FIVE

Getting to
the Good Book:
Histo r\/ of the Bible

This only is denied to God: the power to

undo the past.

-AGATHON

The ancient Greek playwright Agathon observed the irnpossibility of

rervinding history. lJnable to delete the past, cart God nevertheless
rewrite it? To understand how the Bible carne to be requires that We
suspend nearly everything 'we know- about authorship and the busi-
ness of books today. The Bible is wildly unique, yet it sits on rnod-
ern bookshelves rrurn to its extravagant dissirnilarity, 'with its rnodest
spine politely blending in-a book affrong other books. But it is not
like those other books. In considering horv ancient texts developed
into the Bible as it appears today, here are a few crucial points to note
or sin-ply to recall frorn discussions above:

The Ilible cornprises texts frorn a variety of tirnes and places. A

1,.
conservative estirnate for the Hebrerv Bible is that it includes mate-
rial frorn over 1,000 years, the earliest dating to around 12OO nce (see
 Getting to the (]ood Book 43

above concerning Judges 5) and the latest to about L65 ncr (the book
of Daniel). Geographically, its sources are Mesopotarnian (..g., the
Flood story) , Canaartite (see especially Chapter L3, "God Narnes, Be-
ings, and Doings"), and Egyptian (Prov 2214 is nearly identical to
the Instruction of Arnenerrlope frorn 1100 ncr), spanning the Fertile
Crescent of the ancient Near East. The Nerv Testarnent is rnore lirn-
ited, but not as lirnited as the few years and a single author that rnost
books produced today involve. The texts of the New Testament con-
cern events in the eastern Mediterranean and date frorn around 50 cE
(Paul's earliest letters) to around 150 cr (|ude and2 Peter).

2. Trre Bible includes different kinds of literature. It includes origin

rnyths, devotional poetry, legal texts, biographies, pithy aphorisrns,
philosophical treatises, and letters both to individuals and to groups. It
has songs and instructional narratives, hurnorous anecdotes, and stern
serrnons. And none of these was cornposed rvith an eye to becorn*
ing biblical, per se. Rather, the contents assurned authority over tirne
rvithin corlrnunities of faith, which only later cornpiled thern into the
Bible that we have today.l

3. During the period of the Hebrew Bible's developrnent rnost people

couldn't read or write. Those texts, then, were the product of an elite
few who wrote either for their srnall band of acadernic colleagues or
in an "oral" style (i..., a style that lent itself to oral recitation) that the
rnasses could use. By New Testarnent tirnes, literacy'was more corrl-
mon. Thus just as orality shaped rnuch of the Old Testarnent, literacy
shaped rnuch of the Nerv.

4. Authorship during the period of biblical developrnent seldorn rneanr

the creative endeavor of an individual, 'whose words once 'written re-
rnained itnrnutable. Nearly all of the Bible's literature is attributed to
one person or another who did not actually write it. Most of the Bible
(the Hebrerv Bible in particular) is the product of the fe'w, rnostly anon-
yrrotls people who could learn to read and rvrite-scribes, schooled
in the ternple. They rxzorked at least partly rvith existing traditions and
44 BIBLE BABEL

texts (..g., oral narratives and poetty, royal annals and records, oracles
preserved and passed down by disciples), copying and edit-
^prophet's
ing as circurnstances required and their theology dictated'

5. The literature that would corre to be collected as "Bible" circulated

in independent pieces, rrrany of rvhich took the forrn of scrolls, rather
than in the page-bound codices that we think of as books today- one
result is that their organuzation and orderwasn't fixed.

The previous chapter began by noting the tough-to-overstate influ-

ence of the Babylonian exile on the developrnent of the.Bible- Add
to that the Persian ernperor's subsequent release of the exiles and en-
couragernent for the returnees to codi* ^ set of traditions and laws,
and the Bible was off and running. Indeed, rnost scholars think that
the first five books of the Bible took real shape during the exile and
becarne truly authoritative alnong the Jewish cornrnunity dufing the
Persian period.

