by
Damien F. Mackey
A friend has e-mailed the following:
…. I came across these criticisms on wikipedia of Wiseman's hypothesis. I don't think I've ever come across a proper criticism of it before. Any response? We are about to cover the toledoth in class.
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.[11]
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.[12] 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.[13] ….
[End of e-mail]
My response:
In an article leading into an account of the solutions offered by Wiseman’s theory, one reads:
The Toledoth Mystery
That said, some mystery also surrounds this term. To the modern reader, the most natural way to look at a toledoth phrase would be as a subject introduction. One would expect a phrase like the “account of the heavens and the earth when they were created” (2:4) to introduce an account of the creation of the heavens and the earth. One would expect the “book of the account of Adam” (5:1) to introduce an account about Adam. One would expect the “account of Jacob” (37:2) to introduce an account about Jacob. The problem is, they don’t.
The first occurrence of a toledoth phrase is found in Genesis 2:4. “This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created….” But rather than introducing a creation account, it introduces the account about the Garden of Eden. So why isn’t it called the account of Eden? Another example is the account of Terah (11:27). One might expect it to introduce an account of Terah’s life, but what follows is an account of Abraham’s life, with only insignificant mentions of Terah. One might wonder why it wasn’t called the account of Abraham. And perhaps the most obvious example is found in Gen. 37:2. It reads,
“This is the account of Jacob.
Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers….”
Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers….”
After the initial introduction of Jacob, a long narrative about Joseph’s life begins. So why not “the account of Joseph.”? Why would a large account of Joseph’s life be titled as Jacob’s account?
Some commentators explain this by preferring the translation “generations.” Perhaps the toledoth statements are introductions of the generations which come from the patriarchs mentioned. Thus the toledoth of Terah would be about one or more of his descendants, as would the toledoth of Jacob. But this explanation doesn’t work consistently. The toledoth of Noah (6:9a), for instance, is followed by an actual account of Noah (with only insignificant mentions of his sons).
Other commentators understand the toledoth as introductions to genealogies. Both Adam’s and Shem’s toledoth phrases are followed by genealogies (5:1, 11:10), and the toldedoth of Noah’s sons is followed by the Table of Nations (10:1). But the majority are not followed by genealogies, in fact, most precede narratives.
And, perhaps, most puzzling of all, why doesn’t Abraham have a toledoth introduction? He is, without question, the most significant patriarch in Genesis. The mystery deepens.
[End of quote]
It is unwise to try to interpret ancient biblical texts with a modernised, global mentality.
As I wrote, for instance, in my article:
Was the Flood literally global?
‘Creationists’ will take biblical phrases such as “the whole earth”, or “all flesh”, and bestow upon these a universal or global status – intending the entire globe.
At least they do so when it suits them, such as in the case of the Flood or Babel.
For they are not consistent. If they were they would have the Queen of the South, who came “from the ends of the earth” (Matthew 12:42), making her way northwards from somewhere in the southern hemisphere.
And how do they account for the fact that, at Pentecost, people “from every nation under heaven” are actually listed as being inhabitants of only a very small part of the global world – basically, Rome, Crete, and Egypt, through Syria and Turkey, to Mesopotamia? (Acts 2:5-11):
Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God’.
The misinterpretation of the ancient texts by modern (say, Western) minds in regard to the Flood is well explained in the following piece by Rich Deem:
The Genesis Flood
Why the Bible Says It Must be Local
Why the Bible Says It Must be Local
Many Christians maintain that the Bible says that the flood account of Genesis requires an interpretation that states that the waters of the flood covered the entire earth. If you read our English Bibles, you will probably come to this conclusion if you don't read the text too closely and if you fail to consider the rest of your Bible. Like most other Genesis stories, the flood account is found in more places than just Genesis. If you read the sidebar, you will discover that Psalm 104 directly eliminates any possibility of the flood being global (see Psalm 104-9 - Does it refer to the Original Creation or the Flood?). In order to accept a global flood, you must reject Psalm 104 and the inerrancy of the Bible. If you like to solve mysteries on your own, you might want to read the flood account first and find the biblical basis for a local flood. ….
