?[e.g.] "Year in which canal Hammurabi was dug".

    The method of dating the Genesis tablets is seen in the following
    instances. The end of the first tablet (2:4) reads, "in the day that
    the Lord God made the earth and the heavens" ?.

Recognising this phrase "in the day that the Lord God made the earth and
the heavens" as what it is, a most ancient colophon date, has enormous
implications for the interpretation of this the first history in the
Book of Genesis, and probably the most controversial document in the
entire history of the world. (See Appendix A).

This first history, Genesis 1:1-2:4, like all those that comprise
Genesis, was /a book/ (the Septuagint plainly calls it that, /Biblos/);
i.e. an ancient book, a series of tablets. It, like the others, has all
the characteristics noted by Wiseman for an ancient series of written
tablets. It has:

  # a *title*: "[Book of] the heavens and the earth" [1:1]; also serving
    as a
  # *catch-line* with [2:4]; and it has a
  # *parallelistic* structure (as noted by both Wiseman and
    Kikawada/Quinn), suggesting (to Wiseman) an arrangement on six
    tablets; and it has a
  # *colophon*, including a *date*. 

Kikawada and Quinn, who have set out the Six Days in parallel fashion,
explain what they consider to be the significance of this feature as
follows [240 <#sdpf>]:

    This way of printing the account helps answer one of the perennial
    questions: why the sun, moon and stars are created three days after
    the light. Clearly the creation account is organized in two parallel
    groups of three. In the first group, regions are created: night and
    day, firmament (and atmosphere) and oceans, the earth. In the second
    group, the corresponding inhabitants of these regions are created:
    astronomical bodies, birds and fish, land animals and man. This,
    however, raises another perennial question: why are the plants
    created on day three rather than on day six? The plants, we would
    think, should be grouped with the living beings rather than the
    earth. What classification criterion was the author using that put
    the plants even before the sun? We think that the clue for this
    comes from the peculiar description of the animals of dry land,
    "cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth". We can say
    that this phrase is intended as a synecdoche for all living land
    animals, but why select these as representatives? "Beasts of the
    earth" could refer to all land animals. Why then include cattle and
    the creepers? At first this does not seem to be much of a clue. As
    commonly happens with this creation account, the attempt to explain
    one incongruity simply leads to another. Yet look at the way the
    author summarizes this list of earth animals in 1:28. "every living
    thing that moves upon the earth".

    The author is preoccupied with locomotion. He puts the birds in day
    five because they move in the air "across the firmament of the
    heavens". If we classify animals according to locomotion, then those
    animals that move on the earth can be subclassified into three
    types. There are cattle and the like which walk on top of it; there
    are the creepers and the crawlers which slide along it; and finally
    there are "the beasts of the earth" which dig through it. (Remember,
    by the way, that the punishment of the serpent has to do with its
    manner of locomotion.) [250 <#loco>].

    Once we see this, then the reason the plants are consigned to day
    three is obvious. They, unlike the birds of the air, the fishes of
    the sea, the animals of the earth, *and* astronomical bodies, lack
    the capacity for locomotion. In that sense they are places, rather
    than living beings. Nonetheless, the author certainly recognizes
    that plants have something in common with the beings of days five
    and six, something which the astronomical bodies of day four lack.
    The plants yield "seed according to their own kind", much as the
    birds, fish, and land animals bring forth progeny according to their
    own kind. Hence we can see that day three and four are, in a sense,
    a transition between the inanimate creation of days one and two and
    the fully animate creation of days five and six. To be fully alive
    one must have capacity for both locomotion and reproduction.

    Note the author is careful to make sure that God himself is fully
    alive according to the terms of the creation account itself. We
    first encounter God in motion; his Spirit is moving across the face
    of the deep. The whole of the creation account can be read as the
    result of this motion. And the creative motion of God has as its
    highest product his reproduction of himself according to his own
    kind - or at least the closest he can come to that, a creature in
    his own image and likeness.

Likewise, P.J. Wiseman claimed that anyone who reads attentively the
narrative of the 'Six Days' will soon begin to realise that there is
something striking about its framework. Not only is it divided into six
sections by the use of the words "and there was evening and there was
morning", but - as Wiseman thought - "the sections are numbered serially
from one to six". [260 <#tsan>] The whole record is fitted into a unique
framework composed of words and phrases that are repeated six or more
times. If this framework is examined carefully, he wrote, it will be
seen that the 'Six Days' fall into _"two clearly parallel parts"_. The
reader will note that the events recorded in the last three days are
parallel with those of the first three.

	

	1. _Light_ Separating the light from the darkness, effecting day and night.

2. _Water and atmosphere_ Atmosphere separating the waters below from
those above.
3. _Land and green vegetation_ (a) Land. (b) Green vegetation and
trees. 		4. _Lights_ (Sun, Moon & Stars) to divide the day from the
night and for the seasons and for days and years.
5. _Water and atmosphere_ Life in the water (fish). Life in the
atmosphere (birds).
6. _Land, green vegetation, man_ (a) Land animals, man. (b) Green
vegetation and tress assigned to animals and man. 	

	
Wiseman explained this parallelistic framework as being "a feature
frequent in the Old Testament of a balanced symmetry due to a repetition
of thought expressed in almost synonymous words" [280 <#pafr>]. Those
best acquainted with ancient Hebrew literary methods, he said, would
readily recognize this parallelistic structure as such. The whole key to
the arrangement may be seen in the words, "without form and void" (1:2).
In the first three days we are told of the formation of the heavens and
the earth, and on the second three days of the furnishing of the void.
"The _formlessness_ takes shape or _form_ in the narration of the first
three days and the _void_ becomes occupied and inhabited in the second
three days' narrative". [290 <#ftda>]

*The Document's Great Antiquity *

Genesis 2:4 apparently comprises both the ancient date, "in the day that
the Lord God made the earth and the heavens", as well as Moses' inserted
/*toledôt*/. This would suggest that the first history of Genesis was
extant /before/ Moses. And there are other indications too that this is
a text far more ancient than the era of Moses.

Does the narrative of the first chapter of Genesis itself give any clue
as to the time when it was written?

In addition to the ancient literary method of the colophon dating,
Wiseman noted that there are "some pieces of evidence which seem to
assist us in ascertaining the chronological place of Genesis chapter 1
in the Old Testament" [300 <#plog>]:

      # *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.

      # · *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".

      # *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. Moses himself, "schooled in all the
        wisdom of the Egyptians" (Acts 7:22), would never have used -
        did not in fact use (see e.g. Deuteronomy 4:19, where 'sun' and
        'moon' are named) - such simple terms for the major heavenly
        bodies. Wiseman beautifully describes the primitive simplicity
        of this first document [310 <#samo>]:

    The first chapter is so ancient that it does not contain mythical or
    legendary matter; these elements are entirely absent.

