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refer to (Jehovist, Elohist, Deuteronomic, and scholars have recognized that these "toledoth phrases"
Priestly), and even in their day there had been some must be important, but they have been misled by as-
good archaeological finds that contradicted the very suming incorrectly that these are the introduction to
basis of their theory -- that early writing was unknown. the text that follows. (Several modern translations have
More recently, scholars and archaeologists have un- even garbled these phrases.) This has led to serious
covered excellent proofs of the truth of the Bible's questions, because in several cases they don't seem to
historicity. There have been complete ancient libraries fit. For example, Genesis 37:2 begins, "These are the
uncovered, and enough translations made to confirm generations of Jacob..." But from that spot on, the text
Biblical events described in the life of the patriarches. describes Joseph and his brothers, and almost nothing
Many of these libraries date from far before Abraham's about Jacob, who was the central character in the
time. Excavations at Ebla, Mari, and Nuzi have all previous section. However, Wiseman saw that the
yielded much confirmation of Old Testament history. colophon in the ancient tablets always were at the end,
The Mari archives contained actual names used in the not the beginning. He applied this idea to the toledoth
Bible -- Peleg, Terah, Abram, Jacob, Laban, and others. phrases in Genesis, and found that in every case it sud-
These cannot be linked directly with Biblical charac- denly made good sense. The text just preceding the
ters, but they do show that those names were in use phrase "These are the generations of..." contained in-
early. formation about events that the man named in that
phrase would have known. That person would be the
The Nuzi archive had some 20,000 clay tablets; many logical one to write that part. In other words, each
were legal documents describing laws and customs of toledoth phrase contains the name of the man who
the land. They explain a number of Biblical incidents probably wrote the text preceding that phrase. Or, in
that used to seem strange to us, but were simply nor- still other words, the book of Genesis consists of a set
mal customs for that era. of tablets, each of which was written by an actual eye-
witness to the events described. These tablets were fi-
The Tablet Theory nally compiled by Moses. Enough archaeological con-
firmation has been found so that historians now
consider the Old Testament, at least that part after
During his tour of duty in Mesopotamia, where much about the eleventh chapter of Genesis, to be histori-
of the earliest Bible activity took place, Air Commo- cally correct. It seems strange that seminary profes-
dore P.J. Wiseman became interested in the archaeol- sors often still teach the old "doubtful criticism"
ogy of that area, and especially in the many ancient theories, even though the basis on which they were
clay tablets that had been dated to long before the time started has now been thoroughly discredited.
of Abraham. He recognized that they held the key to
the original writings of the early Bible, and especially
the book of Genesis. He published Ancient Records Tablets Lead to Better Understanding
and the Structure of Genesis in 1936. More recently
his son, Professor of Assyriology D.J. Wiseman, up- As an example of how the Tablet Theory can assist our
dated and revised his father's book. understanding, consider the common accusation that a
conflict exists between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, in
terms of the sequence of creative actions. This criti-
He found that most of the old clay tablets had "colo-
phon phrases" at the end; these named the writer or cism is not valid, since Chapter 2 does not attempt to
owner of the tablet; they had words to identify the sub- say "This happened and then that happened." This appar-
ject, and often some sort of dating phrase. If multiple ent conflict is partly because of peculiarities in words;
tablets were involved, there were also "catch-lines" to it only shows up in some languages. The English lan-
connect a tablet to its next in sequence. Many of these guage has definite past, present, and future tenses for
old records related to family histories and origins, its verbs, but Hebrew (the language of Genesis) does
which were evidently highly important to those ancient not. In Hebrew, the relative timing must be taken from
people. Wiseman noticed the similarity of many of the context, not the actual words themselves. In Chap-
these to the sections of the book of Genesis. Many ter 1, the timing is definitely stated -- these events
scholars have noticed that Genesis is divided into sec- took place on the sixth day, and in the order stated
tions, separated by phrases that are translated "These (animals, then man and woman). This chapter is written
are the generations of..." The Hebrew word used for from the Creator's viewpoint (on His tablet), and out-
"generation" is toledoth, which means "history, espe- lines the exact things He did. But in Chapter 2, there
cially family history...the story of their origin." Most are no timing statements. This chapter is written from

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