Who Wrote The Bible?

[Snow]

Who wrote the Bible?

Let’s start with the New Testament... What I post below is a synthesis of what I’ve gleamed here and there with some emphasis on a couple books I’ve read lately (From Jesus to Christianity, White, The First Paul, Borg and Crossan, and Jesus Interrupted, Ehrman).

Discussion, clarification, explanation, expansion, disagreement welcome...

[Snow]

Matthew:

Author unknown, probably the 2nd gospel written. An early tradition attributed to Papias (ca 130 CE) attributes the Gospel to Matthew, the actual disciple of Christ, although there are problems with Papias account/attribution. Titles of the Gospels were added much later.

Matthew is the most Jewish of of gospels. The Matthean community was in village culture of upper Galilee.

The author of Matthew was likely not an eyewitness to the accounts he describes (same for all Gospel authors); his source material was the Gospel of Mark, perhaps the theoretical work “Q” and other material. It dates to probably 80-90 CE.

Matthew blames the death of Christ on the Pharisees in collusion with the priests although that could say more about Matthew’s community than about the actual conspiracy.

It was written to a Greek speaking Jewish community of Jesus movement followers in a Jewish cultural setting.

[Snow]

Mark:

Author unknown. The early tradition attributed to Papias (ca 130 CE) says that the author was John Mark, who traveled with Peter to Rome and there wrote down what he remembered of Jesus. That would date the Gospel to around 64 CE but other internal evidence (? references to the destruction of Jerusalem in chapters 11-13) points to 70-75 CE. While Rome is a possible setting, Antioch is also a possibility.

Mark is the first of the Gospels and is the source of much of Luke and Matthew. Though Luke and Matthew used Mark as a source in compiling their own accounts, the sequence of events in Christ’s ministry varies between the Gospels. Matthew and Luke felt free to re-engineer Mark. The majority scholarly opinion holds that Mark was the first Gospel written and drew on the oral tradition.

Mark describes Jesus violent act in the temple as the act that led directly to His death, which after the conflict with moneychangers caused the priests and scribes to plot His death.

It was written to the Greek speaking followers of the early Jesus movement.

[Snow]

Luke / Acts

Luke and Acts are separated in the NT as are they in all or the extant manuscripts but scholars believe that they were originally one work. The identity of the author is uncertain but tradition gives the authorship to a physician and co-worker of Paul’s. That the book came from an adherent to the Pauline tradition is not disputed. It is dated from 90-100 CE.

Like Matthew, Luke’s source materials are believed to be Mark, “Q” and other material from the oral tradition. Whereas Matthew rearranged the Markian accounts, Luke keeps most of the chronology the same as Mark. Interestingly, whereas Mark and Matthew have the disciples go to Galilee to witness the resurrected Christ, Luke puts the all the appearances in and around Jerusalem.

By the time of Luke, the early Jesus movement is starting to evolve into Christianity and away from being a Jewish sect. Luke moves in a new direction and places the movement on the world or Roman stage by using Roman historical persons and events.

It was written to a gentile audience as an expression of the second generation of the Jesus movement that was evolving into Christianity.

[BenRaines]

Is it the various books you are referring to or the compilation of the New Testament you are referring to?

Are we going to discuss the authors of the various books or compilers of their writings?

Sounds like an interesting thread.

Ben Raines

[Snow]

John:

Matthew, Mark, and Luke draw on the same traditions and are called the Synoptic Gospels. John stands apart.

The author is unknown but the Gospel was attributed to apostle John, the beloved since the time of Irenaeus in the 2nd century. The key seems to be that the author intentionally avoiding discussing the figure of John. It seems that the intended audience was meant to understand who the author was, though the book was written, or at least finished, after John’s death.

The book is dated between 95 and 120 CE. The most widely accepted theory is that John himself wrote the earliest core of the Gospel and ultimately there were as many as 5 stages of compilation and editing, the last two of which came after John’s death.

The book was popular with gnostics up into the 3rd and 4th centuries.

Many of John’s accounts cannot be reconciled with the synoptic gospels. For example, in the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus enters Jerusalem for the first time in his life in the last week of his life. In John, Jesus goes back and forth to Jerusalem from the beginning of His ministry. We get the “three year” ministry from John where 3 passovers are mentioned. In the Synoptics, only one is mentioned. Whereas Mark has the cleansing of the temple as the explicit and immediate cause of Jesus execution, John has the cleansing years earlier with no connection to His death. In the Synoptics, the last meal is a seder. In John, it is not.

John has a whole collection of stories not found in the Synoptic Gospels - miracles referred to as the “sign source.” The Synoptics show miracles that Jesus performs out of compassion for the people and performing miracles as signs are decried. In John, however, the miracles are not called miracles, they are called signs and there are explicitly intended as signs to prove who Jesus was.

