The
BibleThe Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
is a compilation of various texts (or
booksThe Books of the Bible are listed differently in the canons of Judaism and the Catholic, Protestant, Greek Orthodox, Slavonic Orthodox, Georgian, Armenian Apostolic, Syriac and Ethiopian churches, although there is substantial overlap. A table comparing the canons of some of these traditions...
) of different ages. The dates of some of the texts of the
Hebrew BibleThe Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...
(or
Old TestamentThe Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
) are difficult to establish.
The oldest surviving Hebrew Bible manuscripts date to about the 2nd century BCE (
fragmentaryThe Tanakh is the Hebrew Bible and Qumran is an archaeological site near the Dead Sea. More than two hundred portions of the Tanakh have been found near Qumran, forming part of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The scrolls were found in a series of caves, which have since been numbered, and these numbers used...
), the oldest record of the complete text survives in a
Greek translationBible translations into Greek begin with the Septuagint , the ancient translation of the Hebrew Bible into Koine Greek , was the very first Bible translation in any language...
called the
Septuagint, dating to the 4th century CE (
Codex SinaiticusCodex Sinaiticus is one of the four great uncial codices, an ancient, handwritten copy of the Greek Bible. It is an Alexandrian text-type manuscript written in the 4th century in uncial letters on parchment. Current scholarship considers the Codex Sinaiticus to be one of the best Greek texts of...
) and the oldest extant manuscripts of the vocalized
Masoretic textThe Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible and is regarded as Judaism's official version of the Tanakh. While the Masoretic Text defines the books of the Jewish canon, it also defines the precise letter-text of these biblical books, with their vocalization and...
upon which modern editions are based date to the 9th century CE.
From the internal testimony of the texts, the individual books of the
27-book New Testament canonThe Canon of the New Testament is the set of books Christians regard as divinely inspired and constituting the New Testament of the Christian Bible. For most, it is an agreed-upon list of twenty-seven books that includes the Canonical Gospels, Acts, letters of the Apostles, and Revelation...
are likely dated to the
1st century ADThe earliest followers of Jesus composed an apocalyptic, Jewish sect, which historians refer to as Jewish Christianity. The Apostles and others following the Great Commission's decree to spread the teachings of Jesus to "all nations," had great success spreading the religion to gentiles. Peter,...
. The first book written was probably 1 Thessalonians, written at around 50 CE. The last book of the canon is the
Book of RevelationThe Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament. The title came into usage from the first word of the book in Koine Greek: apokalupsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation"...
said to be written by
John of PatmosJohn of Patmos is the name given, in the Book of Revelation, as the author of the apocalyptic text that is traditionally cannonized in the New Testament...
during the reign of
DomitianDomitian was Roman Emperor from 81 to 96. Domitian was the third and last emperor of the Flavian dynasty.Domitian's youth and early career were largely spent in the shadow of his brother Titus, who gained military renown during the First Jewish-Roman War...
(81-96). Since the original writing of the Scriptures, huge volumes of copies have been made of the originals, which are no longer extant, and copies have been made of those copies, resulting in several
text typesTextual types refer to the following four basic aspects of writing: descriptive, narrative, expository, and argumentative.-The descriptive text type:...
. Archaeologists have recovered about 5500
New TestamentThe New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
manuscripts, being fragments or complete books. The earliest extant fragment of the New Testament is the
Rylands Library Papyrus P52The Rylands Library Papyrus P52, also known as the St John's fragment, is a fragment from a papyrus codex, measuring only 3.5 by 2.5 inches at its widest; and conserved with the Rylands Papyri at the John Rylands University Library , Manchester, UK...
, a piece of the
Gospel of JohnThe Gospel According to John , commonly referred to as the Gospel of John or simply John, and often referred to in New Testament scholarship as the Fourth Gospel, is an account of the public ministry of Jesus...
dated to the first half of the 2nd century. Dating the composition of the texts relies primarily on internal evidence, including direct references to historical events, as resorting to
textual criticismTextual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts...
, philological and linguistic evidence is very subjective.
Dating methods
There are numerous ways in which the various copies of the books of the Bible are dated:
Manuscripts
Manuscripts can be dated from their archaeological context (i.e., pottery and other datable objects found with them), their script (handwriting changes over time and styles can be dated fairly accurately), and other means. The oldest manuscripts of the Hebrew bible/Old Testament, the Dead Sea Scrolls, have been dated to the two centuries before the time of Christ, although a fragment from the Book of Numbers has been found which dates from the early 6th century BCE.
Language
Scholars believe that they can date the Hebrew of the bible fairly accurately by comparing it with the grammar and vocabulary from inscriptions found in archaeological sites. For example, the
Documentary hypothesisThe documentary hypothesis , holds that the Pentateuch was derived from originally independent, parallel and complete narratives, which were subsequently combined into the current form by a series of redactors...
dating is largely based on internal linguistic differences within the text which date different sections to different eras, while
P.J. WisemanThe Wiseman hypothesis, sometimes called the tablet theory, is a theory of the authorship and composition of the Book of Genesis which suggests that Moses compiled Genesis from tablets handed down through Abraham and the other patriarchs. Originally advocated by P. J...
hypothesizes that books may date to the 2nd millennium BCE based partly on similarity to other ancient narrative structures.
