It is my understanding that the Bible was written over the course of 1500 years by 40 different authors.
I assume that events that transpired over the course of 1500 years (and since) may also affect the writing of the Bible.
I am looking for a chronological history of people and events which affect the "writing/editing" of the Bible (not what was written).
Anyone know any facts along this line on inquiry?
History of the Bible
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SeriousOne
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Re: History of the Bible
Post #2This is far too wide a topic to discuss in one post. The Bible of the Protestants is a collection of sixty-six separate writings, each with its own history. Many of these writings have been the subject of much controversy and debate among scholars regarding when and who wrote them.SeriousOne wrote:It is my understanding that the Bible was written over the course of 1500 years by 40 different authors.
I assume that events that transpired over the course of 1500 years (and since) may also affect the writing of the Bible.
I am looking for a chronological history of people and events which affect the "writing/editing" of the Bible (not what was written).
Anyone know any facts along this line on inquiry?
For instance, the dating and authorship of Daniel has been a matter of great debate among Jews and Christians. The traditional view holds that the work was written by a prophet named Daniel who lived during the sixth century BC, whereas many modern Biblical scholars maintain that the book was written or redacted in the mid-second century BC and that most of the predictions of the book refer to events that had already occurred. A third viewpoint places the final editorial work in the fourth century BC. [wikipedia]
For the New Testament:
Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good.
First Epistle to the Church of the Thessalonians
The truth will make you free.
Gospel of John
First Epistle to the Church of the Thessalonians
The truth will make you free.
Gospel of John
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cnorman18
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Post #3I'll ring in here with a few similar comments on the OT, or more properly the Torah, from a Jewish perspective.
The Torah, the first five books--Genesis through Deuteronomy--the most sacred and authoritative part of the Bible for Jews--is traditionally said to have come directly from God Himself b'yad Moshe, by the hand of Moses. The word "dictated" is often used, and in fact the tradition says that it was dictated letter by letter. Not even all Orthodox Jews believe this today.
There are variations within this tradition. Some say that the entire Torah was given to Moses at once, on the summit of Mount Sinai; others, that it was revealed to him during the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. Some say that the entire book of Deuteronomy (which is presented as a series of Moses' speeches at the end of his life) was written by Moses in his own words.
It is a fact that there are some textual peculiarities in Torah scrolls--oddly elongated or sized letters, words deliberately misspelled, and the like--not all of which appear in printed Hebrew editions. All of these are scrupulously preserved when a scroll is copied to make a new one, because they all, every one of them, have meaning and significance in the tradition.
Modern scholars, for the most part, think that the present text reached its final form during or sometime shortly after the Babylonian Exile, no earlier than around 450-500 BCE. Some even identify the redactor as Ezra the Scribe, who was also the author of the Biblical book of that name. There are other scholars who place the final redaction much earlier, some at around 1000 BCE, though that view is uncommon.
Whoever he was, the redactor, or final editor, seems to have assembled the text from four different principal sources (though see below): the Yahwist, who wrote or spoke from the point of view of the Southern kingdom of Judah, around 950 BCE; the Elohist, who wrote from the POV of the Northern kingdom, Israel, about a century later (these first two are identified by and named for the words they primarily use for God, YHWH and Elohim respectively); the Deuteronomist, who is supposed to have written during the reign of King Josiah, around 620-650 BCE, and is not surprisingly thought to be the author of Deuteronomy as well as many later books, including Joshua; and the Priestly source, from 500 to 450 BCE, apparently a Temple functionary, a priest or Levite, who was mostly concerned with Levitical law and was probably a contemporary of the redactor. These four sources are known to scholars as J (for Jahwist--early scholars were largely German, and JHVH is the preferred spelling there), E, D, and P.
There are many smaller sections that have been identified as being from still other sources; some of them are thought to be much older than the rest of the text. They are mostly in verse form, and are probably oral traditions. The Song of the Sea, for instance (Exodus 15:1-18), may well date from the time of the Exodus, circa 1450 BCE. It is one of only two sections of the Torah scroll that are not written in simple columns.
The actual origins of the Torah are primarily of academic interest to modern Jews. For the most part, we simply take the text as we have it and study it without much concern for its provenance. Even among Jews who do not believe in its Mosaic origin, we still speak of it as if the traditional stories were true. It doesn't matter in Torah study, and it keeps us all on the same page. So to speak...
All this is complicated by the huge issue of the Oral Torah, which is not well known outside the Jewish community. In Jewish tradition, the written Torah is incomplete, and intentionally so: in order to understand it, and not infrequently to follow its laws, more information is needed. This is provided by the Oral Torah, which is a body of teaching traditionally held to have been given to Moses by God and passed down through the generations without being written. That the Oral Torah existed at least from the time of the J source is beyond dispute; its existence is implied throughout the Torah, and is sometimes alluded to directly.
