Sourcing the Bible

[ST88]

This topic is meant to address the Bible in context of history -- specific authorship via literary, anthropological, and archaeological evidence. The post following is continued from the Why do you believe in Creationism or Evolution? topic. But the entire thread can be used to answer this question:

What are the implications, either historical or anthropological or what have you, on who wrote the different parts of the Bible?

For example, who are the likely authors of some of the Apochrypha, and would that affect how they are interpreted?

[ST88]

1) "all cultures throughout the earth" is clearly not true. The Judeo-Christian God was revealed only to the peoples of Judea. That it spread from there is not relevant because the "revealing" (?) was only done to these people.

I think you misunderstood me here. All I said that that "ideas and thoughts about God come from all different cultures through the earth....". I wasn't talking specifically about the Judeo-Christian God, I was just referring to the idea of God which obviously is very universal and doesn't originate in a single source. However, even the bible itself has many stories of God revealing Himself to all sort of people in many different cultures. So, clearly the idea of God does not come from a single source, which was the point I was debating.

I think what your evidence points to is that there are beliefs in the supernatural throughout the world. The vast majority of cultures have more than one god in their pantheon -- most with an overarching god of gods, but not with just one that claims to be the only god. That you take this to mean the same God as YHWH/Iehovah is an issue for anthropology.

In addition to that, yes, the Bible is primarily about the revealing of God to the descendants of Israel, however it definitely is not limited to that. Most of the book of Genesis is about revelations of God to people before Israel's descendants were defined as a people group, and subsequent to that many books deal with other peoples and with diverse locations. For example, that the book of Job, Job is a book that many scholars believe to be one of the oldest books of the bible and Job is not a Jewish person and the setting is not in Judea.

Tradition says the Book of Job is ascribed to Moses about a Hebrew oral history. If so, Job would be a member of the chosen people, regardless if they were called Israelites at the time, and it would have been written probably some time after the Tanakh. The Companion Bible states that this is the same Job that was the son of Issachar in Genesis 46:13. This supports the traditional view that he was a follower of Abraham. Others believe it was written by Solomon. Some modern scholars believe it was written much later (around 600 B.C.). The setting is Uz, that, from what I can tell, is a place that may have been in what is now Jordan or around the Sea of Galilee -- neither here nor there, he is still a follower of Abraham.

Also, many other books of the bible were written in diverse places, such as the book of Daniel which was written in Babylon, with several chapters written by a Babylonian king. Two of the key books of the New Testament (Luke & Acts) were written by a Greek. Much of the New Testament in fact was written by various authors throughout the Roman empire. Some books are written by kings, some by a shepards, others by intellectuals. The diversity is overwhelming if you take the time to actually read it.

That the books were written in diverse places is not exactly what I had in mind.

As for the Book of Daniel, from my research the authorship of this book is a very controversial subject. For one thing, in order to ascribe the entire book of Daniel to Daniel, you have to believe in predictive prophecy, because the prophecies had not yet come true in Daniel's time. For another, it was written in more than one language. An entire passage was written in Chaldean, a Babylonian/Assyrian language. It seems logical to assume that there were two authors, though I have no evidence for this. But of the two authors, I do not think that one of them was a Babylonian King or any other Babylonian. I have no problem with the Chaldean passage being written by Daniel or another captive Hebrew at that time, but it seems logical to assume that the rest of it was either written outright or at least updated from the original to include many historical facts that would have not yet been evident in Daniel's time. In any event, the Book of Daniel is clearly written by someone who has knowledge of Hebrew tradition, regardless if that is also augmented by the inspired word. That is, even if part of it were written by a Babylonian king, this king would have had knowledge of Daniel's heritage. Could you point to evidence of this authorship?

Incredibly, an amazing aspect to this is that many of the authors of the 66 books that collectively is called "the bible" were not even aware of each other at the times they lived and wrote in. Many of the books stand uniquely on their own as single pieces of literature and yet there is a harmony between each of them.

