Who put it together? (Old Testament)

As you read in the Intro to this series, I do believe the bible is a remarkable book, but allow me to clarify, these posts are not about the religious or spiritual side of the bible, but rather a more historical orientation of it, I do hope that the end result for you and me is a better understanding of its origins.

The natural place to start my research was searching for information on the Old Testament, after all, it is “Old” for a reason.

As expected, the complexity of the Bible extends masterfully to its origins as well, and this is a big part of why this post has taken me longer than expected to complete; Please bare in mind that this series is not intended to be a historical reference, but a compilation, summary and interpretations of my findings on the bible’s origins; and as usual, I strongly recommend you double check any fact with your sources when in doubt.

It is believed the Old Testament was originally written between the 10th and 6th century BC by anonymous authors, but unfortunately, the “original” text of these books does not exist today; actually, the oldest fragment of the Hebrew Bible is a small silver amulet, dating approximately 600 BC which contains a portion of the priestly blessing (“May God make his face to shine upon you…”, NM: 6:22-27).

Important Note: The Old Testament is not 100% equal to the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), according to tradition and the Talmud, which is almost as important as the Hebrew Bible itself for the people of Israel (it contains rabbinic discussions pertaining the Jewish law, ethics, customs and history), The Hebrew Bible was compiled by “The Great Assembly” around the year 450BC and has since remained unchanged (point of discussion by modern scholars).

The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament exists today in several traditions, including the Septuagint, the Masoretic Text and the Dead Sea Scrolls:

• The Septuagint Is the oldest of several ancient translations of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, it is believed to have been translated between the 3rd and 1st centuries BC. Its name comes from the tradition that seventy (or seventy-two) Jewish scholars translated the Torah around 285-246 BC. It is interesting to know that the Septuagint includes some books not found in the Hebrew Bible nor most Protestant Bibles (like the “Apocryphal books”.
  
• The Masoretic Text is the Hebrew Text of the Tanakh, however, it not only defines the Jewish Canon, but also the precise letter-text of the biblical books in Judaism, as well as their vocalization and accentuation for both public reading and private study, and this is the basis of the translations of the Old Testament in protestant Bibles. It dates between the seventh and 10th centuries AD.
  
• The Dead Sea Scrolls consist of roughly 1,000 documents, including text from the Hebrew Bible which were discovered between 1947 and 1956 in eleven caves. Needless to say these texts are of great religious and historical significance, these are the only known surviving copies of Biblical Documents made before 100 AD.

Also, it is very interesting to know that there are numerous differences between the Septuagint and the Masoretic Text, some are very big differences and some subtle; it was generally believed that the Septuagint provided a reasonably accurate record of an early Semitic textual variant, now lost, that differed from ancestors of the Masoretic Text; however, many of the fragments found in the Dead Sea Scrolls agree with the Septuagint rather than the Masoretic Text, this proves that these variants were also present in early Semitic manuscripts.

It is also important to know that these translations vary considerably from book to book, from literal to paraphrasing to interpretative, which makes it even harder to determine the validity and/or change(s) over time.

There is/was/has been a lot of debate between the scholars that selected the “inspired books”, by the way, in case is not evident, the compilation of the bible is a product of human selection, the Canon was selected by region, approximate date, style of writing and doctrine, many books were left out because of conflicting doctrine (like the Apocryphal books) and some were added to the cannon by a majority of votes.

Even Martin Luther (father of Protestantism) questioned the validity of several books including: Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation (and currently also in question are: 2 peter, 2 and 3 John), more on this on Part 2.

As usual, make your own conclusions about this info. It is even tougher for me to believe in an “inspired” book, when there’s no apparent “divinity” in the selection process and no valid “recorded evidence” of its origins.

More on Part 2 – The New Testament