Curt Sewella
Many pastors, writers, and even seminary professors rely on the “JEDP Documentary Hypothesis” to explain how the book of Genesis was originally written, (See Bible & Spade, Spring 1993, page 34.) This concept says that for many centuries the stories were passed down orally, usually with embellishments or deletions, and were not committed to writing until much later than the events they describe. Naturally, this idea does not inspire confidence in the literal accuracy of the account. It is favored by theologians of a liberal bent.
In contrast, the “Tablet Theory” suggests that portions of Genesis were originally written on clay tablets by men who personally experienced the events described. The tablets were later compiled by Moses. Since the original writers were said to be eye-witnesses, their accounts should be historically accurate.
This article briefly describes the development and implications of these two theories.
Why Religious Liberalism?
Why did so many theologians become critical of Biblical truth? Do they have any scientific basis for their doubts? Not really. Doubting criticism started on a large scale with G.W.F. Hegel (1770–1831), a German philosopher who taught that religion, like the rest of civilization, developed gradually. He said that primitive “cave-men” began a polytheistic worship of the things around them. Later, he said, higher concepts such as a supreme God evolved in people’s minds.
A quasi-scientific basis for retreat from Biblical authority took root when, in 1830, Charles Lyell published Principles of Geology, which first described the so-called “Geologic Column.” Here the age of a rock stratum was supposedly given by the types of fossils which it contains. This idea set the stage for Charles Darwin’s publication, in 1859, of his famous Origin of Species. His organic evolution theory captured the imagination of most scientists.
There is no real technical basis for not believing the Bible as it was written. Nowhere does the Biblical text mention anything that implies evolution, nor is there any Biblical incident that’s been absolutely proven wrong. The only reason to doubt the clear text of the Bible is an attempt to compromise with secularism, and its rejection of God. But most evolutionary scientists object just as much to theistic evolution as they do to miraculous creation. And most theologians don’t really understand the philosophical principles of evolution — they don’t realize that you cannot attribute a
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secular theory to God. This compromise does not really work, and it is a dangerous path to follow.
The Documentary Hypothesis
Evolutionary theories influenced Hegel’s student, theologian K.H. Graf (1815–1868), and his student Julius Well-hausen (1844–1918). From an idea first proposed by Jean Astruc (1684–1766) they developed the “JEDP Documentary Hypothesis” of higher criticism, which said that the early sections of the Old Testament could not have been written during the times they described. They believed this because they mistakenly thought writing had not evolved until about 1000 BC. Therefore they assumed wrongly (again) that sagas, epics, poetry, etc. which later were used to compose the Bible were passed down orally for millenia. The result was that the early books of the Bible were written by various unknown scribes during the Divided Kingdom era beginning about 800 BC, and continued until after the Babylonian Exile.
CLAY TABLET CONTAINING A BABYLONIAN CHRONICLE, NOW PRESERVED IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM
These books are said to have been compiled or redacted from stories, or documents, which were distinguished by the name used for God. The J-Document used the name Jehovah, the E-Document used Elohim, while the D and P documents were named for Deuteronomic and Priestly. This teaching led many people to lose confidence in the Bible’s authenticity.
Archaeological Discoveries
Did Hegel, Graf, Wellhausen, etc. have any good basis for their JEDP theory? No, there has never been any trace of the “documents” they refer to (Jehovist, Elohist, Deuteronomic, and Priestly), and even in their day there had been some good archaeological finds that contradicted the very basis of their theory — that early writing was unknown. More recently, scholars and archaeologists have uncovered excellent proofs of the truth of the Bible’s historicity. There have been complete ancient libraries uncovered, and enough translations made to confirm Biblical events described in the life of the patriarchs. Many of these libraries date from far before Abraham’s time. Excavations at Ebla, Mari, and Nuzi have all yielded much confirmation of Old Testament history. The Mari archives contained actual names used in the Bible — Peleg, Terah, Abram, Jacob, Laban, and others. These cannot be linked directly with Biblical characters, but they do show that those names were in use early.
The Nuzi archive had some 20,000 clay tablets; many were legal documents describing laws and customs of the land. They explain a number of Biblical incidents
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that used to seem strange to us, but were simply normal customs for that era.
