2022년 2월 14일
역사상 가장 많이 읽힌 책은 성경입니다. 비즈니스 인사이더에 따르면 성경은 지난 50년 동안 39억 부가 판매되었으며, 약 50개의 영어판이 유통되었고 수백 개의 개정판이 있습니다. 그중 가장 인기 있는 것은 ‘킹 제임스 성경'(KJV)입니다.
성경은 유대교, 기독교, 사마리아교 등의 종교에서 신성시하는 경전을 모은 것입니다. 성경은 원래 히브리어, 아람어, 코이네 그리스어로 쓰인 선집입니다.
이에 따라 성경의 구약성서는 기원전 1300년경에서 165년경에 고대 히브리어로 처음 기록된 것으로 추정됩니다. 마소라 본문 “전통”은 히브리어 성경의 권위 있는 히브리어 및 아람어 본문 또는 랍비 유대교의 “타나크”를 의미하지만, 학자들은 히브리어 기록이 그보다 더 오래되지 않았다고 생각하기 때문에 기원전 6세기에 기원했다고 주장합니다.
그 중 일부는 “모세오경” 또는 토라(가르침)로, 히브리어 성경의 다섯 권으로 구성된 부분 중 하나이며, 민수기, 출애굽기, 레위기, 창세기, 신명기입니다.
히브리어 성경은 24권으로 구성되어 있으며, 기원후 90년과 118년에 열린 ‘얌니아 공의회'(야브네)에서 성경의 일부로 선정되었다고 여겨집니다. 야브네가 정경으로 선정된 책에 대해서는 아직 논쟁이 있습니다. 고대 히브리 문헌에만 언급되었을 뿐, 이 야브네가 실제로 존재했거나 정경으로 인정받았다는 증거는 발견되지 않았기 때문입니다. 그럼에도 불구하고 히브리어 성경은 기원전 2세기부터 현재의 형태를 유지해 왔다고 여겨집니다.
반면, 성경의 신약성경은 코이네 그리스어로 기록되었는데, 이는 알렉산더 대왕(기원전 335년경~323년)의 정복부터 비잔틴 그리스어(서기 600년경)가 등장할 때까지 동지중해 지역에서 널리 쓰였습니다.
최초로 널리 보급된 성경 사본은 서기 400년경 ‘스트리돈의 성 히에로니무스'(히에로니무스)에 의해 편찬되었습니다. 이 사본에는 라틴어로 기록된 구약성경과 신약성경 27권이 포함되어 있습니다.
1890년 드류 신학교 주석 신학 교수였던 제임스 스트롱의 지도 하에 제작된 ‘스트롱스 컨코던스'(KJV의 모든 단어 색인)에 따르면, ‘하나님’이라는 단어는 3,893절에서 4,473회 언급됩니다.
성경에서 저자들은 1,900회 이상 자신의 메시지가 하나님에게서 왔다고 주장했습니다. “주께서 이렇게 말씀하셨다”와 같은 표현은 토라에 약 500회, 선지서에는 1,200회 이상 등장합니다.
실제 역사적 증거는 차치하더라도, 종교적 전통이 성경의 저자에 대해 말하고 드러내는 내용은 사실상 모든 문학 작품이 상상할 수 있는 범위를 훨씬 넘어섭니다. 다른 책들과 달리, 성경은 수십억 명의 사람들이 삶의 토대를 삼아 왔고 지금도 여전히 그렇게 하고 있는 텍스트입니다.
유대교와 기독교 교리에 따르면, 창세기, 출애굽기, 레위기, 민수기, 신명기(성경의 처음 다섯 권과 토라 전체)는 모두 기원전 1,300년경에 기록되었습니다. 하지만 탈무드와 미드라쉬는 토라가 모세가 썼다고 주장합니다. 다만 신명기의 마지막 여덟 구절은 모세의 죽음과 장례를 묘사하고 있으며, 여호수아가 기록했다고 합니다. 하지만 여기에는 모세가 실존 인물이었다는 증거가 부족하다는 등 몇 가지 문제점이 있습니다.