    It bears the markings of having been written before myth and legend
    had time to grow, and not as is often stated, at a later date when
    it had to be stripped of the mythical and legendary elements
    inherent in every other account of Creation extant. This account is
    so original that it does not bear a trace of any system of
    philosophy. Yet it is so profound that it is capable of correcting
    philosophical systems. It is so ancient that it contains nothing
    that is merely nationalistic; neither Babylonian, Egyptian, nor
    Jewish modes of thought find a place in it, for it was written
    before clans, nations, or philosophies originated. Surely, we must
    regard it as the original, of which the other extant accounts are
    merely corrupted copies. Others incorporate their national
    philosophies in crude polytheistic and mythological form. This is
    pure. Genesis 1 is as primitive as the first human. It is the
    threshold of written history.

# *Brevity*: Compared with the lengthy Babylonian series of six tablets of
creation, the Bible uses only one fortieth the number of words. (Cf.
Babel, Genesis 11:1: "Now the whole earth had one language with very few
words"). Wiseman has shown how Genesis 1:1-2:4 in its entirety is fitted
into a unique framework composed of words and phrases that are repeated
six or more times [320 <#frco>]:

	

	Verse 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

14. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 31.

		*Day One* God said let ? and ? was. saw ? that it was good, divided ?.
And there was evening and there was morning day one. *Day Second* God
said let ?. made ?. divided ? and it was so. called ?. saw that it was
good [LXX version]. And there was evening and there was morning day
second. *Day Third* God said let ? and it was so. called ?. saw that it
was good. said let ? and it was so. God saw that it was good. and there
was evening and there was morning day third. *Day Fourth* God said let ?
and it was so. made ?. set ?. saw that it was good ?. And there was
evening and there was morning day fourth. *Day Fifth* God said let ? and
it was so [LXX version]. created ?. saw that it was good ?. blessed ?.
And there was evening and there was morning day fifth. *Day Sixth* God
said let ? and it was so. created ?. saw that it was good. said let ?.
created ?. created ? created ?. blessed ?. said ?. said ? and it was so.
saw that it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning
day the sixth. 	

	Apart from the repetition of these phrases, the words used are
remarkably few and simple. This is all the more surprising, Wiseman
believed, seeing that this is an outline of the origin of the heavens
and the earth; of vegetable, marine and animal life, and also of the
instruction given by God to first man.

It will be noticed, said Wiseman, that "God said" ten times (four times
on the sixth day), "in this number there is a similarity to the 'Ten
Words' ('Decalogue') as the Ten Commandments are called". [330 <#tecom>]

  # *Thirdly*, the familiarity of man with God; whereas with Moses it
    was all thunder and devouring fire (Exodus 24:17). Thus Wiseman on
    Genesis 1:1-2:4 [340 <#devo>]:

    Further it is written on a very personal note. It is far removed
    from the style of a vision. There is no /"I saw", "I beheld", "I
    heard"/. It is direct speech, "And God said, Behold I have given you
    every herb yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth,
    and every tree ? meat". These words were spoken to the first man. It
    is not a vague and general account.//

    //All the reader needs to do is to realize its unique features and
    to compare it with the Babylonian versions.//

	

	* The familiarity factor just mentioned would indicate that the
document was composed before the Fall, while man was still in the Garden
where God walked, in intimate communion with Him; whereas Adam and Eve
had to hide from Him after the Fall (Genesis 3:8). *	

	Though we cannot be sure exactly how this document - presumably the
very origin of writing - was originally written, Wiseman has put us
right in the picture at least from an archaeological perspective [350
<#thwe>]:

    One of the most remarkable facts which has emerged from
    archaeological research, is that the art of writing began in the
    earliest historical times known to man?. Until recent times it was
    the general tendency to insist on the late appearance of writing.
    Now the pendulum has swung to the opposite direction, and the
    present tendency is to thrust back the period for which written
    records are claimed to about 3500 BC ?. Egyptologists have
    discovered documents written on papyrus which they claim may be
    dated as early as 3000 BC.

    When visiting Professor Langdon of Oxford University, who was
    excavating at Kish, I witnessed the unearthing of what is believed
    to be the oldest piece of writing ever found. It was on a stone
    tablet and in the form of line pictures. This /"line picture
    writing"/ is thought by many to be a development of a still older
    form of writing by which ancients made ordinary pictures convey
    their thoughts on stone or clay. This infant system of writing while
    decidedly primitive is by no means crude, for the Egyptians used it
    at the height of their art and power. Such a method of conveying
    ideas through pictures has been revived recently; it is used for
    wayside signs, by picture newspapers and illustrated advertisements.
    Some of the ancient forms of picture writing are so old that they
    cannot now be deciphered; when, however, such picture writing as
    that of the Egyptian hieroglyphics is used, it conveys the thoughts
    of the writers intelligibly and accurately.

Of course there would have been other copies of this most ancient
history made by Adam's progeny, some of whom were polytheistic. The
ancient Sumero-Mesopotamian accounts, so celebrated today, but so
grotesque, would be a product of these. Moreover, Moses presumably
re-wrote Genesis 1:1-2:4 in the language of his day, introducing
Egyptian concepts. And this version, too, would later no doubt have
become corrupted.

The Hebrew word /tehom/ for primeval deep, which is also used in the
Flood story, has long been regarded by scholars as being an Akkadian
(Assyrian) loan-word. Nevertheless, Yahuda considered it necessary to
investigate whether the more or less unanimous interpretation of this
word given by Assyriologists was at all tenable and, if not, what was
the real meaning of /tehom/, and consequently what place did it occupy
in the Genesis story of Creation? [360 <#whpl>]

Assyriologists and almost all of the modern biblical critics, Yahuda
wrote, still take for granted that /tehom/ is identical with tiamat, the
name of the dragon of darkness which the god Marduk slew in bitter
conflict before the creation of the world ?.

But, Yahuda went on explain [370 <#yexi>]:

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

The argument that /tehom/ must be identified with tiamat because like
the latter it is feminine, is untenable, Yahuda continued, "for the
simple reason that in our particular passage the gender of 'tehom' is
not apparent, and further because there are examples of its being used
in the masculine as a poetic expression for the sea".

Both Yahuda and Wiseman would concur that this whole approach to
biblical interpretation is due to 'mythologizing tendencies' which,
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 myths which
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 to realise how intrinsically different they are.

	

	*Bible* 1 Light 2 Atmosphere and water 3 Land, vegetation 4 Sun and
Moon (regulating the lights) 5 Fish and birds 6 Land animals 	
*Babylonian Creation Tablets* 1 Birth of the gods, their rebellion and
threatened destruction. 2 Tiamat prepares for battle. Marduk agrees to
fight her. 3 The gods are summoned and wail bitterly at their threatened
destruction. 4 Marduk promoted to rank of 'god'; he receives his weapons
for fight. These are described at length; defeats Tiamat, splits her in
half like a fish and thus makes heaven and earth. 5 Astronomical poem. 6
Kingu who made Tiamat to rebel is bound and, as a punish- ment, 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 these 2 accounts shows clearly that the Bible owes
nothing whatsoever to the Babylonian tablets, despite the efforts by
commentators to make us believe that whoever wrote this portion of
Genesis was borrowing from the 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. Thus there is no
intrinsic ground whatsoever for the identification of /tehom/ with
/tiamat/. Here, according to Yahuda [380 <#ingr>], /tehom/ means nothing
else but the primeval water, that ocean which filled the chaos. This is
clearly shown, he insisted, by its context as part of the phrase "on the
face of the waters" (Genesis 1:2), "which unmistakably indicates the
real nature of /'tehom'/ as water". From this, Yahuda concluded that
/tehom/ ought to be identified philologically with a different Akkadian
word: not /tiamat/, but /tamtu/, with which /tehom/ is identical [390
<#diak>]. The Akkadian word /tamtu/ 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
personification of any divinity like /'tiamat'/."