The Tablet Theory
During his tour of duty in Mesopotamia, where much of the earliest Bible activity took place, Air Commodore P.J. Wiseman became interested in the archaeology of that area, and especially in the many ancient clay tablets that had been dated to long before the time of Abraham. He recognized that they held the key to the original writings of the early Bible, and especially the book of Genesis. He published Ancient Records and the Structure of Genesis in 1936. More recently his son, Professor of Assyriology D.J. Wiseman, updated and revised his father’s book.1
He found that most of the old clay tablets had “colophon phrases” at the end; these named the writer or owner of the tablet; they had words to identify the subject, and often some sort of dating phrase. If multiple tablets were involved, there were also “catch-lines” to connect a tablet to its next in sequence. Many of these old records related to family histories and origins, which were evidently highly important to those ancient people. Wiseman noticed the similarity of many of these to the sections of the book of Genesis. Many scholars have noticed that Genesis is divided into sections, separated by phrases that are translated “These are the generations of…” The Hebrew word used for “generation” is toledoth, which means “history, especially family history … the story of their origin.”2 Most scholars have recognized that these “toledoth phrases” must be important, but they have been misled by assuming incorrectly that these are the introduction to the text that follows. (Several modern translations have even garbled these phrases.) This has led to serious questions, because in several cases they don’t seem to fit. For example, Genesis 37:2 begins, “These are the generations of Jacob.. .” But from that spot on, the text describes Joseph and his brothers, and almost nothing about Jacob, who was the central character in the previous section. However, Wiseman saw that the colophons in the ancient tablets always were at the end, not the beginning. He applied this idea to the toledoth phrases in Genesis, and found that in every case it suddenly made good sense. The text just preceding the phrase “These are the generations of. . .” contained information about events that the man named in that phrase would have known. That person would be the logical one to write that part. In other words, each toledoth phrase contains the name of the man who probably wrote the text preceding that phrase. Or, in still other words, the book of Genesis consists of a set of tablets, each of which was written by an actual eye-witness to the events described. These tablets were finally compiled by Moses. Enough archaeological confirmation has been found so that historians now consider the Old Testament, at least that part after about the eleventh chapter of Genesis, to be historically correct. It seems strange that seminary professors often still teach the old “doubtful criticism” theories, even though the basis on which they were started has now been thoroughly discredited.
Tablets Lead To Better Understanding
As an example of how the Tablet Theory can assist our understanding, consider the common accusation that a conflict exists between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, in terms of the sequence of creative actions. This criticism is not valid, since Chapter 2 does not attempt to say “This happened and then that happened.” This apparent conflict is partly because of peculiarities in words; it only shows up in some languages. The English language has definite past, present, and future tenses for its verbs, but Hebrew (the language of Genesis) does not. In Hebrew, the relative timing
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must be taken from the context, not the actual words themselves. In Chapter 1, the timing is definitely stated — these events took place on the sixth day, and in the order stated (animals, then man and woman). This chapter is written from the Creator’s viewpoint (on His tablet), and outlines the exact things He did. But in Chapter 2, there are no timing statements. This chapter is written from a different viewpoint (probably by Adam himself), and describes events as he saw them. He first told of the huge task that he had been given by God (naming the animals) and how he did that. These verses show that Adam was a very intelligent person and a knowledgeable biologist, not the ignorant “cave-man” that some people imagine. The Hebrew words in Genesis 2:19 could have been translated, “And out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast. . .” It seems to this writer that Adam simply put verses 19 and 20 (naming the animals) at this spot for his own convenience, not for indicating sequential action, so that he could then move on to the more pressing matter of the establishment of the human home, family, and population growth. He went on to describe the creation of his wife (which had happened previously), and then moved smoothly into their activities together.
TABLET DIVISIONS
Tablet No.
Starting Verse
Ending Verse
Owner or Writer
1
Genesis 1:1
thru
Genesis 2:4a
God Himself?
2
Genesis 2:4b
thru
Genesis 5:1a
Adam
3
Genesis 5:1b
thru
Genesis 6:9a
Noah
4
Genesis 6:9b
thru
Genesis 10:1a
Shem, Ham & Japheth
5
Genesis 10:1b
thru
Genesis 11:10a
Shem
6
Genesis 11:10b
thru
Genesis 11:27a
Terah
7
Genesis 11:27b
thru
Genesis 25:19a
Isaac
8
Genesis 25:12
thru
Genesis 25:18
Ishmael, thru Isaac
9
Genesis 25:19b
thru
Genesis 37:2a
Jacob
10
Genesis 36:1
thru
Genesis 36:43
Esau, thru Jacob
11
Genesis 37:2b
thru
Exodus 1:6
Jacob’s 12 sons
Summary
The Tablet Theory is reasonable, it doesn’t violate any known fact, it offers a more satisfactory explanation of all the facts, it’s in good accord with other Scripture, and it adds the authenticity of being composed of eye-witness accounts. We would do well to just believe the simple teaching of the Bible, as God inspired it. To do otherwise is an insult to its Author, our Creator God.
For further information on this proposal, refer to Rethinking Genesis by Duane Garrett. The first chapter of his book was published in Bible and Spade, Volume 6, Number 2, Spring 1993.