Sources of Genesis

Okay, now, as for a sermon today, I thought, well, first of all, it can't be long, because it's after the feast, and we've already had a feast. And when you've had a feast, you don't really want much more than a snack the next day. So I have a subject which could go on for hours, of course. Most of them could. This is something that I have made a Bible study, and two sermons, or vice versa, two sermons, two Bible studies, and a sermon out of. It's a rather large subject, but that actually makes it easier to summarize what's more. Most people don't want to hear a lot of intellectual discussions about one thing or another, about the words, and history is interesting, but you get too deep, and so on. However, I have a subject which I think will be very interesting to you, even if you're not that interested in history. I can summarize real quickly, give you 12 points. Don't faint. 12 whole points. And do you some good. I think it'll be interesting. I just asked Mr. Pirwich. He hasn't spoken. He said nobody else has in quite a while. On the book of Genesis, you've heard that, but from the standpoint of the 12 original sources that Moses had, and that he took the book of Genesis from, and edited and put it all together in a fabulous book. You get to studying deeply. It's just so well organized, and so pithy, and excellent. So that's the subject, the 12 original sources of Genesis, and I will hurry. Mr. Pirwich, we started at 12.30, so I have until 1.20. Was that it? Trying to give me a hint there, I think. He said he usually goes 50 minutes. I will probably go a straight hour on this, just because of the gravity of it, or the amount of material. But I think it'll be interesting, and I guess we'll see. That's my hope. 2 Timothy 3 verse 16. We'll start out with some scriptures here. Genesis and all other scripture was given by the inspiration of God, which means the Greek means it was breathed, or directly spoken. God breathed, directly spoken by God. That's 2 Timothy 3.16. Exodus 33.11. The Lord spoke unto Moses face to face as a man speaks unto his friend. Moses seems to be the closest human before the disciples that God, the closest friend that God ever had. There's a lot of ... He was close to Abraham, but he didn't speak to him often. He had almost been there every day for Moses because of the problem of the Israelites. Deuteronomy 5 verse 4. The Lord talked with you face to face in the mount in the midst of the fire. Later in Hebrews, this is Deuteronomy 5 verse 4. In Hebrews, there's a comment about something that Moses had said. I'm sure it's a summary. He said, I exceedingly fear and quake. Paul tells us. Or Hebrews, anyway. I think it's Paul. It was so bad at signing that there were many people that ran across the valley. I think I mentioned it the other day. Just scared of death. But Moses, even in that, was able to carry on a conversation with God. Deuteronomy 34.10, to stay in that book. Moses, whom the Lord knew, face to face. Just a reference. Of course, it's in a book written by Moses, but there was some editing by Ezra and perhaps others. Numbers 12 verse 7. Now, this is where he's talking reproachfully. He is correcting both Miriam and Aaron. She seems to have been the leader, and Aaron was the follower of both Moses and Miriam. But they had sinned because they were the same human problem of being vain and thinking they ought to have some... some...

What's that word? Anyway, have some respect that they weren't getting. They started speaking against him and so on. Verse 8, he's talking about how they spoke with Moses and how they should have been a lot more respectful. And he said, with him, I serve Moses, with him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently or plainly, and not in dark speeches or riddles.

One translation has it, and everything I say to him will be perfectly clear. That's not exactly the words, but that's the idea. So, how is it that you weren't afraid to speak against my servant Moses? That was their younger brother. So, naturally, you know, younger brother, they thought they could boss him around a little bit. And he was getting all the attention, which he didn't even like.

Anyway, okay, so there are people who have written large volumes to say. Genesis and all the other scriptures, especially the Old Testament, wasn't God-breathed. There was a bunch of priests that wanted to make it look like they had a God that was really great. So, they got together like 700 years after this. Well, maybe more than that, about 700 years after this.

They wrote these early books. It wasn't Moses, so they directly contradict God through the pen of Paul, saying Timothy 3.16. They say, no, the Lord didn't speak to Moses face-to-face as a man speaks to blah, blah, blah. They ridicule it and make fun of it. No, he didn't know him face-to-face. And this thing about Miriam having leprosy for a few minutes, three or four minutes, maybe. Because they earnestly asked him immediately, Moses and Aaron, please, heal her.

Please, heal her now. And God did, but the point was well made. But it wasn't just for Miriam. It was for Moses and Aaron, the Israelites, and for us. It was mainly for us. God wants us to respect people who have authority. And sometimes you say, yeah, but it's so American to gripe against Congress. You know, it's all American to grumble against Congress and say bad things about them. And I must say, I have not always been perfect. I'm being really charitable here to myself. You know, it's so easy to gripe, and we do.