External references:
Much of the Hebrew bible has a historical setting which can be compared with non-biblical sources and with the archaeological record (for example, references to the kingdoms of Moab, which existed in the 13th century BCE, is consistent with traditional dating of the Book of Numbers).
Torah
The
traditionA tradition is a ritual, belief or object passed down within a society, still maintained in the present, with origins in the past. Common examples include holidays or impractical but socially meaningful clothes , but the idea has also been applied to social norms such as greetings...
al religious view on the origin of the Torah is that it was written by
MosesMoses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...
between 1446 BCE and 1406 BCE. While this view is still held by conservative Christians and Jews, modern scholars argue that the whole of the
TorahTorah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
was composed in the mid-1st millennium BCE as a "
prequelA prequel is a work that supplements a previously completed one, and has an earlier time setting.The widely recognized term was a 20th-century neologism, and a portmanteau from pre- and sequel...
" to the
prophetic booksNevi'im is the second of the three major sections in the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh. It falls between the Torah and Ketuvim .Nevi'im is traditionally divided into two parts:...
(books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings).
There are currently three broad approaches to the question of the date and method of its composition. The
documentary hypothesisThe documentary hypothesis , holds that the Pentateuch was derived from originally independent, parallel and complete narratives, which were subsequently combined into the current form by a series of redactors...
holds that the Torah was composed by interweaving four originally separate and complete narratives, each dealing with the same material. This, it is claimed, accounts for many of the puzzling features of the five books, notably the appearance of multiple names for God and doubled incidents. The documentary hypothesis held a near-monopoly on scholarly approaches to the date and composition of the Torah until the last quarter of the 20th century, when scholars have advanced alternative theories which can be grouped into two broad models.
The first is the "fragmentary model", which holds that the Torah grew gradually from a host of fragments of various lengths. The alternative view is the "supplementary model", which holds that it is largely the work of an editor, or group of editors, working on ("supplementing") a mass of existing material.
| View |
Proposed Date |
| Traditional religious view |
Torah composed between 1446 BCE and 1406 BCE, with the remaining books composed between 1400 BCE to 400 BCE. |
| Documentary hypothesis The documentary hypothesis , holds that the Pentateuch was derived from originally independent, parallel and complete narratives, which were subsequently combined into the current form by a series of redactors...
|
Four independent documents (the Jahwist The Jahwist, also referred to as the Jehovist, Yahwist, or simply as J, is one of the sources of the Torah. It gets its name from the fact that it characteristically uses the term Yahweh for God in the book of Genesis...
, ElohistThe Elohist is one of four sources of the Torah described by the Documentary Hypothesis. Its name comes from the term it uses for God: Elohim; it is characterised by, among other things, an abstract view of God, using "Horeb" instead of "Sinai" for the mountain where Moses received the laws of...
, DeuteronomistThe Deuteronomist, or simply D, is one of the sources underlying the Hebrew bible . It is found in the book of Deuteronomy, in the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings and also in the book of Jeremiah...
and the Priestly sourceThe Priestly Source is one of the sources of the Torah/Pentateuch in the bible. Primarily a product of the post-Exilic period when Judah was a province of the Persian empire , P was written to show that even when all seemed lost, God remained present with Israel...
), composed between 900-550 BCE, redacted c 450 BCE, possibly by EzraEzra , also called Ezra the Scribe and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra. According to the Hebrew Bible he returned from the Babylonian exile and reintroduced the Torah in Jerusalem...
. |
| Supplementary models (e.g. John Van Seters John Van Seters is a scholar of the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East. Currently University Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina, he was formerly James A. Gray Professor of Biblical Literature at UNC. He took his PhD at Yale University in Near Eastern Studies...
) |
Torah composed as a series of authorial expansions of an original source document, usually identified as J or P, largely during the 7th and 6th centuries BCE, final form achieved c. 450 BCE. |
| Fragmentary models (e.g. Rolf Rendtorff Rolf Rendtorff is Emeritus Professor of Old Testament at the University of Heidelberg. He has written frequently on the Jewish scriptures and is notable chiefly for his contribution to the debate over the origins of the Pentateuch Rolf Rendtorff (born 10 March 1925) is Emeritus Professor of Old...
, Erhard Blum) |
Torah the product of the slow accretion of fragmentary traditions, (no documents), over period 850-550 BCE, final form c. 450 BCE. |
| Biblical minimalism |
Torah composed in Hellenistic-Hasmonean The Hasmonean dynasty , was the ruling dynasty of Judea and surrounding regions during classical antiquity. Between c. 140 and c. 116 BCE, the dynasty ruled semi-autonomously from the Seleucids in the region of Judea...
period, c. 300-140 BCE. |
Nevi'im (Prophets)
Book
of Nevi'im |
|
Book of JoshuaThe Book of Joshua is the sixth book in the Hebrew Bible and of the Old Testament. Its 24 chapters tell of the entry of the Israelites into Canaan, their conquest and division of the land under the leadership of Joshua, and of serving God in the land....
|
ca. 625 BCE by the Deuteronomist The Deuteronomist, or simply D, is one of the sources underlying the Hebrew bible . It is found in the book of Deuteronomy, in the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings and also in the book of Jeremiah...
