Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

James:

There are more questions here than meets the eye.

For example, what does it mean "to call upon the name of YHWH"? Is
this an indication that at this time people were starting to worship
other gods, and so the name, though it may have been known earlier,
was not specified because there was no need to before? Does the verse
say that the name was unknown, or just that they started calling upon
his name?

As for the section from 2:5 to 5:2, the literary formula indicates
that it was written by Adam himself. The next section was written by
Noah, where he ends his section without a list of descendants
following it because it went directly to the section written by his
sons.

As for the authorship of the last 14 chapters of Genesis, this was
about the time that the ancient literary formula was dropping out of
style, to be replaced by the modern one where the author and title are
at the front of the document. At least this is the historical pattern
that I was told.

We need to be careful not to eisegete into this section.

Karl W. Randolph.

On 7/13/06, JAMES CHRISTIAN READ <JCR128 AT student.apu.ac.uk> wrote:
> So, I suppose, by extension, you would say that Genesis 37:2
> is attributing authorship of the record Esau's descendents
> to Jacob?
>
> אלה תלדות יעקב
>
> This would explain why the formula  ואלה תלדות עשו
> is repeated twice in Genesis 36.
>
> This leaves a rather sticky problem. Why is there no
> authorship signature for Genesis 37:2b - 50:26?
>
>
> Also of great interest I find it that Genesis 1:1-2:3
> does not make use of the formula יהוה אלהים. In fact,
> the divine name is not used at all. This combined with
> Genesis 4:26 which makes the claim  אז הוחל לקרא בשם יהוה
> .
> This looks suspiciously like Genesis 1:1-2:3 was made
> before men started using Yah's personal name and that
> the author of Genesis 2:4-4:26 made use of it (With
> such an ending I suspect the author may have been Seth
> who got the information about what transpired in the
> garden of Eden and between Cain and Abel from his
> father Adam). In fact, the formula יהוה אלהים
> seems to be characteristc of Genesis 2:4-4:26 and is
> repeated many times. I find it of particular note that
> the first time we see this formula is in Genesis 2:4,
> the very verse in question.
>
>
> James C. Read