Some more on the Biblical case a gap between Gen 1 and Gen 2....thanks to the third party contributor. 3. The structure of Genesis. The structure of Genesis is marked by an initial section and then 11 sections with headings. The major structural word is ṯôleḏôṯ (“these are the generations of . . . ”). It is a feminine noun from yālaḏ (from the causative form of the verb “to bear, to generate”). The noun is often translated “generations, histories,” or “descendants.” Francis Brown, S.R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs explain it as “account[s] of men and their descendants” (A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972, p. 410). The NIV translates it “account.” This word has been traditionally viewed as a heading of a section. According to this view the book has the following arrangement: 1. Creation (1:1-2:3) 2. Ṭôleḏôṯ of the heavens and the earth (2:4-4:26) 3. Ṭôleḏôṯ of Adam (5:1-6:8) 4. Ṭôleḏôṯ of Noah (6:9-9:29) 5. Ṭôleḏôṯ of Shem, Ham, and Japheth (10:1-11:9) 6. Ṭôleḏôṯ of Shem (11:10-26) 7. Ṭôleḏôṯ of Terah (11:27-25:11) 8. Ṭôleḏôṯ of Ishmael (25:12-18) 9. Ṭôleḏôṯ of Isaac (25:19-35:29) 10. Ṭôleḏôṯ of Esau (36:1-8) 11. Ṭôleḏôṯ of Esau, father of the Edomites (36:9-37:1) 12. Ṭôleḏôṯ of Jacob (37:2-50:26) The views on this arrangement vary. For example, Speiser takes ṯôleḏôṯ as a heading in all places except 2:4; 25:19; and 37:2. In these places he suggests it means “story” or “history” and that it refers to the preceding not the following narrative (Genesis, p. xxiv). Skinner, however, doubts that this word could be used in reference to what preceded; he says that it served as a heading (Genesis, pp. 39-40). As stated earlier, since ṯôleḏôṯ is derived from yālaḏ (“to bear, to generate”) it refers to what is “brought forth.” This formula word for Genesis, then, marks a starting point, combining narrative and genealogy to move from the one point (ṯôleḏôṯ) to the end (the next ṯôleḏôṯ). It is Moses’ means of moving along the historical lines from a beginning to an ending, including the product or result of the starting point. S.R. Driver explained that the word referred to “the particulars about a man and [his] descendants” (The Book of Genesis. London: Methuen & Co., 1904, p. 19). Some do not agree with this traditional approach that each ṯôleḏôṯ is a heading. P.J. Wiseman and R.K. Harrison suggest that these are similar to the colophons on clay tablets and refer to the preceding material in the narrative (Wiseman, New Discoveries in Babylonia about Genesis. London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1937, p. 8; Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament, p. 548). They think the Genesis traditions were recorded on clay tablets and finally collected into the present form of Genesis. Wiseman argues that the Genesis ṯôleḏôṯ are like the Babylonian colophons in that each contains a title, date of the writing, serial number, and statement of the completion of a series (if it completes one), and the scribe or owner’s name (Creation Revealed in Six Days. London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1949, p. 46). This view is unconvincing, however. The colophons on the tablets are not like the ṯôleḏôṯ of Genesis (see, e.g., Alexander Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963, pp. 25, 30; A. L. Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964, pp. 240-1). In the cuneiform tablets each title is a repetition of that tablet’s first line and not a description of its contents. Also the owner’s name seems to refer to the present owner, not the original owner. Moreover, the Akkadian equivalent of ṯôleḏôṯ is not used in the formula. If the Genesis ṯôleḏôṯ are references to what had immediately preceded the phrase, then the statement in Genesis 5:1 should have come at 4:16, at the end of the story of Adam and not later after the intervening material in 4:17-26. Another passage that would be improbable as a concluding form is 10:1, the ṯôleḏôṯ of the sons of Noah. But it is unlikely that it concludes the Flood and the curse, especially in view of 10:32. Besides these problems of harmonization is the difficulty of having the story of Abraham preserved by Ishmael (the ṯôleḏôṯ of Ishmael would be the colophon concluding that preceding history), having Isaac keep Ishmael’s archives, Esau those of Jacob, and Joseph those of Jacob. Nowhere in the Old Testament does ṯôleḏôṯ clearly refer to what has preceded; in every place it can and often must refer to what follows (e.g., in Ruth 4:18 the word looks forward to Perez’s line, and in Num. 3:1 the ṯôleḏôṯ of Aaron and Moses cannot refer to the preceding census in Num. 1-2). In