학자들은 주로 내부 단서와 문체를 활용하여 성경의 처음 다섯 권의 저자에 대한 나름의 견해를 발전시켜 왔습니다. 성경 학자들은 이 초기 책들의 문체를 대조하여 다양한 저자들의 프로필을 만들 수 있습니다.
각 저자는 마치 한 사람인 것처럼 언급되지만, 각 저자는 단일 문체로 글을 쓴 여러 학파의 사람들일 수도 있습니다. 이러한 성경 “저자”는 다음과 같습니다.
“E”는 하나님을 “엘로힘”이라고 부른 저자에게 주어진 이름인 엘로히스트(Elohist)를 의미합니다. 출애굽기와 민수기의 상당 부분 외에도, “E” 저자는 창세기 1장에 나오는 성경의 첫 번째 창조 이야기를 쓴 사람으로 여겨집니다.
“J”는 창세기 2장(아담이 먼저 창조되고 뱀이 등장하는 자세한 내용)의 창조 이야기를 포함하여 처음 다섯 권(창세기의 많은 부분과 출애굽기의 일부)의 두 번째 저자로 여겨집니다. 이 이름은 “야훼(Jahwe)”에서 유래했는데, 이는 “야훼(YHWH)” 또는 “야훼(Yahweh)”의 독일어 번역으로, 이 저자들이 신을 지칭할 때 사용한 이름입니다.
“P”는 “제사장(Priestly)”을 의미하며, 기원전 6세기 후반, 바빌로니아 유수 시대가 끝난 직후 예루살렘과 그 주변에 살았던 한 학파의 저술가들을 가리키는 것으로 거의 확실합니다. 이 저술가들은 지금은 사라진 단편적인 문서들을 바탕으로 민족의 종교를 효과적으로 재창조했습니다. P 저술가들은 거의 모든 음식 관련 율법과 기타 코셔 율법을 초안하고, 안식일의 거룩함을 강조했으며, 모세를 제외한 모세의 형 아론(유대교 전통에서 최초의 제사장)에 대해 끝없이 기록했습니다.
“D”는 “신명기(Deuteronomist)”를 의미하며, “신명기를 쓴 사람(들)”을 의미합니다. D는 다른 네 명의 저술가들처럼 원래
Who Wrote the Bible
Lord Edwin E. Hitti
Adv. Mediator – Adjudicator
2022년 2월 14일
The most read book of all time is the Bible. It is recorded by Business Insider that the Bible sold 3.9 billion copies over just the last 50 years! with about 50 English versions in circulation, and well into the hundreds revised versions. The most popular of which is the ‘King James Version’ (KJV).
The Bible is a collection of religious scripts sacred to Judaism; Christianity; Samaritanism, and the like faiths. It is an anthology, originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek.
Whereby, the Bible’s Old Testament was assumed to have been first written (c. 1300–165 BC) in an ancient form of Hebrew. Although, Masoretic Text “tradition” the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the Hebrew Bible or “Tanakh” in Rabbinic Judaism. is held by scholars to have originated in 6th century BC because Hebrew writing is thought to stretch back no further.
Part thereof, is the “Pentateuch” or Torah (Teaching) one of the sections of the Hebrew Bible, consisting of the five books: Numbers, Exodus, Leviticus, Genesis, and Deuteronomy.
The Hebrew Bible consists of (24 books), believed to be determined by the ‘Council of Jamnia’ (Jabneh) in CE 90 and 118 as the list of books to be part of the Bible. There is still debate over what all the Jabneh selected to be canonized, as it has only been mentioned in ancient Hebrew writings and no confirmation has been found that this Jabneh existed or canonized. Nonetheless, it is believed the Hebrew Bible has been in its current form since the second century BC.
