Wiseman hypothesis
Encyclopedia
The Wiseman hypothesis, sometimes called the tablet theory, is a theory of the authorship and composition of the Book of Genesis which suggests that Moses
compiled Genesis from tablets handed down through Abraham and the other patriarchs. Originally advocated by P. J. Wiseman (1888–1948) in his New discoveries in Babylonia about Genesis (1936) and republished by Wiseman's son, Donald Wiseman
, as Ancient records and the structure of Genesis: A case for literary unity in 1985, the hypothesis received some support from R. K. Harrison
(1969) but otherwise remained without acceptance in scholarly circles
.
which had a very specific format consisting of three parts; 1) "this has been the history/book/genealogy of...", 2) the name of the person who wrote or owned the table, and 3) a date (such as "in the year of the great earthquake," or "the 3rd year of king so-and-so", etc. Wiseman noted that there are eleven phrases in Genesis which have the same colophon format, which have long been identified as the toledoth (Hebrew for "generations") passages. What Wiseman brought new to the table was the idea that these apparent colophons indicated that Genesis had originally been a collection of narrative clay tablets written in cuneiform, like the ancient tablets he had seen, which Moses had edited into a single document on parchment or papyrus. This is in contrast with traditional views that Moses wrote Genesis entirely on his own without any outside sources and with the Documentary hypothesis
that Genesis was compiled by much later and unknown redactors.
Once a link had been made between the tolodoth in Genesis and the ancient colophons, another point became apparent. Just as the colophons came at the end of the narratives, so too, the tolodoths may come at the end of narratives. Thus the first of these toledoth passages, Genesis 2:4, refers to the preceding Creation account beginning in Genesis 1, rather than being the introduction to the succeeding account. The traditional understanding has been that since nearly all the tolodoths are immediately followed by a list of descendants of the person named in the tolodoth, then the tolodoths were though to be the beginning of sections in Genesis.
In his Creation Revealed in Six Days, P. J. Wiseman argued that the days of creation represented the time period in which God took to reveal his work of creation, and that Genesis 1 "is an account of what 'God said' about the things 'God made'... it is His revelation to men about His creative acts in time past."
, notably in his massive Introduction to the Old Testament, where he wrote, "His [Wiseman's] approach had the distinct advantage of relating the ancient Mesopotamian sources underlying Genesis to an authentic Mesopotamian life-situation, unlike the attempts of the Graf–Wellhausen school, and showed that the methods of writing and compilation employed in Genesis were in essential harmony with the processes current among the scribes of ancient Babylonia."
Harrison states that these examples are discounted by scholars who follow Wellhausen and the Documentary hypothesis, since the central basis of the Documentary hypothesis is that the Pentateuch is mostly a work composed by unknown editors and authors who lived much later than the time of Moses. R. K. Harrison asserts that this approach means these scholars often miss valuable information, as derived from archaeology and a knowledge of literary conventions in the ancient Near East, which helps explain the Biblical text.
noted in the foreword to the revised edition of his father’s book that since it had first been written (1936) many more colophons have been discovered among Babylonian cuneiform texts which substantiates the use of this scribal device. Texts from Syria and Mesopotaima show continuity in tradition of scribal education and literary practices for more than two millennia, giving fixed and dated points. He particularly values the implication of this theory on the early use of writing. Genesis 1-37 could be a transcript of the oldest written records.
Herbert M. Wolf
describes the theory as "an attractive one", but suggests that it has "serious shortcomings". Firstly, he suggests that toledoth almost always fit more naturally with the verses that they precede than with the verses that precede them. Secondly he doubts if Moses would be able to read writing made before the Tower of Babel
. Thirdly he also suggests that the pairings of preservers and preserved histories are "unlikely", given the "rivalry and jealousy" involved and the lack of contact between Esau and Jacob.
The Bible Knowledge Commentary: Old Testament says that Wiseman's view is "unconvincing" and distinguishes between the Babylonian colophons and the toledoth of Genesis, in that the colophon is a repetition, not a description of contents, the owner named is the current owner, not the original, and the colophons do not use the Akkadian equivalent of the toledoth as part of their formula.
Mosaic authorship
Mosaic authorship is the traditional attribution of the first five books of the Old Testament to Moses. The tradition is first definitively stated in the Babylonian Talmud, an encyclopedia of traditional Jewish learning compiled around the middle of the 1st millennium CE...
compiled Genesis from tablets handed down through Abraham and the other patriarchs. Originally advocated by P. J. Wiseman (1888–1948) in his New discoveries in Babylonia about Genesis (1936) and republished by Wiseman's son, Donald Wiseman
Donald Wiseman
Donald John Wiseman OBE, FBA was a Biblical scholar, archaeologist and Assyriologist. He was Professor of Assyriology at the University of London from 1961 to 1982.-Early life and beliefs:...
