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New Evidence on When Bible Was Written
- mholt 10y ago> literacy may have been far more widespread than previously known in the Holy Land around 600 B.C., toward the end of the First Temple period. Interesting correlation to the Book of Mormon, which originates ~600 BC in Jerusalem. In fact, page 1, verse 2 says: > 2 Yea, I make a record in the language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians. And further discusses how Lehi "hath written many things which he saw in visions and in dreams; and he also hath written many things which he prophesied." Lehi was of a priestly order, of which there were at least hundreds, if not thousands, of members, which also correlates well to this finding: > But if the literacy rates in the Arad fortress were repeated across the kingdom of Judah, which had about 100,000 people, there would have been hundreds of literate people, the Tel Aviv research team suggests. So anyway, the linked article and this source seem to corroborate each other. Edit: Okay, lots of down votes. How does this comment not contribute to the discussion?
- jeena 10y agoIt's not clear to me if you're a joking or not but the book of mormon was published in March 1830 AD.
- mholt 10y agoI'm not joking. You know there are academics who study this for a living, right? http://mi.byu.edu/ http://mi.byu.edu/ - see especially the works of Terryl Givens, John Sorenson, Hugh Nibley, Richard Bushman, Grant Hardy... I never said it was published 600 BC. It was indeed published in 1830, but story within it originates ~600 BC. Very different things.
- freyr 10y agoAny scholars who aren't directly affiliated with the Mormon church who would corroborate these claims?
- mholt 10y agoIt depends on which parts of these claims we're talking about, but this article mentions a few of them, summing up their research less technically: http://ldsmag.com/article-1-1634/ http://ldsmag.com/article-1-1634/
- baldfat 10y agoThere isn't any outside collaboration I have ever read at all about the Book of Mormon BUT then again I actually had to read it in college. Never had a good conversation with a Mormon at my house. I get put on the list with the Jehovah Witnesses. My crime (I can read Greek and Hebrew) next time tell a JW that you now Greek and Hebrew and would love to talk with them. They leave nicely and their elders won't send a person to you for three years at least.
- gnaritas 10y agoMormons who study the book of Mormon don't exactly qualify as good sources, nor are Christians who study the Bible, nor are Muslims who study the Koran as all are extremely biased by their beliefs. Such people look for evidence to justify beliefs rather than looking at evidence to decide what should be believed.
- mholt 10y agoWe're not having a religious discussion here. We're talking academics: research, primary sources, etc. When did this become about beliefs?
- gnaritas 10y ago> You know there are academics who study this for a living, right? http://mi.byu.edu/ http://mi.byu.edu/ When you used BYU as a source, it became about beliefs. Religious institutions are not staffed by real academics, they're staffed by believers which disqualifies them as sources.
- mholt 10y ago> Religious institutions are not staffed by real academics, they're staffed by believers How do you explain this then? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Brigham_Young_University_alumni https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Brigham_Young_Universi... - BYU scholars have just as much impact for good in this world as any other accredited university. I've had BYU professors who are not Mormon. How do you explain that?
- gnaritas 10y agoIt doesn't matter if there's a few there, you can't have a few good apples in a bad bunch. If you want to be taken seriously as an academic, you have to be one at a real university, i.e. a non-religious one. Religious universities are oxymoron's.
- nitrogen 10y ago
- sk5t 10y agoIsn't it reasonable to say that adherents to the Mormon faith have a pretty strong motive not to find the Book of Mormon to be a bunch of baloney--in fact, to invent as many arguments as necessary to support the idea that it isn't? Edit: Appealing to the authority of academics seems a poor strategy when those academicians' dinners rely on toeing the party line.
- tymekpavel 10y ago> Interesting correlation to the Book of Mormon, which originates ~600 BC in Jerusalem. The Book of Mormon was written in 1830. Am I missing something here?
- mholt 10y agoIt certainly was published in 1830. The account within it originates ~600 BC.
- krapp 10y agoPlease provide some credible evidence accepted by mainstream archaeologists and scholars backing that up.
