So I recently learned the majority of historical opinion is that most of Old Testament was written between the between 700s and 500s BC, so its earliest parts are approximately contemporary with Homer.
I was actually surprised by this, and was wondering would this dating be considered “heretical” by any major Christian denomination, in the sense that they would consider it incompatible with their core beliefs? In the same way that the theory of evolution and the scientific age of the Earth would be by some denominations (not Catholicism, but some denominations do state that they believe in a literal interpretation of that bible that explicitly contradicts the theory of evolution and a four billion year-old Earth). But being written between the ages of Homer and Sapho doesn’t necessarily mean it was that it wasn’t divinely inspired and literal truth.
I know there is a separate “controversy” (in the sense of Christian orthodoxy and the majority of scholarly opinion differing) about the exact age of the book of Daniel, but other than than that does Christian orthodoxy weigh in on the age of the old Testament?
I’m a Roman Catholic, though not a practising one; but I remember that the edition of the Bible that we used for religious education classes in school (yes, in some German states it is a regular subject in public schools) was heavily annotated and gave, in the annotations, a large amount of background information on scholarly opinion about how and when the books were written. This background information is consistent with the historical opinion you refer to, and it does not attempt to shun this opinion as heretical or anything like that. The Bible edition I’m speaking of is the German Einheitsübersetzung, and it has been commissioned and approved by the Roman Catholic dioceses in Germany for liturgical and educational use.
So bottom line: As far as the position of Roman Catholicism is concerned, I don’t see anything that would contradict the scholarly opinion you refer to. As a matter of fact, I would think that many of the scholars who systematically research the Old Testament are themselves clerics in one of the major denominations.
As the Staff Report notes, the “traditional” view, which some conservative Christians and Jews still hold, is that the first five books of the Bible were written by Moses himself, which would mean they were written at the time Moses lived—which was… well, Wikipedia says
AIUI, Protestants believe that the Pentateuch was written by Moses (except for, of course, the last part where Moses died,) and so it couldn’t have been 500-700 BC since Moses was dead long before then.
I daresay that view would elicit not so muffled guffaws at any mainline Protestant seminary, and some that aren’t so mainline. Growing up Southern Baptist I remember hearing that it was doubtful that the Pentateuch was actually written by Moses. I attended a fairly conservative Christian college where this view wasn’t promulgated in my Old Testament class.
Without going down a rabbit hole there is a bunch that Mormons hold as core beliefs that would ahem “provoke discussion” among almost all other denominations.
You mention Homer, which is relevant. What I generally remember is that the books of the Bible were compiled later but came from earlier sources–possibly oral. For example, the Torah had at least two sources, and possible three, that were combined together into one.
That’s why, for instance, you have three versions of the story where a patriarch goes to Egypt and disguises his wife as his sister, only for the Pharaoh to be so struck by her beauty that he wants her for his wife, with God having to tell the Pharaoh in a dream why that was a bad idea. The story is beat by beat the same, but happens at different points in Abraham and Sarah’s history, or even happens to Isaac and Rebecca instead. They didn’t want to accidentally get it wrong, so they included all three versions, just in case.
I don’t remember an exact date, but I do remember the theory that Deuteronomy was made much later than the other four, with the idea that it was the additional scripture book “found” by King Joziah.
I also remember reading that some of the later dates were due to the idea that, if something is a prophecy that came true, it must’ve been written after the events it describes. This was, of course, rejected as a valid reason for such dating.
This would have been from an Assembly of God church and a Southern Baptist teacher in a Bible history class. Plus maybe also from reading the extra content in many Bibles which would try to give context for the books.
God first commanded the Israelis to start writing things down in Exodus. This happened during the time of Moses so most denominations date the writing of the first 5 books back to the time of Moses.
I believe the late secular date comes from the extraordinary accuracy of the predictions in the old testament; i.e. if you don’t believe God exists it must have been written after the events occurred. Also, sometime around 300 B.C. the old testament was translated into Greek so that probably also plays a factor.
If the prophets of the Old Testaments were all that accurate, you’d think the most important prophecy would be getting the name of the coming Messiah right, yet they didn’t.
They didn’t get it wrong, either. The “prophecies” in scripture you are referring to are Christian interpretations, and in Jewish theology, not prophecies about moshiach at all.
