Having just finished talking about how to study the Bible, I wanted to take a few posts to talk about how we got our Bible. I know that there are the types of literature still to cover, but I just wanted to write about something a little different in between. When it comes to the way that the Bible came to be in the form that we have it today, I feel like a majority of Christians don’t really know how it happened.
In this first post, I want to talk about the biblical authors. I will say that some of this might go against what you believe or what you’ve heard in the past. I’m not trying to destroy your faith in the Bible as the word of God. It absolutely is! However, as I have said before, we need to acknowledge the human influence that contributed to the writing of Scripture as well.
With that said, let’s just get into it. When we open our English Bibles, we see a lot of books. Some of them are named after people, but a lot of them aren’t. A lot of the books, especially in the Old Testament, are anonymous. We don’t, for example, know who wrote the books of Ruth, 1 and 2 Kings, or Job. The author, or authors, didn’t feel the need to name themselves. In the New Testament, it’s a little more clear. The Gospel authors are named in the title of the book, but not in the text. Paul identifies himself as the author of his letters, as do other Apostles like James, Peter, and John.
Here is where I’m going to rub some people the wrong way. In the Old Testament, the truth is that we don’t really know who actually wrote any of the books. Let’s look at the Torah, or the first five books. They are often attributed to Moses, but he isn’t named as the author in any of them. Furthermore, there is evidence within them that he didn’t write all of them. For example, Deuteronomy 34:5-6 says, “So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord, 6 and he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-peor; but no one knows the place of his burial to this day.” It’s pretty obvious that Moses didn’t write about his own death and burial. Also, the phrase “to this day” suggests that this is written quite a bit later than the events of the Torah.
Now, I do think that Moses wrote some of the Torah. In Exodus 17:14, it reads, “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.’” It’s clear that Moses was instructed by God to write at least some of what happened in the wilderness, but passages like the one above point to the fact that the books of Moses were edited, added to, and compiled at a later date.
Other books that we often think of as being written by the person who it’s named after are the prophets. However, even in these books, there is evidence that they were edited and compiled by others at a later date. Let’s look at Ezekiel 1:1-3. It says, “In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the exiles by the Chebar canal, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. 2 On the fifth day of the month (it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin), 3 the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the Chebar canal, and the hand of the Lord was upon him there.”
What do you notice here? The passage begins with Ezekiel telling when and where his visions occurred, but then it switches to the third person. Now, I don’t think Ezekiel got confused here, or just started referring to himself in the third person for some kind of dramatic effect. No, I think that this was a later editor giving us a little more information. The same thing happens in the other prophetic books as well. In Isaiah chapters 1 and 2, Isaiah is mentioned in the third person, but in chapter 6, it switches to first person. Again, it seems that someone took the original writings of Isaiah and edited and compiled them into the form we have now.
Honestly, I could go on and on here. Basically, what we see is that, at the very least, the writings of Moses, the prophets, and others were edited and compiled into the books we see today at a later date. Now, when we get to the New Testament, it’s a little different. Most conservative scholars would say that we know who wrote each book of the New Testament, other than Hebrews, although there is debate about some of them. For example, some disagree on which James wrote the book of James, and which John wrote Revelation. There is also debate about some of the letters of Paul, specifically the books of 1 and 2 Timothy.
Even in the New Testament, however, we see two things. First, there are things that were likely added over time. See my post titled Has the Bible Been Changed? for some examples of this. Second, particularly in Paul’s letters, we see that he didn’t actually write the letter, or he wrote it with others. What I mean by the first part of that is that Paul dictated the letter to someone who was a professional writer, called an amanuensis. In these cases, the amanuensis may have reworded things or added his own thoughts from time to time. As for the second part of that statement, we see in 2 Corinthians that it was Paul and Timothy that were writing to the church in Corinth. In 1 Corinthians, he wrote with Sosthenes, who may have been just another disciple of Jesus, or he may have actually been the amanuensis. Either way, others were involved in the writing of several of Paul’s letters.
Now, why do I say all of this? First of all, I want us to have a realistic view of the Bible. As I’ve said before, it isn’t a book that fell from Heaven. It is the product of many people writing in a very particular context. If you hold to the view that each book of the Bible was written only by the one person associated with it, it is easy for someone to pull that rug out from under your feet. If you aren’t prepared and familiar with this truth, it could very will destroy your faith. When someone confronts you with the evidence that the writing of the Bible was a process that involved authors, editors, and compilers, it could cause you to question the divine nature of our Scriptures. I don’t want that to happen.
Second, I think that it is important for us to realize that God doesn’t have to work through only one person. If He can inspire someone to write on His behalf, He can also inspire someone to edit and compile that writing in a way that preserves His authority in the words of the Bible. The fact that someone took the writings of Ezekiel, most likely after the exile in Babylon, and crafted them into a coherent book that faithfully represented the prophecies that he preached, should not call into question whether the book still carried the divine authority of God’s word. Neither should it bother us that this editor may have added some things to make theological connections with the rest of Scripture. God still had His hand in the process.
The important thing when talking about the authorship of the Bible is that we let the Bible be what it is. The fantastic thing about our Scriptures is that they weren’t dictated to one person from a divine being. Instead, the Bible is the product of the people of God writing the truth of God in and through the context of their history, culture, and daily lives. To me, this helps me to see it even more as the word of God. It would be easy for one person to say that God gave them an entire book of writings to create a new religion (Islam or Mormonism), but it’s a lot more difficult for a collection of writings to be built over centuries, by many different authors, that tells a single story with coherence and unity . . . which is what we have in the Bible. God had to be involved in that.
The thing that I want us to take away from this is that we don’t have to be afraid of what we might find if we dig into this stuff. We don’t need to be protected from our Bible or the history of its creation. God chose to do it this way for a reason, and the Bible is what it is. I believe with all my heart that the Bible is God’s word for His people. Yes, it was written by men, but those men were specially selected and prepared by God to write in a way that bore His authority. The fact that there is a clear(ish) process to how it came to be doesn’t take away from that, and it shouldn’t be something that non-believers can use against our faith.
Don’t be afraid to look into this more. Be wise in selecting scholars and books to read, but also be willing to look at things that are critical of the view that you hold. Come to an informed decision, and know that I realize that I could be wrong about this stuff too. Most importantly, let the Bible be what it is. It is the word of God, and regardless of criticism and disbelief, it will still be around long after we’re all with Jesus. There is no doubt in my mind about that!
Uncovering the Bible 