Whereas, the Bible’s New Testament books were written in Koine Greek, which, was common in the Eastern Mediterranean from the conquests of Alexander the Great (c. 335–323 BC) until the evolution of Byzantine Greek (c. CE 600).
The first widespread edition of the Bible was assembled by ‘St. Jerome of Stridon’ (Hieronymus) around CE 400. This manuscript included the Old Testament and (27 books) of the New Testament in Latin writing.
According to ‘Strong’s Concordance’ (index of every word in the KJV, constructed under the direction of James Strong in 1890, while professor of exegetical theology at Drew Theological Seminary), the term God is mentioned 4473 times in 3893 verses.
More than 1,900 times in scripture, authors claimed their message was from God. Expressions such as “Thus says the Lord” appear approximately 500 times in the Torah and more than 1,200 times in the Prophets.
Actual historical evidence set aside, what religious tradition says and reveals on who wrote the Bible go far beyond what virtually all works of literature can ever conceive. Unlike other, the Bible is a text upon which billions of people have and still do base their entire lives.
According to both Jewish and Christian dogma, Genesis; Exodus; Leviticus; Numbers; and Deuteronomy (the first five books of the Bible and the entirety of the Torah) were all written about 1,300 BC. Although, the Talmud and Midrash hold that the Torah was written by Moses, with the exception of the last eight verses of Deuteronomy, describing his death and burial, being written by Joshua. There are a few issues with this, such as the lack of evidence that Moses ever existed!
Scholars have developed their own take on who wrote the Bible’s first five books, mainly by using internal clues and writing styles. Bible scholars can contrast the styles of these early books to create profiles of the different authors.
In each case, these writers are talked about as if they were a single person, but each author could just as easily be an entire school of people writing in a single style. These biblical “authors” include:
“E” standing for Elohist, the name given to the author(s) who referred to God as “Elohim.” In addition to a fair bit of Exodus and a little bit of Numbers, the “E” author(s) is/are believed to be the one(s) who wrote the Bible’s first creation account in Genesis chapter one.
“J” believed to be the second author(s) of the first five books (much of Genesis and some of Exodus), including the creation account in Genesis chapter two (the detailed one where Adam is created first and there’s a serpent). This name comes from “Jahwe,” the German translation of “YHWH” or “Yahweh,” the name this/these author(s) used for God.
“P” standing for “Priestly,” and it almost certainly refers to a whole school of writers living in and around Jerusalem in the late sixth century BC, immediately after the Babylonian captivity ended. These writers were effectively reinventing their peoples’ religion from fragmentary texts now lost. P writers drafted almost all of the dietary and other kosher laws, emphasized the holiness of the Sabbath, wrote endlessly about Moses’ brother Aaron (the first priest in Jewish tradition) to the exclusion of Moses himself, and so on.
“D” is for “Deuteronomist,” meaning “guy(s) who wrote Deuteronomy.” D was also, like the other four, originally attributed to Moses, but that’s only possible if Moses liked to write in the third person, could see the future, used language no one in his own time would have used, and knew where his own tomb would be (clearly, Moses was not who wrote the Bible at all).
The next answers to the question of who wrote the Bible come from the books of Joshua; Judges; Samuel; and Kings, generally thought to have been written during the Babylonian captivity in the middle of the sixth century BC, and are traditionally believed to have been written by Joshua and Samuel themselves, they’re now often lumped in with Deuteronomy due to their similar writing.
Next come those who wrote the Bible are those of the biblical Prophets, an eclectic group who mostly travelled around the various Jewish communities to admonish people and lay curses and sometimes preach sermons about everybody’s shortcomings.
Isaiah, an 8th-century BC Israelite Prophet after whom the Book of Isaiah is named and agreed to have been written in basically three parts:
The early part, or proto-Isaiah texts may have been written close to the time when the man himself really lived, around the eighth century BC, about the time when the Greeks were first writing down Homer’s stories, running from chapters one to 39, and they’re all doom and judgment for sinful Israel.
