Authors of the Bible
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
To comply with Wikipedia's quality standards, this article may need to be rewritten. Please help improve this article. The discussion page may contain suggestions. |
The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page.(May 2008) Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. |
The Authors of the Bible have authored or co-authored literature that has appeared in the canons of Judaism and of Christianity. Theologians debate who authored much of the literature below[citation needed]. The list below gives strongest credit to tradition and areas of large consensus. Authors of the Bible are listed by book of the Bible. The sections mentions the author of each work mentioned in Christian tradition. When a significant number of modern historians and theologians disagree with this attribution, that author is mentioned as well.
Contents[hide] |
[edit] Old Testament/Hebrew Bible
The Jewish bible (called the Hebrew bible by many scholars because it is written mostly in that language) differs from the Christian Old Testament notably in the order in which the various books within it are presented. The main principle behind the order of books in the Hebrew bible is authorship, and it is that order which is followed in this section.
[edit] Torah/Pentateuch
The first five books of the bible are known by Jews as the Torah ("laws", or more accurately "instruction"). They were translated into Greek in the last few centuries before Christ, and are thus also known by their Greek title, the Pentateuch.
The tradition of the Mosaic authorship (i.e., authorship by Moses) of the Torah can be traced to the Jewish community of the time of Jesus and several centuries before, and was adopted by the early Christian Church without question. It apparently has its basis in the several instances in the Pentateuch where Moses is described as writing "torah" (laws) at the dictation of God, including a famous incident in Deuteronomy where he orders a copy of "this law" to be laid beside the Ark of the Covenant. But while many conservative Christians and Jews still take the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch as a matter of faith, it has been abandoned by mainline biblical scholars since the 19th century. None of the instances where Moses is described as writing torah refer unequivocally to anything more than their own immediate context (e.g., the incident in Deuteronomy refers specifically to the Deuteronomic lawcode, not to the entire book of Deuteronomy), and the scholarly consensus in any case is that the Torah reached its present form no earlier than the 5th century BC, long after the supposed lifetime of Moses.
There is no single consensus among biblical scholars as to just who wrote the Torah and when. SMany continue to follow the documentary hypothesis, which supposes that the Five Books - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy - were originally four separate but complete and competing documents, and were edited into the present Pentateuch; others point to major problems with this idea, and suggest instead that the Pentateuch grew by a process of slow accretion of material over the centuries; and others again, while accepting the problems with the documentary approach, believe that the Torah contains one basic document which was supplemented over the centuries by other writers with their own distinctive viewpoints and objectives. There is general agreement, however, that the Pentateuch is the product of many hands and many centuries, and that it reached its present form around 450 BC.
[edit] Prophets
The next group of books after the Torah/Pentateuch in the Hebrew bible is called the Prophets. This section is divided into two subsections, Former Prophets and Minor Prophets. Despite the name, the first of the Former Prophets - Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings - are history books, telling the story of the Israelite people from the conquest of Canaan to the fall of Jerusalem. They are included in the Prophets because their author was traditionally believed to have been the prophet Samuel, supplemented by other prophets for the period covering events after Samuel's death. Prophets concludes with Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel (the Major Prophets), followed by the twelve Minor Prophets (all the remaining prophetic books except Daniel).
In the 1940s the great German biblical scholar Martin Noth drew attention to what he called the Deuteronomistic History within the bible, a history of the Israelites beginning with the book of Deuteronomy and stretching across Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings. Noth proposed that these books had been written as a unitary work, sometime around the year 600 BC, at the court of king Josiah of Judah, with the intention of providing a rationale for Josiah's plan to reconquer the northern kingdom of Israel. Noth's hypothesis has almost universal acceptance among biblical scholars today. It is impossible to know who the author of the original History might have been (although Richard Elliott Friedman makes the case that it may have been Baruch, the scribe of the prophet Jeremiah).
The other books are traditionally ascribed to the various prophets whose names they bear - Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and so on. Modern scholars consider it probably that real individuals lie behind the books, but all of them have had later additions, sometimes substantial.