	

	* A Concluding Word
Just imagine the progress that would have been made by now in the study
and knowledge of the Book of Genesis had exegetes devoted as much time
to the probing and development of P.J. Wiseman's thesis on the structure
of Genesis as they have to the documentary dissection and analysis,
JEPD-style, of it!*

	

	* 2. Genesis 2:5-5:2: Adam*

* "This is the book of the generations of Adam"
(Genesis 5:2) *

	

	The Hebrew text calls this a "book" (sepher).

Wiseman also found an ancient date in this document accompanying the
Mosaïc colophon. I had broken off his quote in mid course in the first
section. It continues thus [400 <#doac>]:

The method of dating the Genesis tablets is seen in the following
instances. ?
At the end of the second tablet (5:1) we read: "This is the book of the
origins of Adam *in the day that God created man*".

The phrase /"in the day"/ is identical to part of the date in the first
history. [Hopefully, a better understanding of ancient dating will lead
eventually to a proper interpretation of the meaning of this somewhat
obscure phrase of Genesis 5:2].

Wiseman also links Genesis 2:4 to Genesis 5:2 by the /catch-line/: "When
they were created".

Wiseman's thesis, too, greatly clarifies the relationship between the
first and second histories of Genesis, and would seem emphatically to
dispel the documentist notion that the so-called 'second account of
creation' (i.e. Adam's /toledôt/) is older than is Genesis 1:1-2:4 (let
alone that both accounts were written centuries after Moses).

Adam's history, while admittedly most ancient in itself (/Ancient
Structures/, "Wiseman has noted "Two Supporting Facts" - both fully
applicable to Adam's history - as validation of his toled(?) theory [410
<#adhi>]:

    This tablet also bears the clearest marks of extreme antiquity and
    simplicity, which could never have come from a late hand. For
    instance, the test of obedience is the eating or refraining from
    eating the fruit of a tree. The tempter is referred to after the
    Fall as /"a serpent in the dust"/, a form never afterwards used in
    the Old Testament. Again, it is one no later writer was likely to
    employ. Then there are expressions such as "sin crouching at the
    door" (Gen. 4:7) in connection with the story of the offering made
    by Cain. Also there is the remark of Lamech, "I have slain a young
    man to my hurt"(4:23), pointing to contemporary archaic events of
    which no explanation is given. Again the record shows evidence of
    being a personal one, "I heard Thy voice in the garden and I was
    afraid ? I hid myself". I suggest that no later writer would have
    used such intimate phrases as "the Lord God walking in the Garden in
    the cool of the day" (3:8). The Jew had been taught a most
    reverential conception of God, as One infinitely eternal and
    supreme, the Maker of the heavens and the earth. Even unto Moses God
    did not appear except in majesty and awe.

... cannot however match the first history in the latter's simplicity
and purity. Wiseman again [420 <#evum>]:

    The universality of the references in Genesis 1 cannot be found in
    the second series (Genesis 2:4b to 5:1), in which there are
    historical notes: rivers are named, as are countries. Minerals are
    being developed. [430 <#rana>]. This is Adam's own recorded history.
    It is not a repetitious second account of *Tablet 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; animals are named, and so
    on. *Tablet 2* is utterly different from 1 in style and content and
    would seem to be a much later production.

Wiseman has noted "Two Supporting Facts" - both fully applicable to
Adam's history - as validation of his /toledôt/ theory [440 <#habo>]:

    Two remarkable confirmations of these divisions are:

    (1) In no instance is an event recorded which the person or persons
    named could not have written from his own intimate knowledge, or
    have obtained absolutely reliable information.
    (2) It is most significant that the history recorded in the
    [toledôt] sections ?ceases in all instances before the death of the
    person named ?.

Applying these points to Adam's history, Wiseman has noted [440 <#adhiw>]:

    ? the history ceases abruptly with Tubal-cain, /"the instructor of
    every artificer in brass and iron"/; Jabal, /"the father of such as
    dwell in tents and have cattle"/; Jubal /"the father of all such as
    handle the harp and organ"/; and Tubal-cain /"the forger of every
    cutting instrument of brass and iron"/. These men were the eighth
    generation from Adam, and a comparison with the chronology given in
    Genesis 5 shows that this generation lived immediately before Adam's
    death.

And further (p. 91):

    The one person who knew all the facts about the Fall [viz. Adam] is
    stated to be the source from which the account came. This second
    tablet takes the story up to the birth of the sons of Lamech. Soon
    after this Adam died; the concluding words of the tablet are, "This
    is the book of the origins of Adam".

In regard to these points Wiseman can say against the documentary view
of long oral transmission [450 <#ainst>]:

    ? these narratives bear all the marks of having been written by
    those who were personally acquainted with the events recorded. These
    valuable personal histories were not entrusted, as is generally
    supposed, merely to the memory of man to be handed down century
    after century by word of mouth. Writing was prevalent at a very
    early date, and of all the things to be put down in writing, few
    were of more importance than the events recorded in the early
    chapters of Genesis.

*'Civilisation'*

A golden thread running all the way through I. Kikawada's and A. Quinn's
book [460 <#golth>] is, that God favoured for his people a nomadic life,
spreading out, /'increasing and multiplying'/, rather than a sedentary
one associated with cities and so-called civilisation. Thus the favoured
Abel was a shepherd; but his murderer, Cain, built the first city. And
we have just seen that Cain's offspring, the Lamech-ites, were the first
artificers and musicians.

Tubal-cain, for one, became deified, as the great forger/artificer god
[465 <#deg>], significantly Vulcan (*VULCAN*=Tu*BULCAIN*) of the Romans.
(Ptah of the Egyptians?).

/Jabal/, above, might seem to have been a nomadic exception to the
Lamech-ites, being "the father of such as dwell in tents and have
cattle". But Kikawada and Quinn have shown most convincingly that Jabal
was by no means an exception; that the Hebrew word used in his case for
'cattle', /miqnêh/, can be "perhaps better translated by the general
term *livestock*". They then qualify this even further [470 <#pertr>]:

    Nonetheless, even this translation may be too narrow in the kinds of
    living possessions it suggests to a modern reader. This is shown the
    next time *miqnêh* appears, Genesis 13:2. "Now Abram was very rich
    in *miqnêh*, in silver, and in gold". The gold and silver
    constituted Abram's inanimate wealth; *miqnêh* his animate wealth.
    He had accumulated this wealth by allowing the pharaoh [480 <#weal>]
    to take Sarai into his harem. Abram's profits during this stay are
    listed, and constitute what eventually will be summarized as his
    *miqnêh*: "sheep, oxen, he-asses, menservants, female servants,
    she-asses, and camels". [Cf. Job 1:3 & 42:12]. Among your *miqnêh*
    can be numbered your slaves. The language of Genesis permits both
    cattle barons and slave traders to claim descent from Cain through
    [Jabal]. Perhaps the sons of [Jabal] did discover, long before Abram
    visited Egypt, that the civilized profession most profitable is the
    flesh trade. 