(called D) working with traditional materials |
| Book of Judges The Book of Judges is the seventh book of the Hebrew bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its title describes its contents: it contains the history of Biblical judges, divinely inspired prophets whose direct knowledge of Yahweh allows them to act as decision-makers for the Israelites, as...
|
ca. 625 BCE by the Deuteronomist The Deuteronomist, or simply D, is one of the sources underlying the Hebrew bible . It is found in the book of Deuteronomy, in the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings and also in the book of Jeremiah...
(called D) working with traditional materials |
| Book of Samuel |
ca. 625 BCE by the Deuteronomist The Deuteronomist, or simply D, is one of the sources underlying the Hebrew bible . It is found in the book of Deuteronomy, in the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings and also in the book of Jeremiah...
(called D) working with traditional materials |
Book of KingsThe Book of Kings presents a narrative history of ancient Israel and Judah from the death of David to the release of his successor Jehoiachin from imprisonment in Babylon, a period of some 400 years...
|
ca. 625 BCE by the Deuteronomist The Deuteronomist, or simply D, is one of the sources underlying the Hebrew bible . It is found in the book of Deuteronomy, in the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings and also in the book of Jeremiah...
(called D) working with traditional materials |
Book of IsaiahThe Book of Isaiah is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, preceding the books of Ezekiel, Jeremiah and the Book of the Twelve...
|
Three main authors and an extensive editing process:
Isaiah 1-39 "Historical Isaiah" with multiple layers of editing, 8th century BCE
Isaiah 40-55 Exilic(Deutero-Isaiah), 6th century BCE
Isaiah 56-66 post-exilic(Trito-Isaiah), 6th-5th century BCE
|
| Book of Jeremiah The Book of Jeremiah is the second of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, following the book of Isaiah and preceding Ezekiel and the Book of the Twelve....
|
late 6th century BCE or later |
| Book of Ezekiel The Book of Ezekiel is the third of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, following the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah and preceding the Book of the Twelve....
|
6th century BCE or later |
| Book of Hosea The Book of Hosea is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible. It stands first in order among what are known as the twelve Minor Prophets.-Background and Content:...
|
8th century BCE or later |
| Book of Joel The Book of Joel is part of the Hebrew Bible. Joel is part of a group of twelve prophetic books known as the Minor Prophets or simply as The Twelve; the distinction 'minor' indicates the short length of the text in relation to the larger prophetic texts known as the "Major Prophets".-Content:After...
|
unknown |
| Book of Amos The Book of Amos is a prophetic book of the Hebrew Bible, one of the Twelve Minor Prophets. Amos, an older contemporary of Hosea and Isaiah, was active c. 750 BCE during the reign of Jeroboam II, making the Book of Amos the first biblical prophetic book written. Amos lived in the kingdom of Judah...
|
8th century BCE or later |
| Book of Obadiah The canonical Book of Obadiah is an oracle concerning the divine judgment of Edom and the restoration of Israel. The text consists of a single chapter, divided into 21 verses, making it the shortest book in the Hebrew Bible....
|
6th century BCE or later |
Book of JonahThe Book of Jonah is a book in the Hebrew Bible. It tells the story of a Hebrew prophet named Jonah ben Amittai who is sent by God to prophesy the destruction of Nineveh but tries to escape the divine mission...
|
6th century BCE or later |
| Book of Micah The Book of Micah is one of fifteen prophetic books in the Hebrew bible/Old Testament, and the sixth of the twelve minor prophets. It records the sayings of Mikayahu, meaning "Who is like Yahweh?", an 8th century prophet from the village of Moresheth in Judah...
|
mid 6th century BCE or later |
| Book of Nahum The book of Nahum is the seventh book of the 12 minor prophets of the Hebrew Bible. It is attributed to the prophet Nahum, and was probably written in Jerusalem in the 8th century BC.-Background:...
|
8th century BCE or later |
Book of HabakkukThe Book of Habakkuk is the eighth book of the 12 minor prophets of the Hebrew Bible. It is attributed to the prophet Habakkuk, and was probably composed in the late 7th century BC. A copy of chapters 1 and 2 is included in the Habakkuk Commentary, found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.Chapters 1-2...
|
6th century BCE or later |
| Book of Zephaniah The superscription of the Book of Zephaniah attributes its authorship to “Zephaniah son of Cushi son of Gedaliah son of Amariah son of Hezekiah, in the days of King Josiah son of Amon of Judah” . All that is known of Zephaniah comes from the text. The superscription of the book is lengthier than...
|
7th century BCE or later |
| Book of Haggai The Book of Haggai is a book of the Hebrew Bible or Tanak, and has its place as the antepenultimate of the Minor Prophets or the "Book of the Twelve." It is a short book, consisting of only two chapters. The historical setting dates around 520 BCE before the Temple has been rebuilt...
|
5th century BCE or later |
Book of ZechariahThe Book of Zechariah is the penultimate book of the twelve minor prophets in the Hebrew and Christian Bible, attributed to the prophet Zechariah.-Historical context:...