[edit] Writings
The final section of the Hebrew bible, taking in all the remaining books, is the "Writings". The traditional authorship of many is reflected in the titles: Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel, etc. The unnamed books are ascribed to various famous figures: King David is the traditional author of most of the Psalms, Solomon of the Song of Songs. None of these attributions are supported by modern biblical scholars, who see all these books as fairly late compositions by multiple anonymous and pseudonymous authors.
[edit] New Testament
The New Testament is divided into the Gospels, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse, the latter being the Book of Revelation. The Acts of the Apostles can be considered as a continuation of the Gospels
[edit] Gospels/Acts
According to tradition the Gospels were written by the four named authors and in the order in which they appear in the New Testament - Matthew by the Apostle Matthew, Mark by a disciple of the Apostle Peter in Rome, Luke by Luke the companion of Paul, and John by John the Evangelist, traditionally identified with the Apostle John. Luke is also identified by tradition as the author of the Acts, as a continuation of the Gospel of Luke.
Scholarly opinion is evenly divided between those who accept and those who reject the traditional authorship of Luke/Acts. For Mark, Matthew and John there is far greater agreement that the traditional ascriptions are incorrect, and that the authors of these works are in fact unknown. Scholars are in broad agreement that Mark is the earliest gospel, and that Matthew and Luke rely on it for their narrative. All four Gospels are usually dated to a period after 70 AD, although a minority of conservative scholars continue to argue for earlier dates.
[edit] Epistles and Revelation
Thirteen of the Epistles are ascribed by tradition to the Apostle Paul. Modern scholars believe that about half of them are false attributions, introduced by later authors to lend authority to their own views. The following list identifies the traditional Pauline Epistles according to whether they are accepted as genuine, false, or uncertain (the Epistles are listed in the order in which they appear in the New Testament):
- Romans (genuine)
- First Corinthians (genuine)
- Second Corinthians (genuine)
- Galatians (genuine)
- Ephesians (false)
- Philippians (genuine)
- Colossians (uncertain)
- First Thessalonians (genuine)
- Second Thessalonians (uncertain)
- First Timothy (false)
- Second Timothy (false)
- Titus (false)
- Philemon (genuine)
Hebrews was regarded as Pauline by some early traditions, but this was questioned even in ancient times and is rejected by all modern scholars. The true author is unknown.
The remaining epistles are traditionally ascribed to the persons whose names appear in their titles - three epistles of John the Evangelist, (the author of Revelation), two of the Apostle Peter, and one each of James the Just, the brother of Jesus, and one of "Jude the brother of James" (which, if taken literally, would mean that both James and Jude are by brothers of Jesus).
The authorship of the Johannine works in general (the three Epistles plus the Gospel of John and Revelation) is still disputed, but the general opinion among scholars is that there are clear similarities between the First Epistle of John and the Gospel of John, so that a common author is plausible; the Second and Third Epistles probably come from within a circle of followers of the author of the First Epistle and the Gospel, but are not by that author himself: the hypothetical author of the Second and Third Epistles is often called John the Presbyter by scholars to distinguish him from the Evangelist. Revelation is believed to be by a third author, who introduces himself simply as "John" - this third author is referred to by modern scholars as John of Patmos.
The First and Second Epistle of Peter are both regarded as pseudonymous. The Greek of both letters is too polished to have come from a Galilean fisherman, and they both show familiarity with the Jewish scriptures only in their Greek translation. Nor are the two epistles from the same author: the second epistle relies on the Epistle of Jude and makes reference to multiple Pauline epistles, and the theology seems to belong to a 2nd century time-frame.
The Epistle of James and the Epistle of Jude are also regarded as pseudonymous, with James probably dating to 90-100 AD and Jude to the same period or a little later.
