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| Ruins of the Essenes, those meticulous monastic Jewish scribes, who inhabited Qumran during Jesus' day |
Throughout the 7000-or-so year history of man, God has written His story onto the hearts of His people. He has been in total control of each holy writing, bearing witness to the majesty of His incomparable name. His sovereignty has governed every chisel mark, every brush stroke, every jot and tittle of the Hebrew, every character of the Greek, every hiding of His Word into the human heart.
Moses was one such God-inspired, magnificent historian. Because of his writing, we have record of God's creation work, plus hundreds of years of human history. As mentioned in a previous post, there were written records, Jehovah's statutes, themselves divinely inspired, from the time of Abraham. In Genesis 26:5, these are called "my (Jehovah's) charge, my commands, my statues and my laws". The Hebrew word, "chuqqim" means "statutes", which comes from a root, meaning "to engrave". The Bible is not clear as to who kept track of these written records, most likely engraved on clay tablets.
Some scholars theorize they were preserved down through each generation, passed from each era to the next, and that these were the "source materials" Moses used, under divine inspiration, to compose Genesis.
Why do you think it was important to give the Israelites the book of Genesis? Genesis 45:4-6; 47:9 tell us the family of Jacob dwelled in Egypt for 215 years, with most of that time spent enslaved. Over that period, God's people began to lose their sense of history and their national culture. Had the people remained in that condition, there would be no Jews today, no nation of Israel either. Once they were freed, their lack of identity was revealed at Mt. Sinai. (We'll examine that debacle in a later post.) God gave Moses the Holy Spirit-inspired ability to craft Genesis initially so that His chosen people could re-capture their place in world history, so that their collective, national identity could be re-embraced. This was crucial for a people coming out of a lengthy period of enslavement in a foreign land. Knowing and understanding the toledot linked them and their offspring to the great heroes (and villains) of their spiritual inheritance. The toledot taught them, not only what God had done on their behalf, but how He was sure to honor His future promises made to them through Adam, Noah, Abraham and others.
At this point, you are probably asking, "What is this toledot she keeps mentioning?"
Often in the book of Genesis, you encounter the word "generations". (In some versions, it's translated "accounts", "history", or "record".) The Hebrew word used in those instances is "toledot" or "toldot". The Greek Jews who translated the Hebrew scriptures into Greek chose "Genesis", which is a derivation of the word "toledot". These scribes evidently believed the concept of toledot so important, they chose it as the title of the first book of the Old Testament. Toledot is the plural of "toledah", but the word always appears in the plural form in the Hebrew scriptures. Toledot refers to eras, of both genealogies, plus the stories that occurred in each epoch.
Here are the eleven toledot of Genesis:
– Creation – Genesis 1:1 - 2:4
– Adam – Genesis 2:5 - 5:1a
– Noah – Genesis 5:1b - 6:9a; 10:1
- Shem, Ham, Japeth (Noah's Sons) – Genesis 6:9b -10:1 and 10:2 - 10:32 (Two toledots, one of which is commonly known as The Table of Nations)
- Shem - Genesis 10:33 - 11:10a
– Terah – Genesis 11:10a - 11:27a
– Isaac – Genesis 11:27b - 25:12;
Ishmael - {parenthetical} Genesis 25:12-18
– Isaac – Genesis 25:13-19a***
– Jacob – Genesis 25:19b - 35:29
Esau - Genesis 36:1-8; and 9-43
– Jacob – Genesis 37:1-2a***
- Joseph - Genesis 37:2b - Genesis 50
The toledot were Moses' way of "citing his sources", perhaps? Those reliable, eyewitness accounts?
Now, here are some things I don't fully understand. Perhaps some other Bible scholars can provide helpful information.
1. Why is there no toledah for Abraham, arguably the most important of the Jewish patriarchs? Why Isaac and Ishmael instead?
Here we must examine the term "colophon", which was a statement occurring usually at the end of or on the "spine" of ancient clay tablets, giving authorship and other important info. Some scholars believe they were part of an ancient "Dewey Decimal System", used to catalog and enable users to locate the tablet desired in ancient libraries or collections, much as the Dewey has been used in America in recent years.
So, if that is true, then a verse such as Genesis 5:1a, would indicate that Adam was the author of that toledah.
This is the book of the generations of Adam.
Genesis 5:1a
Incidentally, the word translated "book" here is the Hebrew word "sepher", which means . . . "scroll" or "tablet". Pretty intriguing, wouldn't you say?
2. Oh, you are wondering about the *** next to Isaac's and Jacob's toledot? I doubt many (if any of you, unless you are an extreme Bible Nerd) went to the trouble to look up each of the listed toledah. If you did, you'd have found that they all conform to the pattern I've described about the colophon recording the authorship of the section...except for two. Ishmael's toledah is actually embedded in Isaac's section, and it breaks the pattern, because his colophon comes at the beginning of his section. So, Ishmael's toledah is Genesis 25:12-18, whereas, Isaac's actually runs from Genesis 11:27b through Genesis 25:19a, with Ishmael's six short verses being a parenthetical within a larger whole.
A similar occurrence is seen in the Jacobean toledah, which contains two parenthetical, embedded Esau toledot (Genesis 36:1-8 and Genesis 36:9-43.) And, as with Isaac's interrupted toledah, the Esau toledot are introductions to what follows, as opposed to summations, colophons or end points.
4. And, why is there not a toledah for Joseph's section? Chapters 37:2 - all of chapter 50 tell the story of Joseph and his role that led up to his family (including his brothers - - all Jacob's offspring) coming to dwell in the land of Egypt, how that all came about. BUT, though there is no colophon at the end of Genesis 50, we discover that Exodus 1:5-6 provides one of sorts. I mentioned in a previous post that Exodus is a continuation of Genesis, with it's first word being a linking or continuing word, "now". Here, then, is Exodus 1:1-6 (NAS)
1Now these are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob; they came each one with his household: 2Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah; 3Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin; 4Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. 5All the persons who came from the loins of Jacob were seventy in number, but Joseph was already in Egypt. 6Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation.7But the sons of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly, and multiplied, and became exceedingly mighty, so that the land was filled with them.
We have to remember that chapter and verse designations in scripture are not always the best markers for dividing up the Word of God. They were not divinely inspired, nor were they part of the original manuscripts. In some cases, the various landmarks add more confusion than clarity.
Toledot appear many other times in the Old Testament, and almost always they are introductory statements to the passage that follows. But, elsewhere, the canonical books in which they appear are singular, straightforward accounts by the eye-witness authors, not (as is the case in Genesis) a compilation of several ancient, divinely-inspired sources.
So, I present this to you, not to convince you of how God led Moses to author Genesis, but mainly to explain to you how Genesis is laid out. It is a lengthy book, an amazing one.
Sources:
http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2005/12/26/From-What-Did-Moses-Compose-Genesis.aspx#Article
https://www.gotquestions.org/toledot.html
http://www.talkgenesis.org/genesis-toledoth-mystery/
https://answersingenesis.org/bible-questions/how-long-were-the-israelites-in-egypt/
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