The Reliability of the Bible - Part 8 - Canonisation

I encourage you to research the individual propositions within this entry yourself. In your research, please be aware of the bias of your source material (e.g. religious sites versus sceptic's sites versus material meant for pure scientific/philosophical knowledge).

Editing biblical manuscripts after their original authorship

Despite my being some variant of heathen, I do attend church when morally obligated – for example, at the death of a close friend's relative. Also a seeming contradiction to my heathendom, is that I can recite (sing, to an extent) all the books of the Old Testament in order of their appearance. While I can't really pull off a recitation of all the books of the New Testament, I should be able to rattle off most of them, and can easily recognise all. This is the product of a couple months of Saturday bible classes during my youth (I couldn't have been more than 9). So imagine my surprise when, during the service of a Catholic funeral, the preacher called upon the reading of some book of the bible I had never heard of! There I was, frowning heavily while I sang-song the Old Testament in my head, and when that failed, wondered at my knowledge with respect to the New.

Google eventually solved this one for me. Apparently, the "bible" which I thought I knew so well was really the King James Version. Now although I knew this before – that the bible I knew was the KJV – what I didn't know was the extent to which the KJV differed from other bibles, especially the Catholic bible, given that I had gone to Catholic schools all my life. I thought that the differences were largely limited to the vocabulary and grammar used. Having read from different bibles before, I couldn't help but notice how the KJV used English that was almost Shakespearean (actually I thought that Shakespeare sounded biblical – let that sink in for a moment). The other bibles to which I had gotten limited access, were written in more simple, modern day English.

But the differences between bibles is far more than syntax. There are other differences, ranging from the minor to the major, for example:

• 1^st and 2^nd Samuel and Kings in KJV versus a single Samuel and Kings in the Catholic version
• the additions to the book of Esther by the Greeks between 150BCE and 50BCE were incorporated into the Catholic version but not in KJV
• there are 8 additional books in the Catholic bible compared to the KJV
• there are 4 appendices to the Catholic bible that are full books in other bibles (e.g. Greek Orthodox) but aren't in the KJV at all
• Some biblical books are considered Apocrypha (i.e. valuable spiritual reading but not necessarily divinely authored) to some, but are not considered whatsoever in other versions of Christianity

It seems to me that when you pick your faith, you need to be comfortable not only with what the leaders teach, but which version of the bible they selected. Not that you knew the differences in the versions anyway. Not that you would have understood had you known. Not that you picked your faith anyway. No. You just believe. You just believe that even if there are books that you never read or differences that you were never made aware of, that it wouldn't have made a significant difference in the main message – a quite comfortable assumption if you ask me, as most people cherry pick the bible anyway. But that conversation is for a later entry.

But we're not done yet. So we've gotten to the committee. We understand that there have been as many different committees as there have been versions of the bible. Precisely how many versions of the bible are there? Now let me pause to be clear here. I am not referring to different translations of the bible – naturally there will be many of these as there will be at least one translation for each of the 457 languages that the (full Protestant canon) bible has been translated to as well as multiple translations for a single language. Interestingly, for a single language, there will be differences in translations of the same basic religious material due to whether the translators selected:

• Formal equivalence – a literal translation to remain as close as possible to the original text
• Dynamic equivalence – a translation which tries to convey the thoughts and ideas of individual words of the original text (as the precise intention of the author may be lost in the formal translation due to differences in the culture, era or region of the intended audience versus the new audience to whom the translation is directed)
• Functional equivalence – a translation which extends dynamic equivalence to include whole phrases and sentences as opposed to individual words

Of course, this could change the perceived meaning of passages anywhere from “not at all” to “slightly” to “a whole lot”. But of course, most of those differences in meaning are quarrel fodder for people who eat, sleep and breathe religion and that's not most people. Most people have a vague idea of the main concepts and are certain they'll get into heaven on that. Anyways, I'm not even trying to figure out how many translations there are because even if we restrict it to English, we know that the answer is still in the region of “a lot” and that is just another headache I don't want to have.

So back to my original question. How many different versions of the bible are there? I really don't know. I tried to research it, and have come up with at least 10, but those were just the main ones that Wikipedia were comparing in it's biblical canon page. I went onto http://www.biblegateway.com/ and they had 30 versions of the bible under “English” although some of those may be different translations as opposed to different versions altogether. If I was committed to researching this piece of the puzzle, I'm sure I would have found it, but because we know there are at least 10, I don't think the actual answer is going to fundamentally derail the point to which the research I've done thus far is leading me.

What I do know is that the Hebrew Bible is meaningfully similar to the Protestant Bible (ignoring superficial structural differences) and that the similarities start dropping off thereafter (Orthodox Christian Bible, Catholic Bible, etc). I also know that the reason for these differences are significant because certain doctrines that are intrinsic to these faiths are as a result of one book being included versus excluded altogether. Subjects such as purgatory, praying for the dead, etc are covered in these books, fundamentally reshaping doctrines of entire dominations of Christianity.

