Witness/insight claims of the authors of the Bible

[emjay]

A little sample of what you have to look forward to:

A very large percentage of seminarians are completely blind-sided
by the historical-critical method. They come in with the expectation
of learning the pious truths of the Bible so that they can pass
them along in their sermons, as their own pastors have done for
them. Nothing prepares them for historical criticism. To their surprise
they learn, instead of material for sermons, all the results of
what historical critics have established on the basis of centuries of
research. The Bible is filled with discrepancies, many of them irreconcilable
contradictions. Moses did not write the Pentateuch (the
first five books of the Old Testament) and Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John did not write the Gospels. There are other books that did
not make it into the Bible that at one time or another were considered
canonical—other Gospels, for example, allegedly written by
Jesus’ followers Peter, Thomas, and Mary. The Exodus probably did
not happen as described in the Old Testament. The conquest of the
Promised Land is probably based on legend. The Gospels are at odds
on numerous points and contain nonhistorical material.

pgs 5-6

Funnily enough that kind of ties in with the fact that I've been trying to decide on an open learning course to do and my first choice was philosophy but today I started to look at the possibility of doing a Theology/Religious Studies course... just because it looked interesting (though I don't think it's historical like this)... and my uber-Christian dad wasn't keen on it... basically because of the general rule of thumb that nobody who actually studies Religion academically ends up believing in it

---

I'm curious about the implicit, base claims of the authors of the Bible. I'm not talking about the content... because anyone can write content... but rather the implicit or explicit claims to knowledge that authorship implies. For instance, most if not all books in the Bible are in the form of a third person narrative rather than a first person eye-witness account; and as such appear to implicitly claim 'such and such happened but I wasn't there to see it directly'... eg the story of the Garden of Eden. In the case of the Gospel authors it may be the case that they claim to be eye-witnesses to some of it, but it can't be all unless they were all with Jesus at every moment, which they clearly were not.

To that end I would point at the book of revelation. We know moses recorded the pentateuch/the first 5 books of the OT. Which includes Genesis. This means that it is moses who had the third person perspective in Genesis. the next question is how or is there any other biblical precedent that allowed for a 3rd person two view something out of their time and then record it back in their time... The answer is Yes. This very thing happens to John of patmos. an Angel of God took him to see how the world would end. If an angel has the ablity to do this at the end of time, then shouldn't God be able to do the same with Moses? Remember that is who Moses was with those many days on mt. Cyanide while the rest of the jews waited at the foot of the mountain.

1. So from a reductionistic point of view, for each book of the Bible, I'd like to know:
a) who was the author (if it's possible to know)?

https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-authors.html

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy = Moses - 1400 B.C. (prophet)
Joshua = Joshua - 1350 B.C. (appointed leader of the Jews/prophet)
Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel = Samuel/Nathan/Gad - 1000 - 900 B.C. (phophets)
1 Kings, 2 Kings = Jeremiah - 600 B.C.(prophet)
1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah = Ezra - 450 B.C.(prophet)
Esther = Mordecai - 400 B.C. (ester's uncle and exile of nebcanezzar)/first person
Job = Moses - 1400 B.C.(prophet)
Psalms = several different authors, mostly David - 1000 - 400 B.C. (a collection of preists and kings)
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon = Solomon - 900 B.C. King of the Jews/prophet
Isaiah = Isaiah - 700 B.C. (prophet)
Jeremiah, Lamentations = Jeremiah - 600 B.C.
Ezekiel = Ezekiel - 550 B.C.
Daniel = Daniel - 550 B.C.
Hosea = Hosea - 750 B.C.
Joel = Joel - 850 B.C.
Amos = Amos - 750 B.C.
Obadiah = Obadiah - 600 B.C.
Jonah = Jonah - 700 B.C.
Micah = Micah - 700 B.C.
Nahum = Nahum - 650 B.C.
Habakkuk = Habakkuk - 600 B.C.
Zephaniah = Zephaniah - 650 B.C.
Haggai = Haggai - 520 B.C.
Zechariah = Zechariah - 500 B.C.
Malachi = Malachi - 430 B.C. the rest are a mixture of prophets and preists (Stand alone prophets and prophets that taught)

Matthew = Matthew - A.D. 55
Mark = John Mark - A.D. 50
Luke = Luke - A.D. 60
John = John - A.D. 90
Acts = Luke - A.D. 65
Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon = Paul - A.D. 50-70
Hebrews = unknown, mostly likely Paul, Luke, Barnabas, or Apollos - A.D. 65
James = James - A.D. 45
1 Peter, 2 Peter = Peter - A.D. 60
1 John, 2 John, 3 John = John - A.D. 90
Jude = Jude - A.D. 60
Revelation = John - A.D. 90

b) what was their implicit, or ideally explicit, claim about the source of the information they are relating? (ie eye-witness, second-hand testimony, or from God; and if so in what form? eg 'inspiration', vision, dream etc)

Prophets were men in the OT who communed with God directly.