For example, even though the violation of the Sabbath carried severe penalties, up to and including the death penalty (which as far as we know was seldom if ever actually imposed), the details of what is and is not permitted on the Sabbath are not given. Similarly, the laws of kashrut (the dietary laws), are not given in detail either. In both cases, it is clear that these details were given, though they are not found in the text. Further, whenever the Torah says "Let it be done as it was shown to you on the Mountain," this is a reference to the Oral Torah. This is often seen, for instance, regarding details of the construction of the Tabernacle and its furniture, the Ark, the Menorah, and so on. Without this commentary and expansion, much of the Torah is simply opaque and unintelligible.
(Christians who maintain that the Bible stands on its own without needing interpretation, take note.)
The Oral Torah, or parts of it, were finally committed to writing around 100 CE under the authority of Rabbi Judah the Prince, since at that time the persecution of Jews, and especially of schools of Jewish learning, was so severe as to endanger its survival. The resulting document, the Mishnah, became the core document of what is now called the Talmud.
That work, which runs to more than fifty folio-sized volumes in English, is considered authoritative by Orthodox and Conservative Jews and is the central object of study, along with the Torah itself, for rabbinical students up to our own time. It is an extremely complex and difficult document, layer upon layer of commentaries and commentaries on commentaries, filled with shorthand and single-word cross-references and allusions to other rabbis and sages and passages in other volumes, and to make matters worse, is written in both Hebrew and Aramaic. It is truly a subject for experts.
Some of the Oral Torah has never been written down to this day. It is not secret, but remains an essential part of traditional Jewish teaching that is considered a vital part of the tradition.
As you can see, Scripture is a rather complex and nuanced subject for Jews.
The origins of the other books of the Hebrew Bible are sometimes even cloudier than this--not much is known, for instance, about the origins of the book of Job, which is very old indeed--and sometimes less so; the Psalms seem to be the liturgical songbook of the Temple, and some probably were written by King David himself, though not all that are noted as such. I and II Chronicles and parts of I and II Kings may be official court records.
The books of the Prophets, for the most part, were probably the products of the authors named, though not all; Isaiah had at least two authors, and perhaps three. Though some appear to have been written by the prophets themselves, some of them were probably written down at secondhand by their followers, either contemporaneously with the prophets' speeches or later, from memory. A few may have been written long after the fact and put into the mouths of historical figures, especially those concerned with the "prophecy" of events of the purported author's future and the actual authors' past.
And some books, like Esther and Ruth (and Job), are probably teaching stories, essentially pious fiction.
Using the Bible as a work of formal history is risky indeed; though there may be elements of actual, historical truth in many of the stories, even the most fantastic ones (I have often remarked on the parallels between the events recorded in Exodus and the known effects of the unquestionably historical, and gigantic, eruption of the volcano at Thera in the Eastern Med at about the same time), many of the events presented as factual seem never to have happened at all, notably the massacres and genocide associated with the "conquest" of Canaan.
Using the Bible as a scientific treatise, on geology, geophysics, anthropology, astrophysics, medicine, or anything else, is of course absurd.
This has probably not been of much help, but I thought I'd tell what I know.
The Torah, the first five books--Genesis through Deuteronomy--the most sacred and authoritative part of the Bible for Jews--is traditionally said to have come directly from God Himself b'yad Moshe, by the hand of Moses. The word "dictated" is often used, and in fact the tradition says that it was dictated letter by letter. Not even all Orthodox Jews believe this today.
There are variations within this tradition. Some say that the entire Torah was given to Moses at once, on the summit of Mount Sinai; others, that it was revealed to him during the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. Some say that the entire book of Deuteronomy (which is presented as a series of Moses' speeches at the end of his life) was written by Moses in his own words.
It is a fact that there are some textual peculiarities in Torah scrolls--oddly elongated or sized letters, words deliberately misspelled, and the like--not all of which appear in printed Hebrew editions. All of these are scrupulously preserved when a scroll is copied to make a new one, because they all, every one of them, have meaning and significance in the tradition.
Modern scholars, for the most part, think that the present text reached its final form during or sometime shortly after the Babylonian Exile, no earlier than around 450-500 BCE. Some even identify the redactor as Ezra the Scribe, who was also the author of the Biblical book of that name. There are other scholars who place the final redaction much earlier, some at around 1000 BCE, though that view is uncommon.