* [Comment: The nomadic Rechabites of the prophet Elisha's day (C9th BC)
seem to have been living according to the ancient ideal, avoiding
cities, wealth and civilization, as indeed Elisha did himself, as I
discussed in my "The Prophet Elisha's Part in the Sinai Commission"].*

*Moses's Additions to Adam's history*

Apart from the /toledôt/, and /catch-lines/, Moses also apparently added
to this revered history of his primeval ancestor Adam the first of his
geographical explanations. These typical Mosaïc parentheses - added for
the sake of his people emigrant from Egypt [the MBI nomads of
archaeology], coming into unfamiliar eastern territory - will be
especially noticeable in Genesis 14, the story of Abraham (owned or
written by Ishmael). To the most primitive statement (Genesis 2:10): "A
river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides
and becomes four branches", Moses will add 4 verses of geographical
detail. Yahuda saw clearly, as have others, that this was a scribal
addition to the original document (though he included verse 10):

    The whole passage 2:10-14 though belonging to the story itself has
    so far the character of a gloss in that it does not refer to
    Paradise itself, but to the relation of the four rivers to this one
    river of Paradise. Indeed, many critics have already a clear inkling
    that by this passage the flow of the narrative is interrupted and
    that accordingly it must have been inserted here from another
    version [sic] of the Paradise story; but in spite of all this it is
    connected by them with Paradise itself and they assume that the four
    rivers belong to Paradise. ?.

Thus Wiseman's /"historical notes"/ as evidence for Adam's history being
older than Genesis 1:1-2:4, "? rivers are named, as are countries.
Minerals are being developed", need now to be seen in their proper
perspective, as Mosaïc, not Adamic, contributions. (See also Appendix B).

	

	* 3. Genesis 5:3-6:9a: Noah*

* "These are the generations of Noah"
(Genesis 6:9a) *

	

	Since I already, in the first part of this article, discussed in some
detail Noah's story and that of his three sons relating to the Flood, I
can be brief here. The question of the Flood itself though will be taken
up again in Appendix C. Wiseman tells us that [490 <#ican">]:

    Noah's tablet comprises 5:3-6:9 and commences with a genealogical
    register of the patriarchs connecting him with Adam. Highway 1
    vulcanic layers, south of San Francisco.The list is followed by a
    statement concerning the corruption extant in his day, together with
    an explanation of the cause of it. "These are the origins of Noah".
    It is a small tablet of narrative writing added to a genealogical list.

Wiseman had suggested earlier that Noah himself could have been the
author of the Flood story [500 <#earlt>]: "? the Flood, which took place
when Noah was an old man. In this instance he could have written the
story of the Flood". I have already discussed that more than one hand
was likely in the composition of the Genesis Flood narrative.

Yahuda, further to his observation that the word for the Ark was based
on an Egyptian word, noted however that, Fossil giant ferns, 12 feet
tall, are often found in coal mines, they still exist today in a few
places." for the nature of timber [505 <#kot>] and kind of pitch of
which the Ark was comprised, the Akkadian words /giparu/ and /kupru/ are
traceable. (Though the Egyptian word /km3, "Nile rushes"/, is used to
denominate the material of the ark of the infant Moses) [510 <#akkw>].

Wiseman [520 <#shhc>] showed how completely William Paul [530 <#wipa>]
on Genesis 6:9 managed to confuse the meaning of Noah's /toledôt/, Paul
first rightly stated: "This is the record of the history of Noah, or so
'Toledoth' is rendered by Rosenmuller, Gesenius and Lee here and in
Genesis 2:4". But next [540 <#thre>]:

    [Paul] then lapses into the conventional assumption that a
    genealogical table must necessarily follow, but states: /"There is
    here no genealogical account of Noah's pedigree, with the exception
    of the mention of his three sons of whom previous notice was taken"/. 

Though Wiseman offers no specific /catch-line/ link in Noah's tablet, he
does note that Noah (in 5:29) makes a reference (3:17), textual, to the
Adamic tablet series [550 <#thwis>].

	

	* 4. Genesis 6:9b-10:1: Noah's Sons, Shem, Ham & Japheth*

*"These are the generations of Noah's sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth"**
(Genesis 10:1) *

	

	The /catch-lines/, "Shem, Ham and Japheth", link 6:10 to 10:1.

Wiseman has written briefly of this tri-partite series [560 <#trip>]:

    ? written or owned by Noah's sons. They contain the account of the
    Flood and the death of Noah. How long Ham and Japheth lived after
    Noah's death we are unaware, but we know that Shem survived him by
    150 years, hence there is nothing in this section which the sons of
    Noah could not have written. 

*Some Notes on Noah's Sons*

According to P. Mauro [570 <#pmwr>], with reference Concreted dinosaur
tracks discovered in Yemen. <eop6_18.html#1stwalker> to Genesis 10;1,
"which is correctly rendered in the A.V.", Japheth was actually the
oldest of Noah's 3 sons.

In mythology:

  # *Japheth*, the father of the Indo-European peoples, was deified: as
    /Iapetos/, in Greek mythology, as /Jupiter/, in Roman mythology, and
    as /Pra-Japati/ ('Father Japheth') in Indian mythology.
  # *Ham*, whose name means 'hot' or 'ardent' was deified, according to
    D. Rohl [580 <#whon>] as the Mesopotamian Sun-God, /Utu/Shamash/.
    Ham must have in some way become associated with Egypt, referred to
    as "the land of Ham" in Psalm 106:22.
  # *Shem* was, according to Jewish legend, the great priest-king,
    Melchizedek, of Salem (later Jerusalem).

	

	* 5. Genesis 10:2-11:10a: Shem*

* "These are the generations of Shem"**
(Genesis 11:10a) *

	

	What had happened that the three sons of Noah in the fourth 'family
history' had given way to just the /one/ son of Noah, Shem, in this the
fifth? Presumably the Dispersion from Babel, the account of which is
narrated in Shem's series. That great event would likely have caused a
separation amongst the 3 sons if they had not already been separated
prior to that (e.g. due to Noah's cursing of Ham's child of incestuous
union, *Canaan*, 9:25-27).

Shem's series has the /catch-line/, "After the Flood", at 10:32 and 11:10.

Wiseman describes Shem's account [590 <#wides>]:

    The fifth series of tablets is contained in 10:2-11:9 and therefore
    includes the famous tenth chapter - the account of the origins of
    the clans which became nations. Embedded in this chapter is a brief
    statement regarding Nimrod. In the earlier verse of the eleventh
    chapter we have an account of the building of the Tower of Babel and
    the scattering of the peoples. Of these records it is written,
    'These are the histories of Shem". ? This tablet of Shem's is an
    outline of developments during the 500 years after the Flood. 