The afore-mentioned globalists typically interpret the famous Tower of Babel incident as if having affected all of humanity, but the geography given in the Genesis 11:2 account is, in fact, extremely limited, “a plain in the land of Shinar”.
“Shinar” is better identified as the fertile region of NE Syria rather than the traditional Sumer in southern Mesopotamia. See e.g. my article:
Tightening the Geography and Archaeology for Early Genesis
Now, by the time of Abram at least, the land of Canaan was a cross-roads of the nations.
The First Dynasty of Egypt had come into collision with the powerful Akkadian (from “Shinar’) dynasty of Sargon the Great, with pharaoh Menes having been defeated by Sargon’s grandson, Naram-Sin (see my):
– who, I think, may well be the biblical “Amraphel … king of Shinar” of Genesis 14:1.
Abram lived amongst Hittites and Canaanites. He knew at least the king of Sodom of the Pentapolitan kings (14:21) who were attacked and defeated by Amraphel’s eastern coalition including “Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam and Tidal king of Goyim”.
Many local nations suffered at the hands of this coalition (14:5-7):
Chedorlaomer and the kings allied with him went out and defeated the Rephaites in Ashteroth Karnaim, the Zuzites in Ham, the Emites in Shaveh Kiriathaim and the Horites in the hill country of Seir, as far as El Paran near the desert. Then they turned back and went to En Mishpat (that is, Kadesh), and they conquered the whole territory of the Amalekites, as well as the Amorites who were living in Hazezon Tamar.
Moses, for his part, who “was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds” (Acts 7:22), was brought up firstly by his Hebrew mother, who weaned him (Exodus 2:7-9). Thus he would have been fluent in Hebrew and he knew that he certainly was a Hebrew. If I am right in identifying Moses in Egypt as the Chief Judge and Vizier, Weni:
Moses a Judge in Egypt
then Acts 7:22 was not exaggerating Moses’ greatness, he being “possibly even a genius”:
Weni rose through the ranks of the military to become commander in chief of the army. He was considered by both his contemporaries and many Egyptologists to have been a brilliant tactician and possibly even a genius. His victories earned him the privilege of being shown leading the troops into battle, a right usually reserved for pharaohs.
Weni is the first person, other than a pharaoh, known to have been portrayed in this manner. Many of his battles were in the Levant and the Sinai. He is said to have pursued a group of Bedouins all the way to Mount Carmel. He battled a Bedouin people known as the sand-dwellers at least five times.[2]
He was therefore no stranger to the Holy Land, “Mount Carmel”, which land he must have visited many times after his exile from Egypt to the land of Midian (for 40 years’ duration).
Moses would also have been highly literate, perhaps more than anyone at that time on earth.
Previously I wrote on this:
Weni’s famous “Autobiography” has been described as, amongst other superlatives (https://books.google.com.au/books?id=sgoVryxihuMC&pg=PA352&lpg=PA352&dq=the): “… the best-known biographical text of the Old Kingdom and has been widely discussed, as it is important for literary and historical reasons; it is also the longest such document”. This marvellous piece of ancient literature, conventionally dated to c. 2330 BC – and even allowing for the revised re-dating of it to a bit more than half a millennium later – completely gives the lie to the old JEDP theory, that writing was not invented until about 1000 BC. ….
From all of this, one would think that Abram (Abraham), that Moses, must have been able to have interpreted various diverse languages. They both seemed to have no trouble conversing with people of other ethnicities.
And it makes perfect sense that, now Ishmael, now Isaac, would have written separate accounts of their father Abram (Abraham). The two accounts of Sarai’s (Sarah’s) abduction by Pharaoh, by Abimelech, are simply just the one incident by two different authors: one recorded by a person from an Egyptian-ised perspective (fittingly Ishmael) and the other recorded by a person from a Palestinian-ised perspective (fittingly Isaac). See my article:
Toledôt Explains Abram's Pharaoh
So why is it an “unlikely" explanation that "Ishmael was responsible for preserving the history of Abraham"? Ishmael was a great man (Genesis 17:20): ‘As for Ishmael … I will bless him, and will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall become the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation’.
Had not Ishmael’s Egyptian (16:1) mother been visited by an angel? (16:7).
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