2. And these questions then extend further up the tree to those who compiled the Bible; considering the Bible a compilation, the 'author/s' is/are the compiler/s of that compilation. So again:
a) Who were the author(s) (if it's possible to know... I think it was the Catholics but I'm not sure)

For the OT it was the Jews. The kept and identified what was canonical and what was not. There are some books like the books of Maccabees that tell of the origins of Hanukkah and the time between the current last book of the OT and the first book of the new. That some sects of Judaism and even some version of Christianity hold as canonical, but on whole do not meet the vetting process the other mainstream books had to pass.

b) what was their implicit, or ideally explicit, claim about the source of inspiration about which books should be included or not? (ie did they claim divine inspiration or not, and if so in what form did it take? intuition, vision, in the case of Catholics, Papal Infallibility etc)

I'll give you a short answer, and link you to a proper one.

After the first century the church began to splinter as the original twelve had disciples and those disciples had others. In an effort to re consolidate or unify the church under a single teaching or scripture. So the heads of the main stream churches at the time decided to call a big meeting in a little town called nicea around the beginning of the 3rd century. (I think there was like 14 meeting total the last one like 300 years ago or so.) But this first one was to unify the then church under one creed, or mission statment as because again it began to splinter. This is know as the Nicene creed. Remember this creed was issued before the bible was compiled so to some it maybe a little blasphemous. Which is why it has been rewritten several different times to align ourselves with a more accurate reading of scripture.

The second biggest thing to come out of that first meeting was a call to gather ALL writing concerning Jesus. This took decades. The call was not just limited to 'religious writings' but to anything that contained the mentioning of Jesus so it could be sorted and catalogued and preserved. So much of the surviving content written about Jesus from that time religious or secular is still apart of that library, but because the Vatican holds tight lock and key on those books... we may never know what they contain.

So again the church compiles catalogues and stores all writings on Jesus, then they go through it all trying to give us the information need to respond not only to the Gospel but to the relationship offered by God.

Where we know they Got it right is in the fact that no one church is supported completely in it's doctrine by the bible. Even though the R/C church has so tried over thousands of years.
http://www.biblica.com/bible/bible-faqs/...le-chosen/

Thanks for your input Drich; I'm just as interested in knowing the Party Line about the authors as the actual truth so who it is claimed are the authors and what is claimed about their source/method of insight, as well as the claimers of those claims... if different

But what do you mean by 'commune' with God? That's a very vague term.... are you talking intuition, prayer, visions, or sitting down and having a beer with God?

[Minimalist]

nobody who actually studies Religion academically ends up believing in it

Yeah.... I wonder why that is?

[vorlon13]

And as awestruck as Joe Smith claimed to be (in every different version) when he saw God and was then given revelations and a commission to found God's One True Church, Joe ws not bashful at all about changing EVERY revelation he received, and most of them more than once.

We're being asked to believe to incompatible items there, yeppers, God Almighty Himself told me to tell you this stuff, oops, better revise and extend (or curtail) Gods words there, looks like he munged up things . . .


And with OT, oral tales, transmitted generation to generation, then scribes record and then scribes copy (and revise) (and not it was around like 300 or 400AD before the Christian church(es) started using 'professional' scribes instead of volunteers, damn, it's just lunacy to think they have even an inkling of what originally was even being told around the campfires 1500 years before.

[emjay]

And as awestruck as Joe Smith claimed to be (in every different version) when he saw God and was then given revelations and a commission to found God's One True Church, Joe ws not bashful at all about changing EVERY revelation he received, and most of them more than once.

We're being asked to believe to incompatible items there, yeppers, God Almighty Himself told me to tell you this stuff, oops, better revise and extend (or curtail) Gods words there, looks like he munged up things . . .


And with OT, oral tales, transmitted generation to generation, then scribes record and then scribes copy (and revise)  (and not it was around like 300 or 400AD before the Christian church(es) started using 'professional' scribes  instead of volunteers, damn, it's just lunacy to think they have even an inkling of what originally was even being told around the campfires 1500 years before.

Is this the Mormon stuff again? I've never considered that to be a real religion, just at best a cult along the lines of Scientology, and thus not worth even considering. But if mainstream Christianity suffers from similar flaws then I'd be very interested to know. For instance in the case of Catholicism, has the Pope ever contradicted himself? Or in Protestant Christianity has any prophet, or even Jesus himself, contradicted himself?