|
5th century BCE or later |
| Book of Malachi Malachi is a book of the Hebrew Bible, the last of the twelve minor prophets and the final book of the Neviim...
|
Early 5th century BCE or later |
Ketuvim (Writings)
Scholarship on the dating of the Book of Daniel largely falls into two camps: one dates the book in its entirety to a single author during the desecration of the Jerusalem Temple (167–164 BCE) under the Syrian-Greek ruler
Antiochus IV EpiphanesAntiochus IV Epiphanes ruled the Seleucid Empire from 175 BC until his death in 164 BC. He was a son of King Antiochus III the Great. His original name was Mithridates; he assumed the name Antiochus after he ascended the throne....
(ruled 175–164 BCE); the other sees it as a collection of stories dating from different times throughout the Hellenistic period (with some of the material possibly going back to very late Persian period), with the visions in chapters 7–12 having been added during the desecration of Antiochus. For example, Hartman and Di Lella, 1978 suggest multiple authorship, with some material dating to the 3rd century, culminating with a 2nd-century editor and redactor.
The reasons for these dates include a use of
GreekGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
and
PersianPersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
words in the Hebrew of the text unlikely to happen in the 6th century, that the style of the Hebrew and
AramaicAramaic is a group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic language phylum. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic family, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily,...
was more like that of a later date, that the use of the word "
ChaldeaChaldea or Chaldaea , from Greek , Chaldaia; Akkadian ; Hebrew כשדים, Kaśdim; Aramaic: ܟܐܠܕܘ, Kaldo) was a marshy land located in modern-day southern Iraq which came to briefly rule Babylon...
n" occurs in a fashion unknown to the 6th century, and that repeated historical gaffes betray an ignorance of the facts of the 6th century that a high official in Babylon would not have, while the 2nd-century history was found to be far more accurate (see
Farrell TillJohn Farrell Till, and known commonly as Farrell Till, was the editor of the formerly published Skeptical Review and is a prominent debater against Christianity and Biblical inerrancy in particular, having published several critical articles of the inerrancy subject as well as skeptical...
's analysis).
John Collins, on the other hand, finds it impossible for the "court tales" portion of Daniel to have been written in 2nd century BCE because of textual analysis. In his 1992
Anchor Bible Dictionary entry for the Book of Daniel, he states, "it is clear that the court-tales in chapters 1–6 were 'not written in Maccabean times'. It is not even possible to isolate a single verse which betrays an editorial insertion from that period."
Book
of Ketuvim |
|
PsalmsThe Book of Psalms , commonly referred to simply as Psalms, is a book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible...
|
The bulk of the Psalms appear to have been written for use in the Temple, which existed from around 950-586 BCE and, after rebuilding, from the 5th century BCE until 70 CE. |
| Book of Proverbs The Book of Proverbs , commonly referred to simply as Proverbs, is a book of the Hebrew Bible.The original Hebrew title of the book of Proverbs is "Míshlê Shlomoh" . When translated into Greek and Latin, the title took on different forms. In the Greek Septuagint the title became "paroimai paroimiae"...
|
Some old material from the ancient sages, some later material from the 6th century BCE or later, some material borrowed from the ancient Egyptian text called the Instructions of Amenemopet Instruction of Amenemope is a literary work composed in Ancient Egypt, most likely during the Ramesside Period ; it contains thirty chapters of advice for successful living, ostensibly written by the scribe Amenemope son of Kanakht as a legacy for his son...
|
| Book of Job The Book of Job , commonly referred to simply as Job, is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible. It relates the story of Job, his trials at the hands of Satan, his discussions with friends on the origins and nature of his suffering, his challenge to God, and finally a response from God. The book is a...
|
5th century BCE |
| Song of Songs Song of Songs, also known as the Song of Solomon, is a book of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. It may also refer to:In music:* Song of songs , the debut album by David and the Giants* A generic term for medleysPlays...
or Song of SolomonThe Song of Songs of Solomon, commonly referred to as Song of Songs or Song of Solomon, is a book of the Hebrew Bible—one of the megillot —found in the last section of the Tanakh, known as the Ketuvim...
|
scholarly estimates vary between 950 BCE to 200 BCE |
Book of RuthThe Book of Ruth is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible, Tanakh, or Old Testament. In the Jewish canon the Book of Ruth is included in the third division, or the Writings . In the Christian canon the Book of Ruth is placed between Judges and 1 Samuel...
|
6th century BCE or later |
LamentationsThe Book of Lamentations ) is a poetic book of the Hebrew Bible composed by the Jewish prophet Jeremiah. It mourns the destruction of Jerusalem and the Holy Temple in the 6th Century BCE....
|
6th century BCE or later |
EcclesiastesThe Book of Ecclesiastes, called , is a book of the Hebrew Bible. The English name derives from the Greek translation of the Hebrew title.The main speaker in the book, identified by the name or title Qoheleth , introduces himself as "son of David, king in Jerusalem." The work consists of personal...
|
4th century BCE or later |
Book of EstherThe Book of Esther is a book in the Ketuvim , the third section of the Jewish Tanakh and is part of the Christian Old Testament. The Book of Esther or the Megillah is the basis for the Jewish celebration of Purim...
|
4th century BCE or later |
Book of DanielThe Book of Daniel is a book in the Hebrew Bible. The book tells of how Daniel, and his Judean companions, were inducted into Babylon during Jewish exile, and how their positions elevated in the court of Nebuchadnezzar. The court tales span events that occur during the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar,...
|
ca. 165 BCE |
| Book of Ezra The Book of Ezra is a book of the Hebrew Bible. Originally combined with the Book of Nehemiah in a single book of Ezra-Nehemiah, the two became separated in the early centuries of the Christian era...
