propheticdrama

Toledoth (pl. for toledah) means generation, families, races, or history. The Greek word used is genesis, meaning origin. So, the Book of Beginnings (bereshith in the Hebrew) is a Book of Toledoth or Generations. Used as a heading to describe the generations or history following a particular person, the toledoth were important as Moses compiled the family histories.

When Air Commodore P.J. Wiseman [1], who served military time in the Middle East, had noticed how ancient clay tablets seemed to have colophon structures at the end, he noticed how Genesis was divided with the word toledoth, generations, and ascribed the toledoth to be colophons. Although the Babylonians of the first millennium BC used the colophon on tablets, they were not widely used before that time. Yet in Genesis, the use of the toledoth as endings doesn’t always match with the following narration, and the last section in Genesis lacks a toledoth.

In analyzing the compositional structure of Genesis, Prof. Casper J. Labuschagne [2] has determined that the numerical features of the text show that the toledoth served as headings for the individual stories. Having written an impressive work on Genesis, he explains how the divinity of God is expressed numerically throughout the text and how the layout markers deliminate the literary units. If one were to use the toledoth as endings, the numbering structure would be dismantled from the original design.

While the toledoth headings introduce the family history as narrated, do they hint at the authorship of the previous tablet? However, recognizing the importance of keeping the toledoth heading intact along with its story will serve in keeping the integrity of the numerical features of Genesis.

As eleven firsthand accounts were written and handed down, Moses would have had access to these accounts. Inspired to compile the accounts together along with a creation prologue, Moses is biblically credited for the authorship of Genesis.