Written to a early gentile Christian community that has become fully separate from Judaism.

[Snow]

Is it the various books you are referring to or the compilation of the New Testament you are referring to?

Are we going to discuss the authors of the various books or compilers of their writings?

Sounds like an interesting thread.

Ben Raines

I am posting a brief introduction to the authorship, date and sometimes a little interesting information about each of the New Testament books/letters.

[Snow]

The Pauline Epistles:

7 Authentic or Undisputed Letters/Epistles:

Romans (58 CE - Paul)

Sent to introduce Paul’s missionary theology for his Rome visit.

1 Corinthians (53-54 CE - Paul)

2 Corinthians (55-57/58 CE - Paul with Timothy)

Harsh tone of rebuke. Sarcastically complains about other missionaries who he calls “false apostles” and “super apostles.”

Galatians (55 or 57 CD - Paul)

This is a harsh rebuke by Paul who viewed gentile converted prepared to be circumcised as a betrayal against him, Paul, who did not favor circumcision for gentiles. He is very upset at other missionaries and says that he wishes they would just cut off their own genitals. He jumps Peter’s case and loudly proclaims his own authority.

Philippians (55-56 CE - Paul) Scholars argue that Phillippians is a combination of 2 or 3 lettlers, edited together by someone after Paul.

1 Thessalonians (50 51 - Paul with Silvanus and Timothy)

Philemon (55-56 CE Paul) - contains a request for a domestic slave to be freed.

There is a scholarly consensus that these 7 letters were written (and co-written) by Paul. They are written within a generation of the death of Jesus and so represent the earliest accounts of the nascent and evolving Jesus movement. Paul, is the 2nd most influential figure in the origins of Christianity (after Christ) but is understood differently by different Christians, His written work is extremely important to the Protestants - “justification by faith” being a foundational message. While the Pauline Epistles are scripture for Catholics, his work is less pivotal in their understanding. Others see Paul as an unattractive figure with some appalling implications - citing passages attributed to Paul on slavery, anti-Semitism, misogyny and heterosexism. As it turns out, Paul was a liberal/progressive and radical and much of those themes do not authentically belong to Paul but to those that came after Paul trying to make his radical approach more palatable to ruling authorities. ( http://www.lds.net/forums/general-discussion/24051-paul-meet-paul-study-forgery.html )

[BenRaines]

Sorry Snow I didn't realize that you were still posting. I have deleted my post.

Ben Raines

[Snow]

The Pauline Epistles - cont:

2 Disputed Pauline Letters

Colossians (70-80 CE - author unknown)

Written to a Pauline branch of the movement in Asia Minor as an ethical exhortation for living in the Roman world.

2 Thessalonians (75-100 CE - author unknown)

Of all the disputed or pseudepigraphic letters of Paul, Collossians, if not by Paul, is closest to Paul. The scholars are even divided on whether these letters are authentic or not. The Paul of these two letters is conservative (more traditinal), compared to the radicalness of the authentic letters. Scholars are divided on whether or not they are authentic.

[Snow]

The Pauline Epistles - cont:

Pseudepigraphic (forgeries of falsely attributed works) Pauline Letters:

Ephesians (85-95 CA - author unknown)

First Timothy

Second Timothy

Titus

These three are called the Pastoral Epistles and represented a domestication of Paul, a need to reign in the divisive interpretations that arose from the authentic Paul egalitarian and radical views. They were written 120s - 130s and the author is unknown.

[Snow]

Hebrews (90-115 CE - author unknown)

Although the letter does not itself claim to be from Paul, historically it was associated with Paul. It was also formerly attributed to Barbabas, Luke and Clement of Rome. Most modern scholars agree that it not from Paul. Anciently, Origen said: “As to who wrote it, God alone knows.”

[Snow]

James (75-125 CE - author unknown)

A letter of moral instruction for the community.

1 Peter (80-95 - author unknown)

Understood to be pseudepigraphical by almost all modern scholars.

Sent to Christians in western Turkey where their emerging identity as a new religion (Christian - emerging from the Jesus movement) has brought them to the attention of the Roman authorities.

2 Peter (120s-130s CE - author unknown)

Borrows heavily from the Epistle of Jude. The work is pseudepigraphic and not written by Peter.

Jude (90-110 - author unknown)

The letter is attributed to Judas, brother of James but it is pseudepigraphic.

Both texts sound the growing alarm of false doctrine being taught - kinda ironic given both are falsely attributed to Peter and Jude.

Warns against the spread of false teachers cropping up in the church.