- mholt 10y ago> Please provide some credible evidence accepted by mainstream archaeologists and scholars backing that up. Backing up that it was published in 1830? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Mormon#/media/File:The.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Mormon#/media/File:The.... And that the account within it originates ~600 BC? See page 1 of the text.
- krapp 10y ago>Backing up that it was published in 1830? Of course not, that isn't even remotely controversial. >And that the account within it originates ~600 BC? See page 1 of the text. Page 1 of what text? Surely you're not suggesting people take the Book of Mormon's own text as evidence, that would be ludicrous. Page 1 of the wikipedia article wouldn't be credible either, so I don't know what text you're referring to. Although Wikipedia does point to a lot of pages questioning the Book of Mormon's authenticity as having an ancient origin, I haven't found any which actually validate it. Of course I'm not going to look very hard, since I already know that evidence doesn't exist and I strongly suspect you're trolling. No, I'm asking that you point to actual manuscripts which were incorporated into the the Book of Mormon which originated from ~600 BC, tell us where they were excavated from and by whom, and in what museum or university those documents currently reside. Independently verified evidence as to its antiquity. And don't cite any sources actually connected to the Mormon church.
- bduerst 10y agohttps://twitter.com/mholt6/status/720086233754370048 https://twitter.com/mholt6/status/720086233754370048 https://twitter.com/mholt6/status/720104906724663296 https://twitter.com/mholt6/status/720104906724663296 Stay classy, Matt.
- mholt 10y agoNobody was commenting with reasons for the down votes. What's classy about that?
- menssen 10y agoUpvoting this. It's at least as well reasoned as the original article. BUT it doesn't matter because it wasn't actually written down (and/or "revealed") until the 1800s, right? Is there a good academic treatment of the origin of the stories in the BoM?
- mholt 10y agoThanks, for distinguishing academics from religion. Trying to keep this academic but people keep turning it into a religious debate about beliefs. > BUT it doesn't matter because it wasn't actually written down (and/or "revealed") until the 1800s, right? Right, but that's still 186 years before this article was published. A text that's almost 200 years old still has historic value, whether or not one believes its contents. So there is an interesting link between this article and the book, regardless of personal beliefs. > Is there a good academic treatment of the origin of the stories in the BoM? There are some excellent resources at http://publications.mi.byu.edu/periodicals/jbms/ http://publications.mi.byu.edu/periodicals/jbms/. Yes, it's a religious university, but these topics are treated from a scholarly perspective. Also, https://bookofmormoncentral.org/ https://bookofmormoncentral.org/ has some great resources -- it's a fairly new resource with less technical articles but scholarly citations, and its faculty is made of scholars in near-eastern studies and related fields.
- menssen 10y agoOkay but the argument is pretty strong that since it was completely written based on divine revelation 2000+ years after the events it describes, the historical claims are difficult to corroborate. Is there scholarship on the legitimacy of the Lehi story, and, can you provide a link to the 101 version instead of a database? (I know, lazy, but you're probably used to the burden of proof being on you on this topic.)
- delecti 10y ago> So there is an interesting link between this article and the book, regardless of personal beliefs. This article is interesting specifically because of the evidence it presents about when the original texts of the bible were written. The historic value of the BoM is only linked to this article if it has a similarly distant origin. If the BoM is only 200 years old (i.e. the 600 BC origin is incorrect), then it's irrelevant to the discussion. It is only with personal belief that the BoM is 2600 years old that there is an interesting link between the article and the BoM.
- nitrogen 10y agoI don't think HN is the place to discuss religion except in a completely dispassionate intellectual way, which this article suggests isn't possible with the current HN community. But if we're going to accept religious discussions on HN we have to accept all of them. It is entirely unfair to give credence to one sect while demeaning another. --- Edit: Okay, lots of down votes. How does this comment not contribute to the discussion? Like many other comments in religious discussions, you are assuming facts not in evidence. But it is unfair to single you out. However, it would also be inappropriate for you to interpret the opposition you are seeing as confirmation of your position.
- gaur 10y ago> the Book of Mormon, which originates ~600 BC in Jerusalem. That's delusional bullshit.
- andrewvijay 10y agoI think this is the best executed plan in the world! One book to rule the world and it worked. Thee amazing this is that it was pure imagination!