Okay, let's now forget that question and ask far more meaningful ones. What was the raw material that the canonisation councils had to work with? Thereafter, what was the process that they went through to get from that raw material to the final product (the bible)?

The first question is an important one, particularly with the Old Testament, because it is most definitely not the case that the original manuscripts were used by these councils to put together the Old Testament or even the Hebrew Bible. It seems, instead, that most councils were working with whole books of the bible by then. Well, how did the originals go from manuscripts to books?

Keep in mind that the canonisation process for the Hebrew Bible started, at earliest, 200BCE and ended, at latest, 200CE, therefore most of the original manuscripts were written, on average, over 300 years prior to even the earliest possible point that the canonisation process began. For the New Testament, it began about 250 to 275 years after the last book was written. So naturally, there are going to be a lot of finger smudges, figuratively speaking, on each manuscript by the time it reaches the various councils in the form of books.

Most of these smudges are going to be from regular old copying. Remember, back in those days, there were no such things as printing presses. This meant that after a manuscript was written, if it was to be disseminated en masse, it had to be copied by hand. Of course, this is going to result in some minor mistakes. This is perfectly understandable. The number 3,000 gets written 30,000, the word “pain” becomes “pin” and so on and so forth. For the most part, biblical scholars/historians are able to determine where such mistakes have occurred. This is done by comparing older versions to their later counterparts to determine where words and/or numbers suddenly change, disappear, are added, and the like, taking the older versions to be generally more authoritative. It is on this type of research later versions of the bible are often based. Of course, not all such errors will be picked up, particularly as older versions are more difficult to locate to contribute to the comparison process, if they are to be ever found at all. But this is minor in any case – most of the time.

Other smudges will come from people sewing separate manuscripts together. The varying manuscripts may have:

1. once formed a single manuscript but had gotten separated at a later point
2. been separate manuscripts written at different times by the same author or same group, then put together in one body of work
3. written by the sewer himself to supplement an existing manuscript or reframe it in a context more relevant to the current culture, politics, his own personal biases/ spiritual intuition, or simply to put what he considered related texts into a single manuscript/book

Point #3 is often performed by redactors. Redaction is a form of editing in which multiple sources are combined and subjected to (usually) minor alteration to make them a single work. This could be an extension of a point I had made in Part 4 of this multi-part entry, where I explained how authors A, B, C and D may have all contributed to a single biblical book. This could have happened in 2 ways. The first is that the authors A, B, C and D could have written entirely separate manuscripts or works, either with or without the knowledge of earlier manuscripts. They could have then been sewn together by another person – redactor E. Alternatively, author A may have been the original author, then authors B, C and D could have later edited author A's work at different points, becoming varying degrees of redactors themselves. Notice that, in addition to any deliberate alteration that may or may not be performed, there is also the alteration required simply to make the patchwork cohesive.

Naturally, the thickness of a manuscript's smudges and the level to which the source of these smudges vary between pure copying and redaction, vary from one work to another. And now that we have arrived at the council, thoroughly be-smudged, it is a guess on my part as to the extent of any further redaction required to form the bible itself, but it appears that none was performed. However, each council did enter the process with pre-existing philosophical leanings which helped them determine which books should be sanctioned, which considered Apocrypha, and which condemned altogether.

Actually, from my research, it is apparent that biblical canonisation councils had two main (related) purposes.

The first purpose is to formalise the biblical books that people were already using. Keep in mind that canonisation – for both the Old and New Testament – occurred hundreds of years after their writings. By this time, people were already using several of the books in their churches. There may be some differences between the same books from church to church – due to copying errors for example. This is inconsequential, for the most part. But it was also true that while most of the books were being used in all churches, some of them were not. This may be because the books were not considered as important as the ones actually being used, but it was also because the principles expressed in these books were rejected by some churches.

This leads to the second purpose of canonisation – to determine which books should be considered scripture and which ones left out. And this is where it gets interesting. This determination helped to settle various disagreements within the Church – from the Early Church in the 2^nd century, right up to the Protestant Reformation in the 16^th century. Here is just a few examples of what the canonisation process helped to settle:

• Whether there should be a New Testament at all – some people considered the Pauline Epistles and the Gospels as valued but not to the level of scripture
• Whether the Old Testament should be kept at all – a few considered it incompatible with the New Testament
• Whether there should be one gospel (Luke) or all 4 (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John)
• In the New Testament, whether Gospel of the Egyptians, Hebrews, Preaching of Peter, 2 John, Traditions of Matthias, Jude, Sibylline Gospels, and the Apocalypse of John (Revelations), should be canonised. These are only a few of the disputed ones that are now either accepted or rejected. And here's a fun fact – the Book of Revelations was one of the most debated of the New Testament books.
• In the Old Testament, whether the Deuterocanonical books should be considered scripture (these are all the books in the Catholic Bible that aren't in the Hebrew and Protestant Bibles

Needless to say, there were a lot of disputes to settle, and oddly enough, for some branches of Christianity, matters weren't solidified until quite late. A seemingly old branch like Catholicism, didn't even canonise their bible until 1546 at the Council of Trent. And ignoring any alleged divine inspiration, the settlement seemed to be defined by a symbiotic relationship of the opinions of the people and the opinions of the council members. Of course, both influence the other, with this symbiosis ratified by way of vote (at least for the Council of Trent). The canonisation process reminds me an awful lot of how legislation is passed in Parliament. The only difference is that once the laws are passed in government, they can be later updated when new information comes to light or when situations change. Not so for the Bible.