-Book of NehemiahThe Book of Nehemiah is a book of the Hebrew Bible. Told largely in the form of a first-person memoir, it concerns the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem by Nehemiah, a Jew who is a high official at the Persian court, and the dedication of the city and its people to God's laws...
|
4th century BCE or slightly later |
| Chronicles The Books of Chronicles are part of the Hebrew Bible. In the Masoretic Text, it appears as the first or last book of the Ketuvim . Chronicles largely parallels the Davidic narratives in the Books of Samuel and the Books of Kings...
|
4th century BCE or slightly later |
Deuterocanonical books
Deuterocanonical booksDeuterocanonical books is a term used since the sixteenth century in the Catholic Church and Eastern Christianity to describe certain books and passages of the Christian Old Testament that are not part of the Hebrew Bible. The term is used in contrast to the protocanonical books, which are...
are books considered by the
Roman Catholic ChurchThe Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
and Eastern Orthodoxy to be canonical parts of the Christian Old Testament but are not present in the
TanakhThe Tanakh is a name used in Judaism for the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh is also known as the Masoretic Text or the Miqra. The name is an acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim —hence...
(Hebrew Bible) and Protestant Bible.
Book
of Deuterocanon |
Scholarly dating |
| Tobit The Book of Tobit is a book of scripture that is part of the Catholic and Orthodox biblical canon, pronounced canonical by the Council of Carthage of 397 and confirmed for Roman Catholics by the Council of Trent...
|
2nd century BCE |
| Judith |
|
| 1 Maccabees The First book of Maccabees is a book written in Hebrew by a Jewish author after the restoration of an independent Jewish kingdom, about the latter part of the 2nd century BC. The original Hebrew is lost and the most important surviving version is the Greek translation contained in the Septuagint...
|
ca. 100 BCE |
| 2 Maccabees 2 Maccabees is a deuterocanonical book of the Bible, which focuses on the Jews' revolt against Antiochus IV Epiphanes and concludes with the defeat of the Syrian general Nicanor in 161 BC by Judas Maccabeus, the hero of the work....
|
ca. 124 BCE |
| 3 Maccabees The book of the 3 Maccabees is found in most Orthodox Bibles as a part of the Anagignoskomena, while Protestants and Catholics consider it non-canonical, except the Moravian Brethren who included it in the Apocrypha of the Czech Kralicka Bible...
|
1st century BCE or 1st century CE |
| 4 Maccabees The book of 4 Maccabees is a homily or philosophic discourse praising the supremacy of pious reason over passion. It is not in the Bible for most churches, but is an appendix to the Greek Bible, and in the canon of the Georgian Bible...
|
1st century BCE or 1st century CE |
| Wisdom The Book of Wisdom, often referred to simply as Wisdom or the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon, is one of the deuterocanonical books of the Bible. It is one of the seven Sapiential or wisdom books of the Septuagint Old Testament, which includes Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon ,...
|
during the Jewish HellenisticHellenistic Judaism was a movement which existed in the Jewish diaspora that sought to establish a Hebraic-Jewish religious tradition within the culture and language of Hellenism...
period |
SirachThe Book of the All-Virtuous Wisdom of Jesus ben Sira , commonly called the Wisdom of Sirach or simply Sirach, and also known as Ecclesiasticus or Siracides , is a work from the early 2nd century B.C. written by the Jewish scribe Jesus ben Sirach of Jerusalem...
|
2nd century BCE |
| Letter of Jeremiah |
unknown |
| Additions to Daniel The Additions to Daniel comprise three chapters not found in the Hebrew/Aramaic text of Daniel. The text of these chapters is found in the Greek Septuagint and in the earlier Old Greek translation. They are accepted as canonical and translated as such in Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and...
|
2nd century BCE |
| Baruch The Book of Baruch, occasionally referred to as 1 Baruch, is called a deuterocanonical book of the Bible. Although not in the Hebrew Bible, it is found in the Septuagint and in the Vulgate Bible, and also in Theodotion's version. It is grouped with the prophetical books which also include Isaiah,...
|
during or shortly after the period of the Maccabees The Maccabees were a Jewish rebel army who took control of Judea, which had been a client state of the Seleucid Empire. They founded the Hasmonean dynasty, which ruled from 164 BCE to 63 BCE, reasserting the Jewish religion, expanding the boundaries of the Land of Israel and reducing the influence...
