Who really wrote the bible

by jacethespace 21 Replies latest watchtower bible

  • jacethespace
    jacethespace

    I was always taught when i joined jws that Moses wrote all of the book of genesis.In the all scripture inspired book on page 13 verse 3 it says:

    Jehovah god is the author of the bible but he inspired moses to write the book of genesis.From where did moses get the information he recorded in genesis? Some could have been recieved directly by divine revelation and some under the direction of holy spirit.

    Verse 5 says- There is no question as to who wrote genesis.

    Well yes there was, in the watchtower magazine 1959 10/1 [ could be 1/10, depending on which country your in] Called -finding the truth that makes men free [ taken from the watchtower program 2004] section 15 has this to say:

    Actually the bible is so old that it has three documents written before the flood of noahs day four thousand years ago.The first document is gods dictation to adam of the basic facts of the earths creation.The second document called the book of adams history [ gen 5:1] was written by adam himself and was carried in the ark through the flood by faithfull noah [ Funny i dont see this proved by the bible] and eventually given to moses [ AMAZING] who incorporated the document into the book of genesis.The third document was written by our common forefather noah the flood survivor.

    Wow i guess they had some new light by the magic fairy later on.

    So who really wrote the bible?

  • drew sagan
    drew sagan

    Here is a wikipedia article you may find interesting regarding the Torah and the Documentary hypothesis:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis

  • the dreamer dreaming
    the dreamer dreaming

    there is a book called WHO WROTE THE BIBLE and it reads like a detective story and is very interesting.

    it seems that Genesis and many other parts of "moses" were written around 800bce and Deuteronomy seems to be by the very same author of Jeremiah and chronocles or maybe it was kings...

    as a JW I always doubted JW teaching that Deuteronomy was written mostly by Moses but the last chapter AFTER HIS DEATH was tacked on by another hand, likely Joshua...because if you read the story its the same style from beginning to ending. even bible authors change styles

    Genesis is also littered with reference to things indicating that a king over israel EXISTED at the time of writing... thus after 1000bce and no where near the supposed time of moses circa 1500 bce.

    evidence exists internally in the bible that Ezra is the one who took several powerful family myths and wove them into one story after the exile from babylon and even added a few things of his own... like the festival of booths... nehemiah gives that one away saying everyone realized that no one had ever celebrated that one for the last 500 years.

    this explains genesis and other mosaic books being littered with double stories which often contradict rather than compliment. like the two creation stories, the two noah's arc stories, etc.

  • Carl_Hernz
    Carl_Hernz

    Great reply, Dreamer. One of the best concise answers to a very tough question.

    Another factor that needs to be considered is that when modern scholars point out that a Biblical book like the Torah is actually a composite piece, this isn't contradicting the stand that Moses is the author. In the ancient world it wasn't uncommon for books attributed to certain writers to actually be written by other people. At times this reflected the school of thought that composed them. Isaiah for example covers too many years outside of its prophecies to be written in one average lifetime. There may have been several "Isaiahs," namely disciples that continued his work. But the author is still Isaiah in the sense that the book continued the work he started.

    Today we have a similar occurance when we pick up a Merriam-Webster dictionary. Neither of these individuals to who this dictionary is attributed to are alive anymore, but it is more than a brand name. The way of defining words and the means of publishing them follow the guidelines they developed, so it's their dictionary.

    One more thing: neither the Jewish religion or Christianity is based on any piece of Scripture per se. It is the Scriptures that are based on these religions. The religions came first, developed the writings, assembled them, copied them, and canonized them. A times this required editing and interpolation. In the process authorship was attributed as best as the living traditions the faiths that produced the Bible could recall, and that included the schools of thought that preserved them before they were collected into the final forms we have them today.

    The sources mentioned above are a great start. There are also Bible editions in practically all versions available that go into detail in their introductions and footnotes about authorship and textual development.Check your local bookstore to see if your favorite translation is availble in such a study edition.