But I think I've said all I can say for now and have written all my tired fingers can type out. Having come to the end of this process of research on the Bible, I look back at it now and this is what I think...

Here is this book. We know it was written by quite a lot of people. We don't know who the vast majority of these people are. We know it was written over the course a millenium. We don't agree on precisely when. Some of the books describe events that happened hundreds of years after they allegedly occur while purporting to be written during those times. We do know that all of the books were later touched several times by several other people. We don't always know how much these other people changed them or who these people were or precisely when they made their marks. A bunch of people later decided that some of these books were divinely inspired using a mixture of divine revelation, popular opinion and vote. Here – take this book. Live your life by it. Condemning others who don't do the same is optional.

And all the people said – amen.

The Reliability of the Bible - Part 7 - The New Testament - Review of the New

I encourage you to research the individual propositions within this entry yourself. In your research, please be aware of the bias of your source material (e.g. religious sites versus sceptic's sites versus material meant for pure scientific/philosophical knowledge).

A cursory glance at the Old Testament Table and the New Testament table will tell you that it goes without saying. Actually, it goes without saying so much, that it should be screamed at the mountain tops.

The Old Testament and the New Testatment are two entirely different beasts. Two different kettles of fish. Apples and oranges. Night and day.

Although to be fair, in terms of reliability, the Old Testament, while clearly being a dusky night, the New Testament is a bleary, overcast day besieged by fog.

In any case, one of the key things that the New Testament has working for it is that it does not claim to portray as much history as the Old Testament does. Only the first 5 books of the New Testament – the Gospels and Acts – make any claim to historicity as they seek to be a somewhat biographical record of the life of Jesus, and to a lesser extent, the Apostles. The other 22 books are 21 letters and 1 large apocalyptic prophesy (Revelations). The letters – Epistles – were written by various supposedly important members of the early Christian Church, addressed to one of the following:

1. Other supposedly important members of the early Christian Church;
2. Churches in particular locations; or
3. Their flock at large.

These letters do not really discuss supposedly historical events as much as they are an attempt to bring the church/flock in line with what the writer thought to be a more acceptable religious and philosophical framework – to condemn what the author considered unacceptable, applaud what was considered worthy, and make various suggestions in between. But simply making less of a claim to historicity (at least in quantity, as the life and works of Jesus are probably far more important to the Christian faith than all the several historical books in the Old Testament) is not the only thing that the New Testament can claim in its favour. It's only fair to give credit where credit is due, so I'm going to lay it out for ya.

1. Except in one case, an individual book in the New Testament generally appears to be written by a single author as opposed to by several different authors whose separate manuscripts were later quilted together.
2. Most modern scholars agree that at least 8 (and maybe up to 11 or 12) of the 27 books of the New Testament were written by the persons to whom the works are traditionally ascribed and there is some (although it is exceedingly minimal in some cases) information about these persons outside of their biblical narratives. I know this doesn't sound like much, but this beats back the Old Testament, which has 12 more books to choose from, by at least 5 and 1/2 books.
3. Where the New Testament is being explicitly historical, it was written between 35 and 65 years after the end of the events they claim to describe, as opposed to hundreds of years
4. The original manuscripts which contributed to the New Testament were written over a century as opposed to over 800 years.
5. While the first canonisation of the New Testament didn't occur until, at earliest, around 400AD (about 275 years after the last book was written), there is evidence that the majority of the New Testament enjoyed some sort of formal (although not canonised) status among most Christians from around 250AD (just over a century after the last was written). Once again, it doesn't sound like much. A century is still an awfully long time for things to get screwed up after all. But it still looks like an awfully clear day when pitted against the darkness of the Old Testament.

Now that I've sufficiently championed the virtues of the New Testament to the extent that such was warranted, I'm now going to explain why I don't believe the New Testament is particularly reliable anyway. In doing this, I'm going to split the New Testament into 4. The first division is the Gospels, which are the first 5 books of the bible. These books claim to describe the life and works of Jesus. The second division is the genuine Pauline Epistles – letters not only attributed to Paul the Apostle, but those which modern scholars agree were likely authored by Paul. The third division is the pseudepigraphic Pauline Epistles – letters attributed to Paul that were most likely written (perhaps after his death) by one of his disciples or followers. And the last division is any other Epistles – letters written by other early leaders of the Church whether genuine or not. And I'm going to address these in chronological order – that is, I'm going to address each group in the order that the books relating to that division were generally written.

Genuine Pauline Epistles

Now, isn't this curious? The genuine Pauline Epistles were written first of all the books of the New Testament? Even before the gospels describing the life and works of the central-most figure of the New Testament and, indeed, the Christian faith itself? Why yes.