[edit] Table
[edit] Old Testament
(This table follows the canon of the Roman Catholic church - the mainline Jewish, Protestant and Orthodox canons differ significantly, both in the books regarded as biblical and in the order in which they are presented)
Book | Author according to traditional thought |
Author according to modern thought |
---|---|---|
Genesis | Moses. | Documentary hypothesis: Various unnamed editors combining originally complete and independent documents;[1] OR Supplementary hypothesis: Various anonymous authors making additions (supplements) to a base text; OR Fragmentary hypothesis: Single unknown author drawing on multiple documentary and oral sources. |
Exodus | ||
Leviticus | ||
Numbers | ||
Deuteronomy | ||
Joshua | Joshua with a portion by Phinehas or Eleazar | Deuteronomist using material from the Yahwist and Elohist |
Judges | Samuel | Deuteronomist |
Ruth | Samuel | A later author, writing after the time of David |
1 Samuel | Samuel, Gad, and Nathan | Deuteronomist or a combination of a Jerusalem source, republican source, the court history of David, the sanctuaries source, the monarchial source, and the material of various editors who combined these sources |
2 Samuel | ||
1 Kings | Jeremiah[2] | Deuteronomist |
2 Kings | ||
1 Chronicles | Ezra | The Chronicler, writing between 450 and 435 BC, after the Babylonian captivity |
2 Chronicles | ||
Ezra | Ezra | The Chronicler, writing between 450 and 435 BC, after the Babylonian captivity |
Nehemiah | Nehemiah using some material by Ezra | The Chronicler, writing between 450 and 435 BC, after the Babylonian captivity |
Tobit | A writer in the second century BC | |
Judith | Eliakim (Joakim), the high priest of the story | |
Esther | The Great Assembly using material from Mordecai | An unknown author writing between 460 and 331 BC |
1 Maccabees | A devout Jew from the Holy Land. | An unknown Jewish author, writing around 100 BC |
2 Maccabees | Based on the writing of Jason of Cyrene | An unknown author, writing in the second or first century BC |
3 Maccabees | An Alexandrian Jew writing in Greek in the first century BC or first century AD | |
4 Maccabees | Josephus | An Alexandrian Jew writing in the first century BC or first century AD |
Job | Moses | A writer in the 4th century BC. |
Psalms | Mainly David and also Asaph,[citation needed] sons of Korah, Moses, Heman the Ezrahite, Ethan the Ezrahite and Solomon | Various authors recording oral tradition. Portions from 1000BC to 200BC. |
Proverbs | Solomon, Agur son of Jakeh, Lemuel and other wise men | An editor compiling from various sources well after the time of Solomon |
Ecclesiastes | Solomon | A Hebrew poet of the third or second centuries BC using the life of Solomon as a vista for the Hebrews' pursuit of Wisdom. An unknown author in Hellenistic period from two older oral sources (Eccl1:1-6:9 which claims to be Solomon, Eccl6:10-12:8 with the theme of non-knowing) |
Song of Solomon | Solomon | |
Wisdom | Solomon | An Alexandrian Jew writing during the Jewish Hellenistic period |
Sirach | Jesus the son of Sirach of Jerusalem | |
Isaiah | Isaiah | Three main authors and an extensive editing process. Is1-39 "Historical Isaiah" with multiple layers of editing. Is40-55 Exilic & Is56-66 post-exilic. |
Jeremiah | Jeremiah | Baruch ben Neriah[3] |
Lamentations | Jeremiah | Disupted and perhaps based on the older Mesopotamian genre of the "city lament", of which the Lament for Ur is among the oldest and best-known |
Letter of Jeremiah | Jeremiah | A Hellenistic Jew living in Alexandria |
Baruch | Baruch ben Neriah | An author writing during or shortly after the period of the Maccabees |
Ezekiel | Ezekiel | Disputed, with varying degrees of attribution to Ezekiel |
Daniel | Daniel | An editor in the fourth century to mid-second century BC |
Hosea | Hosea | |
Joel | Joel | |
Amos | Amos | |
Obadiah | Obadiah | |
Jonah | Jonah | Possibly a post-exilic (after 530 BC) editor recording oral traditions passed down from the eighth century BC |
Micah | Micah | The first three chapters by Micah and the remainder by a later writer |
Nahum | Nahum | |
Habakkuk | Habakkuk | |
Zephaniah | Zephaniah | Disputed; possibly a writer after the time period indicated by the text |