  • BluesBrother
    BluesBrother

    I am not going to speculate on the source material for early chapters of Genesis, or who compiled the book . I would, however, suggest tht jacethespace is suffering a little amnesia or a lack of Dub knowledge if he had to dig up the 1959 WT to find out what thw WT has always said , eg:

    Insight on th Scriptures-1 pp. 919-920 Genesis, Book of ***

    From

    wheredidMosesgettheinformationheincludedinGenesis?

    "All the information contained in the book of Genesis relates to events that took place prior to Moses’ birth. It could have been received directly by divine revelation. It is obvious that someone had to receive the information relating to the events prior to man’s creation in that way, whether Moses or someone prior to him. (Ge 1:1-27; 2:7, 8) This information and the remaining details, however, could have been transmitted to Moses by means of oral tradition. Because of the long life span of men of that period, the information could have been passed from Adam to Moses through just five human links, namely, Methuselah, Shem, Isaac, Levi, and Amram. A third possibility is that Moses obtained much of the information for Genesis from already existing writings or documents. As far back as the 18th century, the Dutch scholar Campegius Vitringa held this view, basing his conclusion upon the frequent occurrence in Genesis (ten times) of the expression (in KJ) "these are the generations of," and once "this is the book of the generations of." (Ge 2:4; 5:1; 6:9; 10:1; 11:10, 27; 25:12, 19; 36:1, 9; 37:2) In this expression the Hebrew word for "generations" is toh·le·dhohth´, and it is better rendered "histories" or "origins." For example, "generations of the heavens and of the earth" would hardly be fitting, whereas "history of the heavens and the earth" is meaningful. (Ge 2:4) In harmony with this, the German Elberfelder, the French Crampon, and the Spanish Bover-Cantera all use the term "history," as does the New World Translation. There is no doubt that even as men today are interested in an accurate historical record, so they have been from the start.

    For these reasons, Vitringa and others since have understood each use of toh·le·dhohth´ in Genesis to refer to an already existing written historical document that Moses had in his possession and that he relied upon for the majority of the information recorded in Genesis. They believe that the persons named in direct connection with such ‘histories’ (Adam, Noah, Noah’s sons, Shem, Terah, Ishmael, Isaac, Esau, and Jacob) were either the writers or original possessors of those written documents. This, of course, would still leave unexplained how all such documents came to be in the possession of Moses. It also leaves unexplained why documents obtained from men who were not distinguished as faithful worshipers of Jehovah (such as Ishmael and Esau) should be the source of much of the information used. It is entirely possible that the expression "This is the history of" is simply an introductory phrase serving conveniently to divide off the various sections of the long overall history. Compare Matthew’s use of a similar expression to introduce his Gospel account.—Mt 1:1; see WRITING.

    No definite conclusion can be arrived at, therefore, as to the immediate source from which Moses obtained the information he recorded. Rather than just by one of the methods discussed, the information may have been received by all three, some through direct revelation, some through oral transmission, some by written records. The important point is that Jehovah God guided the prophet Moses so that he wrote by divine inspiration.—2Pe 1:21."

  • Shawn10538
    Shawn10538

    It's pretty hard for a mtyth to be the author of its own myth. (Moses never existed, so he can't be the author of anything.) WHO WROTE THE BIBLE by Friedman is a great book and offers answers that satisfied me.

  • oompa
    oompa

    Great find and post Jace....and how old are you again? Love nuggets like this so please keep it coming......thanks....oompa the sponge

  • oompa
    oompa
    Dreamer: Genesis is also littered with reference to things indicating that a king over israel EXISTED at the time of writing... thus after 1000bce and no where near the supposed time of moses circa 1500 bce.

    Can you list a few examples of these please?........never noticed it......oompa

  • Homerovah the Almighty
    Homerovah the Almighty

    Was it ignorant men that lived thousands of years ago.... nah couldn't be, men weren't ignorant thousand of years ago,..... silly me

  • Narkissos
    Narkissos

    Oompa: Genesis 36:31 for instance.

Share this

Google+
Pinterest
Reddit