Who wrote the New Testament and the Bible? The history of the origin of the canon

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

The question of who wrote the Bible - the Old and New Testaments - seems inappropriate for believers, since they unconditionally attribute their authorship to God, agreeing only that He realized his great plan by the hands of specific people. Without daring to dispute this opinion, we will only try to outline the circle of those chosen ones of God, thanks to whom humanity received the Holy Scripture in all the variety of religious writings included in it.

What is the Bible?

Before talking about who wrote the books of the New Testament and the Old, collectively referred to as his Bible, or otherwise (Holy Scripture), let's define this term itself. According to centuries-old tradition, the word "Bible", which in ancient Greek means "books", is commonly understood as a very extensive collection of religious texts recognized as sacred among Christians and partly among Jews (the New Testament is rejected by them).

Historical research has shown that they were created over 1600 years (about 60 generations of people)and were the fruit of the labors of at least 40 authors - those very chosen ones of God, which were discussed above. Characteristically, they included representatives of various social strata, from simple fishermen to the highest state dignitaries and even kings.

We also add that the Old Testament (chronologically earlier than the New) includes 39 canonical books recognized as sacred, and a number of later works, also recommended for reading due to their high spiritual value. The New Testament consists of 27 books written after the completion of the earthly path of the Savior, and which are divinely inspired, since they were created, as is commonly believed, at the instigation of God.

Father of the Old Testament

It is known that the first writings, then included in the Bible (for the Jews, this is the Tanakh), began to be created by the ancient Jews as early as the 13th century BC. e. This process was very active and gave rise to a lot of controversy about which of them are considered sacred and which are not. A high priest named Ezra, who lived in the 5th century BC, volunteered to figure this out. e. and went down in history as the "father of Judaism", because he managed not only to systematize the texts, but also to create a coherent and clear concept of the very religious teachings of the ancient Jews. Subsequently, his works were continued by other theologians, and as a result, modern Judaism was formed, which is one of the main world religions.

With the advent of Christianity, the literary material collected and systematized by it, with only minor changes, made up that part of the Holy Scripture, whichcalled the Old Testament. Thus, adhering to a different doctrine, and sometimes entering into confrontation with the Jews, Christians recognize the merits of the ancient Hebrew high priest Ezra, considering him "the father of the Old Testament." Despite the fact that a number of texts appeared after his death.

Two Pieces of the Old Testament

The earliest chronologically and most extensive part of the Holy Scriptures, called the Old Testament, includes books that cover the period from the creation of the World to the era preceding the earthly incarnation of the Son of God - Jesus Christ. This is the history of the Jewish people, and the presentation of the foundations of the moral Law received by the prophet Moses on Mount Horeb, and the prophecy about the appearance of the Messiah in the world.

The birth of Christianity in the 1st century added to the Holy Scriptures its second section in the chronology of creation, called the New Testament. It includes 27 books, on the pages of which God reveals himself and his will to people. They are conventionally divided into the following categories with a certain degree of conventionality:

1. Legislative, including the four Gospels - books containing the good news of the appearance of the Son of God into the world. Evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are recognized as their authors.
2. Historical, describing the deeds of the holy apostles - the closest disciples and associates of Jesus Christ.
3. Teaching - based on the texts of the apostolic letters to various early Christian communities and individuals.
4. Prophetic book called "The Revelation of JohnTheologian, but also known as the Apocalypse.

Who is considered the author of most texts of the New Testament?

Despite the fact that Christians around the world attribute the authorship of this part of the Holy Scripture to God, relegating people only to the role of blind tools in His hands, researchers nevertheless have certain questions regarding this, primarily concerning the gospel texts.

The fact is that none of them, with the exception of the Gospel of John, does not indicate the name of the creator. These works are completely anonymous, which gave reason to consider them as some kind of retelling of the apostolic stories, and not their personal creation. Doubts about the authorship of Matthew, Luke and Mark were first openly expressed at the beginning of the 18th century, and since then they have found more and more supporters.

Determining the period of writing of the New Testament texts

In the 20th century, complex studies were carried out, the purpose of which was to obtain as much scientific data as possible about the authors of the New Testament. However, even the modern technical means at the disposal of scientists did not make it possible to answer the questions posed to them.

Nevertheless, the results of an in-depth linguistic analysis of the language in which the texts were composed made it possible to state with all evidence that the authors of the New Testament Gospels really lived in the middle or in the second half of the 1st century, which is very important, since it excludes the possibility of more later falsifications. Some stylisticfeatures of writing works, also indicating the historical period of their creation.