For the books under this category, simply refer to the New Testament table – it's the books where Paul the Apostle's name under “likely authored by” coincides with “traditionally regarded as authored by”.

So there's this guy named Paul (actually Saul, but that story isn't really relevant here) who lived during the times of Jesus but was very sceptical of this newfound sect. Now let's be clear – Paul never actually met Jesus. He did however frequently meet Jesus' followers – after which he persecuted them (arresting them and what not). Shortly after the death of Jesus, Paul has a “vision” (well really not so much a vision, as he was temporarily struck blind, more like he heard a “divine” voice), and he converts to the religion he had spent so much time persecuting. He then spends the next two decades being one of the most successful early Christian Church missionaries ever. He was exceedingly instrumental in the spreading of the Jesus-centered Christian faith throughout the region.

After his conversion, he wrote some letters to churches in areas he had either helped establish or had by then developed a meaningful relationship with. At least 8 of these letters were so influential that they now form part of the New Testament. I don't know when Paul actually began writing letters in general, but the ones that were incorporated into the New Testament were ones written about 2 decades after the death of Jesus.

Oddly enough, there isn't really any evidence outside of the bible for Paul. Despite this, most scholars generally accept that some guy did exist more or less in line with Paul's description. They agree on this for a few reasons such as the internal consistences of the genuine Pauline epistles and the fact that Paul was so well known and influential that shortly after his death, people attempted to forge epistles under his name so that their ideas could gain traction (the pseudopigraphic epistles), as well as other reasons.

Being that as it may, I consider the genuine Pauline letters to be one of the most reliable parts of the New Testament. This is because they seem to be the genuine expression of the ideas and beliefs of a very influential leader of the early Christian Church. Whether you want to extend this by saying that his being (1) an early Christian, and (2) influential, is sufficient to consider his beliefs a good moral basis for your own life is quite another story. And we won't talk about that here.

Pseudopigraphic Pauline Epistles

Still no Gospels. Interesting isn't it? And once again, for an indication of which books fall here, it's where Paul the Apostle under “traditionally regarded as authored by” does not coincide with “likely authored by”.

Well, there isn't much to say here except that, a few people wrote letters to specific churches or to Christians in general, and attributed the letters to Paul (either on purpose or they were later attributed to Paul although the epistle may have borne no author). Most of these persons were likely followers of Paul or people otherwise close to him and/or subscribed at least somewhat to his philosophy. And these people are shrouded in anonymity. A common feature of the bible, it seems.

Despite not being genuinely written by Paul, these epistles may once again be considered “reliable” to the extent that they reliably express the views of someone in the early Christian Church. Once again, I say that to accept this is one thing. To consider the views of someone who lived in an era where mental illness was traditionally mistaken for demon possession is quite another. Although to be completely fair, in my experience, a lot of people attribute the most basic of human failings (a mean boss, an unfaithful spouse, an unruly teenager) to demonic influences. But I digress.

The Gospels

Finally. We've gotten to the gospels, written at least 35 years after the death of Jesus Christ. When comparing the post-occurrence delay in the documentation of events within the Old Testament, 35 years seems like nothing. But far from vindicating a 35 year lag, it should only emphasise the fatuity of the Old Testament's supposed reliability. This time lag aside, I find the timing (as in the sequencing of events) leading up to the writing of the Gospels rather curious. Think about it.

Now, I haven't quite yet gone into a great deal of research on the historicity of Jesus, but from what I've seen, I'm relatively certain that there was a 1^st century religious teacher who inspired many with his philosophy, which in some ways was way ahead of its time, and which branched away from certain traditional Jewish tenets. The evidence of this man's deistic nature and miraculous works however is much less compelling. But still, using a historical albeit human Jesus, let's consider the time lines.

Jesus existed, he taught, he inspired, he created a following that was somewhat removed from traditional Judaism. He died, but his following, though relatively small, survives his death. Paul the Apostle (also called Paul the Evangelist) converts to Christianity after experiencing a personal revelation. Paul successfully helps Christianity spread through missionary activity and writings.

Paul was so influential, that after his death, several of his followers continued in his tradition – writing to followers at various locations to iron out crinkles in the Christian philosophy being practised there. Almost 10 years after Paul's death (and 35 years after Jesus' death), Christianity was so popular that people found it necessary to solidify the faith by documenting the life and works of the figure central to its teachings – Jesus. By this time, people frequently spoke of Jesus and his alleged work (with some measure of an oral tradition developing), and there were some writings about it, but no one had ever committed to writing it down in one reliable swipe.

Keep in mind that the Gospels were written by anonymous persons, with the writers of the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, borrowing material from the Gospel of Mark. In fact, the Gospel of Mark is considered the first of the Gospels, and seems to have been written using a collection of written and oral stories, but also some historical material. Now, how reliable can this be?

