The Tablet Theory of Genesis Authorship

Tags: JEDP, Genesis, Moses, Tablet Theory, Toledot, Pentateuch, PJ Wiseman--> This article was published in the Winter 1994 issue of Bible and Spade.Many pastors, writers, and even seminary professors rely on the “JEDP Documentary Hypothesis” to explain how the book of Genesis was originally written. 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 doesn’t tend to inspire confidence in the literal accuracy of the account. Thus it’s 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.Who Wrote Genesis?We’ll assume that most “good conservative Christians” probably agree that the Bible, at least in its original manuscript, was inspired by God, and is truth. The mechanics of this inspiration have been debated by many scholars, and we won’t go into them in this chapter, except to say that the basis for our belief that the Bible is the true and inspired Word of God lies in this work of the Holy Spirit of God, not the personal knowledge of the human writers. The Bible is not just an ancient piece of human literature.Having said that, the question that remains is “Who were the human authors? How did they know what to write? How did the little historical details get preserved?” Here we’ll restrict our discussion to the book of Genesis, which is the one most often criticised.The first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) are collectively called the Books of the Law, or the Torah, or the Books of Moses. Those last four books have many verses that attribute them directly to Moses. But he’s not even mentioned anywhere in the book of Genesis. Why is this?We’ll try to show in this little chapter that there’s considerable internal evidence, and some archaeological evidence, that Genesis was actually first written in sections, most likely on clay tablets, by a number of different men who were eye-witnesses to the actions described. These men signed their names at the bottom of their respective tablets, and later Moses compiled these tablets into what we call the “book of Genesis.”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 proven definitely 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 evolutionist scientists object just as much to theistic evolution as they do to miraculous creation. And most theologians don’t really understand the principles of evolution—they don’t realize that you can’t just shove God into the secular theory. This compromise attempt doesn’t really work, and it’s a dangerous path to follow.The Documentary HypothesisThese theories all influenced Hegel’s student, the theologian K.H. Graf (1815-1868), and his student Julius Wellhausen (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 parts of the Old Testament couldn’t have been written during the times they described.They based this on the belief that writing had not evolved until about 1000 BC.Therefore they assumed wrongly that sagas, epics, poetry etc. which were later used to compile the Bible were passed down orally for millenia.The result was that the early books of the Bible were said to have been written by various unknown teachers during the Divided Kingdom era, beginning about 800 BC, and continued until after the Babylonian Exile.These books are said to have been compiled or redacted from several stories, or documents, each of which could be 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 DiscoveriesDid 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 libraries uncovered, and enough translations made to confirm Biblical events described in the lives of the patriarchs. Several of these libraries date from long 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 these names were in use in those early days. The Nuzi archive had some 20,000 clay tablets; many were legal documents describing laws and customs of the land. These explain a number of Biblical incidents that used to seem strange to us, but they were simply the normal customs of that era.The Tablet TheoryDuring 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 to the Book of Genesis. He published his book in 1936. More recently his son, Professor of Assyriology D.J. Wiseman, updated and revised his father’s book: P.J. Wiseman, “Ancient Records and the Structure of Genesis” (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1985)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 &ldquo.