Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Bill:
You wrote:

“If the literary structure they are supposed to copying had both title
and author, it is curious that none of the Biblical formulas indicate an
author.”

This formula is found only in Genesis, and except for Genesis 2:4, it is
followed by the author’s name. In Genesis 2:4, the implication is that God
is the author.

What confuses people is that

   - the form is followed in all but Genesis 2:4, 6:9 and 37:2 by a list of
   generations that lived after the author listed,
   - those generations were of the author listed,
   - the word has a secondary meaning of “generation” and used for that
   meaning in Genesis,
   - the division into chapters and verses did not take the formula into
   account.


This is a formula that went out of use during the late early bronze age.

While I have yet to see a full explanation written down by another author,
that after it was verbally mentioned to me I was able to recognize it in
Genesis makes me think that this is a legitimate understanding of the
formula.

You wrote:

“Its not particularly clear that these tolodoth formulas were intended to
be titles. In their current structure, where they end a section, they
aren't all that different in function to the concluding formulas in 2 Kings.
For example 2 Kings 12:19

19: And the rest of the acts of Joash, and all that he did, are they
not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?”

This is exactly what I meant when I said that Kings and Chronicles used a
different formula to indicate the sources from where they drew their
information. Rather than weakening my argument, I think their use of a
different formula strengthens it. But this use in Kings and Chronicles also
indicates that Kings and Chronicles are condensations, i.e. that they
utilized only part of the information then available and where the author
possibly used his own words instead of that found in the original documents,
not the full original documents, to make the final document that we
presently have.

Karl W. Randolph.