Whoever he was, the redactor, or final editor, seems to have assembled the text from four different principal sources (though see below): the Yahwist, who wrote or spoke from the point of view of the Southern kingdom of Judah, around 950 BCE; the Elohist, who wrote from the POV of the Northern kingdom, Israel, about a century later (these first two are identified by and named for the words they primarily use for God, YHWH and Elohim respectively); the Deuteronomist, who is supposed to have written during the reign of King Josiah, around 620-650 BCE, and is not surprisingly thought to be the author of Deuteronomy as well as many later books, including Joshua; and the Priestly source, from 500 to 450 BCE, apparently a Temple functionary, a priest or Levite, who was mostly concerned with Levitical law and was probably a contemporary of the redactor. These four sources are known to scholars as J (for Jahwist--early scholars were largely German, and JHVH is the preferred spelling there), E, D, and P.
There are many smaller sections that have been identified as being from still other sources; some of them are thought to be much older than the rest of the text. They are mostly in verse form, and are probably oral traditions. The Song of the Sea, for instance (Exodus 15:1-18), may well date from the time of the Exodus, circa 1450 BCE. It is one of only two sections of the Torah scroll that are not written in simple columns.
The actual origins of the Torah are primarily of academic interest to modern Jews. For the most part, we simply take the text as we have it and study it without much concern for its provenance. Even among Jews who do not believe in its Mosaic origin, we still speak of it as if the traditional stories were true. It doesn't matter in Torah study, and it keeps us all on the same page. So to speak...
All this is complicated by the huge issue of the Oral Torah, which is not well known outside the Jewish community. In Jewish tradition, the written Torah is incomplete, and intentionally so: in order to understand it, and not infrequently to follow its laws, more information is needed. This is provided by the Oral Torah, which is a body of teaching traditionally held to have been given to Moses by God and passed down through the generations without being written. That the Oral Torah existed at least from the time of the J source is beyond dispute; its existence is implied throughout the Torah, and is sometimes alluded to directly.
For example, even though the violation of the Sabbath carried severe penalties, up to and including the death penalty (which as far as we know was seldom if ever actually imposed), the details of what is and is not permitted on the Sabbath are not given. Similarly, the laws of kashrut (the dietary laws), are not given in detail either. In both cases, it is clear that these details were given, though they are not found in the text. Further, whenever the Torah says "Let it be done as it was shown to you on the Mountain," this is a reference to the Oral Torah. This is often seen, for instance, regarding details of the construction of the Tabernacle and its furniture, the Ark, the Menorah, and so on. Without this commentary and expansion, much of the Torah is simply opaque and unintelligible.
(Christians who maintain that the Bible stands on its own without needing interpretation, take note.)
The Oral Torah, or parts of it, were finally committed to writing around 100 CE under the authority of Rabbi Judah the Prince, since at that time the persecution of Jews, and especially of schools of Jewish learning, was so severe as to endanger its survival. The resulting document, the Mishnah, became the core document of what is now called the Talmud.
That work, which runs to more than fifty folio-sized volumes in English, is considered authoritative by Orthodox and Conservative Jews and is the central object of study, along with the Torah itself, for rabbinical students up to our own time. It is an extremely complex and difficult document, layer upon layer of commentaries and commentaries on commentaries, filled with shorthand and single-word cross-references and allusions to other rabbis and sages and passages in other volumes, and to make matters worse, is written in both Hebrew and Aramaic. It is truly a subject for experts.
Some of the Oral Torah has never been written down to this day. It is not secret, but remains an essential part of traditional Jewish teaching that is considered a vital part of the tradition.
As you can see, Scripture is a rather complex and nuanced subject for Jews.
The origins of the other books of the Hebrew Bible are sometimes even cloudier than this--not much is known, for instance, about the origins of the book of Job, which is very old indeed--and sometimes less so; the Psalms seem to be the liturgical songbook of the Temple, and some probably were written by King David himself, though not all that are noted as such. I and II Chronicles and parts of I and II Kings may be official court records.
The books of the Prophets, for the most part, were probably the products of the authors named, though not all; Isaiah had at least two authors, and perhaps three. Though some appear to have been written by the prophets themselves, some of them were probably written down at secondhand by their followers, either contemporaneously with the prophets' speeches or later, from memory. A few may have been written long after the fact and put into the mouths of historical figures, especially those concerned with the "prophecy" of events of the purported author's future and the actual authors' past.
And some books, like Esther and Ruth (and Job), are probably teaching stories, essentially pious fiction.
Using the Bible as a work of formal history is risky indeed; though there may be elements of actual, historical truth in many of the stories, even the most fantastic ones (I have often remarked on the parallels between the events recorded in Exodus and the known effects of the unquestionably historical, and gigantic, eruption of the volcano at Thera in the Eastern Med at about the same time), many of the events presented as factual seem never to have happened at all, notably the massacres and genocide associated with the "conquest" of Canaan.
Using the Bible as a scientific treatise, on geology, geophysics, anthropology, astrophysics, medicine, or anything else, is of course absurd.
This has probably not been of much help, but I thought I'd tell what I know.
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SeriousOne
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