But what the Bible says is that God really did inspire him and speak to him. And later, Deuteronomy 8.3, it backs that up, which Moses wrote himself, that man shall live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Okay, that's background. I'm trying to watch the time here carefully. But I thought we needed a little bit of back scripture beside Genesis there.

Okay, so Moses wrote the first book of the Bible, Under Inspiration of God. That's how he did it. And how did he get the idea that he was supposed to write that book? He could have only come from one source, and that was God who appeared to him, who talked face-to-face, had many, many conversations. And I'm sure he told him, just like John, I want you to write something.

In this case, it wasn't all he saw, like John, but God told him what to write about. Now, does that mean, since he talked to him face-to-face, and mouth-to-mouth, that Moses just took dictation? Apparently not. As a matter of fact, I don't believe that at all, because of... I already did not give too many more scriptures because of time. But it says the Spirit spoke expressly, as in the Old Testament prophets wrote, as God gave the mutterants, or as God inspired them, and the wording of that, and other things.

This is a real summary here, but it doesn't mean that they took dictation only. God used different men and women, think of Deborah and Miriam and a lot of others, that contributed to the Bible through who they were. You know, if you give a sermon or a sermonette, Bible study, it's not good to put on like as if you were somebody else, and you know, speak like Billy Graham, or some great President Trump, more recent, or some act like you're somebody else.

I knew a man that did that. He had spokesman's club training, and he spoke with great voice variety, and this, that, and the other thing. It was so unnatural, it just made me cringe. But when he walked out of the stage, he was just himself, and I don't speak about his motive. I presume that he learned to do better, and just speak from who you are, as to what you know, and what you can share with the ones who are listening.

And that's what he has always done. That's what God has always done. He's worked through human instruments. He could have done it himself. He could have sent an angel. He would have had a perfect job every time. I always like to have received perfect sermons. Apparently, God would rather you have all the imperfect sermons you always hear, you know. It's not, apparently, it's obvious. You don't do it always for the kids. You teach them how to do it, and then they learn. So that principle works through their God as he teaches all of us.

So God then left editorial comment as to the original sources, right in the text, making it clear that there were 11 ancient books, 12 sections, but 11 ancient books. The sources were previously written records, going back to the time of Adam and Seth.

Moses clearly and deliberately identified each one of them right in the text as he edited these 12 records to make one smooth story flow. There's a reason why it was passed over and not noticed in just a minute. The key is to understanding the organization and structure, the key to understanding the organization structure of the first and greatest book of Moses are the 11 colophon's included throughout the book. Now, when I started studying this subject, I did not know what a colophon means. Does anybody here of superior intellect know what a colophon is? I think there might be two or three. Nobody's willing to admit it. Okay. Well, I do, so I learned a colophon is usually at the first of a book, and it simply gives, it's like a title page except more, it gives information about who wrote it, what it's about, where it was published, maybe what it costs, all that stuff that goes. I bought a NEV, New English Version Study Bible. It's considered the granddaddy of all English Study Bibles now, whereas most of them have about 30,000 notes. Most of the modern ones, one goes up to 40. This has 80, over 80, 85 maybe notes in it. It's just a big old book with lots of other big old books contributing and many scholars, and the colophon in that book is two pages long with small writing. There are so many contributors and so much work and this and that, but that's what it is. You think of a title page, but a lot of times the colophon is included, sometimes it isn't. That's what a colophon is. And like I said, I had never heard of it until I started studying this subject. It's not a commonly known word. Now, this information about whose it was and so on and so forth was overlooked in the English translate. Well, actually pretty much all of them, I think, until, would you believe, 1930s? 1930s. D.J. Wiseman, and I think he's the father, but he may be the son. They just both of them used, you know, R.P. Wiseman or something.

Q.Z. something was his father. His father dug up thousands and thousands and thousands, pardon me, he took up the thousands of clay tablets written in cuneiform, which is several cuneiform languages, and you probably are familiar with the fact they wrote on clay tablets.

They didn't have ballpoint pins. They had a tricornored stylus, and you could poke it in straight and get a V and poke it sideways and get two and this, that, and the other different ways you could stick the stylus into the clay and make different letters. So some of you probably, they had to do something. Well, that's how they did it. And they have been discovered by the tens of thousands, for instance, in the Library of Sargon, I think, at Nineveh, and a few other places in the Middle East. We just have all kinds of various contracts and home sales divorce papers, except they were clays, and sale of land and rental properties, a lot of business stuff, and contracts for goods, shipping, all that stuff, and a few books. Well, that's what these books in the Bible were first written on, because that's the kind of writing they had. And they were very sparing. They didn't write a lot. They weren't voluminous with many words, because they were heavy to carry, and took a lot of space. You didn't have that much space, generally, in a home. So when they were translated into other languages, especially in the modern languages, they had this statement. They noticed there were 11 of them in Genesis, and it says, and these are the generations of. There are 11 places where it says that. And sometimes, what follows is something to do with the man who owned it. But most of the time, they noticed that most of the information came before.

