Talk:Authors of the Bible

Nature of claims -- organization of entry

There are a number of questions raised by this entry.

First off, is this going to be a list of what historical scholarship into the origins of the Bible has produced? If so, rather than organizing it by all the books of the most commonly accepted Christian Biblical canon, it would seem to make much more sense to organized it by the authors as historically adduced. Thus, we should have sections on the Elohist, the Yahwist, and other Old Testament authors, along with the same treatment of the New Testament, with sections on the Q document and so forth.

Or, is this going to be a summary of the authors of Biblical texts as believed in by Jews or Christians? That is, are we to imagine that Moses wrote the books of Moses, Solomon wrote the Song of Solomon, and so forth. If so, then, we have an important CZ:Neutrality_Policy issue, as it will take a great deal of time and effort to craft neutral statements about what different faiths believe.

Or will this just be a catalog of popular notions about the authors of the Bible? That wouldn't, by itself, be to my mind a useful entry for an encyclopedia, unless under a different title such as "Popular conceptions of the Bible." Russell Potter 11:01, 24 June 2007 (CDT)

Thanks for your analysis. It is my hope that this will be a summary of historical scholarship on the books that Jews or Christians have at least in some part accepted as canonical. Based on that, I don't think I would include the Q document, etc. as it was never recovered as such, and has never appeared in any "canonical" collection.

Changes on the arrangement are always possible. You are wise in suggesting an arrangement by authors/cultures. I would not be so simple as to assume the traditional authorship of each book as believed by many Jews or Christians. What has been written already was merely what I recall top-of-the-mind on each book. Ultimately I would love a scholarly but simplified analysis of the authorship of each book, ideally no more than 300 words each. Michael Yates 16:02, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

Thanks for your reply. Well, I was concerned at first that there's a sub-header for each and every book -- that's going to be hard for readers to scroll through, and leads to an auto-generated Table of Contents that's very long. Whereas, if we have fewer sections, each one with a header for the author(s) -- "Elohist," "Yahwist," etc. -- there will be many fewer headers, and a much easier article to consult. Some books, such as the Song of Songs, are anomalous enough that they may deserve their own section, I suppose, but why not treat the books of Moses, the Prophets, etc. as groups? The other word that concerned me a bit was "popular" -- there are so many popular notions, that made me think the article would have to be too exhaustive to be really useful. Russell Potter 17:02, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

Organization by author or category of book seems much more natural. Thus, Wisdom Literature, Pauline Epistles, General Epistles, etc. Stephen Ewen 17:03, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

Position with regard to Q

I find it a little concerning that you dismiss the synoptic sayings source (Q) out of hand. I won't say too much because critical scholarship isn't my field, but given that there is a considerable amount of scholarship favoring an independent Q source, not even acknowledging it hardly seems a neutral approach. Greg Woodhouse 17:21, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

Yes, I was a bit concerned about this as well. Here, though, I suppose a distinction could be made between "authors" per se and "sources" -- but the two issues are much entangled. Russell Potter 18:38, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

My qualm with including Q et al, is that it does go back into sources. It becomes quite troublesome to determine the author of a work that we don't have in any present form. One must first assume that it existed in a written form (which is admittedly possible/probable) and that we can know anything about the author. Furthermore, if we include Q, must we include Egyptian Love Poetry that is sourced in the Song of Songs, etc.? Hammurabi's Code for Deuteronomy? Michael Yates 18:53, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

Well, if we can't talk about Q, I don't see how we could talk about the textual history of the Gospels in any way. The whole point about Q is that it may very well have existed as an oral tradition prior to having been written down, and that such a history does not diminish its value as a witness. It's clear that the synoptic Gospels had some prior source, and that whoever "Matthew," "Mark," and "Luke" were, they were none of them the sole authors of the Gospels which bear their names. Russell Potter 18:56, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

I agree that the authorship of Matthew and Luke (maybe Mark) are very much indebted to Q, and this should receive attention in the article. However, venturing to find the author of Q is probably going too far for the scope of this article. If we are discussing "Authors of the Bible", then Q must be included in the Bible as a work independent of other Gospels to warrant independent inclusion in this article. Michael Yates 19:06, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

Of course the authorship of Q is at best conjectural -- but then again so are the authors of the canonical Gospels! -- if we are talking about any sort of historical analysis of authorship. If we can talk about the "author of Luke" we can surely talk about the "author of Q, a source of Luke," with no more, and no less, uncertainty. Russell Potter 20:05, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

Categorization

I have recategorized the article, which certainly makes it look cleaner. Thanks for the suggestion. I did it quickly, so it could definitely need reworking. Also, I have noticed that the titles I have used are a bit presumptive, though maybe necessarily so (e.g. "Petrine Epistles"). As always, I'm open to suggestions and changes.Michael Yates 18:48, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

Looks much better! For the first section, I reshaped it a bit to give both the traditional religious views and the modern views of textual scholarship -- not sure if this is an ideal solution, but it at least gives both. Russell Potter 18:50, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

I appreciate the JEPD addition. I have not studied it much but have heard much about it, so it is certainly worthy of inclusion. Thanks Michael Yates 18:59, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

Early Church Writings

I'll throw this out there, because I know the question will be raised at some point. Do we want to include Early Church writings as part of this article or another article? For example, should the Gospel of Thomas or Barnabas be in this list? Should we quickly deal with them all in the same category (i.e. "Early Church Writings")? Michael Yates 18:56, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

Ephesians

Hey-- this is just an organizational thing-- there's no meat on the bones as yet-- but I made a separate section for Ephesians because of the opinion of many modern scholars that it is not an authentically Pauline epistle. Brian P. Long 05:12, 1 May 2008 (CDT)

That's fine for now. Whoever writes that section may modify it later. Thanks. Michael Yates 12:28, 1 May 2008 (CDT)

J- and E-lumping out of fashion?

As I was working on putting more detail in the section about the Documentary Hypothesis, I thought about adding a few lines about the hypothesis that J and E are really the same source. However, I held back because I noticed that this theory is only mentioned in books from a few years ago. It seemed to me that perhaps this signals that scholars in the field have definitively rejected this hypothesis. Does anyone else know-- is this the case, or am I shadowboxing, once again? Thanks, Brian P. Long 11:39, 3 May 2008 (CDT)