How old is the Bible?

Lydz01

The Bible is a collection of writings, and the earliest ones were set down nearly 3500 years ago. Dec 30 06, 12:42 AM

What-A-Mess

1611 (publication) King James Version {Authorized Version} Dec 30 06, 2:42 AM

What-A-Mess

But.... "Like many ancient works, the oldest parts of the Bible were passed along orally before they were ever written down. Many devout Jews and Christians believe that the full text of the Bible was given to Moses by God on Mount Sinai. Though the Bible's earliest origin may always be a matter of faith, it remains a fact that after the Bible was recorded, many different versions existed. It wasn't until the first century B.C.E. (Before the Common Era, aka B.C.) that Jews settled on the canon of their scripture, and it was around 400 C.E. (Common Era, aka A.D.) that Christians agreed on all the books of their New Testament. Today, countless translations and interpretations of the Bible exist in English and many other languages." Read on... http://ask.yahoo.com/20030227.html http://ask.yahoo.com/20030227.html Dec 30 06, 2:45 AM

zbeckabee

Here's a timeline on when it was written: http://www.carm.org/bible/biblewhen.htm "The Bible was written over a period of 1400 to 1800 years by more than 40 different authors." "The first five books of the Old Testament (known as the Pentateuch or Torah) was written by Moses during the forty years that the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness (1450 - 1410 B.C.)." http://www.allabouttruth.org/when-was-the-bible-written-faq.htm Dec 30 06, 2:59 AM

FuturePirate

Extremely old. I don't think anyone knows or will EVER know how old it is. It's just one of the world's unknown and unsolved mysteries. Dec 30 06, 10:19 AM

Arpeggionist

The oldest portions of texts were probably written some 3,500 years ago. The oldest surviving document in Hebrew currently dates to about 90 BCE, around the time of Solomon, and is not a biblical text. Much of the books of Kings were probably written in real-time, between 800-580 BCE, as were the books of Isiah. Jeremiah and Deuteronomy. The last was probably the book found by Shafan the Scribe in the Temple (2. Kings 22). Dec 30 06, 10:47 AM

Arpeggionist

As for the Psalms and Proverbs, these were compiled from many different sources. On occasion they will be attributed to a name or family. The Psalms attributed to the "sons of Korach" were written by Asaf and Heman the poets, who were grandchildren of Samuel (a decendent of Korach). Psalm 18 probably was written by David. Ecclesiastes also includes words that were definately not part of Solomon's vocabulary, and does not linguistically fit with the Hebrew of the time. Dec 30 06, 10:55 AM

Arpeggionist

But it is still impossible to really know which of the Psalms and Proverbs were written when or by whom. A lot of the Proverbs bear resemblence to the proverbs of Sirach, an Apocryphal book, though the author there might have been quoting common wisdom. The entire text of the books of the OT and the Apocrypha existed some 2,000 years ago, and not a century later the rabbis of the Mishnah cannonized those books that would be included in the Old Testament. Dec 30 06, 10:58 AM

What-A-Mess

As for the "Bible" as we know it, (other compilations were not "The Holy Bible" just a book of Holy Laws and happenings), 1611. Remember. Before the Holy Roman Church and King James there existed various compilations of MANY ancient writings. SOME of which were chosen to be included in "The Bible" or Authorized Version. MANY were rejected, excluded or shunned for various reasons. Dec 30 06, 11:34 AM

Baloo55th

And some, like the Song of Songs, got into the Bible by mistake... Dec 30 06, 12:56 PM

elburcher

Here is a very interesting site that breaks down as best it can the age and authorship of the Bible. http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mbible1.html Dec 30 06, 1:03 PM

Arpeggionist

Of course, that's just a theory, and its way too simplistic for my tastes. The use of God's names, for one, is much more complicated than "Adonai" in one case and "Elohim" in another (often enough they come together), or for the split kingdom theories. Elijah was a northern prophet and still used the four-letter name. Also, the later authors tended to quote the earlier ones. Whoever wrote Esther must have known Genesis and Deuteronomy very well, and borrowed wording from both books. Dec 30 06, 2:44 PM

jrothlander

Certainly it is not 1611 and King James did not write or compile the Bible! Nor did the Catholic Church for that matter. The Old Testament was solidified and in place way before anyone from the Catholic Church could possibly make any claims. The core New Testament canon was as well. If you push back the Catholic Church all the way back to 400 AD, which I think is problematic before 1000 AD, you are still off by at least 250 years for everything except Hebrews, as the core of the NT was in place by 150 AD, as we have it being referenced. If you are focusing on the New Testament, to correctly answer this question you really need to go back and read up on this subject. It is an interesting subject if you are actually interested in the history. You cannot offer a single date, as doing so takes away from the history and the important facts around it. In short the NT books where selected because they were used by the church. The core of the canon was solidified by the mid 2nd century AD nearly all but a few books were regularly used by the church and consider scripture. We have a number of text from about 150 to 400 AD that reference the core of the NT and in 367 AD we have the first complete list by Anthanasius with only Hebrews missing. But Hebrews was more problematic and it was not until 1500's that it was added. The point is that the books were nailed down VERY early and no modern church can honesty claim ownership, to do so would be dishonest. I think that would violate one of those commandments we find in Deut. I just looked up the date of Justin Martyr's Apology, and found that Wikipedia has a really good artile on the "Development of the New Testament Canon" that goes through this in detail. Read this is you want to know the real answer to this question. Apr 08 13, 9:48 PM