The Book of the Generations of Adam

For many, the book of Genesis is a collection of myths passed down through oral tradition from one superstitious generation to the next. One such person, Paul N. Tobin, writes “creationism, and the corresponding creation myths in Genesis, is demonstrably false.”[1] As a result, the truths of Genesis are rejected leaving modern man with no Creator. Having denied the Genesis account, they have only organic, random processes to account for man’s existence. Without Genesis they are unable to explain the evil in the world. Circumstances or organic maladies are all that are left to account for man’s selfish behavior.  Man, they say, is good and given the correct set of circumstances, he will always choose to do right. Of course, having rejected Scripture they have no way to define “right.” The definition must be left to the interpretation of the individual or to a group of individuals powerful enough to enforce their understanding of right on the masses.

Who wrote Genesis?

Responding to the claim that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, Mr. Tobin states that, “nowhere in any of these books is there any allusion to itself being written by the Jewish prophet.” Certainly, when it comes to the book of Genesis his claim is accurate. But should this fact cause us to doubt the authenticity of the Genesis account? Not when we understand how the book came to be.

Counting Sheep

Genesis chapter five claims to be “the book of the generations of Adam.” But is it? The word “book” is the Hebrew word sêpher meaning “writing.” It is “bill” in the phrase “bill of divorcement” found in Deuteronomy 24:1 and “letter” in 2 Samuel 11:14. Strong’s says that the root of sêpher is saphar, which means “to score with a mark as a tally or record…”[2] I can imagine an ancient scene where an old shepherd wants to make an account of his heard. He finds a conveniently narrow spot in a narrow gulley where he can run the sheep through one at a time. As the sheep run by him he takes a sharp knife or other such tool and scratches a mark in a near by stone wall. This “scoring with a mark” as he counts the sheep is “saphar” which became sêpher or writing.  One translation interprets Genesis 5:1 this way; “This is the written account of Adam and his descendants.” But do not be too quick to come to any conclusions about what this means. Read on…

The Book of Generations

“Generations” is toledoth in the Hebrew. This is a very important word in Genesis. Donald Wiseman, Professor of Assyriology at the University of London, commenting on the importance of the toledoth writes, "... for so significant did the Septuagint[3] translators regard it, that they gave the whole book the title 'Genesis'"[4], which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word toledoth. So if you look up the word translated “generations” in Matthew 1:1, you will discover that it is the Greek word “genesis.” According to Wikipedia, this word has “the meanings of ‘birth’, ‘creation’, ‘cause’, ‘beginning’, ‘source’ and ‘origin.’”[5] Now you know where the Old Testament book “Genesis” got its name. It is the book of “generations” so thus it is titled. We are often told that Genesis is “the book of beginnings” but it might be more correct to say that it is “the book of generations.”

The book of Genesis is the first of "the five books of Moses" called the Pentateuch (Greek) or Torah (Hebrew). It is assumed by most Christians and Jews that Moses was the author of these five books. There is contextual evidence within these five books that suggest that more than one author recorded the events of "the five books of Moses". At some point in history, possibly during the time of Ezra, these separate recorded events were combined into one cohesive narrative giving us the books we know today as "the five books of Moses".[6]

Back to the Toledoth

Many Bible scholars have long considered the toledoth formula  “the book of the generations of” to be the introduction or heading to what followed. However, in more recent years they have come to realize that the toledoth is, in fact, a colophon[7] phrase. That is, this phrase when used in Genesis is used “to point back to the origins of the family history.”[8] According to Damien F. Mackey this was a common practice in Mesopotamia where “It was customary for the ancient scribes to add a colophon note at the end of the account, giving particulars of title, date, and the name of the writer or owner, together with other details relating to the contents of a tablet, manuscript or book.”[9] Today we use the first or title page of a document for such data “But in ancient documents the colophon with its important literary information was added in a very distinctive manner.” Mackey says that understanding the use of the toledoth is the “MASTER KEY to the method of compilation that underlies the structure of the Book of Genesis.”

Lest we become confused by the fact that, in Matthew’s genealogy, the toledoth appears as the first sentence Damien Mackey points out that list of ancestors follows "The book of the generations of Jesus Christ", the phrase certainly was not used to indicate what followed was Jesus’ descendants but rather it was used to trace his genealogy back to its origins.[10] This is true for the phrase “book of the generations” used in Genesis. In each case what precedes the phrase is an account of a patriarch’s genealogy back to its origins.

Tablets and Pictographs

But what was the purpose for this colophon phrase, the toledoth? One of the biggest mistakes that students of the Bible make when they study is to forget that what we call the Old Testament and the Jews called the Torah was given by God to a people that lived, in some cases, more then 4000 years ago. While they were every bit as intelligent and sophisticated as we are they did not have access to many of the technological advancements that we enjoy today. What we might consider to be the simplest of tools were not available to them. Take, for example the lead pencil. This simple writing tool did not come into existence until around 1560.[11] We know, too, that 4000 years ago men used clay tablets as the “paper” of the day. The ancient Hebrews wrote on such clay tablets using pictographs. These were pictures used to represent a word or phrase. We have seen the pictograph for “elo’ah” and “el” both of which are translated as “God” in our English Bibles.