To draw a parallel, imagine Michael Jackson. I'm taking MJ because, internationally, he is one of the most well known musical artists of all time. Imagine that he lived in an era where communication technology equaled that of 1^st century Palestine. Some people saw him dance, others saw him sing, and he creates a sizable following. Eventually, he dies, but only after his death does some guy who never saw him dance and never heard him sing decides that MJ is the greatest entertainer who ever danced the earth. This guy then significantly increases the following of people who consider MJ to be this amazing entertainer, helping to teach other people to sing and dance like MJ based on how the followers of MJ sang and dance. He takes the best of their copy-cat moves and talents (although how much of these moves really originated from MJ or look anything like what MJ did is debatable) and spreads it across Palestine.

Eventually, 35 years after MJ is dead, somebody decides to write a biography of his life and highlights of the concerts he put on. How accurate is this likely to be? Sure MJ was a great singer, but could he have maintained a high note for so long that all dogs within a 1 mile radius were petrified into silence for weeks? Sure he was a great dancer, but did he really walk across the face of the moon? As MJ's posthumous fame increases, how much will the truth behind real events deteriorate as they are exaggerated? The answer to that is surely “quite a lot”. This is certain to be true (truer even) of Jesus, as people are not to be convinced of significant talent, but of genuine divinity. With miracles, after all, the sky is the limit.

So I have little doubt that Jesus existed. What I loudly contest is that the Jesus who actually walked this earth was significantly similar to the Jesus we read about in the New Testament.

Other Epistles

There isn't really much to say here that hasn't already been said. It is only now to attribute these epistles to other persons. The only interesting thing to note here is that where letters are attributed to some other established person in the Early Christian Church (e.g. John or Peter), research has indicated that these persons did not write the letters, and that the true author was some unknown person. More of the same.

In conclusion of this Part 7 entry, I'd just like to acknowledge that my discussion didn't really touch on Acts or Revelations, which are 2 very interesting books. Maybe I'll discuss them in a later entry. Or maybe not. I believe I've already made my point here. But there is still one last entry to go.

The Reliability of the Bible - Part 6 - The New Testament - Table

I encourage you to research the individual propositions within this entry yourself. In your research, please be aware of the bias of your source material (e.g. religious sites versus sceptic's sites versus material meant for pure scientific/philosophical knowledge).

THE NEW TESTAMENT

You're probably wondering:

Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! What the hell happened here? What about the last 2 questions of the 5 questions you need to ask?

Well, I decided that those last 2 questions are applicable to both the New and Old Testament, and therefore will be addressed as such. So in the mean time, I can move onto the New Testament. Before I do, I'm going to give you the link, as promised in Part 3 of this multi-part entry, to Israel's official Ministry of Foreign Affairs site where they made significant (secular) reference to the invasion of Canaan.

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2003/9/King%20David%20and%20Jerusalem-%20Myth%20and%20Reality

And now, moving onto the New Testament, keep in mind that the rules I used are similar to the rules used for the Old Testament Table (Part 2 of this multi-part entry).

Book of the Bible	Traditionally regarded as authored by?	Likely authored by?	Historical period covered (AD)	Estimated period authored (AD)?
Matthew	Matthew the tax collector	A single anonymous author, possibly drawing on material written by Matthew.	0-33	80-90
Mark	Mark the Evangelist	A single anonymous author, collecting writings from various sources	30-33	Circa 70
Luke	Luke the Evangelist	A single anonymous author, also authored Acts	0-33	80-90
John	John the Apostle	A single anonymous author with other anonymous authors contributing pieces over several years	30-33	90-100
Acts	Luke the Evangelist	A single anonymous author, also authored Luke	Apostolic age	In dispute, ranging 60-100
Romans	Paul the Apostle	Paul the Apostle	Letter t o the people in Rome	51-58
1st Corinthians	Paul the Apostle	Paul the Apostle and Sosthenes	Letter to the church in Corinth	53-57
2nd Corinthians	Paul the Apostle	Paul the Apostle	Letter to the church in Corinth	53-57
Galatians	Paul the Apostle	Paul the Apostle	L etter to the church in Galatia	50-60
Ephesians	Paul the Apostle	One or more anonymous authors who were influenced by Paul	Letter to the church in Ephesia	70 -100
Phillipians	Paul the Apostle	Paul the Apostle	Letter to the church in Philippi	Circa 62
Collosians	Paul the Apostle	Disputed; Paul the Apostle, or a later disciple of Paul	Letter to the church in Colossae	Disputed; 50-80
1st Thessolonians	Paul the Apostle	Paul the Apostle	Letter to the church in Thessolonica	Circa 52
2nd Thessolonians	Paul the Apostle	Disputed; Paul the Apostle, or a later disciple of Paul	Letter to the church in Thessolonica	52-54
1st Timothy	Paul the Apostle	Disputed; Paul the Apostle, or a later disciple of Paul	Letter to Timothy	Disputed; 62 - 155
2nd Timothy	Paul the Apostle	An anonymous follower of Paul	Letter to Timothy	67-80
Titus	Paul the Apostle	Paul the Apostle	Letter to Titus	66-67
Philemon	Paul the Apostle	Paul the Apostle	Letter to Philemon	66-67
Hebrews	Paul the Apostle although this is disputed even within Christianity	A single unknown author, possibly a disciple of Paul	Letter to the Hebrews	63 -64
James	James the Just, brother of Jesus	Highly disputed	Wisdom Literature	50 -100 – highly disputed
1st Peter	Peter the Apostle	A single unknown author – did not write 2nd Peter	Letter to all churches	60-112
2nd Peter	Peter the Apostle	A single unknown author – did not write 1st Peter	Letter to churches	80-150
1st John	John the Apostle	A single anonymous author (same as Gospel of John)	Letter to all churches	Circa 90
2nd John	John the Apostle	A single anonymous author (same as Gospel of John)	Letter to all churches	Circa 90
3rd John	John the Apostle	A single anonymous author (same as Gospel of John)	Letter to all churches	Circa 90
Jude	Jude, Brother of James the Just	A single unknown author	Letter to all churches	66-125
Revelation	John the Apostle	John of Patmos	A letter of revelations	Circa 95, with pieces of material dated circa 60