THE DOCUMENTARY HYPOTHESIS

The idea that Moses wrote the Bible's first five books has its roots
in ancient traditions. 'W'ithin the Hebrew Bible's latest books, F,zta-
Neherniah, Chronicles, and Daniel, as well as in New Testarnent texts,
we read of the "torah of Moses" as God's instructions to the Israelites
rnediated by Moses.2 Sorne traditionalists continue to rnaintain that
a historical Moses 'wrote the entire Pentateuch-on the basis of key
texts frorn Exodus, Nurnbers, and Deuteronofiry, in which God corrr-
rnands Moses to write rvhat God dictates.3
Yet even a casual reading of these books indicates a layered corn-
position, and for centuries people have noted problerns with the
traditional belief of Mosaic authorship, despite the danger to one's
reputation or even one's person that such a clairn could elicit- tr-abbi
Ibn Ezra (c. 1090-1164) delicately noted that anachronisrns 'within
the Pentateuch suggest that at least a fe'w texts do not seeln to have
been w.ritten by Moses.a In the seventeenth century, the philosopher
 Getting to the (]ood Book 45

Thornas Hobbes, the Rornan Catholic scholar Richard Sirnon, and the
Jewish philosopher Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza were more outspoken
in calling into question whether Moses could have written the entire
Pentateuch. Principles of the Enlightenrnent, with its charnpioning of
reason, launched a new era in biblical studies, granting such investiga-
tion rnore credibility.
One long-standing approach to understanding the developrnent
of the Pentateuch is called the "docurnentary hypothesis." About 150
years 2go, a Gerrnan scholar, Julius Wellhausen, articulated an idea
that had been hatching for sorne tirne. He posited four different liter-
ary sotlrces (frorn different tirnes and places) that'were woven together
over tirne to produce what we have today as the first five books of the
Bible. Although details of the docurnentary hypothesis continue to be
debated, its general ideas have stood the test of tirne. Observing differ-
ent narnes for God and a constellation of vocabulary, perspective, and
literary styles that attends those narnes gave the hypothesis its start.
For exarnple, the first chapter of Genesis uses the narne Elohirn and
portrays God as magnificently "other." It relates a story of universal
crealion in poetic repetition and orderly progression over six d,ays ac-
cornplished rvith ease by the speech of God. In it, hurnan beings 'were
created sirnultaneously "rnale and Grnale" in the irnage of God, and
the'whole project is said to be "very good."u By contrast, chapter 2 of
Genesis uses the divine narre Yahrnreh Elohirn and portrays an earthy
God rvho walks around and uses his hands to shape and plant a paitic-
ular area and its creatures. In this story, God fashioned out of the soil
a single hurnan being. Then, judging that such solitude "isn't good,"
God divided the original hurnan into "rnart" and "wornan." 6 In effect,
then, in the first few chapters of Genesis, we have t'wo very different
irnages of God, and two very different narratives about the creation
of hurnan beings, in two very different literary styles, cornbined into
a yet larger narrative. This cornbination invites readers to connect the
stories, yielding yet other interpretations than either text bears alone.
The literary sources that colrlpose the Pentateuch don't appear
in tidy and convenient blocks but are 'woven together, overlapping
,6
in sorne places and causing contradictions or disconnects in others.
,g
46 BIBLE BABEL