These are the generations of things. And what's more, a lot of them weren't generations. They were just historical records. So they missed that, because it was in the 12th century that Bishop Usher decided to put verses and chapters to the Bible, which I appreciate greatly. That really, really helps. But he didn't know anything about the system, and so he missed those statements. And so sometimes you have it just at the wrong place, the chapter break. Well, it turns out they began to study these, and in the 1930s, after they'd been sitting in the British Library for 80 years or something, one man figured it out. And that story is a fascinating story.

So I just cut out about 50 minutes of that fascinating story, shortened the sermon by that much. Mr. Weig, I'll do it here, I think. And somebody figured out that, I think it was DJ Weizmann, figured out the cuneiform language. So they began reading all those volumes, you know, like I say, thousands of volumes. And they carried them out on the backs of donkeys and big sacks, and about half of them broke, and are of no use to us. It just makes you cry, the whole library, like the Library of Alexandria. So much has been lost, so much knowledge that man is painstakingly put together, just lost. Anyway, so they began reading them, and they noticed that at the end of these tablets was the colophon who owned the book, who had written it, where it came from, and usually they weren't too long because it was clay. And that gave several of them the idea, his son especially. He said, well, let's look at this. And he went through, and he said, well, look there. If you realize that these statements about these are the historical records of, or the genealogies of, you see it makes a lot more sense, and it helps you to figure out how the book is developed, and that's what I'm saying. Now, the Hebrew word for the generations of, that's the key phrase in the organization of the whole book, is toledot. T-O-L-E-D-O-T.

Not hard to, you know, not hard to figure. Short word. The most important thing is what it means, though. That's translated into English, transliterated. Toledot. And it means genealogy is okay, but more often it means the origins, or the historical accounts, or the historical records.

So when you say the genealogies of such and such in Genesis, those 11 spots, what it's talking about is here is where the end of these records that I've been, pardon me, I didn't say the sentence right. Here is the end of the records I'm quoting for the generations of historical records of so and so. Makes a lot better sense. Okay, so that's how we got to this. That's how, I believe it's D.J. Wiseman, who was the son, got ahold of this, figured out the language, or at least got in touch with others, and he came to this knowledge. That was in the 1930s. Interestingly, it becomes obvious when you read it, and you will still find it referred to as a possible theory. Some people say in the liberal commentaries, they don't even mention it sometimes, the conservative ones are very hesitant, and they will not say this is the way it is. And what's more, I better not either, because there are some questions, and I'll point them out. But anyway, would you like to know where they are? I'll name them off. That way you can get them in your notes, and you'll have them, rather than just as we waded through it. The first one is in Genesis 1.

Pardon me. That's the whole section. The first section. I'll give you this section.

And that's Genesis 1-2, verse 4. And verse 4 has the colophon.

And the next one... Oh, I see. I wrote the whole thing there. The next one is in... So that's 2, verse 4 is the first one, and just the verse with the colophon. Then the second one is in 5, verse 1. Genesis 5, verse 1. We'll go through these. We'll fly through them. Then 6, verse 9.

And 10, verse 1.

And 11, verse 10.

Okay, I want to review these just real quick, because you get behind and it's very frustrating. So 1... No, pardon me. 1, verse 1, 3. 2, verse 4 is the first colophon. 2, verse 4. 5, verse 1.

6, verse 9. 10, verse 1. And 11, verse 10. Okay, we'll go with the last ones here.

11, verse 11.

25, verse 12. Sounds like bingo night.

11, verse 27.

25, 12. 25, 19.

36, 1.

36, 9.

And 37, 2, A, because it's the first part of the book. That's why I put the A there. So I'll repeat these then. 11, 27.

25, 12. 25, 19.

36, 1.

36, 9. 37, 2. It's the first part of the verse. Okay, I just wanted to do that because that helps the note-taking, and I must go through this fast.

Let's go with the first section, which is 11 to 24, and again 24a, which we'll see here.

In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.

Have you ever, anybody ever seen or heard this whole sermon on that verse?

There are seven original words, and it's just absolutely astounding.

Everything that's packed in just the first sentence.