, as Ancient records and the structure of Genesis: A case for literary unity in 1985, the hypothesis received some support from R. K. Harrison
R. K. Harrison
Ronald Kenneth Harrison was an Old Testament scholar.Harrison studied at the University of London and taught at Clifton College, Bristol from 1947 to 1949, before his appointment as Hellmuth Professor of Old Testament Studies at Huron College, University of Western Ontario...
(1969) but otherwise remained without acceptance in scholarly circles
Biblical criticism
Biblical criticism is the scholarly "study and investigation of Biblical writings that seeks to make discerning judgments about these writings." It asks when and where a particular text originated; how, why, by whom, for whom, and in what circumstances it was produced; what influences were at work...
.
P. J. Wiseman
Air Commodore P. J. Wiseman, a British officer who visited many active archaeological sites during his career in the Middle East, found that ancient narrative tablets usually ended in colophonsColophon (publishing)
In publishing, a colophon is either:* A brief description of publication or production notes relevant to the edition, in modern books usually located at the reverse of the title page, but can also sometimes be located at the end of the book, or...
which had a very specific format consisting of three parts; 1) "this has been the history/book/genealogy of...", 2) the name of the person who wrote or owned the table, and 3) a date (such as "in the year of the great earthquake," or "the 3rd year of king so-and-so", etc. Wiseman noted that there are eleven phrases in Genesis which have the same colophon format, which have long been identified as the toledoth (Hebrew for "generations") passages. What Wiseman brought new to the table was the idea that these apparent colophons indicated that Genesis had originally been a collection of narrative clay tablets written in cuneiform, like the ancient tablets he had seen, which Moses had edited into a single document on parchment or papyrus. This is in contrast with traditional views that Moses wrote Genesis entirely on his own without any outside sources and with the Documentary hypothesis
Documentary hypothesis
The documentary hypothesis , holds that the Pentateuch was derived from originally independent, parallel and complete narratives, which were subsequently combined into the current form by a series of redactors...
that Genesis was compiled by much later and unknown redactors.
Once a link had been made between the tolodoth in Genesis and the ancient colophons, another point became apparent. Just as the colophons came at the end of the narratives, so too, the tolodoths may come at the end of narratives. Thus the first of these toledoth passages, Genesis 2:4, refers to the preceding Creation account beginning in Genesis 1, rather than being the introduction to the succeeding account. The traditional understanding has been that since nearly all the tolodoths are immediately followed by a list of descendants of the person named in the tolodoth, then the tolodoths were though to be the beginning of sections in Genesis.
In his Creation Revealed in Six Days, P. J. Wiseman argued that the days of creation represented the time period in which God took to reveal his work of creation, and that Genesis 1 "is an account of what 'God said' about the things 'God made'... it is His revelation to men about His creative acts in time past."
R. K. Harrison
Support for the Wiseman Hypothesis is found in the works on textual criticism and literary analysis of the Hebrew Bible by R. K. HarrisonR. K. Harrison
Ronald Kenneth Harrison was an Old Testament scholar.Harrison studied at the University of London and taught at Clifton College, Bristol from 1947 to 1949, before his appointment as Hellmuth Professor of Old Testament Studies at Huron College, University of Western Ontario...
, notably in his massive Introduction to the Old Testament, where he wrote, "His [Wiseman's] approach had the distinct advantage of relating the ancient Mesopotamian sources underlying Genesis to an authentic Mesopotamian life-situation, unlike the attempts of the Graf–Wellhausen school, and showed that the methods of writing and compilation employed in Genesis were in essential harmony with the processes current among the scribes of ancient Babylonia."
Harrison states that these examples are discounted by scholars who follow Wellhausen and the Documentary hypothesis, since the central basis of the Documentary hypothesis is that the Pentateuch is mostly a work composed by unknown editors and authors who lived much later than the time of Moses. R. K. Harrison asserts that this approach means these scholars often miss valuable information, as derived from archaeology and a knowledge of literary conventions in the ancient Near East, which helps explain the Biblical text.
Donald Wiseman
Donald WisemanDonald Wiseman
Donald John Wiseman OBE, FBA was a Biblical scholar, archaeologist and Assyriologist. He was Professor of Assyriology at the University of London from 1961 to 1982.-Early life and beliefs:...
noted in the foreword to the revised edition of his father’s book that since it had first been written (1936) many more colophons have been discovered among Babylonian cuneiform texts which substantiates the use of this scribal device. Texts from Syria and Mesopotaima show continuity in tradition of scribal education and literary practices for more than two millennia, giving fixed and dated points. He particularly values the implication of this theory on the early use of writing. Genesis 1-37 could be a transcript of the oldest written records.