Take a close look at the Flood story in Genesis 6:5-8:19. Just how
many anirnals went on Noah'5 21|q-1wo of every kind (6:79;7:1.5), or
seven pairs of every clean anirnal and one pair of every unclean ani-
rnal (7;2-3)? How did the Flood corne-by rain frorn above (7;4), or
by an upsurge of water frorn the deep, or both (7:11) ? And horxr long
did it last-forty days (7:17; 8:6), or 150 days (7:2$? As in the case of
chapters 1 and 2, considering stories in their final forrn, as they appear
in the Bible today, readers may conclude that one source adds to or
elaborates on details frorn another, producing a yet richer story. The
texts invite such layered reading.
None of the four hypothetical literary sources was likely cornposed
by an individuaL person; rather, the fotir represent both oral traditions
and the rvriting of several parties, probably not together in one sitting,
but over tirne, That is, each of the sources is built on other sources
and reflects a process of transrnission that allowed editing and change
all along. And the final forrn reflects an intentional cornbination of
received texts.
According to the docurnentary hypothesis, the earliest (but not
the first) literary source in the Pentateuch prefers to use the divine
name Yahrveh. For that reason, it's called the Yahwist and abbreviated
J (because Gerrnans spell Yahweh rvith a J). It reflects especially the
southern kingdorn's interests and rnay date back to the tenth century
BCE. This is the source responsible for the Adarn and Eve creation story
that begins in Genesis chaPtet 2-
The ternporally next literary source prefers the divine name Elo-
hirn, and so is called the Elohist and abbreviated E. That source re-
flects especially the northern kingdorn's interests and rnay date to the
ninth cenrury BCE. Together, J and E tell stories that rnay have been
collected even before others began to write thern do'wn and add to
thern, editing or redacting along the rvay. That editorial group prob-
ably t-weaked J and E or JE bit while also adding its own rnaterial.
"
Contrary to what I 'wrote above, a third literary strand actually
does appear as a block, according to this hypothesis. The Deuter-
onornist's work (D) is specific to the book of Deuteronorny- But that
book also probably reflects at least three literary stages (preexilic and
 ()etting to the Good Book 47

northern; seventh century BCE in the southern kingdorn; and post-

exilic).
Finally, according to the hypothesis, the group thar edited J, E,
and D worked during the period of exile to codify basics of belief
and identity. They are called the Priestly writers (P) because they
added material especially concerned with the 'workings of and re-
flecting ideas particular to the religious institution. The Priestly rvrit-
ers collected, arranged, and edited the rnaterial that we have fixed
in the Pentateuch. They frarned the 'work, adding new rnaterial as
necessary.
For exarnple, deterrnined to address those questions that the exile
posed, the Priestly writers, as a group or school, are thought to have
corrposed the seven-day creation story that appears in Genesis chap-
ter 1. 'With it, they dernonstrated that God was not killed or defeated
by the Babylonian god but rather is the creator of the entire universe.
Not only that, but they described a God who has no irnage that could
be rnanipulated or hurt but elegantly speaks an orderly rvorld into
being, and declares that it is good. This God, the story tells, is not
bourrd by nation or ternple but existed long before Israel and Israelite
religion and is of cosrnic proportion. The conclusion, and grand finale,
is not the creation of hurnan beings (sirnultaneously rnale and Grnale
in the irnage of God), but the creation of the Sabbath, a day dear to
the Priestly writers as both sacred and an agent for rnaintaining the
order of tirne.
According to the docurnentary hypothesis, the Adarn and Eve
story that begins in chapter 2 actually dates to an earlier tirne than
the story in chapter 1. This can be confusing because rnodern readers
are farniliar with books cornposed as a single piece. Further cornpli-
cating things, the content of the stories in the Pentateuch follorvs a
chronological order, which is rnisleading because the beginning was
not corrrposed first, nor w-as the end cornposed last.
Finally, the docurnentary hypothesis is just that-a hypothesis. \X/e
do not have in a vault sorne'where four disparate, individual docu-
rnents signed by the Yahwist, Elohist, Deuteronornist, and Priestly
writers that we can corrlpare with the Pentateuch. The irnage of four
48 BIBLE BABEL

discrete docurnents ctlt and pasted together is probably not entirely

acclJrate, either, since there was a process of transrnission and editing
that rnade the traditions quite fluid over tirne-though not forever-