	

	* Nimrod
D. Rohl has convincingly identified Nimrod with the hunter/builder king
Enmerkar* [600 <#roen>]*, son of Meskiagkasher, hence Cush (Genesis
10:8) [MeskiagKASHer = CUSH, or KUSH], of the heroic dynasty of Uruk (c.
3000 BC, conventional dating). Enmerkar, Rohl claims, was later deified
as the Mesopotamian hunter god, Ninurta. Enmer kar = 'ENMeR [NiMRod?]
the hunter'.
Enmerkar is associated in Mesopotamian legend with, like Nimrod, both a
massive building enterprise and a confusion of tongues (both incidents
described in /Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta Epic)/. *	

	
Shem has recorded that, in regard to his descendant Peleg, "in his days
the earth was divided" (10:25); a likely reference to the Dispersion
from Babel.

Wiseman [610 <#fixu>], when discussing /`Lost Cities and New Place
Names'/, fixed upon a certain geographical explanation in Shem's series:

    There is one sentence - probably the most important piece of
    evidence of all?. In Genesis 10:19 we read, "and the border of the
    Canaanite was from Zidon as thou goest towards Gerar unto Gaza; as
    thou goest towards *Sodom and Gomorrah*". This sentence arrests
    attention, for it must have been written before the overthrow of
    Sodom and Gomorrah, which took place in Abraham's day. So completely
    were those cities blotted out that all trace of them became lost and
    it was believed that they were buried beneath the Dead Sea. In our
    study of the sources we have seen that this sentence occurs in
    Shem's tablet, and in his day Sodom and Gomorrah were still standing. 

This verse 10:19 also enables us to understand Melchizedek's (i.e.
Shem's) "rule in the midst of all [his] foes" (Psalm 110:2, 4); he being
virtually completely surrounded by /"the Canaanite"/ (Noah's cursed
grandson as opposed to he, the blessed Shem), situated to the north,
west and east of him. Pentapolis was still standing very late in the
life of Melchizedek, when he blessed Abram as a superior to an inferior,
after the latter's victory over the Mesopotamian coalition [Ur III
dynasty by my revision] (see Genesis 14).

It was some time not long after Melchizedek's death that Sodom,
Gomorrah, etc. were destroyed (Genesis 19); this event being recorded
though in Ishmael's series of tablets.

The long-lived Shem, who survived his father Noah by 150 years, may well
also have outlived his brothers, Japheth and Ham. Indeed "[Shem]", wrote
Wiseman [620 <#loli>], "writes of the birth and formation into clans of
the fifth generation after him. We know that he outlived the last
generation recorded in this tablet, that is, the sons of Joktan".

	

	* 6. Genesis 11:10b-11:27a: Terah*

* "These are the generations of Terah"**
(Genesis 10:27a) *

	

	Wiseman introduced this series [620 <#wintr>]:

? Terah's genealogical list registers the death of his father Nahor,
while he himself lived on until his son Abraham was seventy-five years
old. Had Terah lived another eleven years he would have been able to
record the birth of Ishmael, and if for another twenty-five years it
would have been possible for him to add, "and Abraham begat Isaac". But
the history contained in this tablet ends immediately before his own
death. If the words found at the end of the tablet, "And Terah lived
seventy years" refer to the date he wrote it, then according to the
Samaritan Pentateuch it was written just one year after the last
chronological event mentioned in it, that is, the death of Nahor.

Terah's genealogical list connects him to the great Shem.

There is also the connecting /catch-line/, "Abram, Nahor, and Haran", at
11:26 and 11:27.

	

	* 7. Genesis 11:27b-25:12: Ishmael*

* "These are the generations of Ishmael"**
(Genesis 25:12) *

	

	This series is most significant inasmuch as it records the story of the
important Abraham, who, surprisingly does not have a /toledôt/ in the
Book of Genesis. Though this may possibly be an effect of Mosaïc
editing. As noted above, this series is notable for the geographical
amendments made by Moses to place names that had become outdated by
Moses' time.

Thus Wiseman [630 <#inge>]:

    ? many of the original place names given in Genesis were so old,
    even in the age of Moses, that it became necessary for him to add an
    explanatory note, in order to identify these ancient names for the
    sake of the children of Israel entering the land after their exodus
    from Egypt. Several instances of this may be seen in Genesis 14.
    When in the time of Abraham this tablet was written, it recorded the
    movements of certain kings, and the names of the places, as they
    were *then* known, were put down. But in the 400 years that elapsed
    between Abraham and Moses, some of these names had become changed,
    or the localities were unknown to the Israelites. So Moses, with the
    ancient text (Genesis 14) before him, in compiling the Book of
    Genesis, added a note to enable his readers to identify place names.
    Thus we have:

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

    These are the only occasions in which these ancient names are used
    in the Bible.

Wiseman will give more examples of these further on in Ishmael's
history, adding some important comments along the way.

Moreover (ibid., p.78):

    Primitive geographical expressions such as the /"south country"/
    (20:1 and 24:62) and /"the east country"/ (25:6) are used in the
    time of Abraham. These ancient designations never reappear as a
    description of the countries adjoining the south and east of
    Palestine. After the time of Genesis they have well-known and
    well-defined names. 

There is also a date, 25:11: "And Isaac dwelt by Beer-lahai-roi". For,
as Wiseman had noted [640 <#alsda>]: "Later [than very early Genesis]
tablets are dated by indicating the dwelling-place of the writer at the
time that the colophon was written and these dates are immediately
connected with the ending phrase, "these are the generations of ?"."

Another notable feature of this 'family history' is its eye for detail.
Or, as Wiseman has put it [650 <#nofe>]: "The style is just what we
would expect of Abraham relating the incidents to Isaac [did he mean
Ishmael?] who is stated to have owned the tablets containing these
events". In this regard, Wiseman had referred to the visit of the three
men to Abraham, "as he sat in the tent door *in the heat of the day* ?".
And: "*he stood by them under the trees*, and they did eat". Also, we
glimpse the recently destroyed Pentapolis as if from Abraham's bird's
eye view of it (19:27-28).

Wiseman wrote further, on p.72:

    The latest chronological statement (25:1-4) refers to the birth of
    Abraham's great-grandsons, and of their growth into clans.

    Ishmael died forty-eight years and Isaac one-hundred five years
    after Abraham. As Abraham would seem to have married Keturah soon
    after Sarah's death (which occurred thirty-eight years before
    Abraham died), this period of thirty-eight years added to the
    remaining one-hundred five years of Isaac's life, is a most
    reasonable period to assign for the birth of Abraham's
    great-grandsons by Keturah [660 <#noq>]. This indicates that the
    history recorded in these tablets ceases just before the death of Isaac.

Dr. S. R. Driver had argued, according to Wiseman, that duplication
occurs in this part of Genesis. But, as Wiseman would explain [670 <#gewe>]:

    The next alleged duplicate is said to be contained in the two
    promises made to Sarah of a son in 17:16-19 and 18:9-15. This, too,
    is quite naturally explained when we realize that we have in this
    section the tablets of both Isaac and Ishmael. Many theologians do
    not seem to realize that this charge of /"repetition"/ could be
    brought against nearly every piece of ancient writing. It is
    characteristic of the style of the time and is evidence of their
    ancient character. 