[Snow]

1 John (95-105 CE -author unknown)

Written for early gentile Christian community now separated from Judaism. Closely related to Gospel of John

2 John (120s-130s)

3 John (120s-130s)

Some similarity to the Gospel of John and 1 John but it cannot be demonstrated that they come from the same author. The author is someone like Polycarp or Papias.

Revelation (95-96 CD - “John”)

Added late to the canon as was controversial in the first centuries of Christianity.

It is an apocalypse written in response to Christians who were increasingly accommodating of Rome forbidding Christians from engaging in the public Roman imperial cult.

[BenRaines]

Definition:

Pseudepigrapha (from the Greek: ψευδής, pseudēs, "false" and ἐπιγραφή, epigraphē, "inscription"; see the related epigraphy) are falsely attributed works, texts whose claimed authorship is unfounded; a work, simply, "whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past."[1] For instance, no Hebrew scholars would ascribe the Book of Enoch to Enoch, a character mentioned in Genesis 5, and few Christian scholars would insist today that the Second Epistle of Peter was written by Saint Peter.[2] Nevertheless, in some cases, especially for books belonging to a religious canon, the question of whether a text is pseudepigraphical or not elicits sensations of loyalty and can become a matter of heavy dispute. The authenticity or value of the work itself, which is a separate question for experienced readers, often becomes sentimentally entangled in the association. Though the inherent value of the text may not be called into question, the weight of a revered or even apostolic author lends authority to a text: in Antiquity pseudepigraphy was "an accepted and honored custom practiced by students/admirers of a revered figure".[3] This is the essential motivation for pseudepigraphy in the first place.

I don't regularly use Wikipedia but it was handy.

Ben Raines

[Snow]

Pseudepigrapha

What did you call me?

[Moksha]

Revelation (95-96 CD - “John”)

Added late to the canon as was controversial in the first centuries of Christianity.

It is an apocalypse written in response to Christians who were increasingly accommodating of Rome forbidding Christians from engaging in the public Roman imperial cult.

It is still rather controversial isn't it? Seems to me that it has spawned all manner of kookiness.

[john doe]

Thanks Snow. There is good information here and new things I did not know. Maybe we should make this a sticky so we can refer to it from time to time.

Edited August 7, 2009 by john doe
spell-check is broken

[rameumptom]

Bart Ehrman's books are very good to learn about the New Testament. "Jesus, Interrupted" explains much of what Snow describes, and why Ehrman is now agnostic. He was originally a very conservative Baptist, attending the Moody Bible seminary in Chicago. But advanced studies and textual criticism studies, helped him realize that the Bible could not be "God breathed" as his co-religionists insisted. It becomes a huge shock for many ministers, so much so that occasional studies show that many ministers do not believe that Jesus was actually God or the Messiah, but just a good teacher. And shockingly, some still remain as pastors!

I believe this is why we were encouraged and commanded to study the Book of Mormon. As a second witness of Christ, it removes the doubt that many have concerning Jesus' divinity, after seeing what a train wreck the Bible can seem to be to some.

65% of National Council of Churchesl Christian ministers believe that Jesus is the only way to salvation.

60% of US Methodist clergy do not believe in the virgin birth.

The great thing about Mormonism, is these facts about the Bible should not affect us. We know the Bible is true only inasfar as it is translated correctly. We know that God has sent prophets in their weakness, so that we can learn line upon line, precept upon precept. The statistics show that such things do not bother LDS like it does other groups.

Back in the early 1990s, when the Dead Sea Scrolls were finally released out into the wild, there were concerns by many traditional Christians that the findings would damage their faith in Christ. For instance, the DSS community had baptism and a communion, which according to many only started with John the Baptist and Jesus. But we have them performed earlier in the LDS Church scriptures.

[Traveler]

One thing I find most interesting - that it is impossible to produce in our modern time an original of any standard scripture. Even for LDS there are no original manuscripts of our scriptures. I have pondered this and have concluded that there is reason but such reason is my opinion.

The Traveler

[Snow]

Let's try the Old Testament

[Snow]

I get some of this from what I’ve gleamed here and there, from my study Bible, and also from the folks at The Straight Dope.

Who wrote the Torah or Pentateuch - The Five Books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy)?

No one knows but there are two main beliefs (and some other minor opinions I won’t mention here).

The Traditional View is that the Torah was written by Moses which would put the date somewhere between 1280 and 1250 BCE, give of take - the most commonly held view of the time of the exodus. Inside this theory are some variations: namely, where did Moses get the information?

Directly from God, word for word.

Inspired from God, but filtered through Moses’ human lens.

On his own.

There are some problems with the Moses theory:

There is no historical evidence that Moses ever existed.

The Torah describes Moses death - obviously Moses can’t be the sole author.