So the same style continues throughout. Oh, that's the best example there is.

And this goes through creation. Verse 2, The world became without form and void. We understand that. It's called the gap theory, but it's not a theory. God did destroy the earth. Actually, Satan did it. He allowed Satan to mess it up. And there was a recreation here, which starts in verse 3. Let there be light. And it goes on through the days of creation, finally through the creation of man and the keeping of the Sabbath.

The famous statement, let them have dominion in verse 26.

And also, the first part of that, let us make man our own image. So there's a plurality there to start with. And then it starts out. He told man to subdue or to manage the earth. Subdue is disagreed by. Are there people that don't like that, for one reason? Political correctness and so on.

But God saw everything that he had made. It was very good. And then verse 2, and you can see why Archbishop Usher might have taken the words here as the next chapter.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, all the host of them, and on the seventh day.

It's kind of a natural break, but it's still the same part of the same original book.

On the seventh day, he blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because that in it he had rested from all his works, which God created and made. And then it says, these are the generations of the heaven and the earth when they were created. So if you go back and you say, okay, this is the end of something because of your knowledge of clay tablets and the languages and how they did it back then, you see this is the end of the first section. That's really an important understanding, as we shall see. And book 2 begins, this is a different clay tablet written by somebody else, in the day that the Lord God created or made the earth and the heavens and every plant in the field and so on and so forth. God formed man at the dust of the ground. So you have people have wondered why are the two creation stories? It just doesn't make sense. They carp and complain and say the Bible isn't inspired. It's because they didn't know beings about the languages and how they were written or they didn't know beings about clay tablets. I'm not putting them down without DJ Wiseman and some others. I wouldn't either. We wouldn't have this, but we have this knowledge.

And for time's sake, if I have time at the end, I'll tell you another thing about it, but that doesn't that's not important right now. Book 2, we just started. The Lord formed man, verse 7, tree of life, tree of knowledge of good and evil. And God creates a wife for Adam.

It's an astounding, very, very deep truth for us to understand. There's so much there.

And we go all the way in this in book 2. We go all the way to 2 verse, pardon me, to 5 verse 2, 2 4 to 5 2. So he institutes marriage at the end here of this particular chapter, and that was just an arbitrary division by Archbishop Usher. By the way, I appreciate him doing that, and he got it right a lot of times, just, you know, with the natural breaks, not complaining about the archbishops. I'll meet him someday, and I'm going to compliment him and thank him, actually.

But now the servant was more subtle. So you have, and he said, if you die, which is exactly what Satan is doing today, just about everything you can think. Why that's not a sin, why that's freedom.

No, no it isn't. It's the destruction of society. It's what it is. So that story and how that came around, and how we got what we call human nature, and just, it's just enormous, great truth.

And it's condensed down here. They were finally driven out. Then you have Cain and Abel in chapter 4, Cainite civilization starting in verse 16, and some ancient... that book even quoted some ancient poetry in verse 23 to 24. Apparently this was a poem, famous literature at the time, and the writer of this book included that as far as Lammock's statement about first man to take two wives, and I have slain a man, and so on.

And then the birth of Seth, who carried on the line, and Enosh then began men to call upon the name of the Lord, ends chapter 4, verse 26. And then we come to 5. Thus the book of the generations of Adam... this is the book of the generations of Adam in the day that God created man, in the likeness of God created him, male and female, created him and blessed him, and they called their name Adam in the day when they were created. End of book. It identifies Adam as the writer or keeper of the first book. But did you notice in the first one it says, these are the generations of the heaven and the earth, so who was the author of the first book?

There could only be one author, and that was God. He was there to see it.

Probably Adam took dictation. Maybe Seth. We don't know that. We don't know anything as far as who wrote it. But it's likely that because you look through it, neither were the patriarchs that were used, the prophets, to write these books.

So God had to be the originator of the first, how creation happened.

And his start on creation. And then you have the next book. And here is Adam writing his version of it. The second book here is the creation and how things started from the point of view of Adam.

Answer to question, why do we have two creation chapters? That's why. And Moses put it right in the text. These are the generations of the histories of how it all started.

And then after the next book, you know, 2nd Clay Tablet, he wrote, now these are the records, the historical records that Adam wrote or had. And you look at it and he was familiar with everything for it and the whole thing is from his point of view. If you decide to study this or able to look at it from this point of view, you're not going to find too many books that talk about it from this point of view. But I can't remember the book. D.J. Wiseman wrote the book and I read his book. That's why I came across this. And I'll find it and tell you if you'd like to know the book. Very interesting, not that bad of a read. It's not long tome. He's a very good writer. But we start, then, another book unnamed here because they always did it. But Moses tells us what records he used and where they came from. And they're right there in the text. And we never saw the archbishop, good old archbishop usher, that helped us so much. He didn't see it either. He didn't know about clay tablets. Okay, so then the next one is this is book three.

