The History Of The Bible

[SWIM]

Hello!

 

This thread is intended to shed some light on the history of the bible, where it originated, who wrote it, and why christians think it is the word of god.

 

I used this page as a reference for this post:

 

http://www.bidstrup.com/bible.htm

 

I also, point you to the SAB, The Skeptic's Annotated Bible, for some answers to contradictions:

 

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/

 

Prehistory to 1850 BC, The old testament:

 

Scholars have traced the roots of many of the Old Testament stories to the ancient, pagan myths of the ancient Mesopotamian cultures. In the Fertile Crescent, the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in present-day Iraq, gave birth to some of the worlds first civilizations.

 

In this early flowering of civilization, many religious myths abounded, seeking to explain what is unexplainable. From this context comes the oldest complete literary work we have, the age of which we are certain, dating back at least 7,000 years. (sorry young earthers who think the earth is 6000 years old) The Epic of Gilgamesh is a lengthy narrative of heroic mythology that incorporates many of the religious myths of Mesopotamia, and it is the earliest complete literary work that has survived.

 

Many of the stories in that epic were eventually incorporated into the book of Genesis. Borrowed from the Epic of Gilgamesh are stories of the creation of man in a wondrous garden, the introduction of evil into a naive world, and the story of a great flood brought on by the wickedness of man, that flooded the whole world. The story of pandora's box is similar.

 

The patriarchs first appear with the journey of one of them, Abraham, who, the story tells us, led members of his tribe from the city of Ur, west towards the Mediterranean, to the "promised land" of Canaan, sometime between the 19th and 18th centuries B.C.E. Or so the story goes.

 

The problem is that we don't really have any good archeaological evidence to support the Abraham story, and there is much archaeological evidence to contradict it. The land where Abraham supposedly settled, the southern highlands of Palestine (from Jerusalem south the the Valley of Beersheba) is very sparse in archaeological evidence from this period. It is clear from the archaeological record that its population was extremely sparse - no more than a few hundred people in the entire region, and the sole occupants of the area during this time were nomadic pastoralists, much like the Bedouin of the region today. We know from clear archaeological evidence that the peoples known as the Phillistines never even entered the region until the 12th century B.C.E., and the "city of Gerar" in which Isaac, the son of Abraham, had his encounter with Abimelech, the "king of the Phillistines" (in Genesis 26:1) was in fact a tiny, insignificant rural village up until the 8th century B.C.E. It couldn't have been the capital of the regional king of a people who didn't yet exist!

This isn't the only problem with the account of the Age of the Patriarchs, either. There's the problem of the camels. We know from archaeological evidence that camels weren't domesticated until about the late second millenium B.C.E., and that they weren't widely used as beasts of burden until about 1000 B.C.E. - long after the Age of the Patriarchs. And then there's the problem of the cargo carried by the camels - "gum, balm and myrrh," which were products of Arabia - and trade with Arabia didn't begin until the era of Assyrian hegemony in the region, beginning in the 8th century B.C.E.

 

Yet another problem is Jacob's marriage with Leah and Rachel, and his relationship with his uncle, Laban, all of whom are described as being Arameans. This ethnic group does not appear in the archeological record prior to 1100 B.C.E., and not a significant group until the 9th century B.C.E.

 

Yet influences from the east must have been, because we have evidence of worship of their gods and goddesses. The heiarchy of gods and goddesses who included Baal, the god of storms, who made the land fertile, and Lotan, the seven-headed dragon, known to Old Testament readers as Leviathan. There is Yam Nahar, the god of the seas and rivers, and other pantheons and heiarchies of gods and goddesses.1 Reigning over them all was El, the king of the gods, ruler of the pantheon. Remember the name, we'll encounter it again.

 

Now, this little tidbit above is a copy and paste from that page. It is meant to jump start this thread.

 

I would like to hear, first, how xtians "explain" the historical inaccuracies in the above, then we can move on to other things, including new testament origins.

 

Since xtians use the bible as "The Word of God" well, lets see how accurate it is under close scrutiny!

 

Ex-christians, lets try to add even more data to this and other areas and points of bible history so as to better informed our xtians on the board the real truth about how they got their book!

 

This could be quite fun and heated, or die a slow death as not many xtians have the courage to read the label on what it is they are *digesting*.

 

Let the games begin!

[sojourner]

Your too far ahead of me Michael

 

Im just learning about 'J' 'E' 'P' and 'D' so Im really at the beginning of this

 

sojourner

[Mythra]

Well, let's see... I didn't see your original post mention Jericho. Joshua and battle of Jericho. And the trumpets blast and the walls come a-tumblin' down. Except it never actually occurred.

 

Even as the world press was reporting that Joshua's conquest had been confirmed, many of the most important pieces of the achaeological puzzle simply did not fit. Jericho was among the most important. As we have noted, the cities of Canaan were unfortified and there were no walls that could have come tumbling down. In the case of Jericho, there was no trace of a settlement of any kind in the thirteenth century BCE, and the earlier Late Bronze settlement, dating to the fourteenth century BCE, was small and poor, almost insignificant, and unfortified. There was also no sign of a destruction. Thus the famous scene of the Israelite forces marching around the walled town with the Ark of the Covenanat, causing Jericho's mighty walls to collapse by the blowing of their war trumpets was, to put it simply, a romantic mirage.