That the books stand on their own (a debateable topic in itself) does not prove anything. They were not written in a vacuum by hermits as you seem to suggest. But this allows for some interpretation based on your world view. If you believe, for example, that it is possible for God to speak to someone, e.g., a prophet, you would be more likely to believe that it was possible for someone who had never heard of God to suddenly write about Him. However, if you were a rationalist, such as myself, you would not give that idea any credit and would probably conclude that subsequent authors always knew about previous writings. And by previous writings, I don't exclusively mean previously written books of the Bible. There were plenty of writings about God and this religion that are not a part of the Bible, which means that any two books could have the same sources without the authors' knowledge of one another (if such a thing needs to be proven). Actual books to be included in the Bible were selected by religious leaders from among hundreds of other books through a long, laborious process. There is not even agreement among sects as to which books really belong in the Bible.

New Testament

Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Greek Orthodox Christians agree on the same 27 books for the composition of the New Testament; however some smaller groups of Christians do not. The Nestorian, or Syrian church, recognizes only 22 books, excluding 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude and Revelation.

On the other hand, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church includes the same 27 books in its "narrower" canon but adds 8 books to its "broader" canon: "four sections of church order from a compilation called Sinodos, two sections from the Ethiopic Books of Covenant, Ethiopic Clement, and Ethiopic Didascalia."1
Old Testament

The Jewish Bible and the Protestant Old Testament contain the same books but they are arranged in a different order. Additionally, books that Protestant Christians divide into two parts (Kings, Chronicles, Samuel, and Ezra-Nehemiah) are only one book in the Hebrew Bible.

In terms of the Old Testament, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, and other Eastern Christians claim more "inside books".

The books of the "second canon" are considered "inside" by Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Ethiopic Christians; the latter group adds even more books beyond the deuterocanonicals. Protestants consider the same books "outside" however they give the Apocrypha high status, considering them valuable for instruction and spiritual edification.

The Ethiopian Orthodox church's narrower Old Testament canon includes the books of the Hebrew Bible, all of the Apocrypha, and "Jubilees, 1 Enoch, and Joseph ben Gurion's (Josippon's) medieval history of the Jews and other nations."

Whose Canon? Which Bible?

2) The "thousands of years" figure is misleading because subsequent thought was based on the ideas from only one source.

How is "thousands of years" misleading? The bible is a collection of 66 books that was written over 1500 years. Scholars that view the bible as a complete myth agree to this. Why is this even a point of debate? The actual physical manuscripts in existence that substantiate this fact are more numerous than any other ancient text.

This isn't the thousands of years figure I was referring to. I was responding to this quote from you:

Ideas and thoughts about God come from all different cultures all throughout the earth and spans thousands of years.

Because I thought you were talking about all different cultures all throughout the earth, I assumed you meant the post-Roman era, since there are only a few cultures that produced Biblical texts during the 1,500 year figure. As a result of this misunderstanding, my next point is irrelevant.

4) You seem to be admitting that the Bible is not the Word of God, but in fact was only written by the hand of man. If you do not buy into this single source theory then you must accept that God had nothing to do with writing the Bible, because God can be considered to be the single source.

Well, I guess you're definitely making assumptions then. The stance of Christianity is not that God literally took a pen and paper and wrote the book of the bible, no Christian I've heard of believes that! In fact, the bible doesn't say that - it says that God decided to use humans as messengers of his Word. What the bible says is that God choose certain humans to be His message bearers, and those people he inspired to write down the words he gave them.

So, obviously I do believe that ultimately God is behind the words in the bible, but as far as it being a single source as far as our physical reality is concerned, I definitely don't believe that. The bible doesn't say that and it doesn't even make logical sense. Since God is an infinite being, he himself is not a "single source" and I think to reduce him down to that is contrary to how the bible explains things.

You can't have it both ways. Either the books are the divinely insprired word of God (a single source) or they are the works of men who only thought they were (multiple sources). If you want to debate whether or not God could be seen as a single source, we can do that as well.