And it starts in chapter five verse three here and goes through six nine. So let's hustle through this. Five three. Seth is born. And Seth's family discusses here quite a few. And these were in his line. These among the Sethians, if we can call them that, were the only people that seemed to be halfway interested in obeying God before the flood because Cain's line all went south. They were just awful, to say the least. And there was enough problem in Seth's line.

But finally, we come to Noah. He's born, verse 29. Well, 28 and 29. Noah was 500 years old. He had three sons. And we continue in chapter six about the flood, beginning the story of the flood.

I'm not going to strive with these people all this long time, so he gave them 120 years.

And he says, I'm just going to have to wipe them out and start over verse seven.

But, verse eight, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Very important verse for many reasons.

One, this shows that grace was in God's mind from the beginning. He knew what he was doing. He had a plan of grace's forgiveness. He knows how to take all of us terribly flawed humans and turn them into his children. You have to have a hand in it. It has to be your work to really be invested.

And when you have to work the hardest you have ever worked in your whole life to follow Christ and bring every thought into captivity, or at least be striving diligently, and you do that for many years, you're going to be fully invested in it. And he's going to have a bunch of people that absolutely agree with him and are so enthusiastic about doing it exactly right and always following the Father that they will never look back forever.

So he had grace in mind all the way back here. And then we come to this colophon again, or this strange statement that people puzzled over. These are the generations of Noah.

I've got to go on to power-saving mode, and I don't know what that means. I mean, I know what it means, but I don't know what it means about about how long I was supposed to talk. So, saved it for a moment here.

Back to the sixth verse, these are the generations of Noah. Noah knew about everything that went before this, and he wrote about it. Even though it starts out the very next one, if you're writing a book, you might mention the great patriarch Noah, if he were still alive, since it was about his kids. But this is by Noah. He wrote it. The three children are mentioned, the three sons. And this goes all the way to 10 verse 1. Let's just buzz over there. No reason to...

I mean, there's lots of reason to study it, but no reason to go over it right now.

There's even greater reason for me not to comment on a long time on this, because Genesis 10 through 11, most of it, is over here in Ezekiel, because in my Bible, because it actually fell out. This is my ancient Bible. I've got to change it after the feast, but it's somewhere else. So, I'm just going to name it. It says, the three sons of Noah. Now, why? Why would there be three authors written? There was an oldest. Apparently, Japheth was the oldest, and Shem was the youngest. But he was named as the one who God was calling and dealing with.

Why all three of them? Well, there are probably some reasons I don't know either, but one is, there are three witnesses, the three great patriarchs, fathers of all mankind.

And they serve as witnesses to personally affirm this seminal historical event in history, showing that God did indeed create the earth, and He destroyed it. And after that, He came back and started over with Noah. And so, you have three witnesses to the story of Noah.

There are perhaps some other reasons you could come up with, but that seems to be, let's say, the overall one, if that wasn't... if they weren't even aware of that, there are three witnesses. So, we have the story of the rainbow covenant, which again points to the future.

And points to God's grace, the story of the flood, and beginning after the ark landed.

And so, we have that whole story in this to chapter one, to chapter, verse one, to chapter 10, source, or tablet number five, Genesis 10, verse two, to 11a. And I could take the time to go over find that, but I'm not... I'm just not going to, because it's easy enough for you to read.

But you go down to the colophon, which is in chapter 11, verse 10, and I said 10a. These are the historical records of Shem, and you find out he was the most qualified person on earth to write this history. He wasn't the oldest, but he was the brother chosen to continue the line of prophets or servants of God. And through him came Abraham, of course. Shem was very much involved in the rebellious builders of the Tower of Babel, and eventually he's the one that put Nimrod to death. So you have the Table of Nations, the 16 grandsons of Noah, the progenitors of the original 16 major national or nationality or racial groups, and of course the Tower of Babel, and so on. So he was the most qualified by far to write this at that point, and he did. It says it right there, and you know, these are the histories of Shem.

Okay, this next one. Then we get into some interesting things. Here is the next one we go to is chapter 11, 27, which I still don't have in this section. Bad place to lose, so that's why I'm getting a new Bible. But we go all the way to 2512. Let's just go on over there because our purpose isn't to study the whole book, but the endings, actually, even more than the beginnings. So book seven then ends in verse 12, Genesis 25. Now these are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham's son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah's handwriting bore Abraham. And so that's what just what is that's the end of that section. This is the longest of all the 12 books.