DATING TANAKII
The Babylonian exile prornpted scribes not only to collect and codify
oral and literary traditions but also to rework thern in light of the
theological challenges posed by the .nation's spectacular destruction-
-When the Persian king Cyrus II conquered Babylon and allowed the
exiles to return horne, those traditions underwent yet further develop-
ment.
Around 450 ncB, it appears that a learned priest and scribe by the
narne of p;zrawas instructed by the Persian authorities to help his na-
tive people inJudah articulate the core of their beliefs and establish the
law of the 1and.7 This is the period rnost scholars assign to the ftnaliza-
tion of the Pentateuch, 'when the "five books of Moses" becarne fixed
and authoritative.
Fina|ization of the second section, the books of the prophets (in-
cluding the historical books of Joshua, Judges, Sarnuel, and Kings),
probably took place around 200 scn, when the project of translating
those Hebrew scriptures into Greek was under way. By around 100
BCE, the Septuagint 'was the Greek-speaking people's version of the
Hebrew scriptures. Consequently, this was the Bible farniliar to that
Jewish sect ofJesus follorvers who would become the early Christian
church, and its version served as the foundation for the New Testa-
rnent.8 Partly because of the Septuagint's growing popularity arnong
Christians who continued to distance and distinguish thernselves, tra-
ditional Jews abandoned this Greek rendering of the Hebrew Bible
and renewed their cornrnitrnent to a Hebrew version.
Following the Rornans' destruction of the Jerusalern ternple in
7O cs, Jews frnahzed their (Hebrew) Bible, ordering its books in a
predorninantly chronological rrlanner, and setting Cyrus's call to re-
turn to Jerusalern and rebuild its ternple as the final word. The third,
"-W'ritings," section and full canon of the Hebrerv Bible was set around
 Getting to the Cood Book 49

but only books that rnet the criteria of having been cornposed
1.30 cp,e
by irnportant people before about 450 ncr were included. Nothing
deerned to postdate Ezra and Neherniah was adrnitted as Bible into
the Hebrew canon after that tirne. (Biblical books that were indeed
composed later were adrnitted under the auspices of earlier authorship
by irnportant people-e.g., Daniel is set in the Babylonian period even
though it 'was corrposed in the second century BCE; Ecclesiastes is at-
tributed to Solornon, though it appears to come frorn the Hellenistic
period following Alexander's conquest.) The books that were included
had gained a standing and reputation of irnportance, and their tradi-
tions of authorship and antiquity rnade thern eligible.

THE CHRISTIAN CANON

Developrnent of the Christian canon is another story. Although its his-
torical trajectory is rnuch shorter than that of the Hebrew Bible (span-
ning a couple of hundred rather than a thousand years), its historical
developrnent has gotten a lot rnore attention lately, thanks in part to
titillating stories of intrigue and pow'er such as The Da Vinci Code. ln-
deed, understanding horv the Christian bible took shape isn't as sirnple
as tacking on to the standing Hebrerv Bible a corrlprehensive collec-
tion of books aboutJesus. For one thing, the Hebrew Bible that rnost
ofJesus' follorvers used'was neither Hebrew nor a Bible. They rvorked
rvith Greek translations of Hebrerv scrolls that hadn't yet achieved-the
status of an absolutely closed canon.
Furtherrrlore, the early follorvers ofJesus were not all of one rnind
about who Jesus 'w'as, what he said and did, or the irnplications of
his life. Jesus didn't write anything hirnself-at least nothing rhat we
have. Rather, his follow.ers and people who 'were convinced of his
extraordinary nature wrote in his voice and about hirn. In the first
couple of centuries, many people who identified thernselves as Chris-
tian wrote texts that would be unrecogmzable as Christian to us
today.
-Which
books represented best the life, teachings, and irnplications
ofJesus and what it rneant to be a true Christian'were hotly debated.
50 BIBLE BABEL