Wiseman, following the conventional dating of Hammurabi of Babylon to
the approximate time of Abraham [whereas I think Hammurabi belongs to
the late C10th BC, as a younger contemporary of king Solomon], noted
[680 <#habe>]:

    The writing contained on the tablets in the possession of Abraham
    (Gen. 1:1-11:27) contain about one-fifth of the number of words
    which were inscribed on the Stele of Hammurabi, itself composed at a
    time which may well be the era of Abraham (*ca.* 1750 BC). The
    brevity of the Bible's earliest records is worthy of note ?.

	

	* 8. Genesis 25:13-25:19a: Isaac*

* "These are the generations of Isaac"**
(Genesis 25:19a) *

	

	This is a very brief document, naming the sons of Ishmael, and briefly
noting the death of Ishmael himself.

It also tells that the Ishmaelites "settled from Havilah to Shur"
(25:18), to which Moses may have appended the note: "[Shur], which is
opposite Egypt in the direction of Assyria".

There is also the /catch-line/, "Abraham's son", linking 25:12 and 25:19.

Wiseman estimated that "the history recorded in these tablets ceases
just before the death of Isaac, whose name is given as the last writer ?".

	

	* 9. Genesis 25:19b-36:1: Esau &
10. Genesis 36:2-36:9: Esau*

* "These are the generations of Esau"**
(Genesis 36:1 & 36:9) *

	

	"Who is Edom" is the /catch-line/ linking 36:1 and 36:8.

Verse 36:8 also carries the 'date by dwelling-place': "And Esau dwelt in
Mount Seir".

And in 35:19 we get another of Moses' geographical amendments, "Ephrath
(which is Bethlehem".

Wiseman continues on here with answering Dr. Driver's criticisms [690
<#ddi>]:

    The fourth and fifth instances of S.R. Driver's criticism in 28:19
    and 35:15 are: /"we find two explanations of the name Bethel, and
    two explanations of the name Israel in 32:28 and 35:10. Esau is
    described as already resident in Edom, whereas in 36:6, his
    migration there is attributed to causes which could not have come
    into operation until after Jacob's return to Canaan"/ (*Genesis*).
    The criticism is presumably based on the assumption that Esau had no
    cattle until after Jacob's return from Padan-aram. But Jacob did not
    go away to Padan-aram until he was 77; there is not a word in this
    passage which could be said in the slightest degree improbable.
    Surely S.R. Driver was aware that Mount Seir is only at the southern
    end of the Dead Sea, and that Jacob was living at Beersheba, merely
    fifty miles way. Modern scholars constantly speak of these
    patriarchs as nomad sheiks. A return to Canaan and a subsequent
    parting would not be abnormal. I submit that no difficulty exists. 

	

	* 11. Genesis 36:10-37:2a: Jacob*

* "These are the generations of Jacob"**
(Genesis 37:2a) *

	

	"Father of the Edomites [lit. Father Edom]" is the /catch-line/ linking
36:9 and 36:43.

This series also closes with a 'date by dwelling-place' (37:1): "And
Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father sojourned, in the land of
Canaan" [RV].

About this latter verse, Wiseman wrote [700 <#tte>]:

    Immediately before the ending formula, "these are the generations of
    Jacob", we read, "and Jacob dwelt ?Canaan". This sentence has seemed
    so isolated that it has been regarded by many to have little
    relation to the context, yet ? it is evidence of the date when and
    where the tablets were written. Within a few years Jacob had moved
    down to Egypt. His sentence indicates where he was living when he
    closed his record. For although he tells us of the death of Isaac,
    he says nothing whatever of the sale of Joseph into slavery, which
    occurred eleven years before Isaac's death. Neither does he tell of
    Joseph's interpretation of the butler's dream or of any other event
    in Egypt. Until Jacob went down to Egypt (ten years after he had
    buried his father), thus leaving /"the land of his father's
    sojourning"/, he could not know anything whatever about these things. 

There is a passage in this particular 'family history' that scholars
propose indicates a late date of writing. Wiseman wrote of it as follows
[710 <#ofit>]:

    The final, and to the critical scholars the most decisive passage in
    Genesis, which they think to be indicative of the late date on which
    it was written, is in 36:31, where we read, "These are the kings of
    Edom before there reigned any king over the children of Israel". Dr.
    Driver says of this verse that, "it obviously presupposes a monarchy
    in Israel", and, therefore, hints that it was written after Saul
    began to reign.

    Wiseman then gives his proposed - and I believe eminently plausible
    - solution to the matter [720 <#egiv>]:

        The passage does not necessarily presuppose this, for it simply
        says, /"reigned *over* the children of Israel"/, and not reigned
        *in* Israel. Pharaoh reigned over the children of Israel; while
        in Egypt the whole nation had become subjects of the king of
        Egypt. The opening verses of Exodus inform us that this
        sovereignty had become arbitrary and despotic, that they were
        then the slaves of Pharaoh who feared they may "fight, so as to
        get them up out of the land" (Exod. 1:10). In order to prevent
        their escape the king commanded that all male children born
        should be put to death. They said of themselves that they were
        Pharaoh's bondmen. This phrase "before there reigned any king
        over Israel" is a note of explanation, as all are agreed, but
        who is more likely than Moses to have written it? He knew of
        Pharaoh's reigning over Israel. But there is a further
        reference. In Deuteronomy 7:8 we are told that the "Lord brought
        you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house of
        bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh". In the song of Moses the
        princes of Edom and kingship are again mentioned together. After
        the overthrow of Pharaoh in the sea we read, "the dukes of Edom
        shall be amazed ?. The Lord shall reign for ever and ever".

	

	* 12. Genesis 37:2b-50:26: Joseph*

* "And Joseph died, being one hundred ten years old; he was embalmed and
placed in a coffin in Egypt"**
(Genesis 50:26) *

	

	Wiseman thought that Moses must have written this history (his
history), but could not Joseph himself [the great Imhotep of Egypt's 3rd
dynasty, builder of the famous Step Pyramid at Saqqara] have even more
fittingly written most of it from first-hand experience?

Kikawada and Quinn have found some linguistic links between this Joseph
narrative and early Genesis [730 <#kqhf>]:

    The phrase, *rûah 'elôhîm: the wind/spirit of God*, which is used in
    the story of creation ?is found in the Joseph cycle in a speech of
    Pharaoh extolling Joseph's wisdom and ability in 41:37. "And Pharaoh
    said to his servants, 'Can we find a man like this in whom is the
    *rûah 'elôhîm*?'"

    ? Another verbal parallel is a formulaic expression, namely a verb
    of seeing in combination with *kî tôb: that it was good*. This
    formula is repeated impressively six times in the first chapter ?.

    We must then jump to the Joseph cycle to see this formulaic
    expression used again. There it occurs twice: the first time in the
    narrative of the dreams of the butler and the baker, "And the chief
    baker saw *how good: kî tôb* the interpretation ?and for the second
    time in the Blessing of Jacob in the passage dealing with Issachar,
    "He saw the resting place kî tôb: how good it was" (49:15).