- exabrial 10y agoNo real substance to add to this discussion, but I love it when these kind of studies come out. By the reaction of the relevant parties you can see who accepts humility and science.
- davemel37 10y ago> By the reaction of the relevant parties you can see who accepts humility and science. Guilty as charged...so take my bias with a grain of salt...but this article really doesn't present any science to support the title or claim. It basically makes a bunch of assumptions about literacy levels and some how makes a massive leap to when the bible was actually written down in it's present form. The lack of evidence has never been proof of something not existing. The author writes... One of the longstanding arguments for why the main body of biblical literature was not written down in anything like its present form until after the destruction and exile of 586 B.C. is that before then there was not enough literacy or enough scribes to support such a huge undertaking. It's hardly science, and I wonder if your bias is also prevalent in your post.
- dosgonlogs 10y agoI would prefer if you spelled it out for us. Are you trying to say that if someone is religious, that they do not value the Scientific Method, and that they lack humility? Or are you saying it is the other way around? If I interpret it either way, I could not agree with you. Your statement comes off as presumptuous and ignorant, and therefore it is ironic and hypocritical, since you have drawn such a tremendous conclusion that is a sweeping generalization based on what exactly? Please correct me if I did not interpret your words the way you intended them to be interpreted. As far as the study is concerned, here it is: http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2016/04/05/1522200113.DCSupplemental/pnas.201522200SI.pdf http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2016/04/05/1522200113.DCSu... It looks like they had to develop new techniques because of the condition of the writing, for the purpose of processing the images, and analyzing them. I will have to read more before I can form an adequate to my own taste, but my preliminary opinion is, that they are filling in too many blanks in order to form a meaningful conclusion.
- 10y ago
- lai 10y agoIt's very interesting to see that they used image processing algorithms (machine learning!) in their study!
- brink 10y agoSo the large takeaway is that people in further back ancient Israel were more literate than originally thought, opening up the prospect that the Bible could easily have been written earlier than what some scholars speculated. Correct?
- jbkly7 10y agoCorrect.
- baldfat 10y ago> Prof. Edward Greenstein of Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv. “The process of transmission was much more complicated than scholars used to think.” Theology Student Here - MY TAKE This is pretty Bogus Study in terms of these are Statisticians' work based on one outpost on one piece of pottery. Someone had to publish something to make use of the research money. This is also out of their domain. Seems like trying to try a new approach and this is all we get? It is MUCH more complicated and the Oral Tradition of ANE (Ancient Near East) is pretty amazing. This also is not taking up the fact that the majority of the text have very different vocabs, writing styles and different mediums for delivering ideas (Think Epics like Noah and personal stuff like Job and politics like the kings) All very different writings. I would say that Theology and Archeologist and other disciplines are more and more agreeing that the scriptures have more evidence for a much later date then 300 - 50 year ago "liberal" scholarship believed. Heck I remember old Priest saying the Gospels were written in 250 AD and nothing was written in the first century (To bad we have a bunch of manuscripts from the first century now) Heck Pontius Pilot (The Roman leader who sent Jesus to the cross was believe to be made up until 25 years ago when they found his name inscribed in an unearthed building. This is interesting times. TL:DR Bad statistical work and very little meat. Nothing to see here.
- partiallypro 10y agoI think the study has very little to do with different vocabs, most people agree that the Torah had multiple authors, JEPD for instance is widely accepted...though perhaps not as it once was. Either way, in the documentary hypothesis or other non-Mosaic origin theories, the books were written separately, from different people and revised over hundreds of years. This study doesn't really refute that. The oral history is much, much older; the question is when could this have begun to have been written down? A lot of scholars have the Torah being penned closer to the 600BC time frame.
- cconcepts 10y agoIt seems as though, in some online communities, the discussion about faith and purpose has begun to evolve beyond some variation of "OMG you believe XYZ? That is proven completely false by ABC - Lolz". I won't hold my breath but increased meaningful discussion can only be a good thing.
- nitrogen 10y agoThe principles of parsimony and falsifiability still represent an unbridgeable gap between the two camps.