The Reliability of the Bible - Part 5 - The Old Testament - Period Written

I encourage you to research the individual propositions within this entry yourself. In your research, please be aware of the bias of your source material (e.g. religious sites versus sceptic's sites versus material meant for pure scientific/philosophical knowledge).

Before I get started on the analysis of the third question with respect to the Old Testament, let's remind ourselves once again of the 5 key questions to be considered:

1. What period in history are these manuscripts meant to cover? (already covered)
2. Who wrote the original manuscripts on which the books are based? (already covered)
3. When were these manuscripts written? (covered in this entry)
4. When were the manuscripts assembled into established books?
5. Who assembled the books?

When were the manuscripts written?

This question can divided into three primary sub-questions.

Question #1 – Were any of the manuscripts written before the events which they seek to describe?

This is tantamount to prophesy. As can be clearly seen from the table, at least at the level of a biblical book, this is absolutely not the case. People may seek to point out that there were several individual prophesies that were later fulfilled. Without getting into the contents, and based on the general research I have done, these seemingly miraculous predictions may well be because both the manuscript containing the prediction and the manuscript demonstrating its fulfillment were written in the same period, and perhaps even by the same author. Quite often, the prophesy and its subsequent manifestation are even contained in the same book/manuscript as part of a single cohesive story. Prophesies may have even been backdated; they were written after the relevant events occurred and then inserted at some earlier point in the story. This may be an interesting angle to pursue on a prophesy-by-prophesy basis, but like I said several times before, the purpose of these entries is to argue based on factors of compilation and not on factors of content.

Question #2 – Were any of the manuscripts written while the events they describe unfolded?

Keep in mind that 60% of the historical portions of the bible were written during the 400 year period that the Kingdom of Judea was known to exist and for about a century thereafter, its exiled people strongly holding on to their identities. Of course, then, some of these manuscripts were written during salient events occurring within the Kingdom of Judea. From the table, it can be seen that of the 39 books, 36 cover a historical period. Of these 36, 17 were written during the period to which it relates, or within 50 years of the end of the period. I thought I was particularly generous to allow the 50 year grace period, particularly as in a couple cases, the period that the books cover can be several decades, so it may be a matter of somebody trying to reconstruct the events of a period that ended 50 years ago, but started 50 years before that, surely a daunting feat.

Of course writing about events while they occur, though far more reliable than other methods, does not necessarily mean that what was written about the events were not deliberately understated, exaggerated, with pieces omitted or whole-sale fabrications weaved in. This seemed to precisely be the cases for some manuscripts which were written to achieve narrow socio-political purposes through religious incentives. But, let's not get too carried away with arguments of content.

Question #3 – Were any manuscripts written long after the events which they describe?

Well, I already told you how many somewhat historical books were written within 50 years of their subjects, with a grand total of nil written before. One calculator and a couple minutes later, you can safely say that 19 books of the bible were formulated from manuscripts written long after the events they attempt to describe. In fact, these 19 books were written, on average, 500 years after. That's right. Half a millennium.

Now, what could have possibly been happening during those 5 centuries that seemed to be more pressing than recording religious events of great import? At least for the Old Testament, we cannot say that the events were preserved by oral tradition. That's because the Jews' oral tradition related only to the events of the Torah (the Pentateuch) and do not simply repeat these 5 books, but are meant to be ancillary interpretations of the written Torah.

Even if you want to convince yourself that they were preserved in some sort of oral tradition, then you will have to assume that:

• When the events were first told, the speaker attempted to be extremely careful with the facts (leaving nothing out, putting nothing in, changing no details) and frame them in the appropriate religious context (as opposed to putting his/her own slant for whatever reason)
• The speaker succeeded in the above
• All subsequent speakers during the 500 year-or-so period, attempted to keep the story consistent with its original telling
• All subsequent speakers were successful in the above
• Changes in language over the 500 year period were appropriately considered (or not considered at all)
• When the story was finally written, the authors attempted to keep the story consistent with the oral version
• The author succeeded in the above

I suppose every single person involved here needed to be divinely guided to some extent to pull off such an amazing feat, but a more appropriate supposition is that this entire idea is absurd, and throw it it out altogether. Perhaps instead, the theist might believe that all oral tradition was skipped and that God “revealed” the truths of the events hundreds of years later to the author him/herself.

