This is a question that has been pondered for centuries. People are questioning the stories in the Bible. How were they created? Who created them? Is it a group of people from the same place at the same time? Or were those stories collected over time by hundreds if not thousands of people? Or is it perhaps God himself?
Those are just some questions that surround the Holy Writt.
In this article we will try to answer some of those questions if not all, so stay tuned (if you have time 😊).
Let’s delve into it.
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History of the Bible
Everybody heard that there are different versions of Bible. Hebrew Bible, Protestant, Catholic? You name it, Bible has it.
The Bible’s Old Testament is comparable to the Hebrew Bible, which has origins in the ancient religion of Judaism. So in that case we need to talk about first mentions of Israel, to be able to (perhaps connect) origins of Bible.
One of first known mentions of Israel comes from Egypt and their inscriptions. Hereby we’re talking about 13th century B.C.
Note: Did you know that The Bible is probably the biggest literature bestseller of all time in whole human history.
Ok, back to history. However, before continuing, have in mind that we really don’t have very significant proofs that something (regarding Bible), happened at that exact time. We, as humanity, are mostly speculating, because if suddenly we find any new artifact, whole history timeline would be changed.
Nonetheless, let’s try to dig up what we (think) we know.
By writings of Learnlerigions.com we have the following timeline:
- Creation – B.C. 2000 – Originally, the earliest Scriptures are handed down from generation to generation orally.
- Around B.C. 2000-1500 – The book of Job, perhaps the oldest book of the Bible, is written.
- Around B.C. 1500-1400 – The stone tablets of the Ten Commandments are given to Moses at Mount Sinai and later stored in the Ark of the Covenant.
- Around B.C. 1400–400 – The manuscripts comprising the original Hebrew Bible (39 Old Testament books) are completed. The Book of the Law is kept in the tabernacle and later in the Temple beside the Ark of the Covenant.
- Around B.C. 300 – All of the original Old Testament Hebrew books have been written, collected, and recognized as official, canonical books.
- Around B.C. 250–200 – The Septuagint, a popular Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (39 Old Testament books), is produced. The 14 books of the Apocrypha are also included.
So far so good!
But not exactly. Why? Well because this is what we think based on different “findings” and scriptures. But we can not know for sure as the sole history that is written in Bible is actually something completely different that what we (again) think we know about our history and history of our planet.
Namely, according to some interpretations of the Bible (and there are many), Earth was created some 10000 years ago. Or even later. Some interpretations say it’s 6000 years ago. By any scientific means that does not make any sense whatsoever. Namely, by scientific theories Earth was formed some 4,5 billions years ago. Pretty big difference huh? 10000 years vs 4,5 billion years.
Of course, Bible is not scientific fact textbook, but nor are many different scientific books. Most are still only theories. One needs to bear this in mind whenever looking at the history of anything.
Nonetheless, let’s stick with currently mostly accepted timeline of Bible’s history as described in previous paragraphs.
Ok, so if it was created thousands of years ago, who created it? And are there any mysteries surrounding one of the most famous book of all times?
Let’s start with the latter.
Mysteries surrounding the Bible
Since the Bible is one of the most famous book ever, then there must be some mysteries around it. I mean, just think about anything so large and famous, and you will always find mysteries.
For example, Kanye West is one of the most popular and famous people on Earth and there are a lot of mysteries surrounding him and everything that he does. Not to mention his latest rants.
Of course, I am not by any means here connecting Bible and Kanye West (Ye). I am just making point about something or someone famous and mysteries surrounding famous objects or people.
So, let’s get back to Bible and its secrecies and mysteries. There are many and we’ll only name few. Starting with the Ark.
Where is the ark of the covenant?
There are a lot of objects mentioned in the Bible that people seek all around the world like Indiana Jones. One of most searched for, and surrounded with most inscrutabilities is for sure Ark of the Covenant.
As per Wikipedia: The Ark of the Covenant, also known as the Ark of the Testimony or the Ark of God, is an artifact believed to be the most sacred relic of the Israelites, which is described as a wooden chest, covered in pure gold, with an elaborately designed lid called the mercy seat. According to the Book of Exodus, the Ark contained the two stone tablets of the Ten Commandments.
Basically, it is a very extravagant, ornate gold plated wooden chest. It was supposed to have huge powers and injured or killed anyone who dared to look inside.
Now, that’s interesting, and the whole book could be written about The Fancy Ark, but where is it now? Did Ark ever exist?
Literally there are a hundred theories about the location of The Ark. Many articles and stories talk about the possibility of the Ark’s journey to Africa (probably Egypt) via Solomon to the Queen of Sheba. Another story says that the Ark is concealed somewhere below Jerusalem in a location unreachable due to its closeness to the Muslim Dome of the Rock mosque.
Who knows… Obviously no one. Or someone knows but it’s a big secret for some reason. Anyhow, for sure it is one of biggest mysteries mentioned in the Bible.
What else do we have?