 

From "The Bible Unearthed" - Archeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman.

[Mythra]

And, the battle of Ai never happened either. Therefore my pet indictment against yahweh (THE STONING OF ACHAN'S LITTLE KIDS) probably never actually occurred either. (sigh).

 

 

A similar discrepancy between archaeology and the Bible was found at the site of ancient Ai, where, according to the Bible, Joshua carried out his clever ambush. Scholars identified the large mound of Khirbet et-Tell, located on the eastern flank of the hill country northest of Jerusalem, as the ancient site of Ai. Its geographical location, just to the east of Bethel, closely matched the biblical description. The site's modern Arabic name, et-Tell, means "the ruin", which is more or les equivalent to the meaning of the biblical Hebrew name Ai. And there was no alternative Late Bronze Age site anywhere in the vicinity. Between 1933 and 1935, the French-trained Jewish Palestinian archaeologist Judith Marquet-Krause carried out a large-scale excavation at et-Tell and found extensive remains of a huge Early Bronze Age city, dated over a millennium before the collapse of Late Bronze Canaan. Not a single pottery sherd or any other indication of settlement there in the Late Bronze Age was recovered. Renewed excations at the site in the 1960's produced the same picture. Like Jericho, there was no settlement at the time of its supposed conquest by the children of Israel.

 

also From "The Bible Unearthed" - Archeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman.

[Mythra]

It's not looking real good for the exodus story either. All indications are that - alas - it's just another story in the bible. Not an actual event.

 

From Heimdall's blog here at Ex-C: http://ex-christian.net/blog/heimdall/index.php?eid=303 "The Exodus Cycle" - I'd recommend reading the article in its entirety..

 

After a century and a half or more of archaeological excavations in both the Near East and Palestine (in particular), there has not been one single tiny shred of evidence to support the Exodus or the Conquest. This fact was instrumental in the statement made by the Syrio-Palestian archaeologist and biblical scholar William Dever (Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology, University of Arizona) that the Exodus was a 'Dead Issue' (Encyclopaedia of Archaeology in the Near East, Vol IV (1997) pp 391-2.) The fact has become very evident to anyone with any expertise in the field that it is not possible to harmonize the Judea-Christian bible with the archaeological date (actually with the lack thereof) in regard to the Exodus event.

In an attempt to determine if the Exodus was an actual historical event, scholars use literary and archaeological sources. In establishing the historicity of the Exodus, the first thing to determine when it was said to have happened. 1 Kings 6:1 gives the date of the Exodus as follows: 'In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites had come out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, he began to build the temple of the LORD.'

By synchronizing the characters mentioned in the bible that are known from external sources and by using the biblical genealogies, we can work out the date of Solomon's reign. By the aforementioned method, we arrive at the date of 967 BCE for the 4th year of Solomon's reign, giving us a date of 1447 BCE for the Exodus. It needs to be mentioned now that King Solomon is mentioned only in the Bible, nowhere outside the Bible in any inscriptions or texts, nor has a single stone of this 'Temple' been found anywhere either.

[SWIM]

That's good stuff Mythra!

 

Seems like these are clearly historic fallacies. Who wrote these early books, and what evidence in history do we have on the early works of the old testament? Seems like SOME would have to be on noah's boat eh? How else would they have known?

 

Also, look at the lifespan of these people, that's pretty much impossible too.

[Mythra]

How about the origins of Hell? Isn't it odd that there is so little discussion of it in the old testament, and so much in the new? Where did these ideas come from about the lake of fire, eternal torment, and all those other scary concepts? Surely they didn't just pop out of thin air. Or come as the result of some new revelation from God. No - they came by way of other cultures, other religions (notice I didn't call them myths - for they were surely considered religions at that time) that had contact and influence on the thought processes of the day.

 

In conclusion, some of the concepts as found in the book of Revelation, suggest mythic themes were being borrowed by the early Christians from the myths of Canaan, Mesopotamia, Egypt, as well as Hellenistic Greece, creatively transforming and re-interpreting them with "new twists," to paraphrase Lambert's observation.

 

The Old Testament or Hebrew Bible knows NOTHING of an eternal damnation of sinners in a lake of fire. This notion does however appear in the so-called "inter-testamental era," circa 330 BCE to 100 CE in various Jewish writings called the Pseudepigraphia and Apocrypha. I suspect that Hellenistic Greek notions of an underworld filled with fiery rivers and lakes came to be accepted by some Hellenized Jewish individuals, or sects, from which a Hellenized Christianity emerged.

 

The Greeks who settled settled in Sicily and southern Italy by the 6th century BCE would have seen the "firey rivers" or lava flows at night erupting from the Mount Etna volcano or Mount Vesuivius. These fiery rivers of lava coming from the under the earth, probably caused them to imagine a fiery underworld for the damned.

