Who Wrote the Bible and When?

Many Christians base their faith primarily on the literal language of the Bible, which they claim is "inerrant" because "God wrote it." On another thread, some contributors mentioned that they believe the Bible because it is so old. In fact, it's not uncommon for Christians to claim that the Bible is the oldest book in the world. Progressive Christians, however, dispute these claims. Since the OP's ground rules precluded open debate on these points, I've started this one, so that both sides of the issue can be debated freely and honestly.

By the Bible, I mean both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Unfortunately, we don't have any of the original texts. The Old Testament, consists of 39 books (24 by the Hebrew Canon) written over at least 600 years. The oldest copies of the Hebrew Bible are the Dead Sea Scrolls, dating to the second century, BCE, which contain at least fragments from every Book of the Old Testament except the Book of Esther. Most of these, with exceptions in Exodus and Samuel, are remarkably close to the Masoretic text dating to the tenth century, C.E. This is evidence that the Hebrew scribes were doing their job, and we can be confident that the Old Testament canonized by the second century A.D. has substantially the same materials as the one from antiquity. The New Testament consists of 27 books written over a period of some 70 years, starting circa 50 A.D., with James and the early Pauline epistles, followed by Acts circa 60 A.D., and the Gospels afterwards. Very little can be said on this subject that isn't highly controversial, but I'll try my best and welcome the controversy.

 

Isnt this the bible of the new world? are you not writing the bible right now?

 

Do you believe in the documentary hypothesis or otherwise?

 

No, I think I'm just writing about the Bible. The canons of both the Old Testament and the New Testament are established.

 

I'm not sure I understand the question, but I believe that conclusions about the Bible, like everything else, should be consistent with reason and evidence. In particular, on the site I'm in Exodus from, statements like: "I believe the Bible is true because it says so" are, in my opinion, circular, beyond reason, give Christians a bad reputation, and open the believer up to manipulation by dangerous charlatans.

The Documentary Hypothesis, as I understand it, is the Wellhausian idea that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses but by several authors and at least one redactor. If that's what you mean, yes I do--but am open to being convinced otherwise. I think Whybray's objections have been satisfactorily answered. I'm persuaded of the version of the Documentary Hypothesis put forward by Dr. Richard Elliott Freidman, professor of Hebrew and comparative literature at the University of California, San Diego. I must admit I plagiarized part of the title of this thread from his excellent book, Who Wrote the Bible. He defends a modified version of Wellhaus in his more recent The Bible With Sources Revealed (2003). But I'm not ready to go to the mat on DH, because I think the Rendtorff & Blum accretion theory and the Van Seters supplemental theory are also plausible. The important thing is that there are competing theories to the notion that Moses wrote the whole thing, which has some problems, like the fact that his death is mentioned in Deuteronomy 34. I've heard of things being published posthumously, but written posthumously?

 

ok, are your writing Good things about it??

 

I believe so too. I am just unsure where you would like this thread to go? Your thread topic is about who wrote the Bible and when and I am unsure where to go from there without possibly sounding extreme.

I would say that God wrote the Bible through man. As for when, it depends on each book.

 

The documentary hypothesis is very interesting. I am on the fence with what to believe about this area of the Bible. But if the Documentary hypothesis is true, then I would see that as being equal to Moses writing the Pentateuch. One adds mention about the Ravens, and another corrects any logical mishaps and there we have something special, like pieces of a puzzle fitting together.

 

In terms of where I'm coming from in my personal beliefs, I bridle at OWB's frequent assertions that "God wrote the Bible", or even that His scribes took dictation. My sense is that the Bible was written by men--lots of them--trying to understand the ineffable phenomenon we know as God. I don't believe that the Bible is the inerrant "Word of God". But I do believe it's inspired by God.

 

I hope so. My intention was to provide a thread for discussing the Bible and the different views concerning it--putting out my own thoughts and letting others react to them and putting their own thoughts out there too.

 

I see.

 

I believe that the Holy Spirit guided men to say what God wanted them to say. Maybe not word for word, as in "God's word", but that God's raphesh, or his character, for a brief moment, became one with the one dictating and thus saw connections in things that they normally would not.

This character once joined, will have the thoughts and the will of God.

 

Just so we're not setting ourselves up for 6,000 year old earths and the rest of the stuff Creationists are hung up over today. If we can accept that these details aren't necessarily the point God was trying to get across, I could go along with that.

 

I'm not to sure where I'm going myself, but I was thinking of starting by considering briefly the Mesopotamian and Caananite beginnings from archaeological and historical perspectives and then examining the DH and alternatives in understanding biblical developments. Sound as extreme as you like. You're among friends.

 

Ditto.

God did not give us the Bible to give us the scientific method, but to give us salvation.

 

I guess my approach to scripture will be shocking to some. I approach it the way I approach everything else:using my best judgment on the basis of my personal experience, other knowledge, the best evidence available to me, and the opinions of reputable scholars to form tentative conclusions while trying my best to keep an open mind for new arguments and evidence. I follow as rules of thumb: Occam's razor, Hume's approach to miracles, and a general preference for naturalistic explanations. Those will immediately set me apart from a lot of believing Christians, and they are not facts or logical deductions--only principles that seem reasonable for an admittedly fallible human to adopt in trying to make sense of reality. Occam's razor is a preference for the simplest explanations of things. For all I know, the most complicated explanations are the right ones. Hume argues that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Sounds reasonable to me. And I think naturalistic explanations are preferable in coming up with a worldview in which knowledge gained in one area can be related to knowledge gained in others. These are all just assumptions, though--ones that I'm willing to bet my life on.

 

did gilgamesh believe in god?

 

The measure you give is the measure you get, is scientific method. Seek and you shall find, is scientific method. Forgive and be forgiven is scientific method.

 

We may accurately state that the bible was developed over time.
The question as to who wrote the bible can only be practically relevant to those who's model of faith regards this question as important.
A books value lies not in accrediting authorship, but in the information it contains.
If you are looking for an authoritative face, then to, "keep my sayings", will demonstrate that the words are true.

 

My sentiments exactly!