Witness/insight claims of the authors of the Bible

[Drich]

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/