I was just wondering how old the Bible is supposed to be and how we would scientifically know it's a few thousand years old instead of just a few hundred years old. Is carbon dating or some other document dating technique used? What is the age of the oldest known Bible and how was that age determined?
2007-03-22 08:26:13 · 17 answers · asked by l m 3 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
We have thousands of fragments and manuscript portions that date to the first and second century BC by dating the type of skin or parchment, lettering, language etc. It's quite an extensive science. Cross matching these many fragments and manuscripts allow us to track when copyist errors and redcation begin to appear which helps us work backwards to an original. But you do reach a point where you have nothing physical to work with, so you try to correlate to historic events for which there is outside evidence, etc. I recommend the site at the link below for your further study short of academic texts on documentary evidence , text criticism and the like.
2007-03-22 08:37:52 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Good question. Before there was a written word, there was oral tradition. In other words wisdom, knowledge, and understanding was passed down from the elders in a lot of ancient social communities. How old is the earth itself????? How old is man upon the earth???? Scientific research does not give a total oversight of things. After all, we only know know what we have found out and discovered to this point. there is always more to be learned and discovered. The oldest known bible in the world to this point is known as the ancient book of the glory of the kings from ancient kush, and the so-called egyptian book of the dead. I would dare to say though that adam had a book in the edenic age of earth, as well as enoch, abraham. there are many missing books that is not presently in the bible that was not canonized by the church fathers 1700 years ago. Plus there was many books burned during the time of the destruction of king solomons temple. the list goes on and on!!!!!! A lot has been covered up over time.
2007-03-22 15:43:42 · answer #2 · answered by triple o.g. 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The first five books of the Catholic and Protestant Bible are known as the Pentateuch. They are said to have been penned by Moses, or dictated by him. So, how old is Moses?
The rest of the Old Testament came over hundreds of years, up to at least the fifth century B.C. with the book of Ezra.
There was thought to be a four-hundred year gap between these Old Testament accounts and the coming of Jesus.
The Bible gives hints as to a time line when it mentions happenings of things that are also mentioned in Roman and Greek historical records. There are few, if any, real dates mentioned in our Biblical texts.
Kev
2007-03-22 15:42:58 · answer #3 · answered by Hobgoblin Kev 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The Jews have been around for many 1000s of years and they have written records and they've found manuscripts that write of there traditions and religious views in caves which they verify the age of the paper written on,and word of mouth and papers age are verified ,so its a done deal that the Jews traditions and paper evidence surly shows there writings to be a few 1000 of years old,when it comes to the bible in particular
are the space aliens made us from Chimps.a few hundred years ago and were just mind controlled by them into thinking our heritage is old.we are 98% chimpanzee DNA in us humans after all
I go with the idea that were an old race of critters
2007-03-22 15:37:43 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The Council of Carthage, called the third by Denzinger,[4] on 28 August 397 issued a canon of the Bible restricted to: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Josue, Judges, Ruth, 4 books of Kings, 2 books of Paralipomenon, Job, Psalter of David, 5 books of Solomon, 12 books of Prohets, Isaias, Jeremias, Daniel, Ezechiel, Tobias, Judith, Esther, 2 books of Esdras, 2 books of Machabees, and in the New Testament: 4 books of Gospels, 1 book of Acts of the Apostles, 13 letters of the Apostle Paul, 1 of him to the Hebrews, 2 of Peter, 3 of John, 1 of James, 1 of Judas, and the Apocalypse of John.
2007-03-22 15:44:46 · answer #5 · answered by thor 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
There are 2 complete NTs in existence that date to about 350 AD.
1 is in the Vatican (Codex Vaticanus)
1 is in the British Museum (Codex Sinaiticus)
Other parts of the Bible, the books, are authenticated using other copies of ancient texts that are up to 6000 years old.
2007-03-22 15:30:41 · answer #6 · answered by great gig in the sky 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Well the one i have,is over 132yrs old. Well the writtings were started, in the year of christ's birth, about 128-200.
I find that the first O.T. was wrote about 260yrs. before the christian era.
The german, translation, was about 360 A.D.
then another 200 yrs passed. and then in about 1382. Then the O.T. was put together, with the N.T. The one i have was printed in 1872.
2007-03-22 18:35:00 · answer #7 · answered by ? 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Many ancient texts have been discovered. Including the gnostic gospels. Some have been identified as being written in the first century.
Carbon dating and such is way over my head. Since I am not a scientist I rely on what I read for information.
2007-03-22 15:33:18 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's called "history". The Canon of Scripture was finalized for all time, and the Bible was actually compiled into one book in 397 AD, at the Council of Carthage, by the bishops of the Catholic Church.
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2007-03-22 15:36:42 · answer #9 · answered by PaulCyp 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Most of it was written between 1000 and 700 BCE.
Read "Who Wrote the Bible" by Richard Elliot Friedman.
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2007-03-22 15:41:57 · answer #10 · answered by Hatikvah 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