The Tablet Theory and Hints from the Text of Scripture

Additional proof of what, exactly? It certainly adds additional cogency for these narratives to have been able to be written by the characters themselves, or at least recorded by their near term relatives. The uncanny accuracy of the cultural information from, say, the patriarchal era, unavailable otherwise to Moses writing hundreds of years later, is explicated by this view, for example. It’s a trivialization to make this a matter of risking being misunderstood. Stand and deliver. What studying have you done in this subject?



Just a small contribution by one rather eccentric scholar, e.g.

@Guy_Coe

Because of the fuzzy spin you put on the Tablet Theory, potential supporters are probably hesitant to have their support misinterpreted.

I certainly agree that the specifics of the Tablet Theory make for a more vivid understanding of divine inspiration.

I don’t need any more comprehension of the elements to make these statements. It is a point of logic… it has to be… because describing a method is not the same as producing EVIDENCE of the method.

The evidence for this reconstruction of method is in the text itself. Toledots are used throughout Genesis as an indication of source, literary, and organizational components --in much the same way we have come to expect footnotes, chapter titles, and other features to assist with our understanding of a text. Not fuzzy at all, once you’ve actually studied how it all coheres.

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Look for the words, “these are the generations of” or similar in the modern translations, then a Hebrew interlinear will confirm whether the word is “toledot” or not. Now you can begin to look at the literary evidence within the text for how they function and what they mean. They are NOT invariably introductory to geneaologies.

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@Guy_Coe

You mean it was completely unconvincing that an oral history (as frequently suggested for Homer) could be the key beginnings of the O.T.?

That it is only when someone proposes tablets that it becomes credible?

Whether there’s an easily memorizable oral tradition behind Genesis 1, for example, before it gets committed to a written tablet
form or not, in no way detracts from its essential and substantial historicity. The prose itself, its simple organizational structure, analogously-related content serving as a mnemonic device to keep it accurately in memory, are all features within the text. It is expertly crafted to achieve that end. So, any argument from incredulity ought to fall on deaf ears --or, at least, be answered with even more cogency than I have been able to briefly muster. That’s why I’ve encouraged you to study it further. After all, oral histories, once old enough, often get written down.

My point is there are pros cons to either blend:

  1. Mostly tablets.
  2. Mostly oral.
  3. Equal amounts 1 and 2.

The Tablet Theory adds vivid detail. It does not add evidence.

The evidence for the tablets is in the text. No, it doesn’t add evidence, it better explains what’s there. The whole argument from incredulity as to a “lack” of preserved sources and the effect on historical accuracy is answered thereby.

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