 

A "Hellenized Religion" is by definition a blend of Hellenized Greek metaphysical concepts with other Ancient Near Eastern faiths. The "Books of Apocrypha" found in some Christian Bibles mention how some Jews, including Priests, accepted Hellenized Greek concepts and tried to change the Jewish faith by accepting Greek beliefs into the Temple at Jerusalem. This movement was resisted by the Maccabees, who sought to restore Judaism to its pre-Hellenistic Greek teachings (cf. the Book of 1st Maccabees for the story).

 

Ptolemy II who ruled Egypt (285-246 BCE) was successful in conquering Judah in the 3rd century BCE and he carried off into capitivity to Egypt, thousands of Jews, many of whom came to settle in his capital at Alexandria. Most probably via these Hellenistic Greeks and their myths of fiery underworld rivers, as well as the local Egyptians and their myths of lakes of fire for the damned of Osiris, a "Hellenized and somewhat Egyptianized" Judaism emerged with a concept of a fiery torment for sinners which would later emerge in Christianity's teachings of hell-fire for the unrighteous. Jews in Egypt were frequent pilgrim visitors to Jerusalem and its Temple and via these pilgrims the local Palestinian Jewry would come into contact with notions of a fiery fate for the unfaithful.

 

From "Hell's Pre-Christian Origins: Hell-fire, Dragons, Serpents, and Resurrections" http://www.bibleorigins.net/hellsorigins.html

[SWIM]

But *WHO* actually *wrote* these books, who were the original authors, are *any* of them known? Or has time buried all reference to them? And who got their hands on them afterwards? that's the big question, isn't it like "chain of evidence" in forensics?

[Mythra]

But *WHO* actually *wrote* these books, who were the original authors, are *any* of them known?

 

Most scholars agree that some of the Pauline epistles are authentic. They are:

 

Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Phillipians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon.

 

The rest of the "Pauline" epistles are widely considered pseudepigraphic, i.e. written by an unknown somebody and attributed to Paul. They are:

Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, and Titus.

 

No one knows who wrote the gospel stories. Fundies think they know. But their presumptions are not based in fact. The attributions of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John had no external mention until Irenaeus, around 180 CE.

 

Justin Martyr wrote around 150 CE, and he did not know these gospel stories by their names. Instead he referred to them as the "memoirs of the apostles".

 

Many of the new testament writings are considered by a wide array of biblical scholars to have been written well into the second century.

 

So, you're right. For a great majority of the writing in the bible (including the Pentateuch and the rest of the Tanakh), no one actually knows who wrote it (or even exactly when)

[Mythra]

Here's a site you might appreciate. It's called The Straight Dope. And this article is about who wrote the bible. It's probably about as accurate and concise as anything you'll find online. If anything, the dating they talk about is quite conservative compared to some others I've read.

 

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mbible4.html

[SWIM]

For a great majority of the writing in the bible (including the Pentateuch and the rest of the Tanakh), no one actually knows who wrote it (or even exactly when)

 

 

So it's safe to assume god did it then, lol xtian logic at its finest... It is amazing to me that they will stake their soul and life on something that they have no idea where they actually got it.

 

Such a whoring of ones mind lol

[Taphophilia]

I came across this article at Jewish Atheists blog concerning "Who Wrote the Bible?" concerning the scribe Ezra HaSofer. According to the article Ezra basically compiled/wrote (redacted) the Torah.

 

Who Wrote The Bible?

[Ouroboros]

Thanks Taph,

 

I only glanced the blog and I already learned bunches.

[Amanda]

Also, look at the lifespan of these people, that's pretty much impossible too.

Michael, thanks for the great article!

 

The long life spans attributed to people seems to be related to a custom of acknowledging people of significance (not only in the bible either) by stating their age in a manner that is based on the number 60. It seems MWC explained this to me awhile back. 60 was considered an elite number, I think due to it's relevance to time, the circle, measurements, etc. More about it on a post by MWC here , specifically post #6.

 

Perhaps much of the OT was written in a way that was to mostly have a moral to the story. Maybe a bit of it is based on an actual event, that became embellished with legend, incorporated other myths through the generations, and certainly altered in the common era translations. Even Titus 1:14 claimed these old Jewish stories are just fables. How much is real, how much is embellished... does anyone know? Even Merlin the wizard and Santa Claus are based on real people, and look what happened to their accounts. Writing only started in 3,000 BC, initially for inventory purposes. It seems many of these OT renderings had to be relied upon by word of mouth for who knows how long.

 

The question I have, is why did these particular books remain so popular, gaurded, and respected for so long?

[sojourner]

TY for the link Taphophilia

 

I am currently reading Who Wrote the Bible by Freidman, great book so far, very informative but what I found on that blog was that I already owned his other book and had forgotten I had bought it quite some time ago. I didnt put them together as being by the same author. Thanks to you I went and searched the shelves and found it. I never read it but will read it after I finish the other one.

 

sojourner