Genesis when the ṯôleḏôṯ are taken to refer to the following sections, these ṯôleḏôṯ fit nicely. Also Genesis 2:4 includes a heading for the following section. Wiseman himself avows that 2:1-3 forms a natural conclusion for the Creation account. Genesis 2:4a would then be the heading and 2:4b would be the beginning dependent clause (much like the beginning of the Enuma Elish: “When above . . . ”). This structure is similar to 5:1, as seen in these two verses: “These are the ṯôleḏôṯ of the heavens and the earth when they were created. When Yahweh God made earth and heaven . . . ” (2:4, author’s trans.). “This is the book of the ṯôleḏôṯ of Adam. When God created man . . . ” (5:1, author’s trans.). The fact that “Yahweh God” is used throughout 2:4-3:24 also leads one to connect the contents of that passage with the title in 2:4. (However, evidences of some tailpieces—expressions other than ṯôleḏôṯ, which are virtually colophons—in Gen.—do exist in 10:5, 20, 31-32. Also 25:16 concludes vv. 12-16; 36:19 concludes vv. 1-19; 36:30b concludes vv. 20-30; and 36:43 concludes all of chap. 36.) The ṯôleḏôṯ heading introduces the historical result of an ancestor and could be loosely rendered, “This is what came of . . .” or “This is where it started from” (with reference to the following term) (M.H. Woudstra, “The Toledot of the Book of Genesis and Their Redemptive-Historical Significance,” Calvin Theological Journal 5. 1970:187). In Genesis 2:4, then, ṯôleḏôṯ introduces the historical result of the cosmos, and 2:4-4:26 presents what became of the heavens and the earth. What follows, of course, is the story of the Fall, the murder of Abel, and the development of sin within civilization. The story does not present another Creation account; instead, it carries the account from the point of the climax of Creation (reiterated in chap. 2) to the corruption of Creation by sin. This is “what became of it.” When the crucial passages in the Old Testament are looked at in this way, this definition is the most satisfactory. The term cannot be restricted to mean a “genealogy” because the contexts are frequently more than that. Nor does the word depict only biographies or histories, because the narratives certainly do not follow that through. The narratives depict what became of “so and so” in the details relevant to the purpose of Genesis. The ṯôleḏôṯ of Terah is not about Terah, but is primarily concerned with what became of Terah, namely, Abraham and his kin. The ṯôleḏôṯ of Isaac has Jacob at its center, with other parts relating to Esau. The ṯôleḏôṯ of Jacob traces the family from him through the life of Joseph. The name following the ṯôleḏôṯ is usually the starting point, not the central character, in the narrative. So in this commentary the phrase will be translated, “this is the succession from. . . .” Two additional observations may be made about the material in each succession section. One is that in the tracing of each line there is also a narrowing process. After the new beginnings with Noah, the writer supplied the ṯôleḏôṯ of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. But immediately afterward, the ṯôleḏôṯ of Shem is selected. The next ṯôleḏôṯ is that of Terah, a descendant of Shem. This account is concerned with the life of Abraham. The line then narrows to Isaac, the son of Abraham, but the ṯôleḏôṯ of Ishmael, the line not chosen, is given first. The same development holds true of the next generation; before the ṯôleḏôṯ of Jacob is developed, Esau is dealt with. A second observation is that the material within each ṯôleḏôṯ is a microcosm of the development of the Book of Genesis itself, with the motifs of blessing and cursing playing a dominant role. Within each of the first several ṯôleḏôṯ is a deterioration to cursing until 12:1-2, where the message moves to the promise of blessing. From this point on there is a constant striving for the place of blessing, but still with each successive narrative there is deterioration, for Isaac and Jacob did not measure up to Abraham. Consequently at the end of Genesis the family is not in the land of blessing but in Egypt. Kidner expressed this development by stating the “man had traveled far from Eden to a coffin, and the chosen family far from Canaan to Egypt” (Genesis, p. 224). _______________________________________________________ Walvoord, J. F., Zuck, R. B., & Dallas Theological Seminary. (1983-c1985). The Bible knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures (22). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
Posted on: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 23:11:27 +0000
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