Or maybe we can take it at face value – that the authors of these manuscripts wrote them with primarily current socio-political events and/or a narrower personal agenda in mind, the historicity of the events largely taking a back seat and divine inspiration likely absent altogether. In fact, for one of the books of the bible (I can't quite remember which – getting the name would mean going through all of the books of the bible again, a task I certainly am not up to doing anytime soon), one of the confirming factors of its dating was that while the backdrop of events were anchored in a particular time period, the cultural overtones and therefore ultimate purpose seemed firmly rooted in the period almost 200 years later.

There is no doubt that the evidence seems to be accumulating in the corner against the reliability of the Old Testament.

The Reliability of the Bible - Part 4 - The Old Testament - Author

I encourage you to research the individual propositions within this entry yourself. In your research, please be aware of the bias of your source material (e.g. religious sites versus sceptic's sites versus material meant for pure scientific/philosophical knowledge).

Before I get started on the analysis of the second question with respect to the Old Testament, let's remind ourselves once again of the 5 key questions to be considered:

1. What period in history are these manuscripts meant to cover? (already covered)
2. Who wrote the original manuscripts on which the books are based? (covered in this entry)
3. When were these manuscripts written?
4. When were the manuscripts assembled into established books?
5. Who assembled the books?

Who wrote the original manuscripts on which the Old Testament is based?

The short answer to this question is:

“Nobody really knows.”

But I'm going to attempt to give you the long answer. Before I do, I just want to argue that while this entry will hit biblical literalists the hardest (any evidence will, actually), it also impacts people who do not take the bible literally. I suppose that most (although, surprisingly, not all) of these non-biblical-literalists still consider the bible “divinely inspired”. If they didn't, then the bible wouldn't necessarily hold any more significance than any other lauded piece of literature. Its merits would not have been considered a fact apriori or simply because it was “the bible”. Its merits, instead, would have been determined only after a critical reading of the bible itself.

Moving on now, and at the risk of repeating what may be obvious from the table, of the 39 books of the bible:

• 3 books were written by a biblical character (or his disciples) with a somewhat established historicity outside of the bible
• Some of 2 books were written by a biblical character with a relatively established historicity outside of the bible, with the rest of the books written by anonymous authors
• 5 books were written by a biblical character with very little evidence of the character's existence outside of the biblical narrative, drawing doubt as to whether the author existed as described or even existed at all (historicity unclear)
• 4 books were written by a biblical character with no evidence of the character's existence outside of the biblical narrative (historicity unknown)
• The remaining 25 books are written by a variety of authors of unknown origins

For the sake of clarity, I want to get into a bit more detail of how unknown “unknown” really is with respect to the last bullet point. Biblical scholars, while unable to identify authors, have been able to “narrow down” their identities sufficiently to come to some agreement about whether the same person or group of persons wrote at least portions of otherwise seemingly unrelated books. How have they been able to do this? They looked at the content of the books, the language in which it was written, the apparent knowledge of the person or group, and the socio-political and religious intent of the author(s). In a couple of cases, they have been able to narrow it down even further to a particular likely profession – i.e. a powerful lord, a group of priests, religious purists, etc.

So, for example, they may be able to say that this book was most likely written by a group of sages around this 50-100 year or so period who were primarily concerned with religious reform and equality among Israelites. Another book in the bible may share these commonalities and therefore can be considered to be written by this same group of people. Of course, I am simplifying the process, which is far more exhaustive, but the main point is that portraits of the authors are drawn from a comprehensive analysis of the text itself due to lack of evidence for external corroboration. Beyond these generalisations however, the identity of the authors remains unknown, nor can any distinct similarly described group be determined from non-biblical sources.

While keeping the above in mind, acknowledge that this does not mean that each book of the bible was written by the same group of people in the same profession or with the same intent. The bible is largely a patchwork document, and so are most of the books. A single book of the bible may be written by, for example, 4 different sets of people:

• Author A – A large yet cohesive group of people with consistent religious, socio-political or cultural goals who existed over a long period, say several decades
• Author B – An individual
• Author C – A community – i.e. a group of people who do not necessarily share common goals, but live in the same small region, who came together at a particular point in time for a specific purpose to record some part of history/events from their religious perspective
• Author D – A small group – i.e. two or three people with a specific purpose

And even further, while Author A would have written most of the book, the actual verses contributed may be in clumps throughout – i.e. chapters 1 through 10, chapter 15 and 16, and the last 3 chapters – 25 to 27. Author B may have written most of the rest, with Authors C and D contributing only a couple chapters and a few verses respectively. Author A and Author D may have contributed to another book or two elsewhere in the bible, but Authors B and C may have made no other contribution to the bible. Although this may be true for most of the books, keep in mind that some of the books were once a single work that was split – i.e. 1 Kings and 2 Kings; 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronices, etc. At the same time however, while they may have been “one work” before they were split in 2, this does not mean that the “work” was composed by a single author, and the same process per above can therefore apply.