The idea of Moshiach was a later development, and extra-biblical. Yes, there were radical fringe groups who believed every line in the bible was specifically about them, in the immediate present, but few Jews believe or have believed this.
Also, since, according to Jewish theology, there has not yet been moshiach, we don’t know his (or her!) name.
Didn’t one of the books in the Bible have the Israelites returning from one of their many captivities and finding the scrolls of the scriptures among the ruins which were then read to the people? If I am remembering correctly, that would set a biblical timeframe that when it was writing. If so that would be sure to put a divide as to when it was written if the times usually assumed was different then the time stated in scriptures.
Also the 10 commandments are a part of the Scriptures so that sets a time for that part as it was written on stone tablets.
Here’s one such indication of scriptures were written down in the Bible:
[quote=2 kings 22:8]
8 Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, “I have found the Book of the Law in the temple of the Lord.” He gave it to Shaphan, who read it.[/quote]
I believe that the book of Nehemiah it also indicates that scriptures are written.
Jesus is just the Greek pronunciation of Joshua. Joshua was a common name in Israel just as it is in the USA. How meaningful would it have been to give his name when there a thousands and thousands of Joshuas?
Instead the prophecies focused on other identifiers: where he would be born, his family ancestry, the things he would do, the year he would present himself to the city of Jerusalem, and many more.
Why, even presuming that they actually were written on stone tablets, would that set a time for them?
If we had said tablets, assorted testing methods currently available might be able to set a date; I don’t know. But we haven’t got them. And people have been marking things on stone for an extremely long time, and are still doing so now.
My understanding is that “mainline” Protestant denominations are more or less in line with Roman Catholic biblical scholarship (there is considerable ecumenical biblical scholarship which seems as rigorous as any other historical inquiry, with the exception of a certain amount of careful hedging about core beliefs. Timelines are not core beliefs).
Fundamentalist groups, which are typically not concerned with academic rigor nor alignment with historical evidence, probably diverge quite a bit from the above.
Dark_Sponge I believe the late secular date comes from the extraordinary accuracy of the predictions in the old testament; i.e. if you don’t believe God exists it must have been written after the events occurred. Also, sometime around 300 B.C. the old testament was translated into Greek so that probably also plays a factor.
We’ve been down this trail in the last few years. The first problem with this theme is that the prophecies have not been “extraordinarily accurate.” I will not pursue that thought as it is not directly relevant.
A more important objection to this thesis is that the people objecting to the idea of a history dating to the time of Exodus have NOT been people who did not believe in God, but devout Jews and Christians who looked at the texts and found the idea of direct divine authorship to be improbable. Jewish scholars of the Talmud pointed out small discrepancies from the third through the seventeenth centuries, providing exculpatory reasons for the apparent discrepancies. The Eighteenth Century Protestant theologian, Johan Eichhorn expanded on thoughts published by John Asturic, (another Christian) by speculating that the Pentateuch had two authors, one writing using the divine name Jahweh and the other naming God Elohim. Wilhelm de Wette expanded on that idea by attributing (most of) Deuteronomy to the Deuteronomist. That theory was developed further by scholars dividing Deuteronomy (and troublesome passages in earlier works) by conjecturing a Priestly author. The Pentateuch (along with passages in Joshua and Judges) was then ascribed to four authors labeled JEPD.
Their thoughts were sufficiently persuasive that the majority of Christian, and eventually Jewish, scholars began to examine the texts in that light. Once they had established an acceptance of the documentary hypothesis, other Scriptural texts began to be analyzed in similar ways. At that time, some non-believers began to add their examinations to the discussions, but the earliest and majority of scholars have always been Jewish and Christian.
As to dating, it has often been pretty much of a slam dunk. For example, Daniel gives a fairly accurate 4th and 3d Century history while internally asserting that it was written in the Sixth Century. However, in several passages it uses Greek words (e.g. for Greek musical terms) that were unknown to Israelites in the Sixth Century and no manuscript or reference to it predates the second century.
Yes, it was specifically the prophesies in Daniel and Isaiah I was referring to. However, I find this argument weak and uncompelling. How can we be sure those Greek words were unknown to the writer of Daniel? This is not some farmer living in Israel; the writer claims to have been educated by the best scholars in the world’s superpower at the time (Babylonia). If this is true why wouldn’t he have been heavily influenced by other cultures?
The “it couldn’t have been written that early because seeing the future is impossible” argument is much stronger in my opinion.