OT: Authorship

Back to: How We Got The Bible

A QUESTIONABLE STATEMENT?

The first writer of Scripture may well have been God himself. One of the earliest mentions of written revelation in Scripture was when “the finger of God” etched the Ten Commandments on “tablets of stone” (Exodus 31:18; 32:15–16).

Of course, God is a spirit; so, God doesn’t possess physical fingers and nails that scratched words into stone! (John 4:24).

When Moses wrote that “the finger of God” etched the first edition of the Ten Commandments, he was using human imagery to identify the writer of these commands as God himself.

-Jones, Timothy Paul. How We Got the Bible . Rose Publishing. Kindle Edition.

A REBUTTAL

Daniel 5:5 ESV
Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace, opposite the lampstand. And the king saw the hand as it wrote.

In either passage, Scripture gives no indication that this is ‘figurative’ language. This is a classic case of eisegesis – where one’s conclusion and opinion is read INTO the text and stated as a fact.

It would be better to not make any comment at all – or at least provide the reference in Daniel as an alternatively possible explanation.

There’s no reason why it’s implausible that Moses didn’t watch a human finger write on the stone tablets.

I haven’t done a deep dive on this topic, and so I don’t know for certain. But because of Daniel 5, I’m open to a literal treatment of the passage in Exodus.

Paraphrasing Dr. Wayne Grudem, he says, “Maybe God wrote it Himself so that there would be no question that there were no mistakes. (ie. not written by human hands)”

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FIRST HUMAN AUTHOR: MOSES

The first person mentioned in the Bible as writing anything is Moses, who lived perhaps as early as 1500 B.C. In the early books of the Bible six distinct writings are attributed to his hand:

1. The memorial concerning Amalek (Exod. 17:14);
2. The words of the covenant made at Sinai (Exod. 24:4);
3. The Ten Commandments (Exod. 34:27–28);
4. The journeys of the children of Israel in the wilderness (Num. 33:2);
5. The Book of the Law, which was to be kept with the Ark of the Covenant (Deut. 31:9, 24); and
6. The Song found in Deuteronomy 32:1–43 (Deut. 31:22).

In addition, Moses is held by strict Jewish tradition as being the author of the first five books of the Bible known as the Pentateuch.

Other writers of the Bible, and the Lord himself, give unvarying support to this view (cf. Josh. 8:31; 2 Kings 14:6; Ezra 6:18; Mark 12:26; Luke 2:22; John 7:19).

Lightfoot, Neil R.. How We Got the Bible (pp. 23-24). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

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THE INFLUENCE OF ANCIENT LITERATURE ON THE BIBLE

Moses most likely drew from a broad range of earlier materials to develop the Torah. Some of these sources originated with Moses, but many materials were probably passed down as oral traditions or fragments of text. Moses even cited one of his sources—“the Book of the Wars of the Lord”—by name (Numbers 21:14–15).

-Jones, Timothy Paul. How We Got the Bible . Rose Publishing. Kindle Edition.

As to the influence of ancient literature on the Bible itself, it has already been shown that whereas the Bible has elements that do parallel all these literary categories, it is itself a distinct production.

The effects upon it by extrabiblical writings are decidedly limited and controlled by virtue of its divine origin. Though the Bible in a few instances cites other literature (for example, see Num. 21:14; Josh. 10:13; 2 Sam. 1:18; 2 Kings 1:18; 1 Chron. 29:29; Acts 17:28; 1 Cor. 15:33; Tit. 1:12; Jude 9, 14), the relationship is one of shared media and mode of expression, rather than of source or direct determination.

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Critics: Multiple Authors (Evolutionary) Theory

It’s not my intent to sow seeds of doubt. However, I do think it is important to know and understand some convincing opposing views for the sake of apologetics.

Nineteenth-century critics of the Bible proposed that both the ancient narratives and the complex legal codes of the Pentateuch were of multiple authorship, composed and reworked over centuries of time. Theirs was a developmental or evolutionary theory.

By the twentieth century archaeologists had unearthed and translated myths relating to creation and the flood and royal law codes dated long before Moses.

Critics then modified their theories, insisting that the Hebrews borrowed from Babylonian sources.

Further discovery and careful comparative analysis has adequately substantiated the independence of the Bible as to the origin of content.

It is in areas of language and style, various formalities, that the extrabiblical literature helps us place the Holy Scriptures in their proper historic and literary context.