The middle part, is when Israel actually did fall with the Babylonian conquest and captivity, the works attributed to Isaiah were dusted off and expanded into what’s now known as chapters 40-55 by the same people who wrote Deuteronomy and the historical texts. This part of the book is frankly the ravings of an outraged patriot about how all the lousy, savage foreigners will someday be made to pay for what they’ve done to Israel.
The late part, was clearly written after the Babylonian captivity ended in 539 BC when the invading Persians permitted the Jews to return home. It’s not surprising then that this section of Isaiah is a burbling tribute to Persian Cyrus the Great, who is identified as the Messiah himself for letting the Jews return to their home.
Jeremiah, lived a century or so after Isaiah, immediately before the Babylonian captivity, the authorship of his book remains relatively unclear, even compared with other discussions as to who wrote the Bible. He may have been one of the Deuteronomist writers, or he may have been one of the earliest “J” authors. His own book may have been written by him, or by a man named Baruch ben Neriah, whom he mentions as one of his scribes. Either way, the book of Jeremiah has a very similar style to Kings, and so it’s possible that either Jeremiah or Baruch simply wrote them all.
Ezekiel ben-Buzi, was a priesthood member living in Babylon itself during the captivity. There’s no way he wrote the whole book of Ezekiel himself, given the stylistic differences from one part to the next, but he may have written some. His students/acolytes/junior assistants may have written the rest. These also might have been the writers who survived Ezekiel to draft the “P” texts after the captivity.
The ‘nest’ section of the Bible deals with what’s known as the wisdom literature. These books are the finished product of nearly a thousand years of development and heavy editing. Unlike the histories, which are theoretically non-fiction accounts of stuff that happened, wisdom literature has been redacted over the centuries with an extremely casual attitude that has made it hard to pin down any single book to any single author. Some patterns, however, have emerged:
The book of Job, is actually two scripts. In the middle, it’s a very ancient epic poem, like the E text. These two texts may be the oldest writings in the Bible. On either side of that epic poem in the middle of Job are much more recent writings. It’s as if Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales were to be reissued today with an introduction and epilogue by Stephen King as if the whole thing were one long text.
The Psalms and Proverbs, like Job, are also cobbled together from both older and newer sources. For, some Psalms are written as if there’s a reigning King on the throne in Jerusalem, while others directly mention the Babylonian captivity, during which time there was of course no King on the throne of Jerusalem. Proverbs was likewise continuously updated until about the mid-second century BC.
Ptolemaic period, writings from this time are of a high technical quality, partly thanks to the hated Greek influence, but they also tend to be melancholic. Books from this period include Ruth; Esther; Lamentations; Ezra; Nehemiah; Lamentations, and Ecclesiastes.
The four Gospels in the King James Bible, Matthew; Mark; Luke, and John, are texts dealing with Jesus and beyond are named after Jesus’ apostles, although these books’ actual authors may have just been using those names for street cred.
The Epistles, a series of letters, written to various early congregations in the eastern Mediterranean, by a single individual. Saul of Tarsus famously converted after an encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, after which he changed his name to Paul and became the single most enthusiastic missionary of the new religion. Along the way to his eventual martyrdom, Paul wrote Epistles of James, Peter, Johns, and Jude.
The book of Revelation (Apocalypse), has traditionally been attributed to the Apostle John. Unlike the other traditional attributions, this one wasn’t very far off in terms of actual historical authenticity, though this book was written a little late for someone who claimed to know Jesus personally. John, of Revelation fame, seems to have been a converted Jew who wrote his vision of the End Times on the Greek island of Patmos about 100 years after Jesus’ death.
While the writings attributed him actually do show some congruity between who wrote the Bible according to tradition and who wrote the Bible according to historical evidence, the question of Biblical authorship remains thorny, complex, and much contested, for the Bible is not just a book but an incredible library written over 1500 year with over 60 books written by over 40 different authors, countless pharisees and a myriad of scribes…