Tablets in Genesis
This is a breakdown of Genesis into 'tablets' delineated by colophons according to Wiseman's theory.| Tablet | Genealogy | Narrative | Colophon | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Creation of Universe 1:1 | 1:2 to 2:3 | "This is the account of the heavens and of the earth when they were created." 2:4 | ||||
| 2 | Heavens and Earth 2:4 | 2:5 to 4:26 | "This is the written account of Adam." 5:1 | ||||
| 3 | Adam to Noah 5:1 - 32 | 6:1 - 8 | "This is the account of Noah." 6:9 | ||||
| 4 | Noah to Shem, Ham, and Japeth 6:9 - 10 | 6:11 to 9:29 | "This is the account of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, Noah's sons." 10:1 | ||||
| 5 | Descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japeth 10:1 - 32 | 11:1 - 9 | "This is the account of Shem." 11:10 | ||||
| 6 | Shem to Terah 11:10 - 26 | no narrative | "This is the account of Terah." 11:27 | ||||
| 7 | Terah to Abraham 11:27 | 11:28 to 25:11 | "This is the account of Abraham's son Ishmael." 25:12 (eldest son) | ||||
| 8 | Descendants of Ishmael 25:13 - 18 | no narrative | "This is the account of Abraham's son Isaac." 25:19 | ||||
| 9 | Abraham to Isaac 25:19 | 25:20 to 35:29 | "This is the account of Esau." 36:1 (eldest son) | ||||
| 10 | Descendants of Esau 36:2 - 5 | 36:6 - 8 | "This is the account of Esau." 36:9 | ||||
| 11 | Descendants of Esau 36:10 to 37:1 | no narrative | "This is the account of Jacob." 37:2 | ||||
| no genealogy | 37:2 to 50:26 | no colophon | |||||
| The statements immediately following each colophon would be the beginning of the next tablet; for example, Genesis 2:4 reads "When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens…" beginning Adam’s story. | |||||||
Reception
Biblical scholar Victor Hamilton states that Wiseman's hypothesis was "the first concerted attempt to challenge the hypothesis" of introductory colophons. Hamilton does however identify several problems with what he terms the "Wiseman-Harrison approach". Firstly, "in five instances where the formula precedes a genealogy ..., it is difficult not to include the colophon with what follows." Secondly, the approach requires the "unlikely" explanation that "Ishmael was responsible for preserving the history of Abraham", Isaac for Ishmael's history, Esau for Jacob's and Jacob for Esau's. The third problem he identifies is that Genesis is narrative not biographical, as that approach would suggest.Herbert M. Wolf
Herbert M. Wolf
Herbert Martin Wolf was an American Biblical scholar and professor of Old Testament.-Background and education:...
describes the theory as "an attractive one", but suggests that it has "serious shortcomings". Firstly, he suggests that toledoth almost always fit more naturally with the verses that they precede than with the verses that precede them. Secondly he doubts if Moses would be able to read writing made before the Tower of Babel
Tower of Babel
The Tower of Babel , according to the Book of Genesis, was an enormous tower built in the plain of Shinar .According to the biblical account, a united humanity of the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating from the east, came to the land of Shinar, where...
. Thirdly he also suggests that the pairings of preservers and preserved histories are "unlikely", given the "rivalry and jealousy" involved and the lack of contact between Esau and Jacob.
The Bible Knowledge Commentary: Old Testament says that Wiseman's view is "unconvincing" and distinguishes between the Babylonian colophons and the toledoth of Genesis, in that the colophon is a repetition, not a description of contents, the owner named is the current owner, not the original, and the colophons do not use the Akkadian equivalent of the toledoth as part of their formula.
See also
- Mosaic authorshipMosaic authorshipMosaic authorship is the traditional attribution of the first five books of the Old Testament to Moses. The tradition is first definitively stated in the Babylonian Talmud, an encyclopedia of traditional Jewish learning compiled around the middle of the 1st millennium CE...
- Documentary hypothesisDocumentary hypothesisThe documentary hypothesis , holds that the Pentateuch was derived from originally independent, parallel and complete narratives, which were subsequently combined into the current form by a series of redactors...
- Lower criticismTextual criticismTextual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts...
- Biblical criticismBiblical criticismBiblical criticism is the scholarly "study and investigation of Biblical writings that seeks to make discerning judgments about these writings." It asks when and where a particular text originated; how, why, by whom, for whom, and in what circumstances it was produced; what influences were at work...
- Dating the BibleDating the BibleThe Bible is a compilation of various texts of different ages. The dates of some of the texts of the Hebrew Bible are difficult to establish....