Ignorance of the nature of the sources from which the Book of Genesis was compiled has led modern scholars into saying things like: "The second chapter of Genesis is more ancient than the first," or: "The order of Genesis is wrong," or again: "There are two accounts of creation, each written centuries after Moses."
The documentist view is that the first chapter of Genesis was put into writing by an unknown author, or school of writers, in about the 8th century BC (many hundreds of years after Moses). I believe that the arguments presented in this article completely lay to rest any such claims.
But, asked Wiseman, does the narrative of the first chapter of Genesis itself give any clue as to the time when it was written? To which question he answered that, in addition to the ancient literary method of the colophon dating, there are "some pieces of evidence which seem to assist us in ascertaining the chronological place of Genesis chapter 1 in the Old Testament."(55) And he went on to list these as follows:
1. No anachronisms: "...it contains no reference whatever to any event subsequent to the creation of man and woman, and of what God said to them." By contrast, the Babylonian version of creation, for instance, contains reference to events of a relatively late date, such as the building of Babylon.
2. Universality: All the references in this chapter "are universal in their application and unlimited in their scope." We find no mention of "any particular tribe or nation or country, or of any merely local ideas or customs. Everything relates to the earth as a whole and to mankind without reference to race."
3. Simplicity: The Sun and Moon, for instance, are referred to simply as the "greater and lesser lights" (Genesis 1:16). It is well known that astronomy is one of the most ancient branches of knowledge. In earliest times the Babylonians had already given names to the Sun and Moon.
4. Brevity: Compared with the lengthy Babylonian series of six tablets of creation, the Bible uses only one fortieth the number of words.
**Tablet (series) 2**
The universality of the references in Genesis chapter 1 cannot be found in the second series (Genesis 2:4b to 5:1). In this second series there are historical notes: rivers are named, as are countries. Minerals are being developed. This, we believe, is Adam's own recorded history. It is not a repetitious second account of chapter 1, and even more ancient, as scholars would have us believe. The writer gives more detail about the creation of the first man; the Garden is planted; geographical locations for Eden are given; the animals are named, and so on. Tablet (series) 2 is utterly different from chapter 1 in style and content, and would seem to be a much later production.
