Help defend free speech and free scientific inquiry in the U.S.
Sign the Academic Freedom Petition.

Tablet theory

From CreationWiki, the encyclopedia of creation science

Jump to: navigation, search

The Tablet Theory, or Wiseman Hypothesis, is the concept that the book of Genesis was written by the individuals with whom the text mostly concerned, such as Adam, Noah, Abraham, ect.

Contents

History

The theory was presented by Percy J. Wiseman, who during a tour in Mesopotamia as an air commodore in the Royal Air Force, found an interest in studying ancient civilizations of the region. He visited a number of excavation sites and archeologists and collected cuneiform tablets and inscriptions while familiarizing himself with the writing conventions of the ancient Mesopotamians. He noted the correlation between the method of recording authorship in pre-Abraham clay tablets and the style of Genesis. Wiseman pointed out in his 1936 book that ancient tablets carried at the end the name of the scribe (or owner) as well as information on the author (or owner) and the date of the recording, much like the way in which newspaper reporters today provide that same information at the end of news articles. This pattern seemed to make sense of the outline of Genesis, which divides narratives with a statement on the central figure of the preceding text and then proceeds to list a series of generations to set up the following narrative. Despite his publication and his son's updated edition printed in 1936, the Tablet Theory has not received much attention over the JEDP Documentary Hypothesis.

Authorship and compilation

The following lists the authors and account transitions as proposed by Curt Sewell:

The "tablets," if written in this proposed time frame, would have been written in the language of the time and passed down from generation to generation. These were later all translated into Hebrew, granted that Hebrew was not the language of the antediluvian world. The tablets would likely have been seperate pieces, and when put together in one account, possibly on papyrus or parchment, portions of certain colophons may have been dropped for lack of necessecity, while the text itself was kept unchanged. There is clear textual evidence that Moses, when he compiled the accounts, put notes on updated place names after the original, out of date names. An example is in Genesis 23:19 :

After this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre (that is, Hebron), in the land of Canaan.


The theory also fits with the oft cited "double creation account." The opening recap of Genesis 2 can be seen as a shift of perspectives as a second author picks up the history, namely Adam.

Opposing views

The Tablet Theory is in direct opposition to the JEDP Documentary Hypothesis and the idea that the events were written down long after they had transpired, or that the earlier parts of Genesis are a complete myth. Proponents of higher criticism state that writing had not yet arisen in the time of the earlier parts of the book of Genesis, and it has been claimed that Genesis had not been compiled until the time of Israel’s captivity in Babylon. However, such claims have little supporting evidence and relies almost entirely upon speculation, while the Tablet Theory is founded upon the known and verified style of ancient scribes.

The theory is also somewhat contrary to the traditional view by both Christians and Jews that Moses wrote the book of Genesis, either from revelation from God or from oral tradition.

Related References

See Also

Retrieved from "http://creationwiki.org/Tablet_theory"
Personal tools