Professor Yahuda was 'right in his element' in his dealing with this
history whose provenance was Egypt. This is what my colleagues and I
wrote in part in "A Critical Re-Appraisal of the Book of Genesis", Part
2, based on Yahuda:

    The important story of Joseph and his rise to governorship of Egypt
    occupies almost one quarter of the entire Book of Genesis. Because
    the narrative is set largely in Egypt, it is most significant from
    the point of view of our thesis. The fact is that the Joseph
    narrative is saturated with Egyptian elements, a full appreciation
    of which one would gain only from reading right through Yahuda's
    book ?. Again we can only summarise some of the most striking examples.

    The /"kernel of the Joseph narrative"/, Yahuda notes, is his
    appointment as Grand Vizier to Pharaoh ?. [op. cit, p.20]. For his
    office, Genesis 41:42 gives a Hebrew word containing a root which
    has the meaning /"to do twice, to repeat, to double"/, in the sense
    that Joseph represented in relation to the king a sort of
    /"double"/, acting as his deputy, /"invested with all the rights and
    prerogatives of the king"/.

    Yahuda explained that in exactly the same way the Egyptian word
    *sn.nw*, /"deputy"/ was formed from *sn*, /"two"/. In the same
    verse, the command is given for all "to bow the knee" before Joseph.
    The Hebrew word, which is probably an imperative, is generally
    considered to have been taken from an Egyptian word ?.

    ? At the beginning of his conversation with Joseph, Pharaoh says: "I
    have had a dream ? I have heard that you understand a dream to
    interpret it" (Genesis 40:15). For /"understand"/ the Hebrew has the
    verb to /"hear"/: "you hear a dream" - a usage which has been so
    difficult for commentators, said Yahuda, but which corresponds
    entirely to the Egyptian use of *s_d_m*, /"to hear"/ or /"to
    understand"/ [ibid., p.7].

    In Genesis 41:40, Pharaoh says to Joseph, literally, "According to
    your mouth shall my people kiss". Again this verse has been a
    headache for commentators and translators, as the verb to /"kiss"/
    seems to be completely out of place?. But on comparison with
    Egyptian ? /"kiss"/ proves to be "a correct and thoroughly exact
    reproduction of what the narrator really meant to convey. Here an
    expression is rendered in Hebrew from a *metaphorical* one used in
    polished speech among the Egyptians" ?. Instead of the ordinary
    colloquial expression *wnm* for /"eating"/, the Egyptians spoke of
    /"kissing"/ *sn* the food. Our passage thus is to be taken
    literally, wrote Yahuda, "but in the sense of the Egyptian metaphor"
    [p.8]. Pharaoh is saying to Joseph "by your orders shall my people
    feed", whereby Pharaoh simply meant that the feeding of the whole
    country would be regulated solely /"by the measures and ordinances
    of Joseph"/ ?..

And so it goes on, page after page. But the academics still do not seem
prepared even to consider Yahuda's thesis, which they regard as outdated
(as I was recently told by a linguist teaching at the University of
Sydney).[740 <#outdi>]

Why did Moses not add a /toledôt/ conclusion to this Joseph narrative,
and it alone? Wiseman thought that the reason was because the Egyptians
did not generally use colophon endings, as did the Mesopotamians.

But I would now like to suggest that Moses did not actually need to add
anything to the end of this narrative; it being patently obvious where
Joseph's history had ended. Joseph's death in Egypt at 110 years of age
(50:26) would seem to be a perfectly appropriate concluding date for the
Book of Genesis.

*Dr. Charles Taylor's Summary of the Tablets*

Genesis, as we now know it, is composed of a series of some of the
world's oldest books. Dr. Charles Taylor linguist, an enthusiast of
Wiseman's toledôt theory, has identified the following "nine volumes" of
which he claims the Book of Genesis originally consisted (The Oldest
Science Book in the World, Assembly Press, 1984, p.20):

01: *God's Book*, an account of his activities at the beginning of
things. (Gen. 1:1 to 2:4a).
02: *Adam's Diary*, some of it parallel to Vol.I. (Gen. 2:4b to 5:2).
03: *Noah's Family Tree* and Diary. (Gen. 5:3 to 6:9a).
04: *Noah's Sons' File* on the Deluge. (Gen. 6:9b to 10:1).
05: The Dispersion and *Shem's Table of Nations*. (Gen. 10:2 to 11:10a)
06: *Terah's Family Tree*. (Gen. 11:10b to 27a).
07: *Isaac's Biography* of Abraham, with Ishmael's Family Tree as
Appendix. (Gen. 11:27b to 25:19a).
08: *Jacob's Biography* of Isaac and his Descendants, including Jacob's
Autobiography; with Esau's Family Trees in two Appendices. (Gen. 25:19b
to 37:2a).
09: *Moses' Biography* of Joseph and his Brothers. (Gen. 37:2b to 50:26).

*A Concluding Note*

The unity that we have found to pervade the Book of Genesis will
overflow into the rest of the Pentateuch, e.g. where Moses will present
himself as if 'a second Noah' [750 <#perv>], and on even into the
historical books (with these comparisons: Adam and Eve/David and
Bathsheba; Cain and Abel/Amnon and Absalom; Tower of Babel/Solomon, and
so on [760 <#eved>], showing that future biblical scribes were most
conscious of the earlier written documents.

And the use of /chiasmus/, too, that we have discussed in regard to
Genesis and Deuteronomy will continue on through the entire Bible, even
into the New Testament. For example Peter Ellis, /The Genius of John/,
will show that the entire Fourth Gospel is composed of many small
chiasms, as well as being entirely structured around one large
/chiastic/ axis. *
*

	

