Talk:Dating the Bible
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See also Talk:Dating the Bible/archive.
I have just reverted a long, unformatted, unwikified and signed contribution by a newbie, see User talk:Franck Ver Stut and his contributions.
Possibly there is material in it that should be incorporated into the article. Hopefully, we might even interest the author in doing this work, after some study of our policies, standards and in particular the ideal of a neutral point of view.
But this is only one of several similar essays he has contributed, and in his revert war edit summaries of some of the others he is currently pleading the constitutional right of free speech, so we have a way to go. Andrewa 18:36, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
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[edit] Not mentioned outside Israel?
The article begins:
- With the exception of a couple of fragments (found among the Dead Sea scrolls, discussed below), no Bible texts that we currently have predate about 200 BCE. Nor are they mentioned by historians outside Israel. Therefore differences that exist between different schools are more ideologically driven than based on historical documentation.
I don't want to edit this because it is possible the author means something sensible, but at present it seems to be saying that Bible texts are not mentioned by historians outside of Israel, which is obviously untrue. Perhaps the author should edit it to clarify meaning. Ordinary Person 08:16, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] timelines
according to the 'maximalist' hypothesis, which would be the oldest part of the torah (i.e. which book was found by Josiah?) J, E, or already JE? would the timeline
- J, E 10th-9th century
- Deuteronomy 7th century
- Torah redaction 6th century
be approximately right? Or is there a possibility that Genesis is younger than Deuteronomy? dab (ᛏ) 12:37, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Contradiction
There is an error in the opening lines of this article I hope someone will correct. There are in fact biblical texts that predate the 2nd century BCE. For example, the blessing of the kohens have been found on inscriptions that are significantly older. I don't have the sources at my disposable to do a meaningful revision. The article should probably say something like no texts of substantial length exist that are older than the second century BCE.
To quote the article: "With the exception of a couple of fragments (found among the Dead Sea scrolls), discussed below, no Bible texts that we currently have predate about 200 BCE." This seems to imply that some of the Dead Sea Scrolls can be dated earlier than 200 BCE. But this conflicts the statement from Dead Sea Scrolls page that "the documents were written at various times between the middle of the 2nd century BC and the 1st century AD". Explanation, anyone? --Itinerant1 18:37, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Nevi'im Errata
The last sentence in this section is quoted below. The clause following "form," does not make grammatic sense. Sorry, I cannot fix it, because I cannot guess at the author's intended meaning.
"In the time of Jesus the book existed in its present form, with many prophecies in the disputed portions are quoted in the New Testament as the words of Isaiah."
Zenna
[edit] Schools of thought
How accurate is to say that there are two schools of thought on this topic (as the introductory text of the article states)? It seems that there authors were trying to divide people into those who generally believe in the Bible from those who do not, but this seems like a gross oversimplification of the issue. Threepounds 06:55, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Cleanup?
The first two sentences seem to have poor grammar/style. Is there any chance someone could work on rewriting them? --Improv 16:08, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Why should anyone feel compelled to date the bible?
[edit] Section on Torah
Some critical scholars (the biblical "minimalists") would insist that the whole of the Torah which came after the bible is a construction (after 538 BC), perhaps with material from an earlier oral tradition.
I'm sorry, the Torah came after the Bible all of the sudden? VolatileChemical 09:25, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