|
Oldest manuscripts
The oldest known preserved fragment of a Torah text is
a good luck charmAn amulet, similar to a talisman , is any object intended to bring good luck or protection to its owner.Potential amulets include gems, especially engraved gems, statues, coins, drawings, pendants, rings, plants and animals; even words said in certain occasions—for example: vade retro satana—, to...
inscribed with a text close to, although not identical with, the
Priestly BlessingThe Priestly Blessing, , also known in Hebrew as Nesiat Kapayim, , or Dukhanen , is a Jewish prayer recited by Kohanim during certain Jewish services...
found in Num 6:24–27, dated to approximately 600 BCE. The oldest complete or nearly complete texts are found in the
Dead Sea ScrollsThe Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 972 texts from the Hebrew Bible and extra-biblical documents found between 1947 and 1956 on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, from which they derive their name...
from the middle of the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE. The collections contain all the books of the Tanakh except for the
Book of EstherThe Book of Esther is a book in the Ketuvim , the third section of the Jewish Tanakh and is part of the Christian Old Testament. The Book of Esther or the Megillah is the basis for the Jewish celebration of Purim...
, although not all are complete.
The Tanakh, including the
Deuterocanonical booksDeuterocanonical books is a term used since the sixteenth century in the Catholic Church and Eastern Christianity to describe certain books and passages of the Christian Old Testament that are not part of the Hebrew Bible. The term is used in contrast to the protocanonical books, which are...
, was translated into Greek (the
Septuagint) between the 3rd and 1st century BCE. The oldest Greek manuscripts include 2nd century BCE fragments of
LeviticusThe Book of Leviticus is the third book of the Hebrew Bible, and the third of five books of the Torah ....
and
DeuteronomyThe Book of Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible, and of the Jewish Torah/Pentateuch...
and 1st century BC fragments of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
NumbersThe Book of Numbers is the fourth book of the Hebrew Bible, and the fourth of five books of the Jewish Torah/Pentateuch....
, Deuteronomy, and the Minor Prophets. Relatively complete manuscripts of the Septuagint include the Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209 and the
Codex SinaiticusCodex Sinaiticus is one of the four great uncial codices, an ancient, handwritten copy of the Greek Bible. It is an Alexandrian text-type manuscript written in the 4th century in uncial letters on parchment. Current scholarship considers the Codex Sinaiticus to be one of the best Greek texts of...
of the 4th century and the
Codex AlexandrinusThe Codex Alexandrinus is a 5th century manuscript of the Greek Bible,The Greek Bible in this context refers to the Bible used by Greek-speaking Christians who lived in Egypt and elsewhere during the early history of Christianity...
of the 5th century—these are the oldest surviving nearly complete manuscripts of the Old Testament in any language.
The Hebrew or
Masoretic textThe Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible and is regarded as Judaism's official version of the Tanakh. While the Masoretic Text defines the books of the Jewish canon, it also defines the precise letter-text of these biblical books, with their vocalization and...
of the Torah is held by tradition to have been assembled in the 4th century CE, but the oldest extant complete or near-complete manuscripts are the
Aleppo CodexThe Aleppo Codex is a medieval bound manuscript of the Hebrew Bible. The codex was written in the 10th century A.D.The codex has long been considered to be the most authoritative document in the masorah , the tradition by which the Hebrew Scriptures have been preserved from generation to generation...
, ca. 920 CE, and the Westminster Leningrad Codex, dated to 1008 CE.
Additional manuscripts include the Samaritan Torah and the
PeshittaThe Peshitta is the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition.The Old Testament of the Peshitta was translated into Syriac from the Hebrew, probably in the 2nd century AD...
, the latter a translation of the Christian Bible into Syriac, the earliest known copy of which dates to the 2nd century CE.
The New Testament
The most accepted historical understanding of how the
Synoptic gospelsThe gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the Synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in the same sequence, and sometimes exactly the same wording. This degree of parallelism in content, narrative arrangement, language, and sentence structures can only be...
developed is known as the
two-source hypothesisThe Two-Source Hypothesis is an explanation for the synoptic problem, the pattern of similarities and differences between the three Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It posits that the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke were based on the Gospel of Mark and a lost, hypothetical sayings...
. This theory holds that Mark is the
oldest gospelMarkan priority is the hypothesis that the Gospel of Mark was the first written of the three Synoptic Gospels, and that the two other synoptic evangelists, Matthew and Luke, used Mark's Gospel as one of their sources. The theory of Markan priority is today accepted by the majority of New Testament...
.
Matthew and Luke are believed to come later, and draw on Mark and also on a source that is now believed to be lost, called the Q document, or just "Q".