 The word “el” was originally written with two pictographic letters (on right above), one being an ox head and the other a shepherd staff.[12] An author would sêpher (write) this pictograph “words” on to clay tablets to record an event. Mackey quotes Professor Wiseman: "We must realize that the 'books' of antiquity were tablets, and that the earliest records of Genesis claim to have been written down, and not, as is often imagined, passed on to Moses by word of mouth".

Toledoth to the Rescue

Now imagine that you were going to record a lengthy account. You might end up with something like the Mesopotamian clay tablet at the right. This tablet dates to 3000 BC. Scratched on it is a list of different types of metal containers. Suppose you had created a number of such clay tablets in order to record many list of perhaps, not metal containers, but multiple related events such as we find in Genesis. How do you ensure that these tablets are correctly arranged and identified? That is where the toledoth comes in. You could place a statement such as “These are the generations of…” at the end of a narrative thus providing the necessary identifying information required to ensure you knew who wrote it and for what purpose it was written, much as might appear on the title page of a document today.

After recording several accounts are written onto several clay tablets, each with the toledoth appended to the end, the tablets could be easily collected and arranged into their proper order. This, it would appear, is the method used to record and collect the various sections of the book of Genesis.

Dr. Edward Chiera, professor of Assyriology at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, authored a book in 1938 titled "They Wrote on Clay.” According to Wikipedia.com his book is, “full of practical information and insights on how the clay tablets were made and used from at least 5000 years ago.” It is very clear on the accurate parallels to be drawn between the clay records and the OT versions, regarding such things as the adoption of sons in the account of Abraham, and the true value of the family idols stolen by Rachel from her father Laban, which conferred property rights on her husband Jacob.

The Supporting Facts

Wiseman had been able to provide two remarkable confirmations of the accuracy of his Toledoth thesis. These were that:

1.    "In no instance is an event recorded which the person or persons named could not have written from his (their) own intimate knowledge, or have obtained absolutely reliable information".  

2.    "It is most significant that the history recorded in the sections outlined above ceases in all instances before the death of the person named, yet in most cases it is continued almost up to the date of death, or to the date on which it is stated that the tablets were written".

Mackey gives this summary of the three important things to be learned about the Toledoth, colophon phrase:

1.    it is the concluding sentence, not the beginning, of each section and therefore points back to a narrative already recorded;

2.    the earliest records claim to have been written;

3.    it normally refers to the writer of the history or the owner of the tablets containing it. 

Indestructible Clay

Time.com quotes Professor Chiera, "Clay is practically indestructible." TIME then writes, “This is especially true if the clay has been baked, as some of the cuneiform[13] writings were. Unbaked clay crumbles if left to weather on the surface, but if buried in moist ground it remains intact indefinitely. If it is dirty, it can be brushed vigorously without hurting the writing. In the mounds which were piled up by the debris of Babylonian cities built one on top of another the author estimates that 99% of history's cuneiform writings still await discovery. The Babylonians and Assyrians wrote a great deal—records of lawsuits, family archives, commercial ledgers, domestic inventories; contracts, bills of sale; schoolbooks; legends of goods and achievements of kings.”[14] 

Who wrote Genesis?

The answer is that those who were eye witnesses to the events recorded in Genesis. While we accept the truths of Genesis “by faith” we need not do so without reason. Curt Sewell writes that “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.”

The process would work something like this:

Each eyewitness would have recorded what he experienced until the entire collection was compiled by Moses into one coherent whole we call The Book of Genesis.

What does this mean to me?

In many areas of the world Christianity, as perceived by outsiders and as practiced by its adherents, is a faith of superstition. Christians, the world over, pray, in vain, to long dead “saints” who are supposed to protect and provide. They believe that, somehow, during their communion services, “the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ.”[15] One blogger writes, “I submit that the church is drunk and drowning from Christian superstition.”[16] He points to the “use of amulets, magic charms, potions and the like all part of our insatiable drive to control our own destinies.” As Nathan says, one needs only to visit the closest Christian bookstore to see the array of “"God wants you to be happy" books written by authors who have “folded into paper swans, and set sail on the sea of superstition” verses of Scripture ripped from their context. Millions of otherwise thinking, rational Christians buy into the messages of the charlatans claiming to practice the “gift of healing” which, prior to the “dispensation of the grace of God,”[17] was given to those who believed the Good News of the Kingdom, acknowledged Jesus as the promised Messiah and submitted to the baptism of John (see Mark 16:15-18). As a result, Christianity is made a laughing stock. How many superstitiously believe that if they give at least 10% of their income to their church, God will “bless” them. They believe they will be supernaturally protected from the difficulties and dilemmas that beset those who aren’t as righteous.

I could go on put the point is that Christianity is a rational, logical faith when rightly-divided and practiced. Christians are to be thoughtful, well read and capable of giving and answer for the reason for their faith. The Bible is historically and scientifically accurate. The toledoth is only one example of this fact.