The story of Terah and Abraham from before the move to at Ur. The owners listed as Ishmael because the firstborn son would normally have that responsibility, unlike Shem. And Abraham maintained a positive relationship with Ishmael. Ishmael and Isaac buried Abraham.

And Abraham and Ishmael remained, even though he was required to send him away, he remained very, very close to his son Ishmael. But that's one reason, possibly others, but he was the one that carried on the official documents. And at this point, we reach a point not of confusion, doesn't have to be, but of overlapping. Because you have the next one is Isaac, and that is chapter 25 verse 13 through verse 19a. So this is a real short one. This is book 8, and it says these are the years it finishes the life of Ishmael.

And in verse 17, they dwelt in Havillah and so on. Verse 19, it says, these are the generations of the histories of Isaac, Abraham's son. He makes a point that Ishmael died before Isaac, which would have been expected. Isaac was younger. But Ishmael's death is recorded in there. Why would he do it that way? Well, it's because it came from that book. And he would have recorded that. He was the surviving brother. And what's more, he was chosen to carry on the line. So he had that. But that was the book of Ishmael as the firstborn son, the one that carried on the histories and so on. It was a lot longer. It took a lot more from Ishmael's book than from Isaac's. And Isaac, he didn't take very much. Now, these books probably, because they would chain them when the end tagline at the end would be the same as the next line on the top of the next tablet. So you chain them together. You have as many pages as you wanted. But there were undoubtedly many more pages to the story. But this is what Moses took out. This is what he pulled out of those, edited, and then identified the source. So that was from Isaac. The next one, book nine, starts then. Isaac was 40 years old. And this section goes from 36 verse 9.

You can say 9. No, pardon me. I'll just take a look at this. We just read chapter 21, verse 9. That's the start of book 9. And then we go all the way from 2519b there to all the way to 36.1. And that's the historical records of Esau. Now, people have asked, well, I asked, you know, how does this work?

When I was studying this, it says, these are the generations of Edom.

But the very next verse is, Esau took wives of the daughters of. But that's the next one. That's the next book. So here is book number nine. It goes to 36.1. And here is that same statement. These are the generations of the histories of. And so that's identified. Then you have 36 in verse 2.

And this is a short one also. It goes from 36 verse 2 to verse 9. So these are also named as historical records of Esau. So there's only a brief section from Esau. So the generations of Edom, and then the generations of, it says Esau is Edom. These are the generations of Esau. The father of the Edomites and Mount Cyr. Now, why would that be? Why would you have two right and row both short? And that question isn't answered by Moses. It just says that's where it came from. Do you have two books? Possibly. Maybe there are two sections. We don't know that.

But he took records of Esau's family history from both his own records and from Jacob's records.

And only brief sections were used in these two tablets. So at this point in the book, there have been a lot of people who said, see, this whole theory breaks down as a bunch of baloney. It's not a bunch of baloney. It shows Moses' excellence in editing and in writing, and pulling things together, and presenting as a story that is well written and flows smoothly.

So he just used different sections. I don't have a good answer for that because there is no answer. But he just tells us, I got this part from Esau as well, two that are attributed to Esau.

Oh, somebody wrote me a text. Clues to Creation in Genesis, J.P. Wiseman. That's actually another book from Did You Write? Great, thanks.

I think the one you read is probably after the one that I read. But thanks for sending that. I was wondering who was interrupting my...

But I thought it was from Minnesota for some reason. I misread the... How am I going to do this? X there. I know what I'm talking about.

Okay, well, there are only brief sections used from these two tablets. I don't have time for the complete explanation. But I will say that you can... about here you can get... you have those questions and you wonder about it. Now, how about this whole thing? Well, if you, I presume, get the book. That'll help. And if I could remember it, I'd tell you the one most recently written, because I'm pretty sure it's better than the original that I read several years later.

So here's a simple answer. Why does Esau have two books or sections? Answer, he owned two books.

