In addition to expanded colophon content, I propose that Tablet 5 may really be two separate documents. Additionally, instead of listing section 11 as spanning the end of Genesis and the beginning of Exodus, as Sewell does, I recognize that Genesis ends with a highly structured postscript of it own. The Joseph Postscript adopts a different style than that of the earlier colophon-derived postscripts, probably because it was written under a different literary era. None-the-less, its presence indicates the writer's intent to maintain the "postscript structure" of Genesis.
The end result is a proposal in which Genesis is composed of the 10 sections as listed below.
For those not familiar with the word "colophon" it refers to a postscript, as used in Babylonian and Mesopotamian writing, that is often located at the end of a text and provides information relative to the scribe who wrote the text, and sometimes additional information about the place it was written, its content, its purpose, or its owner.
| Tablet | Verses | Content | Owner or Writer | |
| Section 1 | ||||
| 1 | Gen. 1:1-2:3 | {Creation of the heavens and the earth} | revealed by God (to Melchizedek?) |
|
| Colophon 1 | Gen. 2:4 | These are <toledot> of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven. | ||
| Section 2 | ||||
| 2 | Gen. 2:5-4:26 | {Story of Adam and Eve; the fall; sin} | as first told by Adam (probably transmitted orally until finally written) | |
| Colophon 2 | Gen. 5:1-2 | This is the book of the <toledot> of Adam. In the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them Man in the day when they were created. | ||
| Section 3 | ||||
| 3 | Gen. 5:3-6:8 | {Adam to Noah, death ages, but not of Noah; corruption of mankind; mentions 3 sons of Noah} | by Noah | |
| Colophon 3 | Gen. 6:9-10 | These are <toledot> of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God. 10 Noah became the father of three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. | ||
| Section 4 | ||||
| 4 | Gen. 6:11-9:29 | {The flood narrative with some repetition. The death of Noah.} | by Shem, Ham & Japheth (possibly blended account) | |
| Colophon 4 | Gen. 10:1 | These are <toledot> of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah; and sons were born to them after the flood. | ||
| Section 5 | ||||
| 5a | Gen. 10:2-10:31 | {Descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth} | by the Clans of Shem, Ham, and Japheth (compilation by ?) | |
| Colophon 5a | Gen. 10:32 | These are the families of the sons of Noah, according to their <toledot>s, by their nations; and out of these the nations were separated on the earth after the flood. | ||
| Section 6 | ||||
| 5b | Gen. 11:1-11:9 | {Tower of Babel story} | by Shem | |
| Colophon 5b | Gen. 11:10a | These are <toledot> of Shem. | ||
| Section 7 | ||||
| 6 | Gen. 11:10b-11:26 | {Simple genealogy from Shem to Terah, including death age of all individuals except Terah} | by Terah | |
| Colophon 6 | Gen. 11:27a | Now these are <toledot> of Terah. | ||
| Section 8 | ||||
| 7 | Gen. 11:27b-25:11 | {Abraham's life and death beginning with his father Terah, Terah's death, Isaac's life and details about Rebecca, details about Ishmael} | by Isaac | |
| Sub-Title 78 | Gen. 25:12 | Now these are <toledot> of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s maid, bore to Abraham | ||
| 78 | Gen. 25:13-18 | {12 sons of Ishmael; Ishmael's death} | by Isaac, from Ishmael (Isaac lived to 180, Ishmael to 137) |
|
| Colophon 7 | Gen. 25:19a | These are <toledot> of Isaac, Abraham's son: | ||
| Section 9 | ||||
| 9 | Gen. 25:19b-35:29 | {Jacob's life story and the death of Isaac} | by Jacob | |
| Sub-Title 910 | Gen. 36:1 | These are <toledot> of Esau (that is, Edom). | ||
| 910 | Gen. 36:2-43 | {Esau's descendants and chiefs of Edom, some redundancy} | by Jacob, from Esau | |
| 9 | Gen. 37:1 | Jacob lived in the land of his father's sojournings, in the land of Canaan. | ||
| Colophon 9 | Gen. 37:1-2a | These are <toledot> of Jacob. | ||
| Section 10 | ||||
| 11 | Gen. 37:2b-50:21 | {Joseph's life story, but not his death; story about Judah; Jacob's death} | by Joseph | |
| Postscript 11 | Gen. 50:22-26 | {Structured postscript to Joseph's intimate account of his life: Joseph...Egypt -Joseph lived to 110 --Ephraim's children --Manasseh's children --Joseph's promise --Joseph's command -Joseph died at 110 Joseph's body...Egypt } |
by Ephraim? | |
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