The Site of The Crucifixion
Well, this one is important. Actually, New Testament labels the Crucifixion as the sole utmost significant event in the history of humanity. Yet nobody knows where did it happen exactly?
I mean can you just imagine what would happen if someone declared that 31.7683° N, 35.2137° E is the exact place of The Crucifixion? This place would probably roar uncontrollably with millions of tourists.
Perhaps that’s the reason we don’t know the exact place. Perhaps no one really knows. And perhaps, this (Crucifixion) didn’t happen at all.
There are hundreds, if not thousands more mysteries and questions surrounding Bible, but one of the biggest question is – How was Bible created, who created it and how. For this one we (mostly) have the answer.
Who created the Bible?
Some people still firmly believe that God created the Bible. But that, of course, cannot be further from the truth.
Namely, by many Bible historians and scholars – there are around 40 authors of the books of the Bible. Nonetheless, Moses is considered one of main authors. According to both Christian & Jewish belief, the volumes of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy (the first five books of the Bible which are called the Pentateuch and the whole Torah) were all written by Moses in about 1,300 B.C.
As per tradition, Moses was apparently divinely directed to write down foundational events in the history of the whole world.
Now that sounds a little bit sketchy for any curious mind…
However, let’s stay with the official narrative.
But who were the other authors?
As mentioned previously, it is believed that 43 people wrote all 66 books in the Bible over the course of more than 1500 years.
By most biblical scholars this is the full list of authors (although there are some anonymous contributions that are not yet cleared out completely):
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy = Moses – 1400 B.C.
Joshua = Joshua – 1350 B.C.
Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel = Samuel/Nathan/Gad – 1000 – 900 B.C.
1 Kings, 2 Kings = Jeremiah – 600 B.C.
1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah = Ezra – 450 B.C.
Esther = Mordecai – 400 B.C.
Job = Moses – 1400 B.C.
Psalms = several different authors, mostly David – 1000 – 400 B.C.
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon = Solomon – 900 B.C.
Isaiah = Isaiah – 700 B.C.
Jeremiah, Lamentations = Jeremiah – 600 B.C.
Ezekiel = Ezekiel – 550 B.C.
Daniel = Daniel – 550 B.C.
Hosea = Hosea – 750 B.C.
Joel = Joel – 850 B.C.
Amos = Amos – 750 B.C.
Obadiah = Obadiah – 600 B.C.
Jonah = Jonah – 700 B.C.
Micah = Micah – 700 B.C.
Nahum = Nahum – 650 B.C.
Habakkuk = Habakkuk – 600 B.C.
Zephaniah = Zephaniah – 650 B.C.
Haggai = Haggai – 520 B.C.
Zechariah = Zechariah – 500 B.C.
Malachi = Malachi – 430 B.C.
Matthew = Matthew – A.D. 55
Mark = John Mark – A.D. 50
Luke = Luke – A.D. 60
John = John – A.D. 90
Acts = Luke – A.D. 65
Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon = Paul – A.D. 50-70
Hebrews = unknown, mostly likely Paul, Luke, Barnabas, or Apollos – A.D. 65
James = James – A.D. 45
1 Peter, 2 Peter = Peter – A.D. 60
1 John, 2 John, 3 John = John – A.D. 90
Jude = Jude – A.D. 60
Revelation = John – A.D. 90
Final compilation of the Bible
Now, that’s a lot of people over many years. Based on that, how did we get final compilation or the Biblical Canon as they call it.
Namely, at the time of Jesus, nobody really had a “Bible” as we think of it. Nobody had The Book.
Interesting thought gymnastics, ha?
The earliest known attempt to create a “canon” in the same respect as the New Testament was in 2nd century Rome by Marcion, a Turkish businessman and church leader.
The first “canon” was the Muratorian Canon, which was compiled in AD 170.
And then around 5th century, it is believed that all the different Christian churches came to a basic agreement on Biblical canon.
Over the course of many centuries there had been many attempts at compiling and recompiling the Bible.
According to Wikipedia Tyndale’s Bible is credited with being the first Bible translation in the English language to work directly from Hebrew and Greek texts. This version was made circa 1522–1535.
A little bit less than century after that or 1611 to be more specific, we received the most widely known version of the Bible. So called King James Bible. It was the work of around 50 scholars, who were appointed in 1604 by King James.
The rest is history.
Now we have the Bible in many languages. But not all. Far from it. And this is mostly because we have 7106 alive languages on our planet. Many of those are spoken only by dozens of few hundred people, so it wouldn’t make sense to translate Bible to all those languages.
As of 2022 all of the Bible has been translated into 724 languages.
So, there you have it. A little bit of history of the book, some mysteries surrounding it, and a lot of info about different volumes, authors and languages.
For some, this book is holy scripture, for some only collection of fables. Nonetheless, everyone can for sure find some real wisdom in these historic writings.
How much of information given by the book is true we’ll never probably know.
But hey, it is worth seeking. Worth being curious.
And that’s what we do here at CuriousMatrix.com
Related: What If Religion Never Existed?