Haggai | Haggai | |
Zechariah | Zechariah | Zechariah (chapters 1-8); the later remaining designated Deutero-Zechariah, were possibly written by disciples of Zechariah |
Malachi | Malachi or Ezra | Possibly the author of Deutero-Zechariah |
[edit] New Testament
Book | Author according to traditional thought |
Author according to modern thought |
---|---|---|
Matthew | Matthew the Evangelist | An anonymous author who borrowed from both Mark and a source called Q |
Mark | Mark the Evangelist | Perhaps Mark (John Mark), follower of Peter. |
Luke | Luke the Evangelist | An anonymous author who borrowed from both Mark and a source called Q |
John | John the Apostle or John the Evangelist | An anonymous author with no direct connection to the historical Jesus Jn 21 finished after death of primary author by follower(s) |
Acts | Luke the Evangelist | The author of Luke |
Romans | Paul the Apostle | Paul the Apostle |
1 Corinthians | ||
2 Corinthians | ||
Galatians | ||
Ephesians | Paul the Apostle | Paul the Apostle or edited dictations from Paul |
Philippians | Paul the Apostle | Paul the Apostle |
Colossians | Paul the Apostle | Disputed; perhaps Paul coauthoring with Timothy |
1 Thessalonians | Paul the Apostle | Paul the Apostle |
2 Thessalonians | Paul the Apostle | An associate or disciple after his death, representing what they believed was his message[4] |
1 Timothy | Paul the Apostle | Perhaps someone associated with Paul, writing at a later date |
2 Timothy | Paul the Apostle | Perhaps someone associated with Paul, writing after his death |
Titus | Paul the Apostle | Perhaps someone associated with Paul, writing after his death |
Philemon | Paul the Apostle | Paul the Apostle |
Hebrews | Paul the Apostle or possibly Luke the Evangelist, Clement of Rome or Barnabas | An unknown author, but almost certainly not Paul[5] |
James | James the Just | A writer in the late first or early second centuries, after the death of James the Just |
1 Peter | Peter | An author, perhaps Silas, proficient with Greek writing |
2 Peter | Peter | Certainly not Peter[6] |
1 John | John the Evangelist | An unknown author with no direct connection to the historical Jesus Same as Gospel of John. |
2 John | John the Evangelist | An unknown author with no direct connection to the historical Jesus Final Editor of Jn 21 |
3 John | John the Evangelist | An unknown author with no direct connection to the historical Jesus Final Editor of Jn 21 |
Jude | Jude the Apostle or Jude, brother of Jesus | A pseudonymous work written between the end of the first century and the first quarter of the 2nd century |
Revelation of Christ to John | John the Apostle | Perhaps John of Patmos |
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Gledhill, Tom. The Message of the Song of Songs. InterVarsity Press: 1994.
- Kidner, Derek. The Message of Ecclesiastes. InterVarsity Press: 1984.
[edit] Notes
- ^ From the Introduction to Richard Elliot Friedman's The Bible with Sources Revealed, 2003.
- ^ http://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-authors.html
- ^ Miller, Stephen M., Huber, Robert V. (2004). The Bible: A History. Good Books, page 33. ISBN 1561484148.
- ^ Ehrman, Bart D. (2004). The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. New York: Oxford, p.385; Beverly Roberts Gaventa, First and Second Thessalonians, Westminster John Knox Press, 1998, p.93; Vincent M. Smiles, First Thessalonians, Philippians, Second Thessalonians, Colossians, Ephesians, Liturgical Press, 2005, p.53; Udo Schnelle, translated by M. Eugene Boring, The History and Theology of the New Testament Writings (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), pp. 315-325; M. Eugene Boring, Fred B. Craddock, The People's New Testament Commentary, Westminster John Knox Press, 2004 p652; Joseph Francis Kelly, An Introduction to the New Testament for Catholics, Liturgical Press, 2006 p.32
- ^ http://religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=531&C=563 Richard Heard, Introduction To The New Testament
- ^ Carson, D.A., and Douglas J. Moo. An Introduction to the New Testament, second edition. HarperCollins Canada; Zondervan: 2005. ISBN-10 0310238595, ISBN-13 978-0310238591. p.659.