Traditional views assume that the bulk of New Testament texts date to the period between 45 CE and AD 100 CE, with the
Pauline epistlesThe Pauline epistles, Epistles of Paul, or Letters of Paul, are the thirteen New Testament books which have the name Paul as the first word, hence claiming authorship by Paul the Apostle. Among these letters are some of the earliest extant Christian documents...
among the earliest texts. Other views may pre- or post-date the individual books by several decades. The earliest preserved fragment for each text is included as well.
| Book |
Dates determined by scholars |
Earliest Known Fragment |
Gospel of MatthewThe Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...
|
60-85 CE |
𝔓104 (150–200 CE) |
Gospel of MarkThe Gospel According to Mark , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Mark or simply Mark, is the second book of the New Testament. This canonical account of the life of Jesus of Nazareth is one of the three synoptic gospels. It was thought to be an epitome, which accounts for its place as the second...
|
60-70 CE |
𝔓88 (350 CE) |
Gospel of LukeThe Gospel According to Luke , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Luke or simply Luke, is the third and longest of the four canonical Gospels. This synoptic gospel is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It details his story from the events of his birth to his Ascension.The...
|
60-90 CE |
𝔓4 Papyrus 4 is an early New Testament papyri of the Gospel of Luke in Greek. It is dated as being a late 2nd/early 3rd century manuscript.- Description :...
, 𝔓75Papyrus 75 is an early Greek New Testament papyrus.- Description :Originally '[it] contained about 144 pages ... of which 102 have survived, either in whole or in part.' It 'contains about half the text of ... two Gospels' – Luke and John in Greek...
(175–250 CE) |
Gospel of JohnThe Gospel According to John , commonly referred to as the Gospel of John or simply John, and often referred to in New Testament scholarship as the Fourth Gospel, is an account of the public ministry of Jesus...
|
80-95 CE |
𝔓52 (125–160 CE) |
ActsThe Acts of the Apostles , usually referred to simply as Acts, is the fifth book of the New Testament; Acts outlines the history of the Apostolic Age...
|
60-90 CE |
𝔓29, 𝔓45Papyrus 45 is an early New Testament manuscript which is a part of the Chester Beatty Papyri. It was probably created around 250 in Egypt. It contains the texts of Matthew 20-21 and 25-26; Mark 4-9 and 11-12; Luke 6-7 and 9-14; John 4-5 and 10-11; and Acts 4-17...
, 𝔓48, 𝔓53, 𝔓91 (250 CE) |
| Romans The Epistle of Paul to the Romans, often shortened to Romans, is the sixth book in the New Testament. Biblical scholars agree that it was composed by the Apostle Paul to explain that Salvation is offered through the Gospel of Jesus Christ...
|
57–58 CE |
𝔓46 (late 2nd century or 3rd century CE) |
CorinthiansThe first epistle of Paul the apostle to the Corinthians, often referred to as First Corinthians , is the seventh book of the New Testament of the Bible...
|
57 CE |
𝔓46 (late 2nd century or 3rd century CE) |
| Galatians The Epistle of Paul to the Galatians, often shortened to Galatians, is the ninth book of the New Testament. It is a letter from Paul of Tarsus to a number of Early Christian communities in the Roman province of Galatia in central Anatolia...
|
45-55 CE |
𝔓46 (late 2nd century or 3rd century CE) |
| Ephesians |
65 CE |
𝔓46 (late 2nd century or 3rd century CE) |
| Philippians |
57–62 CE |
𝔓46 (late 2nd century or 3rd century CE) |
| Colossians |
60 CE + |
𝔓46 (late 2nd century or 3rd century CE) |
| 1 Thessalonians |
50 CE |
𝔓46 (late 2nd century or 3rd century CE) |
| 2 Thessalonians |
50 CE |
𝔓92 (300 CE) |
| Timothy |
60-100 CE |
Codex SinaiticusCodex Sinaiticus is one of the four great uncial codices, an ancient, handwritten copy of the Greek Bible. It is an Alexandrian text-type manuscript written in the 4th century in uncial letters on parchment. Current scholarship considers the Codex Sinaiticus to be one of the best Greek texts of...
(350 CE) |
| Titus The Epistle of Paul to Titus, usually referred to simply as Titus, is one of the three Pastoral Epistles , traditionally attributed to Saint Paul, and is part of the New Testament...
|
60-100 CE |
𝔓32 (200 CE) |
| Philemon |
56 CE |
𝔓87 (3rd century CE) |
| Hebrews |
80-90 CE |
𝔓46 (late 2nd century or 3rd century CE) |
| James The Epistle of James, usually referred to simply as James, is a book in the New Testament. The author identifies himself as "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ", with "the earliest extant manuscripts of James usually dated to mid-to-late third century."There are four views...
|
50-200 CE |
𝔓20, 𝔓23 (early 3rd century CE) |
| First Peter |
60-96 CE |
𝔓72 Papyrus 72 is an early New Testament papyrus. It contains all the text of 1 Peter, 2 Peter, and Jude. Paleographically it had been assigned to the 3rd or 4th century.- Description :...
(3rd/4th century CE) |
| Second Peter |
60-130 CE |
𝔓72 Papyrus 72 is an early New Testament papyrus. It contains all the text of 1 Peter, 2 Peter, and Jude. Paleographically it had been assigned to the 3rd or 4th century.- Description :...
(3rd/4th century CE) |
| Epistles of John Three books in the New Testament, thought to have been written between 90-100, are collectively called the Epistles of John:*First Epistle of John*Second Epistle of John*Third Epistle of JohnThe traditional author of these letters is John the Evangelist....
|
90-100 CE |
𝔓9, Uncial 0232 Uncial 0232 , is a Greek uncial manuscript of the New Testament. The manuscript palaeographically has been assigned to the 5th or 6th century....