I submit that the nature of God is unchanging (though his mind may change from time to time). If, as you suggest, God can be thought of as multiple sources (because of his infiniteness), then I don't understand how I am supposed to read the Bible. Are you saying that he is all things to all people? Do each of us get to define who God is for ourselves? I had thought that the nature of God was constant, and that the Word of God was supposed to be consistent from age to age. Am I wrong in this?

For the "faith" issue brought up by this argument, please see the thread Faith in Science.

[proverbial student]

What are the implications, either historical or anthropological or what have you, on who wrote the different parts of the Bible?

For example, who are the likely authors of some of the Apochrypha, and would that affect how they are interpreted?

Not that this has anything to do with the likely authors but I just came back from a class that discussed the Dead Sea Scrolls and it was said that 60% of the Bible is verbatim with the scrolls while 20% is similar to the Living Bible version of the Bible. In essence it was written in a different context than the version used today. Allegedly these scrolls and manuscripts were possibly written by the Essenes who lived in the Judean desert, who hid them in caves by the Dead Sea. So it is interesting that although some of the books were transcribed verbatim there were other books that had a different style of writing which could lend itself for different interpretations, couldn't it?

[ST88]

Not that this has anything to do with the likely authors but I just came back from a class that discussed the Dead Sea Scrolls and it was said that 60% of the Bible is verbatim with the scrolls while 20% is similar to the Living Bible version of the Bible. In essence it was written in a different context than the version used today. Allegedly these scrolls and manuscripts were possibly written by the Essenes who lived in the Judean desert, who hid them in caves by the Dead Sea. So it is interesting that although some of the books were transcribed verbatim there were other books that had a different style of writing which could lend itself for different interpretations, couldn't it?

If the Essenes were a Judaic cult that started well before the birth of Christ, it would be a very interesting development if the Essenes were the culture in which Christ was was immersed when he started preaching. If he was, in fact, Essene, it would account for much of the similarity of thought behind the New Testament. However, this would also discount his divinity. I don't know much about the Dead Sea Scrolls, but it would be interesting to do a textual comparison to see where the similarities and differences are. The shadows of the Manichaeans!

ed: typos

[proverbial student]

If the Essenes were a Judaic cult that started well before the birth of Christ, it would be a very interesting development if the Essenes were the culture in which Christ was was immersed when he started preaching. If he was, in fact, Essene, it would account for much of the similarity of thought behind the New Testament. However, this would also discount his divinity. I don't know much about the Dead Sea Scrolls, but it would be interesting to do a textual comparison to see where the similarities and differences are. The shadows of the Manichaeans!

Actually the Essenes were a pre-Christian Judaic group of which it was believed John the Baptist was a member due to the many comparisons between the ways of life of the Essenes and that of John the Baptist, as outlined in the NT.

I didn't mean to mislead you by stating that some of the scrolls were like the Living Bible, implying that there were NT books involved for none of the Scrolls involved the NT. Isaiah was found complete but much of the scrolls were written on animal hide or papyrus. The elements and age got to them and the remains were in little pieces which have had to be reconstructed by Biblical Scholars. I think they are still comparing the versions and the current day Bibles are being updated for the changes.

This class I took was a 1.5 hour lecture, one of which I wish would have lasted a lot longer. It was very, very interesting to say the least, there was literally no time left to even ask a question, except for one I snuck in. I thought it interesting that although the Egyptians used hieroglyphics as a way to communicate and tell stories, it seems odd that this method of communication or art form was not used during Jesus' time. The lecturer stated that frescoes etc were not created until much later. I still find that odd. You would think that as moving as the death of Christ would have been to some people that early Christian artists even before the temple was destroyed would have created works of art depicting this event. It is quite possible that they would have gotten in trouble, but still, it makes one wonder what else has not yet been found.

I think that would make another interesting bit of study to provide evidence of how early artwork reflected the stories of the NT and if any was created prior to the writings of the Gospels. It would seem that this would provide additional evidence of the sources. Do you know of such a study? If so, I would be interested in hearing about it.