Who wrote the Bible?

Question

I mean the Old Testament is a collection of stories, myths and fables that were told from generation to generation in the jewish community, so who actually sat down and wrote all of that?
How about the New Testament, the four disciples that wrote it, were they like " ok you write your version , I write mine then we put all of them together?"
How did the Bible as we know it come about?

Answer 1

The Old Testament, as you said, was told as oral tradition for centuries. Sometime in the sixth century BC a scribe, possibly Ezekial, compiled all of the scrolls, stories, and writings into what the Jews called the written law.

In the second century BC, Greek-speaking Jewish scholars translated the law into Greek because most non-Israeli Jews spoke Greek - not Hebrew. It was called the Septuagint - a Greek word meaning 'seventy'. The name derives from the fact that seventy Jewish scholars completed the work. Read the story as recorded by the second century apologist Justin Martyr at http://www.geocities.com/orthodox_doctrine/septuagint_doctrine.html

These were the scriptures that Jesus and the apostles, and most first century Jews used. After Jesus' death, his disciples began to write down what they had seen and heard to preserve it for future generations. These writings, which became the New Testament, were generally written or dictated by their traditional authors - or their followers who had authority to write in the apostle's name.

Through a series of councils in the fourth century, the bishops of the world decided which writings about Christ, along with the Septuigant, would make-up the Bible. What they decided became known to Christians as the Bible - deriving from the Greek word for 'book'. This Bible was undisputed for over a thousand years before the Protestand Revolt, and Martin Luther's desicration of the Holy Book. Few Protestants realize that Luther - besides removing seven books from the Old Testament - also removed several New Testament writings from his version of the Bible and inserted the word 'only' into his translation of Paul's letter to the Romans. At that time, Luther was being protected by German royals who insisted that he replace the New Testament writings which were removed.

There is a great book you can read to get a lot of interesting details that are missing here. It's called "Where We Got The Bible" by Henry G. Graham and Karl Keating. You can get it at...

http://www.amazon.com/Where-Got-Bible-Henry-Graham/dp/1888992042/sr=1-2/qid=1162076019/ref=pd_bbs_2/102-6781270-3185709?ie=UTF8&s=books

... for $11.

Oh, and the person above who said that the KJV was written in about A.D. 400 is full of it. King James lived in the seventeenth century, that's when his version of the Bible was written.

Learn some history - don't just listen to your pastor preach - read it for yourself.

Answer 2

Exploring this question is a wonderful way to learn more about our faith. :-) Moses is given credit for the first five books of the bible. However, that does not mean he sat down and wrote every word. The same goes for the New Testament. No one is certain who wrote the books. It was common in those days to give credit to someone known and give the work credibility. This takes nothing away from the importance and message of the Bible as it is considered to be the inspired Word of God.

So far as which books appear in the Bible this varies depending on which denomination and translation you prefer. The Catholic Church includes books that Protestants do not. Both are valid, yet come from different collections of works at the time.

The Canon of books included in the Bible was compiled in the 4th Century A.D. There were other books that were not included for various reasons.

I recommend you read more on the history of the Bible as it is an interesting story.

Peace be with you,
Michael

Answer 3

No one person wrote the Bible. It is a compilation of books written by many different authors. Some of the books themselves are probably compilations written by many different authors (Genesis and Exodus, for example). Some believe Moses wrote the first five books, but this is most likely legend since writing style, vocabulary, and grammar differ within the text. Additionally, there are problems of consistent logic throughout, which betrays the probability that the first five books of the Bible were written by many different hands. The New Testament was also written by many different people, most likely during the first century. However, no one has access to the original documents, we only have copies of copies of copies of copies. Each of these copies are different in some way, so it is impossible to pin down exactly what the original text says. We can only approximate what the original text said. So, in a sense, the Bible was 'corrupted' over the years of its written transmission by careless or theologically motivated scribes. If God did indeed inspire the Bible, why didn't God then preserve the original documents so that we could know what they said? My hunch is that these are very human documents, written by human beings with their own theological, social, and cultural biases. These texts, in my opinion, do point to God, but they weren't authored by God. Just my opinion though. Hope this helps a bit.

Answer 4

The present day "King James " version of the Bible was written by Catholic Monks about the year 400, who translated previous versions (there were many written in languages that were very primitive). It's speculated that they threw in a few verses for themselves like, "And God said that you must financially support us for the rest of our lives"..Four disciples writing parts of the Bible is religion BS. If you study the History of Mankind at a university, not from a religion you will learn that 99% of biblical people were illiterate. The only ones who could read & write were the 'Upper Crust", ie: Land & Business Owners, Politicians, Scribes, Lawyers, etc. The disciples were fisherman, farmers and shepherds. They never received the education to be able to read and write.

Answer 5

Well, THe New testament is broken into parts, The four gospels which are Matthew, Mark , Luke, and John are written by the ones they are named after. The Acts is written by the witnesses of the Disciples. Romans was written by Paul, also, I and II Corinthians-Philemon. NObody knows who wrote Hebrews. THe other books were written by the ones in which they are named. Revelation, is a journal of the visions in which John the Baptist was given by GOD.

Answer 6

The king James bible was written around 1700 ad , by sir Francis Bacon as Englands official version of the bible as they wanted to distance themselves from the Roman Catholics.
Near the end of the Roman empire the priests of the newly christen empire assembled the basic form of the bible that you read today, they decided which books would be included and be beneficial to their power base and which would be detrimental to it.
You can find many books that were not included and all copies destroyed by the Roman Catholic church, such as the Dead sea scrolls that were discovered in the 1940's and were buried sometime around 100 a.d.
Personally I have nothing against what the apostles wrote but take issue with the way their writ tings have been manipulated by the church.
If you have the time read all sides arguments and come to your own conclusions, and next time you go to church remember Jesus said "build no temples unto me"

Answer 7

66 books, written by 36 authors over 1600 years on three continents.

By the way, their was no Jewish oral tradition. Either Moses wrote what God taught him on Mt. Sinai, or he made it up. But either way the Torah originated there. The rest of the O.T. was written progressively by various prophets of Israel ending in about 400 B.C.

And the new testament contains the writings of many apostles, not all of whom were disciples. All of which was recorded between 40 and 100 A.D.

The current cannon of scripture was firmly established by a need of the church to combat the Gnostic's who were writing books and signing the name of one of the disciples to them and pretending they just found it. The final list of "inspired" books was established in the third century.

The Church believes that the scriptures possess "dual authorship" of both men and the holy spirit. How exactly this works is the subject of much debate.

Answer 8

the bible was written by people god told to write , it is not a myth , it is real, then way back in those days they hid much of what they wrote , because they could be killed for it , years later scholars got together and decided what parts should be part of the bible and which ones to leave out , which is messed up,i would love to know what the missing books have to say, i'm sure it would answer a lot of questions we all have, it's a shame we only got part of it

Answer 9

They are not myths, fables, and stories. God communicated to the people to tell what to write. And yes, the new Testament was written by four people.

Answer 10

The Old Testament has many authors as does the New Testament.
the second part of ur question I will have to do research on hmmmm.
Morgaine