Mysterious "Source O"

Despite the fact that the question of who wrote the New Testament remains open, most modern bibliophile scholars believe that they were anonymous authors - contemporaries of the earthly life of Jesus Christ. These could be both the apostles themselves and persons from their inner circle who heard stories about the Savior from them.

There is also a hypothesis according to which the authors of the New Testament, or at least the four Gospels included in it, could be people who did not have personal contact with the apostles, but who had some later lost text, which received a conventional name from modern researchers - “Source O. It is assumed that, not being a fully gospel story, it was something like a collection of sayings of Jesus Christ, written down by someone from the direct participants in the events.

Dating the gospel texts

If it was not possible to get an exhaustive answer to the question of who wrote the New Testament, then things are much better with the dating of the creation of its individual parts. So, on the basis of the results of the same linguistic examination, as well as a number of other signs, it was possible to conclude that the earliest text included in it is the Gospel not from Matthew, usually coming first in their list, but from Mark. Scientists believe that the time of its writing was the 60s or 70s of the 1st century, that is, the period separated by three decadesfrom the described events.

It was on the basis of this composition that the Gospels of Matthew (70-80s) and Luke (late 90s) were subsequently written. The author of the latter, according to the general opinion, is the creator of the New Testament book "Acts of the Apostles". At the same time, at the end of the 1st century from the Nativity of Christ, the Gospel of John appeared, the author of which, apparently, did not have communion with the first three evangelists and worked independently.

The Bible is the repository of wisdom and knowledge

It is curious to note that among the representatives of modern Catholicism, the recognition in the absence of a clear and unambiguous answer to the question of who wrote the New Testament is by no means considered blasphemy. This position was demonstrated by them during the Second Vatican Council, which lasted from 1962 to 1965. One of the articles of his final document was instructed henceforth to use the faceless wording “holy authors” instead of the names of the evangelists mentioned in the canon of holy books.

In Orthodox circles, there is also a problem with identifying the authors of the Holy Scriptures. Eastern theologians, like their Western counterparts, being unable to answer the question of who wrote the Old and New Testaments, nevertheless argue that this does not cast doubt on the holiness and spiritual significance of the texts included in them. One cannot but agree with them. The Bible has been and will forever remain the greatest repository of wisdom and historical knowledge, as a result of which people of various backgrounds treat it with deep respect.religious beliefs.

The language of the contemporaries of Jesus Christ

It is extremely difficult to establish who wrote the New Testament, also because none of the original text has survived to this day. Moreover, it is not even known in what language it was compiled. In the era of the earthly life of Jesus Christ, the bulk of the population of the Holy Land spoke Aramaic, which belongs to a very large family of Semitic dialects. One of the forms of Greek, called "Koine", was also widespread. And only a few residents of the state spoke the Jewish dialect that formed the basis of Hebrew, revived after many centuries of oblivion and which is today the state language of Israel.

Probability of errors and text distortions

The earliest New Testament texts that have come down to us in Greek translation, which only in general terms give an idea of those linguistic and stylistic features that are inherent in the originals. The difficulty is further aggravated by the fact that initially the works of early Christian authors were translated into Latin, as well as Coptic and Syriac, and only after that they received the reading known to us.

In view of this, it is likely that errors and all sorts of distortions could have crept into them, both accidental and deliberately introduced by translators. All this makes us treat even the names of the authors of the Epistles with a certain degree of caution. In the New Testament, they are listed as apostles - the closest disciples of Jesus Christ, but researchers have a number of doubts in this regard, which do not detract fromhowever, the spiritual and historical value of the texts themselves.

The unanswered question

Partly the work of researchers is facilitated by the fact that the time interval between the creation of texts and their earliest lists that have come down to us is relatively small. Thus, the oldest surviving manuscript is a passage from the Gospel of Matthew, dated 66 years, that is, created no more than 20-30 years after the original. For comparison, we can recall that the dating of the oldest manuscript with the text of Homer's Iliad lags behind the date of its creation by 1400 years.

True, in the above case, we are talking about only a small fragment of the Gospel, while the earliest full text, discovered in 1884 among the manuscripts of the Sinai monastery, dates back to the 4th century, which is also quite a lot by the standards of historians. In general, the question of who wrote the Bible - the New Testament and the Old - remains open. Exciting minds, he attracts new generations of researchers to work.