[The Grand Nudger]

All religions begin as cults (not always by their own choice).  There's actually a system for determining what stage of development any x is at...I can't remember the name, I'll try to find it for you.

[vorlon13]

Indeed.

Mormonism is not unique. The more Ehrman I read, the more I realize religion across time uses the same play book. Some aspects of early Judaism and Christianity don't have parallels in 1800s Mormonism, like oral legends later on being written down centuries later as the Mormons managed to get stuff logged in pretty quickly. But it didn't stop them from changing it though, LOL. And the Mormons accuse the other christer sects of changing things willy nilly, and its true enough, they just hate talking about all the instances they have changed 'sacred' writings, and LOL, even documented and published the differing versions of them.

[The Grand Nudger]

Because religion is a story about people.  While the stories have changed alot over the years, people have been remarkably static.  The same concerns plagued Uncle Og that plague us today....and the same cons we fall for worked on him as well.  In the earliest encampment of our earliest ancestors....there was some asshole running a version of three card monte on his peers.

[emjay]

All religions begin as cults (not always by their own choice).  There's actually a system for determining what stage of development any x is at...I can't remember the name, I'll try to find it for you.

Indeed.

Mormonism is not unique.  The more Ehrman I read, the more I realize religion across time uses the same play book.  Some aspects of early Judaism and Christianity don't have parallels in 1800s Mormonism, like oral legends later on being written down centuries later as the Mormons managed to get stuff logged in pretty quickly.  But it didn't stop them from changing it though, LOL.  And the Mormons accuse the other christer sects of changing things willy nilly, and its true enough, they just hate talking about all the instances they have changed 'sacred' writings, and LOL, even documented and published the differing versions of them.

That's fascinating... I'd never thought of it like that. So true... starts with a small group of people following one person... a self-proclaimed prophet... and I guess morphs from cult to religion the more widespread it gets, and thus less directly reliant on the original prophet?

---

All religions begin as cults (not always by their own choice).  There's actually a system for determining what stage of development any x is at...I can't remember the name, I'll try to find it for you.

Indeed.

Mormonism is not unique.  The more Ehrman I read, the more I realize religion across time uses the same play book.  Some aspects of early Judaism and Christianity don't have parallels in 1800s Mormonism, like oral legends later on being written down centuries later as the Mormons managed to get stuff logged in pretty quickly.  But it didn't stop them from changing it though, LOL.  And the Mormons accuse the other christer sects of changing things willy nilly, and its true enough, they just hate talking about all the instances they have changed 'sacred' writings, and LOL, even documented and published the differing versions of them.

That's fascinating... I'd never thought of it like that. So true... starts with a small group of people following one person... a self-proclaimed prophet... and I guess morphs from cult to religion the more widespread it gets, and thus less directly reliant on the original prophet?

So in a weird way, under that definition, cult would actually be more reliable than religion, because its founder is still around to question and/or its more direct and less based on Chinese Whispers?

[Drich]

A little sample of what you have to look forward to:

Funnily enough that kind of ties in with the fact that I've been trying to decide on an open learning course to do and my first choice was philosophy but today I started to look at the possibility of doing a Theology/Religious Studies course... just because it looked interesting (though I don't think it's historical like this)... and my uber-Christian dad wasn't keen on it... basically because of the general rule of thumb that nobody who actually studies Religion academically ends up believing in it

---

To that end I would point at the book of revelation. We know moses recorded the pentateuch/the first 5 books of the OT. Which includes Genesis. This means that it is moses who had the third person perspective in Genesis. the next question is how or is there any other biblical precedent that allowed for a 3rd person two view something out of their time and then record it back in their time... The answer is Yes. This very thing happens to John of patmos. an Angel of God took him to see how the world would end. If an angel has the ablity to do this at the end of time, then shouldn't God be able to do the same with Moses? Remember that is who Moses was with those many days on mt. Cyanide while the rest of the jews waited at the foot of the mountain.

