Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 1:07 AM,  Dave Washburn wrote:

> The approach deals with much more than just title and author.  To get the 
> full idea one
> needs to check out P. J. Wiseman, "New Discoveries in Babylonia About 
> Genesis" (London:
> Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1946) where the idea was first presented in a 
> more or less full
> form.  There's a summary of the whole approach at
>
> http://www.biblemysteries.com/library/genesis.htm
>
> The lectures Karl remembers were probably based on Wiseman's work.  I read 
> the book in
> the early 80's and it made a lot of sense.  Your reduction of it to nothing 
> more than a
> colophon of title and author doesn't do it any kind of justice.

Thank you, Dave!  This reference to Wiseman is very helpful indeed.
It does seem
to me to be a source (if not the source) for Karl's theory.

My guess is that the book you read may have actually been "Ancient records and
the structure of Genesis : a case for literary unity," which was
edited by Donald J
Wiseman, and published 1985.

As you said, you're "not the one arguing this."  So I hope Karl will
tell us if this is
indeed a book where we can find more about this theory.  (It does seem
so to me).
Until then, I will limit my further responses to this thread.

An extended discussion of all this author's theory is at:
http://books.google.com/books?id=0FCG2YTWFtcC&pg=PA5 (p. 5)

The discussion seems to span p. 2 - 10, and I was able to access all these 
pages
with google books.  However, p. 5 is where he starts to discuss the
possibility that
the toledoth is a colophon.

Yitzhak Sapir