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AUGUSTINE: THE BIBLE AS CLASSIC LITERATURE

(see especially On Christian Doctrine, IV, 6-7). Augustine’s approach is admittedly narrow (an analysis of rhetoric or style), but he established four crucial principles that are still valid in literary approaches to the Bible.

• First, he asserted that the writers of the Bible followed the ordinary rules of classical rhetoric. He explicated passages from Amos and the Epistles to prove that the Bible can be compared to familiar literature.
• Secondly, Augustine admired the eloquence and beauty of the Bible as having inherent value.
• Thirdly, he foreshadowed a cornerstone of modern literary theory when he claimed that the style of the Bible is inseparable from the message that it expresses.
• Finally, for all his enthusiasm over the literary eloquence of the Bible, Augustine showed an uneasiness about viewing the Bible as being totally similar to other literature, claiming, for example, that the eloquence of the Bible was not “composed by man’s art and care” but instead flowed “from the Divine mind.”

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SUMMARY CONCLUSION

The Bible makes stronger claims to inspiration and authority than ordinary literature does. Erich Auerbach, in his classic essay, “Odysseus’ Scar,” comparing storytelling technique in Homer’s Odyssey and Genesis, emphasized this difference. He wrote that…

“the religious intent” of stories in the Bible “involves an absolute claim to historical truth. . . . The Bible’s claim to truth is not only far more urgent than Homer’s, it is tyrannical—it excludes all other claims”

– Erich Auerbach

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Sources: Comfort, Philip W.. The Origin of the Bible. Tyndale House Publishers. Kindle Edition.

Consensus on Authorship/Dates

Note: Most Study Bibles will provide some historical background on a book, including Author, Era, and Events (Example: compare intro notes of Nehemiah in ESV/Quest Study Bibles)

Book(s)	Author	Dates
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy	Moses, with editing and additions by later inspired prophets and scribes	15th century BC, some segments edited or added later
Joshua	Unknown	Unknown, possibly between the 15th and 10th centuries BC
Judges	Unknown	Unknown, perhaps during the reign of David 1010 BC–970 BC
Ruth	Unknown	Unknown, after 11th century BC
1 and 2 Samuel	Unknown	Unknown
1 and 2 Kings	Unknown	Unknown, 6th century BC or later in present form
1 and 2 Chronicles	Unknown	Unknown, probably no earlier than 6th and 5th centuries BC
Ezra	Final author unknown,	Ezra 7:27–9:15 (and perhaps more of the book) seems to have been written by Ezra himself Unknown, after 433 BC
Nehemiah	Unknown, probably same author as Ezra	Unknown, after 433 BC
Esther	Unknown	Unknown, probably after 485 BC
Job	Unknown	Unknown
Psalms	Multiple authors: David (73 psalms), Asaph (12 psalms), sons of Korah (11 psalms), Moses (1 psalm), and others. Final editor unknown, possibly Ezra	Individual psalms were produced throughout Israel’s history; final form produced sometime after the 6th century BC
Proverbs	Solomon wrote most of the Proverbs. Some proverbs written by “the wise” (22:17–24:22; 24:23–34), Agur (30:1–33), Lemuel (31:1-9), and others	Most proverbs emerged during the reign of Solomon in the 10th century. Eighth-century scribes commissioned by Hezekiah collected and arranged many of Solomon’s proverbs (25:1–29:27).
Ecclesiastes	Solomon or someone commissioned by Solomon	10th century BC
Song of Solomon (Song of Songs)	Solomon or someone commissioned by Solomon	10th century BC
Isaiah	Isaiah	Late 8th and early 7th centuries BC, some critical scholars ascribe chapters 40–55 and 56–66 to later writers
Jeremiah	Jeremiah	7th and 6th centuries BC
Ezekiel	Ezekiel	6th century BC
Daniel	Daniel	6th century BC, some critical scholars identify Daniel as fiction and place the writing of the book much later
Hosea	Hosea	Late 8th and early 7th centuries BC
Joel	Joel	Unknown but probably after 586 BC
Amos	Amos	8th century BC
Obadiah	Obadiah	Unknown, perhaps 6th century
Jonah	Jonah	Unknown, 8th century BC or later
Micah	Micah	Late 8th and early 7th century BC
Nahum	Nahum	7th century BC
Habakkuk	Habakkuk	Unknown, possibly 7th century BC
Zephaniah	Zephaniah	7th century BC
Haggai	Haggai	520 BC
Zechariah	Zechariah	5th century BC
Malachi	Malachi	5th century BC

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