, Codex SinaiticusCodex Sinaiticus is one of the four great uncial codices, an ancient, handwritten copy of the Greek Bible. It is an Alexandrian text-type manuscript written in the 4th century in uncial letters on parchment. Current scholarship considers the Codex Sinaiticus to be one of the best Greek texts of...
(3rd/4th century CE) |
| Jude The Epistle of Jude, often shortened to Jude, is the penultimate book of the New Testament and is attributed to Jude, the brother of James the Just. - Composition :...
|
66-90 CE |
𝔓72 Papyrus 72 is an early New Testament papyrus. It contains all the text of 1 Peter, 2 Peter, and Jude. Paleographically it had been assigned to the 3rd or 4th century.- Description :...
(3rd/4th century CE) |
RevelationThe Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament. The title came into usage from the first word of the book in Koine Greek: apokalupsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation"...
|
68-100 CE |
𝔓98 (150–200 CE) |
The Gnostic Scriptures
The
Nag Hammadi libraryThe Nag Hammadi library is a collection of early Christian Gnostic texts discovered near the Upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945. That year, twelve leather-bound papyrus codices buried in a sealed jar were found by a local peasant named Mohammed Ali Samman...
, a collection of books found in 1945, some refer to as Gnostic Scriptures (which include the
Gospel of ThomasThe Gospel According to Thomas, commonly shortened to the Gospel of Thomas, is a well preserved early Christian, non-canonical sayings-gospel discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in December 1945, in one of a group of books known as the Nag Hammadi library...
), were not accepted as canonical by the orthodox early Christian communities. They were written in
CopticCoptic or Coptic Egyptian is the current stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century. Egyptian began to be written using the Greek alphabet in the 1st century...
and are generally dated to the 3rd and 4th centuries CE, though the Gospel of Thomas has ignited some debate. The majority of New Testament scholars and historians place the composition of the latter no earlier than the 2nd century whereas a minority argue dates as early as the 60's.
See also
- Authorship of the Bible
- The Bible and history
The Bible from a historical perspective, includes numerous fields of study, ranging from archeology and astronomy to linguistics and methods of comparative literature. The Bible may provide insight into pursuits, including but not limited to; our understanding of ancient and modern culture,...
- Biblical manuscripts
- Categories of New Testament manuscripts
New Testament manuscripts in Greek are categorized into five groups, according to a scheme introduced in 1981 by Kurt and Barbara Aland in Der Text des Neuen Testaments. The categories are based on how each manuscript relates to the various text-types. Generally speaking, earlier Alexandrian...
- Dead Sea Scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 972 texts from the Hebrew Bible and extra-biblical documents found between 1947 and 1956 on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, from which they derive their name...
- Higher Criticism
- Markan priority
Markan priority is the hypothesis that the Gospel of Mark was the first written of the three Synoptic Gospels, and that the two other synoptic evangelists, Matthew and Luke, used Mark's Gospel as one of their sources. The theory of Markan priority is today accepted by the majority of New Testament...
- Nag Hammadi library
The Nag Hammadi library is a collection of early Christian Gnostic texts discovered near the Upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945. That year, twelve leather-bound papyrus codices buried in a sealed jar were found by a local peasant named Mohammed Ali Samman...
- Synoptic problem
Further reading
- Bruce, F. F.
Frederick Fyvie Bruce was a Biblical scholar and one of the founders of the modern evangelical understanding of the Bible...
The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (6th Edition), Eerdmans, 2003. 5th edition
- Metzger, Bruce M. The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origins, Development, and Significance
- Dever, William G.
William G. Dever is an American archaeologist, specialising in the history of Israel and the Near East in Biblical times. He was Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Arizona in Tucson from 1975 to 2002...
What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It?What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It? is a book by biblical scholar and archaeologist William G. Dever detailing his response to the claims of minimalists to the historicity and value of the Hebrew Bible.- Summary :...
Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2001.
- Fox, Robin Lane
Robin Lane Fox is an English historian, currently a Fellow of New College, Oxford and University of Oxford Reader in Ancient History.-Life:Lane Fox was educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford....
The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible, NY, 1992.
- Hartman, Louis Francis, and Alexander A. Di Lella (eds.). The Book of Daniel. The Anchor Bible Commentary
The Anchor Bible project, consisting of a Commentary Series, Bible Dictionary, and Reference Library, is a scholarly and commercial co-venture begun in 1956, when individual volumes in the commentary series began production...
, vol. 23. New York: Doubleday, 1978.
- Külling, Samuel. Zur Datierung der Genesis "P" Stücke. Ph.D. dissertation, 1970
- Larsson, G. "The Chronological System of the Old Testament". Peter Lang GmbH, 2007.
- Pagels, Elaine
Elaine Pagels, née Hiesey , is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, she is best known for her studies and writing on the Gnostic Gospels...
. The Gnostic Gospels. Vintage, reissued 1989.
- Robinson, John A. T. Redating the New Testament. 1976. Wipf & Stock Publishers, Reprint edition, October 2000. ISBN 1-57910-527-0
External links