https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-authors.html

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy = Moses - 1400 B.C. (prophet)
Joshua = Joshua - 1350 B.C. (appointed leader of the Jews/prophet)
Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel = Samuel/Nathan/Gad - 1000 - 900 B.C. (phophets)
1 Kings, 2 Kings = Jeremiah - 600 B.C.(prophet)
1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah = Ezra - 450 B.C.(prophet)
Esther = Mordecai - 400 B.C. (ester's uncle and exile of nebcanezzar)/first person
Job = Moses - 1400 B.C.(prophet)
Psalms = several different authors, mostly David - 1000 - 400 B.C. (a collection of preists and kings)
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon = Solomon - 900 B.C. King of the Jews/prophet
Isaiah = Isaiah - 700 B.C. (prophet)
Jeremiah, Lamentations = Jeremiah - 600 B.C.
Ezekiel = Ezekiel - 550 B.C.
Daniel = Daniel - 550 B.C.
Hosea = Hosea - 750 B.C.
Joel = Joel - 850 B.C.
Amos = Amos - 750 B.C.
Obadiah = Obadiah - 600 B.C.
Jonah = Jonah - 700 B.C.
Micah = Micah - 700 B.C.
Nahum = Nahum - 650 B.C.
Habakkuk = Habakkuk - 600 B.C.
Zephaniah = Zephaniah - 650 B.C.
Haggai = Haggai - 520 B.C.
Zechariah = Zechariah - 500 B.C.
Malachi = Malachi - 430 B.C. the rest are a mixture of prophets and preists (Stand alone prophets and prophets that taught)

Matthew = Matthew - A.D. 55
Mark = John Mark - A.D. 50
Luke = Luke - A.D. 60
John = John - A.D. 90
Acts = Luke - A.D. 65
Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon = Paul - A.D. 50-70
Hebrews = unknown, mostly likely Paul, Luke, Barnabas, or Apollos - A.D. 65
James = James - A.D. 45
1 Peter, 2 Peter = Peter - A.D. 60
1 John, 2 John, 3 John = John - A.D. 90
Jude = Jude - A.D. 60
Revelation = John - A.D. 90

Prophets were men in the OT who communed with God directly.

For the OT it was the Jews. The kept and identified what was canonical and what was not. There are some books like the books of Maccabees that tell of the origins of Hanukkah and the time between the current last book of the OT and the first book of the new. That some sects of Judaism and even some version of Christianity hold as canonical, but on whole do not meet the vetting process the other mainstream books had to pass.


I'll give you a short answer, and link you to a proper one.

After the first century the church began to splinter as the original twelve had disciples and those disciples had others. In an effort to re consolidate or unify the church under a single teaching or scripture. So the heads of the main stream churches at the time decided to call a big meeting in a little town called nicea around the beginning of the 3rd century. (I think there was like 14 meeting total the last one like 300 years ago or so.) But this first one was to unify the then church under one creed, or mission statment as because again it began to splinter. This is know as the Nicene creed. Remember this creed was issued before the bible was compiled so to some it maybe a little blasphemous. Which is why it has been rewritten several different times to align ourselves with a more accurate reading of scripture.

The second biggest thing to come out of that first meeting was a call to gather ALL writing concerning Jesus. This took decades. The call was not just limited to 'religious writings' but to anything that contained the mentioning of Jesus so it could be sorted and catalogued and preserved. So much of the surviving content written about Jesus from that time religious or secular is still apart of that library, but because the Vatican holds tight lock and key on those books... we may never know what they contain.

So again the church compiles catalogues and stores all writings on Jesus, then they go through it all trying to give us the information need to respond not only to the Gospel but to the relationship offered by God.

Where we know they Got it right is in the fact that no one church is supported completely in it's doctrine by the bible. Even though the R/C church has so tried over thousands of years.
http://www.biblica.com/bible/bible-faqs/...le-chosen/

Thanks for your input Drich; I'm just as interested in knowing the Party Line about the authors as the actual truth so who it is claimed are the authors and what is claimed about their source/method of insight, as well as the claimers of those claims... if different

Much of the 'truth' is subjective speculation based on a no God senerio. Meaning if there were no God how would these book be written and compiled? So the 'truth' is not true. by definition of the word. it simply provides those who do not believe in God with a possible alternative based on 'other' failed religions.

But what do you mean by 'commune' with God? That's a very vague term.... are you talking intuition, prayer, visions, or sitting down and having a beer with God?

from walking and talking with God to being pull from earth as the only Human being never having tasted death, because God loved him so much.

In essence God was a real interactive force in their lives and they as a result wielded the power of God. Some healed, some brought on drought, some raised the dead, some had power over animals, some were just crazy/God smart/wise, some were shown the future... think of all Jesus was and each power he had subdivided into individuals.

[emjay]

@Rhythm. Just out of interest, what do you think for a course? Philosophy or Religion would be interesting vs Accounting which though boring would be useful. (This is just at A Level - pre degree). Interesting or useful is the choice, but I don't think I can get both  Philosophy would be Epistemology, Ethics, Philosophy of Religion, and Philosophy of Mind; I thought that would be very handy both to test what I already know about the latter, and to learn more about the formers so I have a leg to stand on (or at least the basic ability to decipher ) in the philosophy forum... you know... an education so I can understand your posts Religious Studies also has a large philosophical bent so that would be interesting too. And accounting is just boring but useful... would look better on my CV probably but would be incredibly dull to study.