As with the Hebrerv Bible, qualifyi.g texts had to be old (the closer
to Jesus the better) and attributed to Jesus' apostles or their close as-
sociates. Also as with the Hebrew Bible, the gradual process of a text's
wide acceptance and use on the one hand, or neglect and attrition on
the other (rather than definitive action by , single convening group
of decision rnakers), accounts for what rnade it into the Bible and
what did not. Other criteria for inclusion were that the texts needed
to have broad application or relevance rather than be limited only to
a particular individual or congregation and thaf they conforrn to ac-
cepted beliefs. It wasn't until 367 cn that we have the first rnention of
the definitive Christian canon.lO That is a full 25O years after the latest
of the books in the New Testarnent was written.
Many gospels were composed and circulated in the centuries after
Jesus' death by his follorvers both before and after the
New Testarnent
was firrnly established. Only four are included in the Bible. Of the
others, solrle, such as the gospel of Thornas and the gospel of Peter,
probably contain very early rnaterial (possibly frorn Jesus' tirne), even
if their final forrn was later. The gospel of Thornas, consisting entirely
ofJesus' sayings, rnay preserve some things thatJesus actually said, and
r11ay or ffray not predate sirnilar sayings that appear in the canonical
gospels. Scholars think that it dates to the end of the first century or
the beginning of the second century ce. The gospel of Peter, frorn the
rnid-first century, concentrates its attention on the passion narrative,
ernpty tornb and resurrection. It rnay actually have served as a sourte
for the canonical gospels.
Arnong the rnany gospels other than the four that rnade it into
the Nerv Testarnent, several were produced late in the garrre-in the
third and fourth centuries (and soffre even later than that). For this
reason alone they would not have been eligible for inclusion. Sorne
also reflected a particularly popular school of early Christian thought
called gnosticisrn (because its adherents clairn to have secret or special
knowledge-Greek, gnosis), 'which was later deerned heretical (i...,
prornoring false doctrine) " The g<-rspel of Judas is one sllch gnostic
text. Discovered in the late twentieth century in Egypt, it seerns to
come frorn the fourth century CE but is probably a copy of a text
 Cetting to the Good Book 51

originally frorn the second century cE. It relates in dialogues between

Judas and Jesus a more syrnpathetic portrait of the infarnous disciple
than do the canonical gospels.ll The third-century gnostic Gospel of
Mary concerns Mary Magdalene and portrays her as a leader among
the disciples, rvhile the Gospel of the Birth of Mary, frorn the eighth
or ninth century ce , tells about Mary the rnother ofJesus. These and
other noncanonical gospels provide a glirnpse of the diverse faces of
Christian belief and the variety of rvays thatJesus and his inner circle
were rernernbered in the light of disparate theologies.
As Jesus' followers accepted that his return rnight take a while,
and as they coalesced into a comrlunity, they turned to literary tradi-
tions for worship, direction, and identity. Paul's letters were probably
the earliest of the New Testarnent texts to be treated as authorita*
tive. They were cornposed for particular congregations, so no single
one was originally intended for every early Christian comrnunity; but
'with Paul's great reputation, the books quickly gained distinction as
authoritative texts. The author of 2 Peter, probably rvriting around
150 cp, referred to thern as scripture.l2 The church's earliest theolo-
giani and apologists (including Ignatius and Polycarp, Clernent of A1*
exandria, Tertullian, and Irenaeus in the second century) also rnention
Paul's letters as norm.ative Christian literature.
Matthew and Luke share a nurnber of popular texts in cornrnon.
Because of this, and a nurnber of other stylistic indicators, biblical
scholars have long supposed that Matthew and Luke appealed tb a
cornrrlon source, besides the gospel of Mark, 'when developing their
accounts of Jesus. 'We don't have a copy of that other source, and in
scholarly lingo it is sirnply called Q, short for Quelle, which rrreans
"sotlrce" in Gerrnan (Gerrnan scholars proposed it). The theory is that
Q was composed rnostly of sayings ofJesus. Both Matthew and Luke
drew. front Q, drerv frorn their precursor Mark, added sorne unique
elernents of their o'wn, and voil)!-the canonical, synoptic gospels.
Actually, they probably went through several perrnutations before ar-
riving at the forrns that'we have today.
Because the ultirnate authority amon g early Christians 'was not
a body of texts but rather the person of Jesus, the gospels with their
 T

52 BIBLE BABEL

biographical inforrnation were very popular. Likely built in part on

oral traditions, the written gospels weren't uniforrnly considered au-
thoritative scripture until around 180 cs, when Irenaeus prornoted
the four canonical gospels as a group.13 It seerns, then, that by the
'were rvidely accepted,
second century ce, collections of Paul's letters
the four gospels were gaining in status, 1 Peter andL John'were well
known (though independent of any collection), and a nurnber of other
texts enjoyed a strong reputation arrlong Christian cornrnunities. The
so-called catholic epistles weren't widely adopted until the 300s cE;
and it seenrs that Acts and R-evelation, each of rvhich was popular and
widespread arnong early Christian colnmunities, nevertheless also had
to wait until the fourth century to achieve canonical status-