He authored or owned two separate books. We don't know. At least I don't know any much. I'll have to read this other book now and perhaps find out. But anyway, to go on here, 36 verse 10 starts the next one, and it goes to 37.2 verse A. These are historical records of Jacob. Now, if you look at it, there are a lot of places where it looks like saying the same thing again or a different view of something or whatever. It doesn't matter. It's answered by the fact that he's taking a section of another book, and that just clarifies a lot of things. So it is possible, and this is an interesting thing, that in one of the most interesting books, say some, that contains a section verses 31 to 43, that is believed to have been added by Ezra the scribe, who did the final editing of the whole book of the Old Testament. This starts out in verse 31. And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom before they reigned any king over the children of Israel. So this was written then after the first king of the children of Israel. That means none of these men, certainly not Jacob or Esau or Isaac, any of those, or even Joseph or Moses, could have written it. That was a long time later. That was apparently written by Ezra. He did a lot of editing, and you can see other evidence of his editing as you go through the Bible. But that's an interesting thing. This is kind of an additional source that even Moses didn't have because he couldn't have written about, you know, after Israel had kings. It didn't happen in his lifetime. So general observation.

Why the confusion here with these? That's because Moses was pulling from different sources. But at this point, it was much later in history, and the earlier prophets and patriarchs didn't have nearly as many relatives to keep track of. By this time, apparently, it seems obvious that there are a lot of different records that were populating the earth along with all the people and many, many relatives. As a matter of fact, the one comment says, well, and it says, and Ishmael died before, and it doesn't just say Isaac. It says, Isaac and his brethren. It doesn't name all the other relatives. Too many relatives. Irrelevant to the story. Moves right along. So there were many, many books, and what we're left with is the editing of Moses and his great, his excellence in doing this job, the first book of the Bible, the foundation of the Bible. Okay, now, let me go skip and move on. Let's note the last book of Genesis.

I pardon me, the last book, source of Genesis, of the book of Genesis, and that's 37 verse 2. And here we are, the colophon of the previous one, is these are the generations of Jacob. And then, Jacob, pardon me, Joseph, being 17 years old, this story is written, and if you're a linguist and you know hieroglyphics in some of the ancient cuneiform languages, you would just know this right off. But I wouldn't. But I've read about it. And you can also, just by reading, you see this is a different age it was written in. There's a different vocabulary and a different approach, and just a different way it's written. This is the story of Joseph, and it goes all the way to the end of, you know, it's the last big story of Joseph.

And Joseph's last days and his death, that was probably added, and probably by Moses. Because, you know, if you go down to verse 22 of chapter 50, it says, Now Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he and his father's house and lived 110 years. Well, Joseph wouldn't have known that until just before he died, of course, and couldn't have written it after. So Moses probably added that little part.

And that explains the book of Genesis. You don't know a lot of the details, but I hope that you have, I hope that this helps in just understanding it. Now I said I'd come back to it if I have time. And so I'll just mention, let's say, the greatest importance of this knowledge. I think you'll do just fine and would if you didn't know of these divisions. That'd be fine.

But there are a lot of people to whom this is extremely important. They don't believe this. They think the Bible was written early on, and they're going to be able to see the proof and they're facing the resurrection, of course. But even now, ever hear of the documentary hypothesis? You hear about that in third-year Bible class. And not too much after that.

But you know something about the hypothesis. The idea is that Genesis through Deuteronomy, and even the Old Testament, they're written by different authors, and in about 700 B.C. or so, priests got together and wrote the Old Testament, basically, and tried to make it appear like they'd been there a longer time and they had more authority than they actually did. And so, these came from what are called the school of German rationalists in the 1700s on into the 1800s. And they began to try to destroy the roots of Western society. And to do that, they finally came to basically question every other historian that there was that gave us the history. Like, for instance, they questioned whether there ever was a Troy that Homer wrote about, you know, the story of Troy. But some of that's actually very important history. And so, they basically were destroying the foundations, and they had in mind it was just a godless attitude, but it was influenced by communism and the rise of those thoughts. By evolution, the rise of that whole God is dead movement, which started way before it became even halfway public in the mid-1800s, and they were just trying to tear down everything. They tore down about everything else. So, they started, somebody started on the Bible, and they went after it. The German rationalists were from liberal schools of theology, and they were greatly opposed by the conservative schools, who held basically with a belief in the Bible anyway. And so, they were trying to tear it down.

And they misunderstood an awful lot, but one thing they sure didn't know about was clay tablets.

