Now I'm really confused . . .?

Question

It is said by many that the Bible was written hundreds of years after Jesus died, and now I'm hearing the Bible predicted Jesus' coming. Hindsight is 20/20, not prophetic. Seems a little disingenuous. Please explain and I will give you 10 pointless points.

Thank you for these excellent answers and my continuing education. I am really having a had time choosing a best answer. Some of these answers are incredibly thorough. I suppose there won't be anymore new answers to this question, but I will forego my 3 points because I really want to know what the community consensus if for this question. If I may add my two cents, I have visited some links provided by similar questions that I have asked, particular one about Bible prophecies. Those prophecies really tend to talk a lot about Israel. Now it makes more sense to me -- Israel was a major player in the promulgation of this "book of knowledge" (theory?) spanning 1000s of years. No wonder the prophecies dealt mainly with Israel's future. Curious though that the prophecies don't mention the USA, without which Israel would no doubt be obliterated by now. I am putting this to a vote, and I await with keen interest as to the final outcome. Please choose a good one. Thank you!

Answer 1

First off, you must understand that this comes from the point of view of someone who has a scholastic rather than religious view of the bible, in other words i don't take it as fact... however in my many religious studies and the fact that my dad was a minister and years ago i was studying to be one before i went more agnostic... i've certainly read a lot on such issues.

First, there's some disagreement about the age of the bible's writings... however if you restrict yourself merely to copies found and references in non-biblical history to such things... more than likely the pre-existing books of the pentateuch and much of the hebrew history was brought together at a date usually put between 700 and 500 bce.

The new testament writings about jesus are dated variously, depending on whose opinion it is... from around 60ish a.d (or common era) to 100+... and there's arguments by various sides as the the earliness or lateness of both these dates.

As for fulfillment of prophecy... let's say that you are born believing you are the messiah. You might live your life in such a way as to make sure you at least in some symbolic if not real manner sync up with as many of those prophecies as you feel important to you. Also, the people who later wrote of jesus... may have simply added in more correlation between the life of the actual person and the recorded events IN ORDER to give him a more messiahnic truth to those reading.

In other words, we're 200 years from George Washington, but already many go "he chopped down the cherry tree" and "he threw a dollar over the potomic"... both of which are later editions to the legend rather than actual fact... which were used to increase the heroic view of the person.

If you truly believed jesus was messiah, you might also... have a rather loose interpretation of what "fulfilling" a prophecy is... symbolism is easy to fudge, or you might simply go back and read what prophecies there WERE about the messiah and change the actual historical figure of jesus (what he really did) to FIT the prophecies.

There would be many reasons for this, from simply doing a kind of taking liberty with the tale a la hollywood movies, to outright creating fiction and knowing you were doing so in order to gain more believers in a system which you used to your own advantage (such as being a priest, in POWER... you want as many people under your power as possible... ergo for an unethical priest it might do well to use one's writing talent to bolster certain facts and fudge others and simply add in some... to make those reading BELIEVE in YOUR authority as priest via belief in the absolute truth of the facts presented in the recorded histories.

Take for example that the most agreed upon "oldest" of the canonical gospels (tho myself tend to view the gnosic gospel of Thomas as a more likely candidate for the 'first written'... noting that in it, it doesn't even touch upon jesus' crucifiction in any depth, if at all if i recall) is Mark.

Now, in the OLDEST actual written copies of the book of Mark... let's say 70 AD, tho' i'm unsure on that... in that general time (again, argued by both sides as too soon or too late)... the book actually ends with jesus' cruciftion and some rumors of his ressurection but no actual mention of any proof of his ressurection. Then as the books get older, say a copy of Mark from 120 or 150 AD... there's an added verse about jesus being risen. Then in even older ones... you have an entire chapter added between the original ending and the added verse which fully fills out the whole concept of "jesus is arisen".

It would SEEM, no matter the belief at the time... that the actual book, whether taking it for granted that such knowledge was known or whatever... didn't go into that subject. Then as people doubted and there was some argument over whether the event actually happened (particularly by the gnostics a la the Gospel of Thomas and others)... someone added a verse to the OFFICIAL book... making it TRUE that he did.

As the controversy no likely continued, even MORE was added so that later people would read it as if this was all written originally, and so that priests could point to it in written form and go "hey look! see?"

If you look in the margins and notes of most NKJV or NASV or other such modern bibles, there's usually a note about the end of Mark even in the accepted christian texts stating that these verses seem to have been added later.

History isn't history as we know it.

History evolves according to who is talking, and the oldest copies of a story you can find.

The fulfillment of prophecies by jesus... could easily have been added in such a manner... so that one looks AT the old testament and in an attempt to give more validity to the subject of jesus as messiah... added in bits to convince the doubters, particularly those who valued the old jewish writings.

Again, if you read what is considered by most SCHOLARS to be the oldest gospel, that of Thomas... the miracles, the prophecy fulfillment, the crucifiction, and the ressurection... get very little coverage if at all.

It's more just a story of jesus' life and of his teachings. As the gospel of Thomas often states, it's merely a recording of "Jesus Said"... concentrating mostly on the words of jesus and his core teachings rather than such things as "was he god?" "did he rise?" "did he do miracles?" "who was he?"... and in fact the "Great Confession" as the apostles answered jesus' question of "who do men say that i am, and who do you say that i am?"... is ENTIRELY different and worth looking up on your own simply for the fact that the Thomas version comes across as a good teaching about spirituality and being alive... whereas the later canonical versions made it into more a thing of WHO HAS POWER, who gets the AUTHORITY of jesus now that he's dead... transferring such power to Peter, and later ala catholic dogma to the pope.

