In ANE literature, tablets are both a medium for writing, and a symbol of writing itself, but writing gains authority through message or author. Adoption and sale tablets, Suzerainty treaties, and written prayers laid beside idols exemplify authority by a message. In them, the authority emanated from the confines of the writing dictating relationships between parties. Orpheus tablets typify the second condition by the issue of pseudepigraphical authorship (as discussed under the subheading, Germane Scholarship). In apocalyptic work, however, most tablets mentioned are either Heavenly Tablets, or Tablets of the Law that descended from heaven.
Use in Apocalyptic Literature
A tablet topos occurred thirty-six times in Jubilees, five times in 1 …show more content…
These tablets play a major role in the overall understanding of topoi of tablet authority.
The tablet-of-law descriptor repeats in 1:1, becoming the foundation for later authoritative topos through a textual link to Exod. 24:12.
Through this link, the author weaved two elements together, supporting this authority. The first is history: Mount Sinai and the Torah highlight the corporate memory of Moses receiving the covenant as ancient Israel’s national birth. Second, the author referenced Exod. 24:12 to remind the reader God Himself delivered the law on tablets, then inverted cause and effect by postulating heavenly tablets as the source. The narrative logic reduces to an if-then statement: if the Torah, written on the tablets of the law, is authoritative, then the heavenly tablets from whence it came holds equivalent authority. Consequently, the author established both history and authoritative correction through this topos of heavenly …show more content…
Contained therein was authoritative history for understanding God’s injunction against a sanctuary at Bethel, but the history also undergirded Jubileen reliability. These four tablets weaved a single authoritative concept: writing implicitly or explicitly ordained by God and inscribed on tablets is the authority by which forefathers recorded the unchanging eternal truth, whether it was history and its division into Jubilees, or the Mosaic law and covenant governing God’s relationship with Israel. The weaved authorities of Jubilees, however, continues not in 1 Enoch (or other apocalyptic
Use in Apocalyptic Literature
A tablet topos occurred thirty-six times in Jubilees, five times in 1 …show more content…
These tablets play a major role in the overall understanding of topoi of tablet authority.
The tablet-of-law descriptor repeats in 1:1, becoming the foundation for later authoritative topos through a textual link to Exod. 24:12.
Through this link, the author weaved two elements together, supporting this authority. The first is history: Mount Sinai and the Torah highlight the corporate memory of Moses receiving the covenant as ancient Israel’s national birth. Second, the author referenced Exod. 24:12 to remind the reader God Himself delivered the law on tablets, then inverted cause and effect by postulating heavenly tablets as the source. The narrative logic reduces to an if-then statement: if the Torah, written on the tablets of the law, is authoritative, then the heavenly tablets from whence it came holds equivalent authority. Consequently, the author established both history and authoritative correction through this topos of heavenly …show more content…
Contained therein was authoritative history for understanding God’s injunction against a sanctuary at Bethel, but the history also undergirded Jubileen reliability. These four tablets weaved a single authoritative concept: writing implicitly or explicitly ordained by God and inscribed on tablets is the authority by which forefathers recorded the unchanging eternal truth, whether it was history and its division into Jubilees, or the Mosaic law and covenant governing God’s relationship with Israel. The weaved authorities of Jubilees, however, continues not in 1 Enoch (or other apocalyptic