- brink 10y agoI'm ready to receive the down-votes here, but I've been reading through those posts along with scientific articles for years and I'm still not convinced that the Bible was made up. So it's refreshing to have actual open discussion rather than atheist and bible bashing fights.
- gnaritas 10y agoOf course the Bible was made up, it didn't write itself; it's a work of fiction by men, nothing more. Nor is there a lick of evidence to the contrary.
- nZac 10y agoDo you mean that because a book doesn't write itself, which is an impossible task, it can't be true? That seems to remove the possibility to know anything from a written text including science, history, autobiographies, and other forms of non-fiction.
- cconcepts 10y agoI've heard it described as confusion between cause and agency. Just because you know how something happened doesn't explain that thing's purpose or that it doesn't have intent. I may have been in the Toyota factory and even met the engineers who designed the cars. That doesn't mean I understand the full intent of Toyota's board of directors.
- Animats 10y agoSo somebody found some commercial records in Hebrew, and this immediately gets extrapolated into religion. Somebody is obsessing. Nine out of ten surviving Babylonian tablets are financial records.[1] There are surviving financial records from Ur two millennia older than Christianity. [1] http://viking.som.yale.edu/will/finciv/chapter1.htm http://viking.som.yale.edu/will/finciv/chapter1.htm
- rdtsc 10y agoSomeone knows how to stir up religious people hoping to get some notoriety, career advancement, or some grants, etc.
- duaneb 10y ago> Somebody is obsessing. Welcome to biblical studies. This is relevant because people have traditionally argued for later dates based on literacy rates; this provides shaky evidence against that argument. It's more like the null hypothesis than firm dating data in itself.
- meeper16 10y agoNo need to extrapolate into religion. Most of what was happening in Israel and Babylon at that time was based on the worship of the one God of Israel vs the worship of the many gods of Babylon. Everybody worshiped one god or another and they went to war based on their worship of one god or another. Similar to today in fact.
- ekianjo 10y agoTitle should refer to the Old Testament not the Bible as a whole.
- Mikeb85 10y agoMore like 'Torah'. Half of what's referred to as the Old Testament refers to events that happened during and after the Babylonian exile...
- Apocryphon 10y agoI find this discovery very interesting when juxtaposed against a similar discovery on the other side of the continent: "A Revolutionary Discovery in China" by Ian Johnson http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/04/21/revolutionary-discovery-in-china/ http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/04/21/revolutionary-dis... The manuscripts’ importance stems from their particular antiquity. Carbon dating places their burial at about 300 BCE. This was the height of the Warring States Period, an era of turmoil that ran from the fifth to the third centuries BCE. During this time, the Hundred Schools of Thought arose, including Confucianism, which concerns hierarchical relationships and obligations in society; Daoism (or Taoism), and its search to unify with the primordial force called Dao (or Tao); Legalism, which advocated strict adherence to laws; and Mohism, and its egalitarian ideas of impartiality. ... Do these old texts matter today? They do in several ways. One has to do with the antiquity of China’s written culture. In the West, many classic texts, for example by Homer or stories in the Bible, are widely accepted as having been oral works that later were written down—a view of history picked up by Gu and the antiquity-doubters of the early twentieth century. Even though Gu was sidelined in China, his heirs in the West have tended to dismiss traditional views that important works in China were written down early on, or even composed as written texts. For many of these skeptical Westerners, Chinese efforts to prove the antiquity of their culture is closet chauvinism, or part of a project to glorify the Chinese state by exaggerating the antiquity of Chinese civilization. But the new discoveries should give pause to this skepticism. Allan argues that the texts were indeed primarily written down, and not transcribed oral tales. Besides the Daodejing, only a few of the texts excavated over the past twenty years have mnemonic devices or rhyme. She writes that even the texts that claim to be speeches of ancient kings originated as literary compositions. And as the Guodian texts show, works like the Daodejing took a written form earlier than skeptics believed, possibly even as early as the traditionalists have always claimed.
- yoodenvranx 10y agoHow is it even possible that a page like the NY Times serves me one of those fucking whatsapp-you-have-7-viruses-and-let's-vibrate-your-phone ads? Don't they have any quality control? It's time to finally root my phone and install an adblocker.