In any case, the patchwork nature is the case for several biblical books – with multiple unknown authors, with each author having a different purpose and living in different periods, even where they are of the same group (e.g. Author A which contributed to the book over several decades). Also of note – there are parts of the bible which are plagiarisms of the myths/religions of other cultures. Some of these may be debatable, but the most indisputable one I came across (at least in this research) is the Book of Proverbs, which has borrowed pieces of the Instruction of Amenemopet, a literary work composed in Ancient Egypt.

Now all of this put together poses 3 core problems for the reliability of the Old Testament based on those who wrote it:

1. There is evidence that some of the authors had agendas that were not purely religious or spiritual, but also socio-political or cultural. This is a point that I only barely touched on – I will get into it a bit more in the next entry
2. The vast majority of the old testament are written by unknown persons or groups of persons
3. The Old Testament was not written by 25 or so prophets, all with some measure of a biography within the bible itself, but by hundreds and quite possibly thousands of authors over a vast period of time

While I think that altogether, these 3 problems throw the reliability of the Old Testament as whole into significant doubt, from the point of a fervent believer, I think that the first point, and to a lesser extent, the second point can be dismissed. And I'll explain how.

The first point, I believe, suggests that many of the Old Testament authors had a hidden agenda to impose their cultural and political views upon the wider populace for perhaps selfish reasons. A believer might say that even if this were the case, the impact on the culture and politics of the community would have been temporary if it had any impact at all. On the other hand, the underlaid religious impact, which was spiritually true in any case, had the more lasting and permanent impact. After all, over 2 millennia later, billions of people all over the world take these words for religious guidance. This therefore, was all part of God's complex plan. Sure, it's an unusual plan – to deliberately direct the personal biases of thousands of people for a “greater good”. But God does work in mysterious ways.

The second point now – the anonymity of the authors. So what? So what if we don't know who wrote the bible? Let's say that all of the books of the bible were written by authors who we know as much about as we know about Jeremiah. So what? How much of what we know about this guy goes much further than a benign and general biography framed mainly by historical events?

What if we knew as much about the authors of the bible as we do about prominent people in today's world of twitter, youtube, recording devices on every phone, and phones in every pocket? What if we knew so much about these authors that we were able to vet them like the American people vet presidential candidates? Well then, things start to get interesting. A rational person would be able to root out at least half of our prophets as frauds because the prophets' dirty secrets will suddenly be splashed across the evening news.

“Nah – he ain't no prophet! Five unrelated women accused him of sexual harassment.”

“She ain't divinely inspired! She always makes racist remarks.”

“He ain't chosen by God! He got caught making homosexual advances on an undercover police officer in the stall of an airport mens' room.”

Anonymity, I propose, works in the favour of these allegedly divinely inspired authors. That's because knowledge of a person's character can definitely rule them out of divine inspiration, but it does not necessarily rule them in. Put more plainly, a person can be such a vicious prick, that any rational person will surely dismiss any claims on their part that God was inspiring them. However, another person can appear to be morally good, have no obvious significant faults, and still not necessarily be directly inspired by God.

What positive evidence can there ever really be of divine inspiration? Is there a litmus test that a prophet can take? Obviously not. When people say that they believe that the Old Testament is divinely inspired, they have to believe it largely independent of the authors, a particularly easy task when people don't really know anything about the authors anyway. As a matter of fact, the little we do know about these authors is all written in the bible itself, in books identified with their names – and it is all good. The only image we have of these authors is a positive image, even if we don't have any evidence that this positive image is based in truth. Think about it – you don't and can't have evidence to believe in the divine inspiration of these authors outside of the bible and therefore have to use circular logic – the same type of logic that has no place in rational discourse. All you can say is:

“This book in the bible was written by some anonymous author. But I know this anonymous author was divinely inspired because surely God will not allow an invalid work to have any place within the scriptures (i.e. the bible tells me so).”

There is no way to argue with such a statement because it is not based on evidence or necessarily even logic, but on faith. There isn't much that can give a person of faith pause except perhaps the third point – the sheer number of authors. You would have to believe the above statement is true not just for a couple dozen authors, but quite possibly for thousands. Actually, it is definitely thousands if you count the persons who later edited the original manuscripts even before the canonisation process (more on that later). Thousands of authors contributed to the Old Testament. Thousands of authors were divinely inspired. And the biblical canonisation process overseen by various counsels for various versions of the bible incorporated only the divinely inspired authors' work into their official scripture, and weeded out all of the manuscripts that were not divinely inspired. Perhaps they managed to do this because the various canonisation committees were also divinely inspired. Or maybe just one was. For your sake, I hope you picked the version of the bible that the lone divinely guided canonisation committee reviewed.

So you see how the various faith based assumptions accumulate as you consider more aspects of the Old Testament's origins. Of course, there are people who will still say – well these things happen all the time in the movies – why can't God do it? After all, with God, all things are possible. You can't argue with that. You can't argue against something that is not based on reason – that is largely devoid of reason – with reason. So it is at this point that you give up.

But I will continue, because there is still quite a way to go.