Authors of the Bible

Few biblical books are regarded by scholars as the product of a single individual, and all have been edited to produce the works known today. The following article outlines the conclusions of the majority of contemporary scholars, along with the traditional views, both Jewish and Christian.

The books of the Hebrew Bible were originally anonymous, and it was not until the 4th century BCE, under Greek influence, that the Jews felt compelled to find authors for them. According to the rabbis of the Babylonian Talmud, a Jewish encyclopedia composed c.200-500 CE, God dictated the Torah (the five books from Genesis to Deuteronomy) to Moses, revealed the Prophets by prophecy, and inspired the Writings through the Holy Spirit. The early Church Fathers agreed that the scriptures were inspired or dictated by God, but not on just which writings were scriptural: as a result, the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches treat some books (the Apocrypha) as inspired, but the Protestant tradition does not; there was similar debate over the New Testament, and the canon was not settled until the middle of the fourth century CE.

The nature of divine authorship has long been the subject of dispute. Martin Luther claimed that the human authors of scripture received it by divine dictation, as did Pope Leo XIII in the 19th century, but in the 20th century the vast majority of theologians, both Catholic and Protestant, moved away from the divine dictation model and emphasised the role of the human authors. As a result, even many conservative scholars now accept, for example, that the Book of Isaiah has multiple authors and that 2 Corinthians is two letters joined together. Outside of this mainstream are scholars who see no sign at all of divine authorship in the Bible, and on the other, although more in popular than scholarly circles, many for whom the authority of scripture rests on its infallible divine origins.

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