About POWER... not Truth. About LEGEND... not fact. About LISTEN TO US PRIESTS rather than here's what jesus actually said.

Such things as that and a quick study of them, should take you well into understanding the answer to your own question.

Answer 2

The books of the Hebrew Bible/The Christian Old Testment were written long before he was born. It is believed that these books were written over many centuries, perhaps spanning over 1000 years.

The books of the New Testament were written decades after he died. The Gospels allegedly describe his life and works. The Acts describe the work of the Apostles. The Pauline Letters influenced the spread of Christianity. And the book of Revelation - well, it's likely the most difficult to understand of the lot.

I find two things convenient:

A) that nothing was written about him when he was alive.

and

B) that what was written about him fulfilling Old Testament prophecies was written by those that knew those prophecies rather well, and coincidentally Jesus seems to fit many of them - well, according to Christians, but not so much according to Jews.

Christians say that the Bible predicted Jesus - but they say this in hindsight. The Jews do not believe that Jesus was the Messiah because he did not fulfill many of the prophecies. They are still looking forward to the coming of the Messiah.

The second part (B) is the one that I have the greatest problem with - maybe this is something that you are hinting at. I've been wanting to post a question regarding it for quite some time. But by answering your question, I got it out there just the same.

Answer 3

If you really want to know more about this, read The Case for Faith by Lee Strobel. It's a great book that tackles all of this. The Bible is many books written over many centuries. Some books predicted Christ long before he came, others were written within sixty years after Jesus' death (sixty years! There were still people around who were there, they could and would refute it if it were not true).

Could you imagine what people would say if I wrote a book detailing how the Great Depression never happened, America prospered during that time, and everyone was happy? People would freak out! We know the Great Depression happened, there are people still alive who could tell you all about it. They lived it. Those are the conditions much of the New Testament was written under.

Answer 4

I'm thinking that I read that the Torah was written roughly 3,500 years ago, and Revelation was written about 90 A.D. All other Biblical books lie in between those dates. The Old Testament was concluded around 400 B.C. Most of the New Testament was written from the 50s to the 80s A.D. True there is a certain amount of contradiction in the Bible, however I don't feel it's enough to discredit it's general message. Mostly just fine details.

Answer 5

The Old Testement which predicts Jesus' coming (The coming Messiah) has been around over 5,000 years. In writing too. The New Testement was written after Jesus. How long after Jesus is debatable. Some scholars believe Matthew was the first written at about 45 AD, some believe Revelation was written about 70AD and some believe the Gospel of John was being written at the same time Jesus was on Earth. Yes there are some that believe the New Testement wasnt written for 200-400 years later (this is why it is debatable)

Answer 6

OK, I am certainly no Bible scholar, but I can tell you this.

Not all of the books in the Bible were written at the same time in history.

The New Testament indeed was written years after the death of Christ.

But the prophecies you are probably talking about were in the Old Testament, which was written over a period of centuries prior to the birth of Christ.

I think this is pretty well agreed upon by scholars of the scriptures.

But I could always be wrong.

Answer 7

No, the bible was assembled, not written hundreds of years after Jesus'left this earth.
The historical records and accounts were kept.
You're also forgetting the fact that people did tend to live longer back then too. You have heard of recovering the dead sea scrolls today.
The bible was written by men that experienced and or passed down the various recollections for generations. An interesting note, is that while the bible is a compilation of over 50 men's accounts, that they all follow the same trail of thought. They agree. One would be hard pressed to find even 10 men in this day and age to agree on enough things to write anything.
I can only imagine getting even 5 men to agree on, let's say a virgin birth in this day.

Answer 8

The Old Testament was written before Jesus' birth. It prophisied Jesus' birth. The New Testament was written after Jesus' birth, death, and resurrection. The last book of the Bible(Revelation) prophisied what will happen in the future(now, and our future). A lot of the stuff that was written about in Revelation is coming true. It was written by a lot of different men over 1000s of years, and yet it still fits together....yet you people say that its not true or that its wrong. If it still fits together than it can only be correct.

Answer 9

Ok--the Old Testament is the written record of the orally passed down traditional stories of the Israelites, who gave rise to the city of Jerusalem and the line of King David, whose line was traced to Jesus. After David's kingdom fell apart, it was said that the next King of the Jews would arise from David's line, hence Jesus' important connection there. The earliest book of the New Testament, the gospel of Mark, was written around 40 years after Jesus' death. It was followed by the gospels of Matthew and Luke roughly 10 years later. These three gospels are called the "synoptic gospels" because the writers of Luke and Matthew clearly drew upon the gospel of Mark. About 100 years after Jesus died, the gospel of John was written. It is considered to be the most historically inaccurate of the four main gospels and contains many anomalies when compared to the other three. Hence, the Bible both predicts Christ's coming and tells the story of His life, because it was written over a period of thousands of years. I hope this clears things up for you!

Answer 10

because bible was written in two parts...1st part is the old testament wherein it tackled in detail when God created the world. It includes historical books; the wisdom books and the phophetic books...wherein the coming of Jesus was predicted. Second part of the bible is the New Testament...which deals on the the life of Jesus Christ and His teachings....So...this only shows that the bible was written after Jesus died but includes all the things happened before his existence, during and after his death...intently to be the living guide of His people to live according to what He wishes us to be....

Answer 11

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