	
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Notes & References*

[010] I. Kikawada and A. Quinn, /Before Abraham Was. A Provocative
Challenge to the Documentary Hypothesis/ (*KQBA*), Ignatius Press, 1989.
[020] Damien Mackey, / "A Critical Re-appraisal of the Book of
Genesis"/, *SIS Chronology & Catastrophism Workshop*, UK, 1987, Nos. 1 & 2.
[025] Professor Dr. Gerhard von Rad
<http://www.uni-heidelberg.de/presse/unispiegel/us3_2001/rad.html>
(1901-1971) and Martin Noth
<http://www.uni-protokolle.de/nachrichten/id/8091/> (1902- 1968).
[030] P.J. Wiseman, /Ancient Records and the Structure of Genesis. A
Case For Literary Unity/ (*WARSG*), Thomas Nelson, 1985, Ch's II-IV.
[040] Kikawada and Quinn, in ch. III, have also pointed to parallelism
(adding to that /chiastic structure/ that Wiseman does not address) to
explain the complexities of Genesis 1, though they have completely
missed out on the Wiseman notion that this is evidence for ancient tablets.
[050] R.K. Harrison, Biblical Expert, `Bishops Frederick and Heber
Wilkinson Chair of Old Testament at Wycliffe College', Toronto, Ontario.
[060] Kikawada's and Quinn's, pp. 21-22.
[068] A reference to how pagans pictured gods as human beings.
[070] Ibid., p.22.
[080] Ibid., p. 84.
[090] Ibid., 84-85.
[100] A. Yahuda, /The Language of the Pentateuch in its Relation to
Egyptian/, Oxford U.P. 1933.
[110] Ibid., p. 205.
[112] The Akkadian or Canaanite word for 'Ark
<hebrew_lexicon.html#aleph>' used is `aron' = Ark, coffin, chest - Gen.
50:26.
[115] The Egyptian hieroglyphic word which underlies the Hebrew word in
Genesis chapter 6 and 7:1 is dbt - box, coffer, coffin, sarcophagus,
shrine`db't' or `teb't'. In the Hebrew Bible it occurs as an added on word.
[120] Ibid., p. xxix.
[130] Those interested should read Gavin Ardley's masterful /Aquinas and
Kant/, 1950.
[135] Professor Dr. Karl Heinrich Graf
<http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Karl-Heinrich-Graf>
(1815-1869) and Julius Wellhausen
<http://www.netzwelt.de/lexikon/Julius_Wellhausen.html> (1844 - 1918).
[140] K&Q, /"Synopsis of Adam, Cain, and Noah Stories"/, ch. III.
[150] Ibid., p. 69.
[160] Ibid., p. 69.
[170] Ibid., P. 86. They give a far more complex one for the same story
on p. 94.
[180] Ibid., p. 83.
[190] N. Grimal, /`A History of Ancient Egypt'/, p.111, (emphasis added).
[200] See comment elsewhere.[CIAS notation]
[210] E.g. "A Critical Re-Appraisal of the Book of Genesis".
[220] P. Mauro, /`The Wonders of Bible Chronology'/, Reiner, pp. 22-23,
emphasis added. Adding up the numbers: Adam's son Seth was born after
which Adam lived another 800 years until he was 930 years of age when he
died. The year Adam died, Methusalah was 118 years of age. Methusalah's
son Lamech was born 69 years later when Methusalah was 187 years of age
making him the chronological first generation after Adam. Abraham was
born 292 years after the flood <genealogies.html> when Shem was still
alive making Abraham chronologically the second generation after Adam.
[230] *WARSG*, pp.81-82.
[240] *KQBA*, pp. 78-79.
[250] A. Yahuda, /`The Language of the Pentateuch in its Relation to
Egyptian'/, Oxford U.P., 1933, p. 204, thought that the Genesis 3:14
command [to the serpent] /"upon your belly you shall go"/ is an
Egyptianism, corresponding to /"Behold their sustenance (or food) shall
be (Geb or) dust"/, 'm.k grt ir hr.t-sn ntf pw'.
[260] P.J. Wiseman, /`Creation Revealed in Six Days'/, Marshall, Morgan
& Scott, 1948, p.14. P.J. Wiseman thought - "the sections are numbered
serially from one to six".
[280] Wiseman, Ibid., p. 16.
[290] Iibid.
[300] Wiseman, /`Ancient Records'/, VII).
[310] Ibid., p.90.
[320] Wiseman, /`Creation ?'/, p.15.
[330] Iibid., p. 47.
[340] Wiseman, /`Ancient Structures ?'/, p.89.
[350] Ibid., pp. 47-48.
[360]Yahuda, Op. cit., p.127.
[370] Ibid.
[380] Ibid., p.128.
[390] Ibid.
[400] Wiseman, /`Ancient Structures'/, p. 82.
[410] Ibid., p.69.
[420] Clues to Creation in Genesis, Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1997, p.170.
[430] But see p. 12 below on 'Moses's Additions to Adam's History'.
[440] Ibid., p.69.
[440] Ibid., p. 70.
[450] Ibid., pp. 69-70.
I. Kikawada's and A. Quinn's book [460] See *KQBA*.
[465] Genesis 4:21-22. It ought, therefore, not come as a surprise that
metal alloys were determined to have been used in producing rivet
fasteners on the Ark of Noah as evidenced with the discovered
`fossilized' remains of such artifacts in eastern Turkey. Analysis
showed that the metals of some type of metal fitting contained 8.08%
iron, 11.55% ferric oxide, 11.45% alumina and 6.06% aluminum. Three
other metal like samples yielded respectively: 19.97%, 12.30% and 11.55%
Ferric oxide; 8.08%, 13.97% and 8.60% iron. Yet, the control samples
showed .77% ferric oxide and .54% iron. On `Tubal' see Eze. 38.
[470] Ibid., p.57.
[480] Pharaoh Wakhare Khety III 'Nebkaure' of Egypt's so-called Tenth
Dynasty by my revision.
?reference??
[490] Wiseman, /`Ancient Structures'/, p.92.
[500] Ibid., p.71.
[505] The Bible refers to the timber of the ark as , translated as
`gopher' or `fir' wood. The actual discovery of Noah's Ark also showed
pieces of fossilized wood which turned out to be laminated where layers
of pitch were still discernible. Therefore, `gopher' wood probably means
laminated wood. Note: Wood glue (German: Leim), can also be made by
boiling hide or bones in order to free the large molecule gelatenous
substances. This the ancient could produce quite easily.
[510] Op. cit., p.205.
[520] /`Ancient Structures"/, pp.65-66.
William Paul [530] William Paul, /`Analysis and Critical Interpretation
of the Hebrew Text'/; On Genesis 6:9.
[540] Wiseman, /Ibid./, p.66.
[550] Ibid., pp. 102-103.
[560] Ibid., p.71.
[570] P. Mauro, /The Wonders of Bible Chronology/, p.18.
[580] David Rohl, /`The Lost Testament'/, Century, 2002, p.90.
[590] Ibid., p.93.
[600] Ibid., ch. 4. See also Samuel N. Kramer, /Second Interim Report on
Work in the Museum at Instanbul/ in *BASOR*, Feb 1947, p. 7-11; Features
B&W images of the obverse of the damaged Inanna-Shukallituda and the
obverse of the very damaged 8-column `Enmesh-Enten' tablet.
What did Nimrod hunt? There is probably little doubt that he was not a
hunter of deer, foxes or lions but rather of people, as a warlord or
persecutor, only that way could he add all those realms of neighboring
people to his name.
[610] Wiseman, /`Ancient Structures'/, when discussing "Lost Cities and
New Place Names", p. 76.
[620] Iibid., p.71.
[620] Ibid., pp. 71-72.
[630] Ibid., pp.76-77.
[640] Iibid., p.82.
[650] Ibid., p.95.
[660] Herb Storck believes that Keturah is "definitely cognate with the
Arabian tribal name Qetura...", and he has linked the names of Abraham's
children by Keturah with names in the Assyrian Kinglist [AKL] ("The
Early Assyrian King List, the Genealogy of the Hammurapi Dynasty, and
the "Greater Amorite" Tradition", Proceedings of the Third Seminar of
Catastrophism & Ancient History, Uni. of Toronto, 1985, p. 45).
[670] Wiseman, /Ancient Structures/, pp.117-118.
[680] Ibid., p.84.
[690] Dr. Driver, Ibid., p.118.
[700] Ibid., pp.72-73.
[710] Ibid., p.121.
[720] Ibid., pp.121-122.
[730] *KQBA*, Op cit., pp.120-121.
[740] undocumented at this time.
[750] See Kikawada and Quinn, pp. 115-116.
[760] Ibid., p.108-109.

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