Stories are repeated in the Torah, with different characters or focus: There are 2 creation stories, 3 stories of the traveling patriarch and his wife pretending to be his sister, two striking the rock for water stories, two sets of 10 commandments, etc. These repeating stories are called doublets.

There are internal contradictions. In one case Noah takes two of every animal, in another case he takes seven of some, Joseph is sold to Ishmaelites in one case but Midianites in another case, etc.

The Scholarly View (not meant to suggest that there are scholars who hold the Traditional View):

There are 4 separate authors of the Torah: J - the Jahwist source, E - the Elohist source, D - the Deutoronomist source, and P - the Priestly source.

A common interpretation of the this scholarly view (called the Documentary Theory or Hypothesis goes like this:

1250 -1000 BCE Conquest of Cannan begins. The stories and histories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses are passed down as oral traditions.

1000 - 950 BCE Tribes unite under David. Many stories are written down by “J.”

920 722 BCE Kingdom splits in two. J reflects the Davidic or Southern view with “E” reflects the Northern view.

722 BCE Israel is conquered and tribes are scattered. Someone combines J and E into one document (JE).

770 -600 BCE “P” appears focusing on Temple rites, sacrifice, etc.

640 - 609 BCE A lost scroll of Moses is found by Halkiah. This is “D.” It is very old.

Now we have JE, P, and D.

Approximately 450 BCE - “R” - The Redactor appears and weaves and edits JE, P and D together.

The Documentary Theory has been the dominant view during the 20th century.

[rameumptom]

One of the better books for reading up on the Documentary Hypothesis is Richard E Friedman's "Who Wrote the Bible?"

As you study, it is clear that as we now have it, Moses did not write the Torah. How was he going to write the last chapter of Deuteronomy, which tells of his death, for instance?

There are double, and sometimes triple stories about events, often slightly different from one another - showing the different views from E, J, P and D.

For example, there are two stories of the Flood imbedded together into the one story. Two different periods of flooding, two sets of animals (clean/unclean did not occur until the times of Moses, but was added by the Priests IIRC).

Perhaps one important example, as pertaining to the Book of Mormon, are the two stories of Moses getting water from a rock at the same location: Meribah. In one story (J/P), Moses is chewed out by God for doing it for his own selfish reasons, and he loses the right to enter the Promised Land. In the other (E), Moses is shown the rock by an angel, and there is nothing wrong done. J sought to put down Moses and make Aaron look good to explain why they should be the only priests working in the temple, etc.

In the Book of Mormon account, it mentions Moses obtaining water from the rock, but shows the E version. Moses is always shown as the perfect example. Aaron is never mentioned. While the Priests would center all worship and sacrifice in the temple, E focuses it on the Abrahamic nomad work, with official sacrifices in the wilderness.

According to Friedman, both J and E made it to Jerusalem, where they were combined into one story, and later redacted further by the Redactor "R", who scholars believe was Ezra. Nephi got his stories of Moses from the E source. He had the brass plates of Laban, which were passed down through the tribe of Joseph (giving Lehi his geneology). Joseph was a major tribe in the Northern Kingdom, where E wrote. The writings of E had to make it to Jerusalem sometime after the fall of the northern kingdom (721 BC), which would mean Laban's/Lehi's ancestors possibly brought it down to Jerusalem for safekeeping. This would explain its importance to the elders of Jerusalem, even wishing to consult it late at night.

Is it possible that the Plates of Laban were the original E source? It is, in my mind, very likely, considering how these events all tie in together.

[sixpacktr]

This has been an interesting thread on actual authorship. In answer to one view that Moses did not write the Torah (and I haven't studied this like you both have, but it just struck me), could it be like the BoM? Mormon did most of it and then Moroni finished it up. Could it be that Moses wrote most of it and that Joshua (or someone else) finished it up after Moses was taken?

Just throwing something out there.

But I have another question that I need to ask: what does all of this show? We believe the scriptures to be true as far as they are translated correctly. Is it the contention of scholars that Paul didn't write Timothy, Titus, etc., that Peter didn't write Peter, that John didn't write the letters, and therefore it isn't based in truth? I am being geniunely curious here, not trying to argue. I'm wondering if these weren't instead based upon letters then extant that were the basis of the books in the bible, kind of the 'reader's digest' version of several letter together so that we'd have the doctrine?

A lot to think on and digest...

[Hemidakota]

Hebrews (90-115 CE - author unknown)

Although the letter does not itself claim to be from Paul, historically it was associated with Paul. It was also formerly attributed to Barbabas, Luke and Clement of Rome. Most modern scholars agree that it not from Paul. Anciently, Origen said: “As to who wrote it, God alone knows.”

Barbabas = Barnabas?