And it was a statement made by DJ Wiseman was that if this knowledge was known about the accuracy of Genesis, and how it reflected and even recorded the names of the books, the ancient sources, and how it was in the same style and all those things, if this archaeological information wasn't known or had been known, he said the documentary hypothesis of saying different authors wrote, one named Jehovah, they had the worship of God. There was another whole group, and they worshiped God, named just God, I guess. It was, they said Yahweh or Jehovah, and the other was just El, or Elohim, plural. And then they had a third one, and then they had, it was D, because they thought Deuteronomy must have been separate. And then they had another one, P, I think it was. The, oh yeah, later priests. And they put it all together and mixed it up, and then we got the Bible. They were trying simply, it was basically an anti-Christ movement that began really strongly, late 1700s, and has moved forward. And like John said, there'd be many anti-Christs, all these different heresies that have come into the church, you know, moved through the church, you have one thing after another. Every one of them is against Christ. You get down to it, you find out it's attacking Jesus Christ, who Satan hates. Well, this information is for Christ, the Creator, the one who talked to Moses, the one who talked, that brought the Israelites out, and the God, our God, Jesus Christ, who became Jesus Christ, as well as the Father. We understand they were both working together at all times, but Jesus is the one that came before He was named Jesus, that did all this, and that talked to Moses, and spoke to him face to face, and mouth to mouth, and told him to get busy and write this, because that was His will, and inspired whether He didn't have to dictate, because He already had books, but to whatever degree God did dictate, it was Him that did it, and it wasn't a bunch of priests in the 700 BC, and all the other evil and filthy heresies attacking Christ, and the authority of God, and the authority of the church in the world, everything that God has authored, authority comes from His authorship.

So it's good to know that if you, he just made the statement, if this knowledge had been known, that stupid idea of the documentary hypothesis, which is an antichrist document, or many documents, you would have never seen the day of light, the light of day. I need more sleep after the feast. I've only got two nights sleep so far, but I just would never have come, nobody would have believed it, but because of the lack of that knowledge, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge, and God allowed it. Heresy of the Bible is not true, and God is dead, and all that. Terrible, terrible heresy. God started. Now, I know I haven't proved this to you. I barely mentioned it, but I asked, and you said, and I didn't see your hand. You didn't admit that you knew this, but you probably didn't know that's what I was talking about. At any rate, and by the way, that's very good. Two marks for you, because you were aware of this. But most people aren't aware of this, say, witness, and many witnesses, to the authority of God in the book of Genesis. And if you don't have Genesis, you don't have the Bible, I do have a teeny bit of more time, and I'm just going to read some definitions. The book of Genesis is the true history of the origin of the physical universe. That comes from the first source. The truth of the origin of man, his purpose, his nature, and his struggle, and his history. That's the origin of all that. But the evolutionists, and those guys, all that, those things, had a spirit that was driving them, and they didn't want people in the world, western society especially, where the church has been, to know about the truth of the origin of man, his purpose, his nature, and his history. They didn't want that. So they went on with their that hypothesis and a lot of others, and they began to attack book by book, by chapter, by author, by prophet, the whole word of God, and by apostle. And now you can read. You have to look for a conservative commentary, liberal commentaries. Why do they even bother if they don't believe it? I never got that. But anyway, okay, the book of Genesis is the origin of, the foundation of true education, the orientation to God's plan of salvation, all that. It's found in God pointed out grace. The great things, the great divisions, and pillars of the plan of God are in Genesis, the origins of them. It's the foundation of all biblical doctrines, all the great biblical doctrines, and many of the ones that aren't major, every one of them, are found in Genesis. It also holds the guidelines for the beginning of the study and pursuit of all types of knowledge. If you want to know about astronomy, go there. It's the flat earth society. Ideas about that are coming back. And we laugh, but there are a lot of people buying into it. Oh, just go to the Bible. I think it's Isaiah. Not sure. It might be Ezekiel, but it just says, the earth is held on nothing. It talks about the spherical shape of the earth, and that the whole universe doesn't revolve around the earth. It looks like it from here, but it doesn't. So it's the starting point for all scientific disciplines. That's Genesis. The basic spiritual teaching for all human beings, it's the absolute origin of that, and it is the book of astounding literary, scientific, historical, and spiritual achievement that is just unsurpassed. It's the foundation. If we didn't have Genesis, we wouldn't have the Bible.

When you think about that, it gives the foundation for this. We'd start with the Exodus, and we'd be guessing about many, many things. So that's it. The 12 original sources of Genesis, which I have given you the starting and stopping verses of, and just a little comment of. But I hope that's useful in your studies. It sure is nice to be back in Springfield. I haven't been here for 25 years, I think. How many years has the church been here? It's 1958. Okay, 58, 68, 78.

68, 78, 88, 98, 98, 08, 18. 60 years almost. I came to the 25th anniversary, so it's been a long time. It's good to see you here. It's good to see...

and God is in charge here. He knows what he's doing. But it's good to see a small group of strong servants of God that are holding on to the truth and holding the line in southern Missouri. It's just really good to see that. My blessing, and I do thank you here.

Hope you have a wonderful year. Maybe I'll see you again here sometime. I trust I will.

Maybe not here, though.